Ares was alone in space: Earth and Moon were reduced to starlike points of light, side by side. In all the universe, only the sun showed a disk.

The sense of isolation was extraordinary: far deeper than he’d known in space before, even during his time in Moonlab. Unless you were around the back of the Moon, Earth was always in view. And in Skylab A, the Earth itself dominated every waking moment, and you took your reference from that huge quilt of light, from the continents and oceans sliding under you.

Out here, it was different. There was no “up” or “down”: there were just little islands of rock, floating around in the sky. For interplanetary flight humans would need to develop a new kind of perception, he thought, a three-dimensional awareness.

As his eyes dark-adapted, the stars came out: millions of them, far more than were visible through Earth’s murky atmosphere. He could see the galaxy, a great speckled river of stars; he made out the edge of the disk in the direction of the galactic core, in Sagittarius, with its ragged edge caused by black swirls of obscuring dust clouds and the nearby stars sparkling in the dark scars. And he could see the moons of Jupiter, four of them, in a line alongside the planet’s bright spark.

Ralph came floating out of the brightness of the wardroom area to bring him a meal, a couple of packets of warmed-up rehydrated stew. With a pencil light in his mouth Stone mashed in the water until the food was moist through. [Hr:Min:Sec] 19:37:20

After thirteen hours awake, the crew had finished up their duties for the day. York was feeling queasy again, so she took a scopolamine and went to bed. Stone wanted to spend some time alone, maybe writing letters.

But Gershon, still full of nervous energy, wanted to play darts.

The dartboard was the Mission Module’s great recreation, along with magnetic cards. The darts were tipped with Velcro, and they flew straight and level.

It was quite different from playing under gravity. To get accuracy, the best technique was rather to push the dart comparatively slowly through the air, maybe with a little spin for stability. But if the dart was too slow, currents in the air would knock it off track.

Gershon set up the dartboard in the science platform, and he and Stone threw the darts so that they arced easily the length of the workshop. [Hr:Min:Sec] 21:01:32

Gershon called him out of his sleep locker and over to the Space Ark.

Arabella’s cage hadn’t been closed properly, and the spider had gotten out. Gershon pointed out a huge, sweeping web, which spanned yards of space, crossing from side to side of the Mission Module.