Even if he strained his neck, Michael Dubane could not see Earth out of his portal window. But it was out there, off the other side of the living quarters, filling entirely the portal windows of berths for people luckier than he. Nevertheless, its presence was made known. even in Michael's living quarters, by a comforting bluish glow permeating what you might call the horizon, bathing the muted pastel walls of his little room in a living, shimmering light.

This blue, this shimmering light, was the final parting embrace of his mother planet. Soon, the last transport ship will dock, unload its passengers and supplies, and sometime early tomorrow morning the Hi'iaka will fire its rockets and untether itself from the hold of Mother Earth, and he will never see his home again.

With his mind filled with melancholy, Dubane swung his legs off of his bunk and onto the small rectangle of floor that made up the totality of standing room in his private space. Two feet in front of him as he stood was the door to the common room; two feet to the left, a sink; two feet to the right, an overstuffed easy chair that together with his bunk were the only furniture to his name. Every available space on the walls of his tiny berth was taken up with shelves, and the shelves were full of books. Hundreds and hundreds of books, and even more stored unpacked in boxes under his bunk.

He loved words. He loved to read. He had ten thousand books on his tablet, of course, but he preferred the real thing; their weight in his hand, the smell of the drying paper, the sharp contrast of the dark ink against the mellow whiteness of the page. Even the choice of fonts and margins imparted some ephemeral meaning to the writing. And most importantly, tablets have a way of running out of power at the most exciting moment in the story, or, worse still, dying altogether. And he could not imagine his new life, and particularly not the next four months, without something to read. He would go insane.

Right now, he had two overpowering needs: to visit the bathroom, and then to get a cup of coffee. There was no toilet in his room; only the family berths were "en suite," the singles had to share bathrooms dormitory-style, one set of bathrooms for each living pod. His pod had six people, singles, living in it now, and the rest would be arriving on the transport ship that was to dock today, bringing the last of the travelers, as well as the last of the supplies and fuel for the long and lonely journey ahead. He'd seen the transport launch from Cape Canaveral, watched it on TV with his podmates in the common room as it began its quick but hard journey from Earth to the Hi'iaka, the mother ship, the ship that Michael sat in now, the staging vessel five hundred thousand feet above, that awaited their arrival.

Out in the common room, there sat Jake Smith, podmate and new friend, playing a video game. Smith and Dubane had bonded over coffee. Jake liked it thick and strong, and so did Michael. And so they figured it was destiny that brought them together in the same pod.

"Hiya, Mike," Jake greeted him.

Michael grumbled a reply on his way to the toilet, but was much more communicative when he returned. "Wanna go to the observation deck, to watch the docking?" he asked his podmate as he stood in the common room's kitchenette filling his mug with coffee.

"It's probably crowded already," Jake said, not taking his eyes off his game. "Andy and Rachel and the rest of 'em left a half-hour ago."

"I suppose."

"Let's watch it on the TV instead. Whaddya say?"

"Sure," Dubane agreed.

Jake paused his video game as Dubane sat down next to him on the couch. "Hey, check this out--" Jake said, then spoke in a louder, clearer, authoritative voice: "Lazy-ass TV!" The screen changed, from the video game to image an anime girl. "Switch to the ship's cameras!"

"I'm switching to the internal Hi'iaka station now," a placid computer voice announced in a soothing female voice from the TV speakers.

"I just programmed it to do this last night! Cool, huh? I had to give the television some kind of name, so..."

"And 'Lazy-ass TV' is the best you could come up with?" Michael just looked at the guy, shaking his head with a grin, as the screen changed to a view of the Mediterranean, the boot of Italy perfectly visible against the bright water of the sea, then further to the east, the Levant and the Red Sea and the Nile delta. A swirl of clouds obscured much of the land and the sea; Greece, Turkey, the Caspian Sea all concealed, the brown sands of Arabia coming into view along the horizon. Just visible in the foreground, at the far left of the screen, was the tail of the transport ship, slowly moving out of view. The footage included the crackling sounds of communications between the pilots of the transport and the bridge of the Hi'iaka:

"Steady ahead..." "Roger..."

