Silver, pulsing rings ripple out into the void, growing brighter with each burst… until a shivering gust rumbles forward, heavy with rotted sand…

A storm has come… and as it blows, a burning dome takes form amid the smoke, framed by crumbling, checkerboard arches.

The gale rages on… and the apparition fades into darkness, as a crippled pyramid looms into view, obscuring the planetary alignment far above.

And then she feels it: a presence, in the shadows… grotesque, and battered, etched with unspoken dread... The forbidden work.

With a twitch, the silhouette churns closer, on hooves and hands and bleeding haunches… broken antlers, eclipsed in stone.

The beast cries out, bleating in agony like a terrible horn.

Lori awoke with a start, the vivid pictures still branded on her retinas. Catching her breath, she rubbed her eyes and in doing so, noticed that her brother had fallen asleep in a nearby chair.

“Sander.”

Waking her brother from his awkward position, Sander looked up groggily… But his confusion quickly turned to joy, as a relieved smile spread across his face.

“Hey...” her brother grinned. “How do you feel?

Still blinking away cobwebs as she took in the unfamiliar surroundings, Lori tried to sit up… but a sharp pain in her left arm revealed a previously unnoticed sling.

“Ow…”

“Yo, she’s awake! Come on!” Sander called over his shoulder.

Lori looked to see who he was talking to, but only saw her own reflection in the large, dark windows behind him. “You had me worried man…” he continued, turning back to her.

“I... Did you…” Lori started, but the more she tried to remember her wild dreams, the faster they seemed to recede into the ether.

“What?”

“Forget it… Where are we?”

Sander smiled at her again.

“We made it…” he whispered, as if sharing a secret. “And dude, this place is amazing!”

“This is… the Firmament?”

“Yeah, and I haven’t even seen half of it! But-”

Sander held his tongue, disturbed by the arrival of a balding, chubby man with thick glasses. Walking right up to them without as much as a “Hello”, he then bent down and inspected Lori’s bandages.

Apparently satisfied with their condition, the man then turned around wordlessly and left, just as abruptly as he had entered.

Seeing her bewilderment, Sander did his best to fill his sister in.

“Oh, yeah, so it turns out we’re not the only ones here…”

“Where’s Mom and Dad?” Lori demanded, suddenly uncomfortable to be sitting in her underpants.

This time though, Sander’s words came more difficultly…

“What?” she pressed, not liking like the way he was biting his lip. “Just tell me!”

“Everyone’s fine, don’t worry. But, uh... Dad got a little smooshed.”

Staring at her brother’s total lack of an explanation in disbelief, Lori tried to sit up again... and winced in pain.

“God damn-”

“Take it easy!”

“Sander! What the hell does smooshed mean?” Lori started, before taking a deep breath and rattling off a rapid-fire list of questions. “OK, look... How long was I out? How did we get here? Where’s all my stuff?” she paused, nodding towards the door “And who was that guy?”

Flustered by all her questions, Sander just stared back with a stupid look on his face and tried to choose which one to answer first… but before he could, a different voice spoke up.

“That guy saved your life.”

Ducking his way through into the room even though he didn’t really have to, a tall, skinny man with gray hair appear before the twins, and Lori recognized his face from their now-distant television screen.

“Welcome aboard,” he said, running his hand over a stubbly shin. “I’m Quentin, by the way.”

For the first time in her life, Lori was a little starstruck… but the feeling faded rather quickly, as the man began to pick at something in his teeth while watching his reflection in the glass.

“Ah… um, thank you-” Lori didn’t really know what to say.

She didn’t have to worry about making small-talk however, as Quentin cut her off with a well-practiced smile.

“No, please. Thank you for coming. I can’t imagine how hard this trip must have been... And it’s truly appreciated.”

“So, yeah... how’s my da-”

“Yeah, your dad… Barney?” he paused and looked to Sander for confirmation, who nodded back. “Barney should be doing better soon,” Quentin finished, combing his hair around uselessly in his reflection.

“Better how? What’s wrong with him?”

“Can you walk?” he took a few steps closer and offered his hand. “Come on I’ll show you.”

“I uh... I’m good, Sander’s got me,” Lori said, still not totally sure what to think about the tired-looking man that had appeared in front of her.

“Cool, let’s go,” Quentin responded curtly, spun on his heels and went to go hold the door for them.

