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thirteen-year-old boy, more trouble than he was worth. He hadn’t meant to force anyone out. He just happened to be near Bay Three when the explosion hit, and his uncle Stepan had marshaled him aboard, though people snarled that there was only room for thirty and they’d best be able-bodied crew. But in the confusion Karl never showed, and Mitya, not even belted in, crouched amid the equipment cartons, holding on to a lithium hydroxide canister bolted to the bulkhead. After the landing, he could barely stretch out his arms again.
    At the time of the disaster, the terraforming expedition had already been planned and the shuttles loaded with gear. That was lucky, or they’d have arrived onthe surface empty-handed. Of course, it wasn’t luck they’d gotten, but disaster. His family was dead: mother and father, his sister, his uncles and aunts and cousins—except for his aunt Lea’s first husband, Stepan. The thought of his parents sat in his chest like cold water, numbing him. But it was the same with all the grim-faced crew. Everyone had lost family. Many had lost their own children, and when they looked at him Mitya knew they were thinking:
Why him and not my son
? His only solace came at night when he lay in the dark, and his mind went back home.
    Captain Bonhert was Mitya’s uncle twice removed, due to his marriage to the sister of Mitya’s father’s brother’s wife. Mitya had been proud of that fact on Station, but it was also true that by now most of Station folks could find a relative by tossing a spitball and seeing who it hit. Besides, the Captain was too busy to notice a twice-removed nephew, and his father had always cautioned him never to presume on the Captain, even if sometimes the Captain smiled and nodded at him in the corridor when they happened to pass.
    So there was no consolation from that quarter. During the day he would watch the construction of the dome and the feverish work inside it, staying well at the edge and bristling with energy to
do something
. He’d offered to do hauling or cleanup work, but crew said no, just stay out of the way. Oran was just three years older and did matrix-welding, but Oran was strong as a turbine. Mitya’s real yearning was to help with the computer-modeling, even if it was only to sling numbers, but he knew they’d no more let him onto the quantum computer than punch a hole in the dome.
    His gaze went again to the whiteout just beyond the dome wall. A small movement caught his attention next to the outside wall. It was a blur, but by scrunching down and lying on his side he saw what looked likean insect, about the size of a baby’s fist. It was walking up the slick wall, its ten legs protruding from what looked to be an armored, oblong body. A light bobbed in front of its face. It seemed to take note of Mitya, stopping at eye level with him. Stretching from just in back of its head was a narrow appendage that arced over its face, suspending a point of light right in front of its mouth. Mitya put his palm against the inside wall. The light bug wiggled into a matching position, opposite his hand.
    With a small thrill, Mitya realized he was seeing his first planetary creature, and it was Lithian, not Terran, with that Lithian trait of bioluminescence that he’d studied in zoology. And this alien being—old Lithian life—was watching him as though he were a creature in a zoo. Then the insect moved on, fading into the murk.
    “Moping, are we?”
    His uncle Stepan stood looking down at him. Judging from his heavily quilted jacket and pants, he’d been outside. His breather still clung to his face, outlining an oval from the bridge of his nose to just under his chin.
    Mitya stumbled to his feet. “No, sir. Just looking.”
    “How about helping me at the shuttle?”
    Mitya was so surprised it took him a moment to respond. Meanwhile his uncle tossed him a breather.
    “Better than moping. You’ll find that work can have its reward, boy.”
    Mitya looked at the