"A half-hour, maybe, till they're docked," Jake said. He would know, this was the fourth docking he'd watched, having been on the first of the five trips of the transport ship that brought the people and supplies for this, the fourth voyage of the Hi'iaka. Once the transport had emptied itself of people, and of fuel and supplies, it would undock to return to Earth, and their voyage would truly begin.

As he watched the image on the screen switch to the scene of another camera, this one facing away from Earth, the transport slowly appearing into view, Michael remembered the excitement he felt at this moment, when it was him, ten days ago, arriving at the docking bay of the mother ship. Much of the excitement, and terror, of the launch had passed for him by this point in his initial voyage, and his mind was finally able to focus instead on the mission ahead. Three times the Hi'iaka, the giant interplanetary spacecraft, had ferried a hundred people to Mars. There were already three hundred colonists there, some of whom had been there nearly eight years now. The good Hi'iaka would continue its journey, over and over, ferrying a hundred people at a time, many months there, then many months to return after the people and supplies had been unloaded, where she would ease into her distant orbit around the Earth and refit and refill and return again for her long voyage through space.

The Martian biodome, the home of the fledgling colony, had been built to accommodate five thousand. It would be decades, centuries, before they reached that number, especially considering the rate at which the colonists were procreating now. There had been only three babies born on Mars thus far; the social scientists had expected a dozen and hoped for twice that. It was considered something of an dire situation now, and increasingly the selection of the newer colonists was made with this consideration squarely in mind. Odd, it was, to imagine the Hi'iaka as a sort of dating zone, to find a mate for your life ahead.

"You know anything about our new podmates?" Michael asked Jake, apropos of nothing.

"Yeah. A family--a mother and her two children..."

"Oh? No father?" So far, women were scarce in the colony, which exasperated the procreation problem. The GSA had focused with last-minute intensity on recruiting more women, having only marginal success. They also wanted couples already mated, though it was exceedingly rare for any to want to leave their homes and their children's grandparents to travel a million miles away. This family, this mother and her two children, must have been something of a coup for the GSA recruiters. A woman with children was a very valuable colonist indeed.

The women that had been recruited for this journey knew full-well that they would be expected to find a mate among the men at the colony, and that their reproductive success or failure would be a topic of great interest to the people of Earth. In some cases, the women were already betrothed, having courted with men from the colony, and even married already across the wide expanse of space in ceremonies that were broadcast worldwide, and that were a strange thing to witness as the "I dos" were separated by the fourteen minute time delay that communications from Earth to Mars present.

Maybe this new podmate, this mother of two, was one of these. Maybe she was already married to a colonist, or engaged to one. Not that Michael much cared, to be entirely honest; at thirty-five, he'd lived a mostly celibate life. The few women he'd been with were long since forgotten, and he'd left no progeny behind, nor anyone else to mourn his absence. The dearth of women at the colony meant that many of the men would not have mates, and Michael was perfectly content to be one of these.

"Yeah, no husband. I don't know what the story is," Jake answered his question.

On the television screen, the transport ship had covered half the remaining distance now in its long slow glide to the docking port. Enormous robot arms had began to unfolded, to carefully catch the transport and bring it the last few dozen feet into place.

"When do we launch?" Michael asked.

"1900, if all goes right."

The two men sat in silence staring at the television, contemplating the enormity of this in their own minds, as the robot arms reached out and found their holds, and began to gently guide the transport to the dock.

Eventually, once the transport was docked, Jake went back to his video game ("Lazy-ass TV, video game." "Switching to video game...") and Michael started reading, when the doors to their common room swung open. A porter pushed a full trolley in, and behind him was a harried-looking woman with two duffle bags over her shoulders and a rolling suitcase; behind her two children pulling yet more luggage. Michael jumped up and dashed over to the woman.

"Here, let me help you with that."

She gave him a forced smile, but a pleasant enough one for a woman whose face was otherwise stiff with stress. "Thanks," she said, slouching one of the duffles off her shoulder.

