‘And?’ I walked into the room and glanced over the screen. Opera’s surface was spread out before us, flattened like a fur pelt. Water-filled canyons were carved deep into the rock, teasing us with secrets our hydrodrones could reveal if only there were a way to launch them. ‘Isn’t a map good?’

‘There’s no evidence of a recent impact event.’

I wasn’t sure what he was getting at. A dim memory surfaced: him suggesting that possibility upon arrival. ‘Well, we can rule that out, then.’

‘It was a stupid thing to suggest,’ he said.

‘No, it wasn’t.’

‘We had no data. I was talking out of my arse, like always.’ I frowned at him. ‘It was just an idea. We toss around wrong ideas all the time.’

He wasn’t listening to me. He shook his head at the sea floor maps. ‘This is my fault.’

‘What is?’

‘Landing in the shallows was my idea. It’s my fault we’re stuck here.’

I stared hard at him. I wasn’t entertaining this. ‘We had consensus. We all agreed.’

‘I don’t know why,’ he snapped. ‘You should know by now that I never know what the fuck I’m talking about. I’m just bullshit with a big smile. I always knew it was going to catch up with me, and now it has, and it’s fucked all of you over as well.’

‘Jack—’

He stood up, and stormed out. A banging rang through the ship a few minutes later. He was trying to scare the rats off the windows again.

Chikondi’s cabin door was closed, so I knocked. He didn’t answer. I went in anyway.

He lay in bed, partially clothed, hands folded on his chest. He didn’t welcome me, but he didn’t turn me away, either. I sat on the end of his bed.

‘Is there some kind of event you’d like to see when we’re back home?’ I asked. ‘Some kind of festival, or holiday, or—?’

He shut his eyes. ‘I don’t know.’

‘So think about it.’

He sighed. ‘The World Cup,’ he said. ‘If the World Cup still exists, I want to go see the World Cup, wherever it is.’

I nodded with approval. ‘I’d like to see a solar eclipse.’

He craned his head up from the pillow. ‘You’ve never seen a solar eclipse?’

‘Partial, sure. I want to see totality.’

‘You’re an astronaut. Wouldn’t an eclipse rank low for you, given all you’ve seen?’

‘I don’t know. I’ve never seen one. Have you?’

‘Yes.’

‘Where?’

‘Home,’ he said. ‘2095. I think it was June. My parents took the day off work so we could take a car out and see it together.’ There was a smile at first, but then a faltering, a sombre remembrance that pulled him toward the past, not the future. The opposite direction I wanted to steer him in.

‘Tell me about the World Cup,’ I said. ‘Pretending that all the same countries are still around, who would you want—’

He gently stopped me with a raised hand. ‘Ariadne, I – I see what you’re trying to do. I appreciate it, I do. But I’d really like to be alone right now. I’m sorry.’

I swallowed. I nodded. ‘Come find me if you change your mind,’ I said with a forced smile. I squeezed his leg, and I left.

In the first two months, I would go to bed at night and cross my fingers that the storm would be gone in the morning.

In the third month, I begged whoever might be listening to stop the storm, to let us go.

In the fourth month, I began to forget that life could be any different.

I walked past Elena, going through her inspection checklist step by step. It didn’t matter that I wouldn’t help her anymore. She still needed to check.

I walked past Jack, kicking the airlock door. ‘Stupid,’ he said. ‘You’re so fucking stupid.’ The rats paid him no mind.

I went to the cabin deck. Chikondi’s door was closed, so I knocked. He didn’t answer. I put my ear up to the door. I could hear his movement within the room. I did not go inside, not when I was not wanted.

I went to my cabin and lay down in bed, the blanket up to my chin.

Where do you want to go?

I tried to visit my imagined childhood treehouse, but there were rats – real rats – running in the corners and flies crawling on the ceiling and black mould eating away the wood.

I tried to board my pirate ship, but the merfolk pulled their cold lips back and laughed through ragged teeth. They only wanted to see me drown.

I tried to remember stories I’d drawn strength from, but I could only remember the skeleton shape of them, not the beating heart within. Their warmth had gone cold.

Where do you want to go?

I couldn’t answer that. There was nowhere to go. There was nowhere but this. There would never be anything but this.

The next day, I got up. I didn’t want to, but I did. I don’t know why. There was no good reason to.

I went down to the control room. Elena was in there, running her morning systems diagnostic. We didn’t say anything to each other. There was nothing to say.

A flash on the comms monitor caught my eye. A tiny spark of hope shot through me, but it died quickly. The notification wasn’t anything from OCA. Just the morning’s weather data, freshly downloaded from the cubesats.

I glanced at Elena. Her diagnostics looked to be half complete. I knew she’d sit vigil until they were done. I also knew that she’d look at the weather data in turn, so there was no rush for me to open it. I did anyway. It was something to do.

I have learned, in the years I’ve spent working by Elena’s side, what all the swirls and colours mean on a weather chart. I lack her honed sense for an atmosphere’s choreography, but I can read the map. There was one particular change that morning that caught my eye.

‘Elena,’ I said.

‘Mmm?’

‘Can you come look at this?’

She glanced at my screen. ‘I’ll do the weather map when I’m done here.’ Everything in its precious order.

I stood up, swivelled her chair toward my monitor, and pointed. ‘Tell me this is what I think it is.’

Her eyes narrowed at my disruption, then widened at my suggestion. She rushed over. ‘How did I miss this?’

‘Weather does unpredictable things,’ I said.

She’d taught me that ever-present rule, but it wasn’t explanation enough for her. She’d spent every day on Opera in a desperate defence against the unpredictable. Anything that happened, she wanted – needed to have a game plan waiting for it.

The thing was, she’d spent so much time focused on what could go wrong, she’d forgotten the possibility of something going right.

‘I’ll get the boys,’ I said, hurrying toward the ladder.

Chikondi’s door was closed. I did not knock. I stuck my head right inside.

‘Control room,’ I said. He sat up in bed to look at me. ‘You want to see this.’ I didn’t wait for his reply, nor did I shut the door.

I found Jack sitting slumped in the cargo hold, glaring emptily at the airlock. I took his hand and led him upstairs.

Elena still looked bothered to be in a reality she hadn’t anticipated. ‘There’s . . . there’s a drop in wind speed.’ Her eyes darted around the map, still expecting a mistake. ‘Doesn’t look like it’ll last long. Maybe a day or two, given these pressure systems.’