Providence Station sat at the L1 Lagrange point between the Earth and the Moon. It was home to twenty thousand people and served as the origin port for ships leaving the Earth-Moon system on long-haul journeys. It was massive in size and iconic in shape: a broad ring several kilometers in diameter. It was also a good two hundred thousand kilometers away from where we were headed.

“Don’t be stupid,” said a woman in the front row, the short one with colorful hair. “It’s too small, and it’s not a ring.”

Panya spoke up brightly. “We can certainly ask the captain to identify it for us, if you like, but right now she’s busy following Orbital Control’s directives. They’ve got quite a mess to deal with today.”

M’Baga glanced at her, then leaned over to the starboard as far as his harness would allow. “You’re right, Ariana. It’s not Providence. It’s a ship.”

“It’s huge,” said the man in the middle row. “The only ships that big are the new icebreakers, but they aren’t done yet. Is it some kind of test flight? It could be an early test flight.”

His friend nudged him. “Nobody wants to hear more about your icebreakers.”

“I’ll pass your question along to the captain,” Panya said.

“It’s not working,” Malachi said over the comm. “They know.”

In the front of the cabin, Dag moved to open a storage cabinet; Henke did the same behind me.

M’Baga’s brow furrowed. “It’s too large to be an icebreaker, even one of the new ones. It almost looks like . . .”

The environment aboard a spacecraft is carefully controlled down to the smallest factor. The mix of oxygen and nitrogen, the permitted concentration of particulates, the temperature, the humidity, even the rate at which air cycles through the vents so that no passenger feels too warm or too cool, too stuffy or too drafty, all of it is determined by the ship’s computer, leveled and measured for perfect balance. There was no chance that any passenger aboard Pilgrim 3 would feel a chill.

But where there were cautious small motions before, now there was stillness. Where there was conversation, silence. The women and men on the port side were leaning and stretching to see the opposite view. Those on the starboard were staring out the windows. They were all looking at the same thing. Panya said something, another soothing reassurance to another volley of questions.

I unhooked my foot from the strap and grabbed a handle on the wall to pull myself down. I looked over the top of Bhattacharya’s head, past the ghostly shape of his reflection on the window. The voices flowed around me like desert wind. My chest ached. I could not breathe.

It was so close. I could reach across space to touch it.