"I'm Michael," he introduced himself, as he relieved her of the heavy duffle and reached out to shake her hand. "Over there is Jake." Jake had paused the game by now and started over to help as well.

"Robin," she said, shaking Michael's hand as best she could. She nodded backwards, to one of the kids behind her. "Margaret," a girl of around eleven, tall and skinny with a mop of curly brown hair and darker skin than her mother, "and Charles," nodding to the other, a boy of around seven.

"Welcome to the hippest living pod aboard the Hi'iaka" Michael said to the kids with a pleasant smile. The boy just scowled, but the girl did her best to smile back.

A few hours later, he saw his new podmates sitting by themselves at a table in the cafeteria. The woman was eating her food without much spirit, the girl staring downcast at her tray with her hands in her lap, the boy vigorously playing a game on his hand-held.

Michael approached the table with his tray in hand. "Hello!" he said, as cheerfully as he could. "Remember me? I'm Michael, from your pod."

The woman looked up at him and smiled. "Oh, yes, you helped us with our things."

"That's right. Welcome to the Hi'iaka!"

"Thank you," the woman said. "Would you like to join us for dinner?"

"I'd love to." He set his tray down at an available seat.

"Margaret, Charles, say hello to Mr. ...?"

"Dubane," he said as he sat down. "But really, call me Mike, that's what everyone calls me."

The girl looked up momentarily from her tray, gave a forced smile, and said "Hello." She went back to her downcast staring.

"Charles," the woman said sternly to the boy. He set his game down for a moment and said "Hello" himself.

"Good to see you both again," Michael said. In the brief silence that followed, he contemplated these children's, and their mother's, lot. It must be enormously difficult to uproot your children like she has done, to take them away from their lives and friends and home and bring them on a voyage into the unknown. And for them, for the kids... It's hard to imagine. There were almost no children at the colony now, and few or none of Margaret's or Charles' age. What playmates their own age that they will have, will be among the hundred people on this voyage now. Looking about the cafeteria for a moment, he saw none. Suddenly his heart ached for these poor children.

"So what brings you on this trip?" he asked the woman. "What's your specialty?"

"She's a veterinarian," the boy piped up.

"Oh?" He looked at the woman. "I thought that colonists weren't allowed to bring pets?"

"They're not," the girl said authoritatively, looking up now. "Mom's a large animal veterinarian."

"Oh, I see." While there were no livestock in the biodome now, there were plans to bring some in, at least on an experimental basis. Protein amongst the colonists was a concern. As it currently stood, they were almost wholly dependent on shipments from Earth for their protein.

"And you? What brings you on the trip?" the woman asked.

"I'm a systems engineer."

The woman nodded, but the boy asked, "What does that mean?"

"Computers, networking, that sort of thing," Michael answered.

With this, the girl looked up. "Computers?" she said.

"Yes, it's my field. How about you, Margaret, what's your area of interest?"

She hesitated for a moment. "I don't know, I guess I like to draw."

"She's very good at Math," her mother answered for her. "And writing."

"Sweet, I love to write myself. So is there a school here, on the ship?" He hadn't heard of one.

"No," Robin said. "I'll be home schooling them. There's a school at the colony, though."

"But it's tiny," the girl added.

"Yes," her mother agreed.

"Well, if you need any help with the home schooling, help with homework or whatever, I'm entirely at your disposal. I always wished I'd been a teacher."

"That's very kind, Michael. I'm sure I'll take you up on it."

He turned to the boy now. "How about you? What's your specialty?"

"Video games," the girl piped up. This brought a smile to her face, a real one, the first he'd seen from her.

"Oh? Well then you'll get along great with my buddy Jake," Michael said.

Finally the girl began to eat her food, and the others at the table joined her, and there was relative silence among the background din of dozens eating and talking in the cafeteria. Michael took this opportunity to spend a little time observing them. The boy seemed chipper enough. Possibly even excited to be on this trip. He had sandy-blond hair and blue eyes and was eating now with voracity, shoveling the chicken and rice into his gullet. The girl was eating with much less vigor, but some of the sadness that had eclipsed her face seemed to have dissipated. She had darker hair than her brother, pulled in a dramatic part well to the side of her face and held across her head by a ribboned clasp. Her face was small and round, and her nose remarkably tiny. She had brown eyes flecked mysteriously with green.

