At the travel terminal, the crowd moves in slow waves. Arthur threads through without breaking stride.
Ticket scanned—green light. He disappears into the boarding tunnel.
He steps onto the vessel: an old mining hauler, its walls smeared with grease and grime.
“She’s old, but she’ll get us there.”
As the last of the crew climbs aboard, the doors hiss shut. The ship rumbles, engines whining awake as it lifts from the cradle, cutting through the washed-out sky of Erudit Six like it can’t leave fast enough.
The gate—blue fire and lightning. No comforts. People sit on their luggage.
In the Void, Arthur stares up at the sky, clouds drifting by. Sarah lies beside him.
“Look—a rhinoceros,” she says, pointing.
“That is not a rhino,” he replies, baffled by the shape. “Looks like a puppy.” He smiles. “Where’s the horn?”
She points it out.
He laughs, knowing she’s right. “Okay, but puppies can have horns, right?”
They laugh, lying there, holding each other.
Twelve hours later, they burst from the gate chain above Kilo Prime—a blue-green marble suspended in the dark.
The ship descends through atmosphere, fire dancing along its hull. It lands in a wide clearing. The doors open far too slowly for the cramped colonists.
Passengers and crew spill out in waves, moving like ants devouring a new world.
“Everyone! Stop—just a moment!” a voice breaks from the crowd.
“My name is Byrand Black.” The man stands atop the ship.
The crowd gathers closer.
“You three hundred colonists,” he says, scanning faces, pointing to one or two as he speaks. “You’ve decided that a new life is worth the work, the sacrifice, the danger. You came here with nothing but a few tools, a handful of weapons, and the will to survive.”
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He steps to the edge, eyes bright.
“Between you and death, there is only perseverance. And I am in awe of your bravery.”
The crowd cheers.
Arthur doesn’t join them.
“I hope he works as hard as he talks,” he mutters.
Sarah’s voice drifts softly from the Void.
“He’s just trying to bring everyone together.”
—
The first two months on Kilo Prime pass quickly.
Crews unload prefab panels from cargo haulers. Autohomes rise one by one—precise, mechanical—until two hundred stand in perfect rows.
Massive fabrication arms swing barriers into place. Wall-layer drones glide the perimeter, spraying molten alloy that hardens instantly. The barrier climbs higher with every hour.
Early crops push through the soil. Farmers work in silence, laying irrigation lines across open fields.
Arthur hauls crates from a supply shuttle. He stops to help a worker repair a broken power coupler—a grateful nod exchanged—then returns to the line.
Colonists test the first operational yard gate—big, bulky, sturdy. It opens and closes again with a smooth hydraulic hiss.
Grow-lights bathe the crops in soft artificial dawn. Arthur walks the rows, kneeling to check the soil with his hands.
Then—
Steam hisses from cracked pipes in the water recycler.
The sun beats down on a gathering crowd—worried faces, empty canteens.
Arthur crouches at the control panel, toolkit open beside him. He removes a blackened plate. Smoke curls out.
Jef, the site supervisor, paces in tight circles, fingers tangled in his hair.
“Can you fix it? Daevos only sent the one.”
In the Void, Sarah exhales, frustration threading her voice.
“Well… you’re officially right. Daevos left them in a terrible position.”
She sits on the red couch, sheet music scattered around her.
“One recycler for a colony this size. No backup. That’s insane.”
Arthur looks up at Jef.
“I can fix it.”
Then, quieter—certain.
“But we ration. Drinking water only. If this goes down again, we’re done.”
He works fast—tightening valves, resetting pressure dials.
The machine hums back to life.
“There,” Arthur says. “Everyone’s got water again.”
Before he can stand all the way, Mary—a young colonist—rushes forward. She throws her arms around him and kisses him.
It’s deep. Desperate. Grateful.
For half a heartbeat, Arthur doesn’t pull away.
Shock.
And warmth.
Then she steps back, breathless, smiling faintly—we’ll talk later.
Arthur just stares at the recycler.
—
In the Void, Sarah sits among endless shelves, water rippling at her ankles. The red couch is buried beneath unfinished sheet music.
A memory book materializes at her feet—unchained.
She touches it.
The kiss crashes into her in a flood of golden light.
Her hand jerks away. Tears gather—anger, fear, grief colliding at once.
“Arthur. In here. Now.”
Arthur appears, breath caught, posture rigid.
The air thickens. Light dims. The water trembles beneath them—silence pounding like a heartbeat.
Sarah touches the book again.
The memory plays between them.
“What is this?” she asks, voice trembling.
The Void shifts—a wheat field bending in the wind. Rex barks somewhere far away.
“She kissed me,” Arthur says. Panic flashes in his eyes.
“And you kissed her back.”
Her voice is steady. The edges are not.
“I—I didn’t mean to.”
“You didn’t mean to?”
She paces through the field, voice breaking.
“Do you know what I would give to feel that?”
She shakes her head.
“To actually be there with you?”
Her eyes lock onto his.
“Holding you?”
She steps closer. Wind brushes their clothes. The air grows heavy.
“All I have is this,” she whispers.
“I try to make it enough. I really do.”
Tears spill freely.
“And you gave a piece of us to someone else.”
Arthur’s gaze drops.
“It meant nothing. Just a moment—the touch. I lost my head.”
She collapses to her knees.
The field fractures—shattering back into white.
“Everything you do means something to me!” she cries.
“Because I can’t give you that.”
Her voice breaks.
“I can’t give you what she just did without thinking.”
Arthur kneels, closing the space between them.
“You give me more,” he says. “You hold me together. No one—no one—even comes close to you.”
The Void brightens, just slightly.
He takes her hands.
“When we touch here, it’s real to me. All of it.”
His voice steadies.
“You are real.”
He pulls her into his arms.
Water ripples outward in every direction—the sound of their silence filling the endless white.
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