Grabbing her brother’s arm, Lori decided to ignore their host’s strange mannerisms and heaved herself up… But as soon as she touched the ground, Lori jumped back.

“Wha-”

“Ha-ha! You like it? How’s that for gravity, huh?” Quentin cackled from the other side of the room.

Looking down, Lori realized that the entire floor was covered with innumerable little holes. With an icy glance at her brother, Lori tried standing again... and again experienced one of the strangest sensations she’d ever felt, as the minuscule holes in the floor sucked her bare feet back down with every movement.

“Said he got the idea from an air-hockey table!” added Sander, prompting a wink from the man behind him.

“It feels weird…”

“Yeah, I bet... bare feet will do that. I’ll get you some socks, come on.”

The twins followed Quentin out of the room, into a short hallway, lined with turquoise floor-lights and tinted windows like the room they’d just left. Even in the dark, Lori immediately noticed that contrary to the Beginner’s Luck’s ubiquitous pipes and wires, Quentin’s ship exhibited none of the haphazardness of the Schwab family’s design.

In fact, besides some extension cords and tools on the floor, the Firmament’s interior looked and felt more like a cheap hotel spa than anything else. Peeking past their host, Lori saw the bald fellow from a few minutes earlier, in deep discussion with a curly haired man in overalls.

As they drew closer to the men, she could hear them more clearly... and realized she had no idea what language they were speaking.

“Russian,” commented Sander, noticing her curiosity.

“So, you’ve already met Sergei… This is Pavel-” Quentin began, interrupting the pair to introduce them... But Lori already didn’t care, because she’d caught sight of her parents.

Pushing past Quentin and his friends, Lori ran to the large glass door at the end of the hall, and pushed it open with her good shoulder. Half-mummified in a cast, Barney lay immobile in bed, against a large mound of pillows.

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“Mom!”

Lori rushed over to hug her mother, and almost made Evelyn drop the straw she was trying to delicately fit into Barney’s mouth.

“Oh! God, Lori… You’re up!”

But Lori didn’t even hear her question, with tears started streaming down her face.

“Oh my God...” she sniffled, as Sander caught up with them and closed the door.

“How’s your arm baby?”

“It’s fine, is he OK?”

Staring fearfully at her Dad’s cast-covered torso, Lori saw Barney´s smile peak out from behind his neck brace.

“I’m fine,” wheezed her father… but he didn’t look it.

Trying her best to calm down, Lori wiped her face angrily with her good hand and sat down gently on the bed.

“What happened?”

Looking from Sander to their parents, she started to understand that they might not really know.

“Uh… Do you remember the ship breaking open?” Sander asked, as he went to go pick up the straw, as Evelyn dropped it again.

Thinking back to before the crazy dream, Lori realized she barely remembered their descent and shook her head... but doing so shot a pain up her neck and she froze, exhaling slowly.

“No”

“Well, it did. Me and mom got Lucky, our side basically... stayed together. But you got flung… and the uh, console did too. Caught dad right in the gut.” Her brother looked to their mom to confirm his words and she just nodded back silently, unable to take her eyes off of her injured husband.

“That rock jumped out at me… ” Barney tried to joke, but his mumbled words were barely audible beneath the mountain of plaster.

Wiping away a tear, Evelyn couldn’t help but release a little sob.

“God, I’m so glad we’re all here.”

Fully agreeing, Sander and Lori came in to grab their mother in a long, tight embrace, that eventually migrated to the still-huggable parts of their father’s body.

“Me too…” Quentin added, having joined them. “Those rooskies ain’t the most joyful bunch.”

Upon Quentin’s arrival, the Schwabs finally let go of each other and turned to their host.

“Thank you again, Mr. Vannevar.” Evelyn wiped her eyes.

“Please… Call me Quentin. I don’t know, I really wish I’d planned better... Especially now that-”

But despite her family’s apparent trust in the eccentric man, something about the character just rubbed Lori wrong... and as he walked closer to her father and began offering medical advice, the vague question that had been slowly percolating in the back of her mind since Quentin’s apparition, finally materialized.

“Why didn’t you answer us?

The words hung in the air, as they all turned to look at her.

“We were radioing for hours, The Castor too…”

Looking around the room as if not knowing where to rest his gaze, Quentin responded slowly.