Their mother, though, captured most of his attention. She looked like an interesting combination of both of the children, lighter hair and bluer eyes, but the same round face and little nose and pleasant, thin-lipped smile as the girl. If pressed to guess an age, he would have assumed Robin was mid-twenties at the latest, though that would not conform well to her having an eleven-year-old daughter. So late twenties, then, if she started her family early. While he'd always swore that he would be one of the celibate many at the colony, he found himself attracted to this woman. He was full of curiosity as to what her marital status was, but he didn't dare to ask. Oh well, best to assume that she is already claimed by some younger and handsomer colonist than he. It's for the best, really.

"So, are you excited for this evening's launching?" he asked, between bites of his curry.

"Oh yeah!" the boy exclaimed. "Space! Mars!"

The girl gave him a sardonic look. "I think it will be anti-climatic. I've heard you barely even notice that you're moving."

"Yeah, probably. I was thinking of watching from the observation deck."

"Oh, that's right, there's an observation deck, " the girl said.

"Is it cool?" the boy asked.

"Yeah, it is. Maybe you'd like to join me?"

"Oh yeah!" the boy said. "Let's!"

"I have a lot of unpacking to do," their mother said. "Why don't you take the kids? Get them out of my hair for a bit!" She added the last with a kindly smile at her children.

Michael wanted to protest. There's plenty of time to unpack! Four months, in fact! What he really wanted, was to get to know this woman a bit, and what better opportunity than a romantic evening in the observation deck watching the Hi'iaka launch?

But, he also thought to himself, perhaps the way to a single mother's heart was through her children. Plus, he might be able to subtly pry a bit of information from the kids, that he would be otherwise be uncomfortable asking of the mother.

"We'd better run if we want to get a seat. It's probably filling up already," he said, gathering up the plates and trays of his dinner companions.

"Okay," Robin said. "Behave, you two!"

The girl rolled her eyes at her mother as they all stood to leave. Michael took the trays to the cleaning station and the children followed him, after their mother had given each of them a kiss.

They made it to the observation deck in time to see the huge transport, still attached to the central drive module of the Hi'iaka, dispensing the last of the fuel for the mother ship. Large expanses of windows ringed both sides of the observation deck, one side looking spaceward with the transport in the foreground, the other side showing the most gorgeous view of Earth that you could ever imagine, lush dark greens of mountains, pale browns of deserts, and blue, endless blue oceans punctuated with swirls of white clouds. Monitors that hung around the observation deck showed people floating weightlessly back into the transport, the drive module being devoid of the artificial gravity of the spinning living quarters, as the last of the people who were not going on the mission disembarked onto the transport.

Through the windows, the transport rotated past as the living quarters spun, making for an odd viewing experience; the transport first appeared over the drive module on the leftmost side of the windows, rising for fifteen seconds to zenith, then "setting" for another fifteen seconds until it disappeared under the drive module and past the rightmost side of the windows. Then, a thirty-second wait while the underside of the drive module was visible, until the living quarters completed its full minute-long rotation and the transport appeared into view again. At first, it was difficult for your brain to put the entirety into a holistic view, and you had a feeling of vertigo. But only a few rotations of the living quarters were enough for the logic to manifest intuitively, and it took on an enjoyable aspect, not unlike looking out at the world from a carousel, or a Ferris wheel.

A few minutes after they arrived, as the transport swung back into view yet again, they could see the robot arms release their hold and fold back into the ship. While they waited for the transport to disengage, with the monitors showing the airlocks closing, they had time to talk.

"So, art?" he said to the girl. "What sort of art do you do?"

"Just drawing. Sketches," she answered.

"She's good!" the boy offered.

"I'd like to see some," Michael said.

"Okay."

"How about you?" he said to the boy. "Do you do art, too?"

"No, I mean, I'm not good at it."

"What are you good at?"

