Park opened the airlock. The synthetics all spilled out, and Fulbreech helped Park through the door. It was easy enough to climb down the little ladder that led down under the hatch, but once she hit the ground, Park nearly collapsed. There was an unutterable pressure in her head, the howling and rushing of a sound so vast that for a moment her vision went dark. Briefly she thought that they were being attacked, that some enormous and hideous monster was about to consume them—or that the unity rain was coming again—but then Fulbreech clapped a hand to her shoulder and held her as she swayed. “It’s the wind!” he shouted through his helmet. Out here, his voice sounded utterly transformed, unrecognizable—like it belonged to a different man, a stranger and not a stranger. “It’s just the wind!”

Of course, Park thought in a daze. Nearly a year in space, aboard a sealed, pressurized ship—she had forgotten the sound of wind.

After a moment the two of them managed to stagger upright. Despite herself, Park had to cling to Fulbreech, trembling, before she managed to stand on her own and open her eyes. Through her sparking vision Eos seemed to swim and shimmer like a mirage. She felt as if all the air had been sucked out of her lungs. There was nothing out there but ice: a frozen tundra that stretched out in a flat, razor-sharp horizon, so white that it nearly cut the eye. And there were the two suns, weak and watery with pale light. And the sky—the sky was a deep green, a kind of color that made Park feel rich and full. It was the first time she had seen natural light since she’d left Earth. It was almost unbearable to look at.

“Are you all right?” Fulbreech shouted through his helmet.

After a moment, Park straightened and nodded. The synthetics were looking around, some with hesitation, others with wonder. A kind of chanting rose from them after a while, or singing, though Park couldn’t make out the words. They’re taking it in, Park thought. They were reveling in it, all of this, Eos, their new home. What that meant.

She was almost afraid to study it too closely. What would it all look like, ten years from now? One hundred years from now? Was she looking at the birthplace of synthetic civilization? Would they live forever, procreate, and share their enlightenment with their machine offspring, cannibalized from parts of the ship, until they one day reached the solution mankind had never been able to uncover? Could they really make this place a home for themselves?

We could do it, she thought then. We did it with Mars and Phobos and Titan. They can do things we never dreamed of.