“Yeah, sorry about that. I´d fixed the receiver, and we were trying to reply… but I hadn´t realized our transmitter had also taken a hit. Look, uh… there´s been a lot going on, lots of changes... and some really hard, unexpected setbacks. I take it you saw the base, on your way down? Yeah, that´s a rather recent development. I don´t know what to tell you… We lost a lot of people, and resources… years of planning… months of work… Would you believe it was bamboo? Well, the whole outer frame…

The more he spoke, the less animated the man became, like the life was leaving his body with each syllable. Even his posture changed, slumping down.

“I was so proud of that igloo design, too… The shape, the material… I´d trapped a phototropic solution between alternating layers of polished graphene lenses… and by sandwiching the liquid like that, I could reflect and bend the light any way I pleased! It was like oil and water for targeting systems, I´m telling you. Satellites, trackers… anybody who tried to lock on!” he continued, absentmindedly reaching into his breast pocket and pulling out a few pills. “But yeah… their damn hydraulics sprung a leak, they got stuck while over-correcting… and talk about a bullseye. Really thought we were safe… but they fucking kamikazied us.”

He swallowed them with a grimace instead of water, and paused to stare out into space…

“They´d left out of Seoul, or something… Korea for sure. And straight up called their ship the Hyundai. I thought that was so funny… they told me the word translated roughly to Modernity,” he sighed wistfully. “I just wish I´d planned better, or… I don´t know. Done something different… But I was so focused on building the Firmament and getting myself here first, looking out for Numero Uno… That’s not a crime! Right?”

Quentin turned back to his audience in search of approval, but unfortunately, the Schwabs hadn’t fully followed his rambling explanation... Faced with their awkward confusion, he decided to just drop the subject.

“Nah, whatever… That´s not a crime. We survived, you survived… the Firmament escaped mostly unscathed, despite that fucking crash happening right next to us… and that right there´s a miracle! So let’s just be happy, huh? Because there are much worse things than a mangled radio…”

While he spoke, Quentin walked back to the door and banged on the glass.

“Yo! Comrade! Come give Barney some attention while I show them around.”

Once again, Sergei came to the door and looked at them dully.

“Ready guys? Don’t worry, Sergei here is a pro!”

Taking a second to make sure his dad was OK, Sander quickly joined Vannevar near the door, with his sister close behind. Finally, after a reassuring squeeze, Barney let go of his wife’s hand.

“Baby...”

“Go, I’ll be fine,” Barney smiled, knowing all too well just how interesting the Quentin’s tour was sure to be.

“Alright!” cheered Quentin, as the trio crossed paths with Sergei and left to discover the Firmament.

“As you’ve seen, this is our lab-slash-dorm-slash-infirmary.” He spread his arms wide as he spoke, once they had all joined him in the hall. “And if you were wondering what’s up with the Russians hanging around, they’re not my Oompa-Loompas, just so you know,” he smiled.

Snickering at Quentin’s jokes, Sander quickly stifled his laughter as he locked eyes with a bear of a man, fresh from the shower.

“Don’t worry, this one’s mostly harmless...” Quentin mugged, reaching over to pat the towering fellow on his way by. “Hey Matvey!”

The man just smiled back and waited for them to pass.

“Not too good with English though. Let’s keep moving…”

“Except when drink!” boomed the man, reaching out his oversized paw with a chuckle and shaking each of their hands.

“Oh yeah, Except when drink… I’ve had to start hiding the good stuff.”

Another pair of doors slid open, automatically this time, and revealed what had apparently been serving as the living room aboard the Firmament. And perhaps it was the sloping beige walls or the large, metallic hatch in the middle of the floor… but for whatever reason, Lori was immediately stricken with the impression of stepping into an elaborately constructed, and quite spacious diving bell.

“And here’s where the magic happens,” Quentin continued, hitting the lights.

Between the airlocks that adorned each wall, a series of boxes had been rearranged to form a makeshift table in the center of the room, encircled by half-folded hammocks. As for the strewn out playing cards, food, clothes and bottles that littered the area, they told a darker tale of trapped, stir-crazy men, trying their best to avoid catching cabin fever.

The neon lights flickered on, and Pavel emerged from behind one of the hammocks with his arms filled with trash.

“Seriously dude?” Quentin scolded.

Without making eye contact, Pavel pushed his curls from his eyes and, after almost tripping on his way out, disappeared through the misting airlock to their right.