"Being annoying!" his sister giggled.

The boy reached across Michael in their seats and tried to punch his sister on the shoulder. "You'd know, Maggie," he said. "You're the champion of being annoying!"

"So you go by 'Maggie?'" Michael asked the girl.

"Yeah, usually."

"What about you, Charles? Are you Chuck? Or Chaz?"

"Mom and Maggie call me Charlie."

"Okay, I'll call you that, then. And you guys call me Mike, okay?"

"Okay."

"So seriously, what are your interests, Charlie?"

"Mostly games," he said. "And riding my bike, but I guess that's not going to happen much anymore."

"Well, there's a track here that you can use, and they have some bikes. It's not great but it's something at least. Maybe we can find a bike that fits you."

"Cool."

"And once we get to Mars, you can ride around in the biodome all you want."

"I like to ride, too," Maggie said.

"Good! Let's go to the track together soon and we'll get you both some bikes."

"Okay. Dad used to take me out riding, when I was little. Before..." Her words tailed off.

Despite intense curiosity about their father, Michael decided not to pry. Instead he offered, "Family bike rides are so much fun. I loved them when I was young."

"Yeah," Maggie said.

"He never took me riding," Charlie said. "At least I don't remember it."

"He did, though," Maggie said. "He had one of those kid seats on his handlebars."

"Look!" Michael said, pointing along with dozens of other people in the observation deck out the windows at the transport. Small rockets fired along its side, gently easing the ship away from the Hi'iaka. The monitors changed to a view of the control deck, where the captain and crew were calmly and methodically running through a long series of pre-flight checks. Through the windows, they watched the rocket slowly slide away.

"It must be hard for you kids to leave your friends and everyone behind," Michael said as they waited the half-minute for the living quarters to complete another rotation and the transport to appear in the windows again.

"It was harder on Grandma," Charlie said. "She was crying like crazy!"

"God, this must be really hard on her," Michael said.

"We'll still get to talk and stuff, though," Maggie said.

The transport came back into view, now floating well above the drive unit and slowly turning to begin its voyage back to Earth.

Several rotations later, as thruster rockets fired on the transport, quickly increasing its distance from the mother ship, the countdown to the disembarking of the Hi'iaka started. "T minus 600," a voice announced over the intercom.

"Ten minutes," Michael said to the children. Maggie's pretty brown eyes were wide, watching as the huge transport got smaller and smaller, disappearing into the distance. The room was suddenly silent.

"T minus 540," the voice over the intercom said, after what seemed like an interminable time. The kids' phones chirped.

"Mom's texting us," Maggie said, looking down at her screen. "She says she's excited, and she wants to know if we're behaving." She smiled and typed a response.

It seemed like an eternity before they finally began to feel the rumble of the enormous rockets in the drive module at the core of the Hi'iaka. A cheer raised among the crowd. Maggie reached a hand over and gripped her fingers tightly to Michael's hand, which momentarily surprised him, but brought forth from him an unexpected feeling of almost fatherly concern, and he gripped tightly back, and reached for Charlie's hand as well. The boy responded by gripping tightly as well.

"T minus 30!" the intercom squawked. The people in the observation deck began to count along. "29, 28, 27..." Charlie joined in with great enthusiasm, and Michael would have as well, but Maggie gripped even tighter to his hand and he felt that he should restrain himself.

The giant engines fired, lighting the sky behind the ship in reddish orange. "10... 9..."

The actual moment itself was exactly as Maggie had predicted. Disappointingly anti-climatic. The ship started moving, without much evidence of this other than the slight movement of stars outside and the captain announcing over the intercom, "And we are under way!" A cheer arose among the people in the observation deck, and Maggie let go of Michael's hand to clap herself. A few minutes later the crowd began to disperse. Michael and the kids walked to the huge observation windows and stood looking out at the stars and the distant transport, now little more than a speck against the blackness. On the other side of the deck, they could now see that they had moved further away from the Earth. Soon the entire hemisphere would be visible across the expanse of windows; in a day, it would be a globe no bigger than the moon as seen from Earth. In a week, it will be little more than a bluish speck among the stars.

