She rose from her sand bed and walked over to the console. She hadn’t been mistaken about the date, but she brought up the flight plan to confirm its significance. It had been a few stints since they’d passed the one-quarter mark in the duration of their outwards journey, but that fractional accomplishment had offered nothing tangible to celebrate. Today, the Surveyor’s progress would finally be made manifest: its history would reach orthogonality with that of the Peerless, and Tarquinia would shut off the engines.

Agata left her room and walked out into the front cabin. Tarquinia wasn’t up yet; Ramiro was on watch.

‘Good morning,’ she said.

‘No, it’s not.’ Ramiro swivelled his seat around to face her. ‘Complete weightlessness is tedious,’ he complained. ‘We should have found a way to avoid it.’

‘You could always move in with Azelio’s plants,’ Agata joked.

‘I shouldn’t have to. If they get to swing on a tether, why not us?’

‘What would you use as the counterweight? Splitting the whole vehicle in two would be too complicated.’

‘Yeah, yeah,’ Ramiro sulked. ‘What kind of expert on gravity are you, if you can’t summon it at the flick of a switch?’

Agata said, ‘The kind who understands enough to be willing to bet that that’s never going to happen. I’ll give you a gross to one that no one will discover such a thing between now and the reunion.’

Ramiro scowled. ‘To be verified how? I thought your theory was that inventors would always censor the messages they sent into the past – since that’s more probable than their ideas appearing out of nowhere.’

Agata wasn’t going to let these complications stand in the way of a good bet. ‘I think they could tell us what they’d built. They just couldn’t tell us how it worked.’

Ramiro stretched his arms and buzzed wearily. Most of the cabin lights were off, and behind him the home-cluster stars filled the view. It was Ancestors’ Day all over again – only this time it would last for three years.

‘The reunion could be happening right now,’ Agata marvelled. ‘Even as we speak, the Peerless could be approaching the home world.’

‘It’s not the first time you could have said that. Or didn’t you notice?’ Ramiro was wearing his corset, so he sent the sketch to the nearest console. ‘About a stint before mid-turnaround, our line of simultaneity would have had just the right slope.’

‘It’s the first time it’s “now” by the home world’s reckoning as well as our own,’ Agata replied.

Ramiro was bemused. ‘Name any two events in the cosmos, and there’s a definition of time that makes them simultaneous. If I can’t actually witness this great moment – let alone take part in it – just how excited do you want me to be?’