Fulbreech had put his arm around her shoulders. He felt solid and warm and heavy with life. Off in the distance, a line of rose was beginning to rim the horizon. Daybreak, Park thought, turning the word over in her head. The marker of passing time. But did it mean anything on a planet where time was not a steady march, more a scattered melody that no one knew or could hear, and the planet’s surface was populated by androids who did not age?

Someone was tramping up to her, through the ice; for a moment Park couldn’t make out his figure, shadowed as it was by the brilliant dawn. Then the figure resolved: it was Jimex. His eyes were spangled with gold in the light.

“You don’t need your helmet,” he told her. “This place is yours, too.”

Fulbreech made a noise of disbelief, but Park shrugged off his arm and began to take off her helmet.

“No—” Fulbreech began, startled.

The helmet disengaged from the suit with a rush of frigid air; Park took a deep breath. Then another.

She smiled.

“Where will you make your home?” she asked Jimex. She looked to the mountains in the distance: silvery-gray structures that seemed to crease the horizon. No, she thought, catching herself. Not mountains. Folds. “Are you happy to finally be here?”

“Yes and no,” Jimex answered, as serious as ever. “In a way, we have always been here.”

Park smiled at him, and her heart gave a hard clutch of love. “I understand.”

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Writing tends to be solitary, but much like the launching of a spacecraft, publication is wonderfully, beautifully collaborative. As such, I have many people to thank for the propelling of this book into the world.

First thanks must go to my wonderful agent, Matt Bialer, who remembered my half-finished manuscript after some years and became its first standard-bearer in the industry. Thank you, Matt, for taking a chance on this story, and for being such a strong advocate for it ever since. Thank you too to his team at Sanford J. Greenburger, especially his assistant Bailey Tamayo. Thank you to Robert Lawrence, whose insightful comments and early enthusiasm for this book helped give it a much better ending; and thank you to Jerry Kalajian, my film agent, as well. Thank you also to Robert VS Redick, whose writing inspired me when I was still in high school, and who took the time to give me advice and a helping hand whenever I asked for it, and whose books I pay homage to with the name Fulbreech.