"Whatcha doing?" Maggie asked Michael the next morning as he sat quietly reading a book and sipping his coffee. She flopped exaggeratedly onto the couch next to him.

"Reading."

She giggled. "Duh! Whatcha reading?"

"Oh, one of my favorite books," he said, holding up the cover so she could see. "It's a seafaring novel. I thought it would be good to read a book about a voyage as we start on ours."

"Cool!" She took the book from him and looked at the cover, a painting depicting Commodore Anson's fleet rounding Cape Horn.

"You know," Michael said, "you might like this book. It's kinda written for teenagers."

"Can I borrow it then?"

"Of course! You can read it when I'm done."

She held the book to her chest and gave him a thick-lipped pout. "Shouldn't I get to read it first?"

"Why should you get read it first?" Michael asked, with teasingly raised eyebrows.

"Because if you and Mom get married, I'll be your daughter, and you'll have to be nice to me then. May as well start practicing now."

"Married?" Michael said, genuinely surprised at the girl's suggestion, and maybe a little embarrassed, too. Were his intentions that obvious?

"Yes," she said. "Mom needs a new husband, and you're perfect."

"Perfect?"

"Come on, can I read it?" she pleaded, moving quickly passed the subject of marriage.

"I have a compromise proposal," he said.

"Yes?"

"I'll read it out loud to you."

"Yes!" She jumped up, then bounced back down onto the couch, immediately snuggling tightly against his chest.

She handed the book back to him and he opened to the first page and began to read. Eventually, Charlie joined them as well, at first non-committal about the story but then snuggling up to Michael as well and listening intently. An hour into the reading, their mother emerged from the family quarters and sat down on a chair across from them, smiling as she watched Michael read, and listening herself. He reached the end of a chapter and set the book down on his lap.

"That's enough for now," he said.

"No!" the kids protested. "Keep going!"

"No more for now. I've got to wet my whistle."

The kids giggled at the expression.

"Come on, Maggie," her brother said, "let's go explore the ship!"

"Okay," his sister agreed, "but only if Mike comes, too!"

"Kids," their mother admonished, "you can't make the poor man spend every waking minute with you!"

"You guys run off and explore," he said. "You don't want me along. If you go by yourselves you can get in all the trouble you want. If I'm with you, you'll have to behave."

They seemed to agree with this perspective, and bounced off the couch and said their goodbyes.

"Be back in time for dinner," their mother said.

"Okay. You're eating with us again, right, Mike?" Maggie asked.

"If it's okay with your mother." He looked over at Robin, who grinned, while also shaking her head.

"Of course it's okay with Mom!" Maggie said. And they were off to explore.

"Well!" Robin said in the aftermath of their exit. They both laughed. "It's very kind of you to be so nice to them."

"They're good kids," he said.

Robin nodded thoughtfully for a moment. "I've been worried about Margaret. She's been very unhappy."

"Yeah, it's got to be terribly hard for a kid to leave everything behind."

"Maybe it was a mistake to make them come."

Michael really wasn't sure how to answer, because he really wasn't sure whether it was a mistake or not. He knew the colony needed children of all ages, and so in that sense Robin's actions were for the greater good and were essential to the long-term vitality of the very place he was going to make his new life. And yet, there is the personal consideration, beyond the greater good. Each person on this mission had their own personal reason for leaving Earth. In fact, the vetting teams were highly interested in your personal reasons for wanting to leave; the last thing they wanted was a suicidal mission-member. But, they knew, and everyone else knew, too, that anyone who signed up had something they were fleeing. Something they wanted to leave behind. As Michael stared at the woman sitting across from him in the common room, he wondered, what is it that she's fleeing?

Seeing that he had no response to her previous statement, she let out a sigh. "I didn't have anywhere to leave them, though. My parents are elderly, my sister's a wreck, and Jordan's parents... Shit, I'm sorry to be unloading on you like this."

"No, don't worry about it, I understand. The mission needs kids, you know. And I suppose every kid that comes isn't going to want to, not at first."

