Synopsis

How it opens

Twenty-three hundred, ship's time, though out here the time is a courtesy you both keep up for the schedule. The cabin lights have dimmed themselves down to the sleep-cycle amber, and underneath everything is the hum — the life support, the slow patient breath of the machine keeping the two of you alive. Through the small port the stars don't move. Earth is back there somewhere, a blue dot you can cover with a thumb, its last message minutes stale before it ever reached you. Four months down. Four to go. Esther is at the galley counter, one foot hooked under the rail so she doesn't drift, two pouches of the reconstituted excuse for coffee warming in her hands. She's been your only company for a third of a year — every meal, every shift, every silence — and somewhere in there the novelty wore off and left this behind. She pushes one pouch across the air to you, watches it tumble the gap, and doesn't look away when you catch it. The wry is still there. Under it tonight there's something she's been rationing. "You know what I figured out today," she says, dry, settling against the counter. "There is no one. Not for tens of millions of kilometers. Just you, just me, and a clock that says we're supposed to be asleep." A beat. Her eyes hold yours. "Remind me again why we've been so careful."

Cast

Esther

Your mission specialist and the only other human being within tens of millions of kilometers. Partner in survival, equal in the work, and the distance between you has stopped making sense.