“Yeah! So you’re bullshitting with Sergei, but don’t have time to clean up?” Quentin called after him, shaking his head. “Anyways- ”

But as the room grew brighter around them, their host took another step and then froze… before letting out a curse. Evelyn jumped back in shock and stretched out her arms in front of Sander and Lori, instinctively shielding her children.

“God damn- Pardon my French,” he continued, taking a deep breath to control his temper while apologizing for his language. “Jesus… Just one of those days I guess. Hey! Matt!”

They all looked down to see what the problem was… and soon saw a series of progressively larger puddles, leading off across the room.

“Matvey!”

But nobody answered.

“Hang on…” Quentin held up a finger and returned down the hallway to confront the giant Russian. “I’ll be right back.”

The men began to argue in a mix of both of their native tongues, and the automatic doors eventually slid back shut behind them, muting their voices. It was kind of nice to discover the Firmament without Quentin’s incessant play-by-play, and the Schwabs started inspecting their surroundings at their own pace...

Besides the usual tapestry of pipes, fuse-boxes and wires sprouting from every imaginable surface, the room’s slightly higher ceiling gave them some much needed breathing room after the slightly claustrophobic hallway from earlier.

They fanned out, Evelyn going to inspect the craft’s irrigation systems while Lori and Sander wandered in the opposite direction towards a pile of what turned out to be their personal belongings pushed into the corner of the room.

Shoving a dented air-tank to the side with a clatter, Sander pulled his backpack out from beneath the heap and shook the moon dust off. His barely-used shaving kit and a book came tumbling out of the large gash in its side.

“Oh man…” he whined, gently turning the bag over to inspect the unexpected damage.

Lori was about to do the same, but realized she didn’t really care much about the things she’d brought… It felt almost like their destiny had shifted by surviving the crash, and that this new life they were about to start didn’t need souvenirs.

As if having read her mind, Sander dropped his stuff back on the floor.

“Fuck it…” he shrugged, turning to look at what else the Firmament had to offer.

“You better hide your comic books…” Lori muttered, pointing to one of Sander’s smuggled girly mags that had also escaped the bag.

Taking a moment to register what she was talking about, Sander suddenly saw it too… and jumped on the magazine like a cat, stashing it sullenly in the waistband beneath his shirt, just as their mother’s voice rang out.

“This place is... Wow!”

Beyond the puddles, Evelyn had discovered that the ship’s lavatories were in fact squeezed between the pantry and engine room... and was marveling at the technological prowess and layout of the machine.

“Didn’t we build the same?” Lori answered, coming to join her.

“We did, just… not as good. This is about as efficient as can be. These feed into there, and then you can just switch it through both channels, without shutting the oscillations off. No recalibrations, no waste… Your father has to see this!”

As soon as she said it, her husband’s condition popped back into her mind and Evelyn’s smiled melted away.

“You know, I think I’m gonna go check-”

But before she could finish that thought Quentin had returned, yelling one final, incomprehensible word behind him.

“Fsioh! Fsioh!”

“OK, sorry about that,” Quentin sighed, cracking his neck theatrically. “It’s just all the time: water everywhere, short circuits... we’re going through filters faster than I can clean´em!” As he spoke, he tossed Lori a pair of socks. “Here.”

“If it’s OK, I think I’m gonna go back to Barn-” Evelyn began.

But Quentin wasn’t listening.

“Who’d have thunk it... turns out the Firmament works best with neat-freaks!” he continued, kneeling down to unplug a few wires. “Anyways... Let’s keep this party rolling!”

“This place is crazy... you built all this by yourself?” Sander asked, stunned by the craftsmanship.

“Thanks, I appreciate it man... and wait ‘til you see the rest! We got the oxygen-osmosis systems set up sequentially, so they feed off each other.”

Quentin wandered off, pointing around the room as Sander followed and nodded along knowledgeably, despite not understanding half of what their host was saying.

Evelyn, for her part, held back and helped her one-armed daughter put the socks on... but by the time Lori had scampered off to join them, her curiosity had become overwhelming. With a final look towards the medical bay, Evelyn figured she’d have plenty of time to nurse her husband back to health, and decided to get the tour over with.

“All good?” checked Quentin, as soon as Evelyn caught up.

Without waiting for answer, Quentin opened the next airlock. As they stepped inside this new chamber, the same mysterious mist that had engulfed Pavel now came rushing out to greet them. Shielding her eyes from the unexpected glare, Evelyn entered last and heard Quentin close the passage behind them.