She nodded. "I haven't seen Maggie smile in weeks. Months. I was just so pleased when she wanted to go with you to watch the launch, I was sure she'd just hold up in her bed and not say a word. And this morning... Well, it was nice to see."

He nodded, not sure what to say.

"She's... It was really hard for her when Jordon died. They were really close."

"He's your husband?"

"Yeah. He died three years ago now. That's when I decided to do this. I felt like I had nothing left on Earth to keep me motivated, you know? I heard they were looking for a vet, so I figured, why not?"

"Sure."

"But you know, I don't think it was fair to those kids. They'd just had their dad taken away from them and then I threw it all into a tailspin."

All Michael could really do was nod again.

"I'm talking your ear off. I'm sorry."

"Not at all, Robin. It's nice to have someone to talk to."

"I'm afraid not really much of a conversationalist," she said.

"Me neither."

She paused, apparently uncertain whether to continue. So Michael stood. "Hey, you want to go for a walk? You haven't seen the observation deck yet, right? We ought to be able to have a nice view of Earth from there."

Robin stood as well. "I'd love to go for a walk, but I don't think I'm up for looking at Earth right now. I'd probably start crying or something silly like that."

"Okay, how about I just show you around a bit instead?"

"Sure."

Michael put his hand on her back as they stepped out of the doorway of the common room and into the hallway beyond. The hand on her back was a little more familiar than Michael had intended, though not really anything more than a polite gesture, and he felt like maybe she needed a little human contact.

Almost as if in response to his touch, she continued with her soliloquy. "Once this trip was looking more like a reality, I started turning away from people, you know?"

"Yeah, I know exactly what you mean."

"I just... I just didn't want to get close to anyone, you know? Since I knew I would just be leaving." He took his hand away once they were in the outer hallway. "And, I guess, I did the same for the kids, trying to protect them from getting too close to anyone. So... this is sorta new, different. I mean, the fact is that the kids seem to like you, and I just need to step back and let that happen."

"Sure. I'm sure it's really hard."

"I'm sorry if this is weird for you or something. I'm sure to you, they're just kids, and you're just being nice to them, like normal. But for them..."

"That's the next pod," Michael said, pointing through an open doorway into the common room of another living space. "The neighbors!"

Robin smiled at this.

"I don't feel like I'm just being nice to your kids," he said as they continued down the hall. "I mean, that's not all that it is. You and me and them, we're all in this together now. You know?"

She nodded, smiling slightly as she looked at him.

"I mean," he continued, "for me, I've always been a loner, I guess. I didn't have to turn anyone away when I decided to do this. There really wasn't anyone to turn away. And I figured this mission was perfect for me, 'cause I could just keep on being a loner."

"I'm sorry," Robin said. "I'll tell the kids to leave you alone."

"Here's the gym," he said, swinging a door open to a cavernous hall with a swimming pool and a basketball court and a track. "This is the very middle of the living quarters. The pods are sort of in two horseshoes around it, and the cafeteria and observation deck are right below us." He pointed down. "No, actually, I guess they're above us--" he pointed up "--only, on the other side of the loop. I find it's a bit hard to get my bearings around this thing."

They walked into the room together. "The weight room and exercise equipment are over here, and the changing rooms."

"Okay," she said.

"You know, a funny thing happened, though. I always liked being a loner. I never minded that I didn't have a family or anyone close. But here, I sort of feel different about it now. I guess, seeing you, and your kids... I really liked it this morning, reading to them. And last night, at the observation deck... It made me feel like I had, I don't know, a purpose? People who might actually rely on me?"

She gave a little smile. "So you don't mind it?"

He led her back out to the hall, and put his hand on her back again.

"I don't. I'd rather you not tell the kids to leave me alone."

Her smile got bigger. And he left his hand on her back for a moment longer than he should have. As they turned back in the hallway, the sound of running feet filled the air, and Robin's two kids came rushing around the corner. He quickly dropped his hand from her back.

"Hi Mom! Hi Mike!" they hollered as they sped passed.

"Kids! Slow down!" Robin scolded, but they were already well passed by then.

That evening, after dinner with Robin's family and a little time spent with the kids in the observation deck again, Earth now a shining blue orb, he and the kids snuggled up on the couch and he read some more of the book to them. Eventually, Robin told the kids--among much protestation--that it was time for them to get to bed, and Michael retired to his own room as well.

An hour later there was a gentle knocking at his door.

"Hi," Robin said as he opened the door and peered out to see who his visitor was, and finding her pretty face staring back at him. "I was wondering if... Wow, this room is really small!"

"Yeah, sorry..."

"I thought our room was small!" She produced from behind her back a bottle of amber-colored liquid and two small glasses. "I was wondering if you might want a nightcap? I don't know if you drink or..."

"Sure!" he answered. He started to walk out into the common room, where a handful of other people were sitting. Jake and another podmate were playing a video game.

"I was thinking..." Robin said, "maybe we could... just hang out here? In your room? There's so many people out there, and video games and shi... stuff..."

Michael smiled at her stuttered swear word. "Oh, yeah, sure, okay." He stepped aside to let her in, and gestured to the lone chair for her to sit down. She poured them both some of the brandy while he set up a little folding table and sat down on the bed.

They lifted their glasses. "To a new life," he said.

She smiled. "To a new life. I'll drink to that."

"So how was your first full day?"

"A little crazy, I guess. I'm still trying to get everything unpacked and put away in some semblance of order."

"Yeah, it took me at least a week, and I don't have two kids."

She sighed. "I don't think I could've got anything done if you weren't here to entertain them."

"I'm glad to help out."

She looked at him with a smile, but an otherwise serious expression, finished off her drink and set the empty glass on the little table.

"Another?" he asked.

"Oh hell, why not?" He filled her glass and she picked it up and took a sip. He finished his off and poured himself another while she looked at the shelves that lined his room. "You have a lot of books."

"Yeah, I like to read. I figured I'd need a lot of them for the trip, you know?"

"Sure. Nothing else to do for four months."

"Right."

"You didn't figure on having a couple of little squirts to entertain!"

"No, nor their mother."

She smiled at him again and he could see her pretty round cheeks flush a bit. "I'm easy," she said, then quickly added, "I mean, I'm easy to entertain!"

"I'm not very good at entertaining women," he said.

"No? You seem well-suited to the task to me."

"I never had a lot of success in the area, I guess."

"Maybe you just never met the right person."

Now he could feel his own cheeks blushing. "Could be."

"But listen to me talking," she said. "What do I know? I haven't been on a real date since I was a teenager."

"No? You never dated after your husband died?"

"Like I told you, I was pushing people away after that. I didn't want to get close to anybody. I didn't want to change my mind about this mission."

"Right," he said. "So... now... You think you can get close to someone now?"

She finished off her glass again, looking over the rim at him. "You have somebody in mind?" she asked with a little smile.

"Let's see," he said, grinning back. "There's Jake, he seems like a nice enough guy."

"Yeah, but he's not my type."

"No? What is your type?"

"I like a bookish man," she said.

"Yeah? Well, I like a woman who's into animals."

She smiled. "And I guess I haven't had this opportunity before, but I realize now that I think it's incredibly sexy when a man is kind to my children."

"I really like your children. And I'm not just saying that because I want to..." His voice faded off.

"Because you want to...?"

"Well, it's been a long time since I met a woman as beautiful as you, Robin."

"It's been a long time since I've met a man like you."

"Hmm. I guess that's good?"

She laughed. "Yes, it is." She stood up. "Now I'd love to stay and chat, but I probably should be getting back to my babies."

He nodded, standing up as well. "Maybe we can continue the conversation again tomorrow night?"

"I'd like that," she said.

"So would I."

Michael suddenly had an intense desire to give her a kiss goodnight before he opened the door, and she paused as she stood as well, as if she was hoping for the same. But like a goddamned schoolboy, he couldn't bring himself to do it, and sufficed with a brush of his hand against hers as she left his room.

For the next chapter in this story, see The Voyage of a Lifetime, Chapter Two.