The sky was dying.

  Not metaphorically. Not slowly, the way civilizations decay over centuries. The sky was dying—bleeding out above them in hues of rotting orange and sickly amber, like a bruise spreading across the face of heaven itself. The sun hung low on the horizon, a pale disc filtered through three hundred years of industrial poison, more shadow than light, more memory than star.

  June 15, 2150. Fourteen hundred hours. Beijing Time.

  Alex Chen stood at the cracked window of his sixteenth-floor apartment, palm pressed against the heat-warped glass, and watched the last color fade from the world. Where once there had been blue—a memory so distant now that he sometimes wondered if he'd dreamed it—the heavens stretched out in colors that had no names, shades of decay that artists had never imagined and poets refused to describe.

  Somewhere below, in the skeleton of what had been Chaoyang District, a building groaned and folded in on itself like a wounded animal. The sound reached him a moment later—a deep, structural moan followed by the particular crunch of concrete surrendering to entropy. Another one gone. Another thousand souls displaced, buried, or simply... gone.

  The numbers had stopped mattering somewhere around the third year of the Collapse. Now people just called it the Fade, as if Earth itself were slowly being erased from existence, one building at a time. One memory at a time.

  Alex didn't flinch. He'd learned not to. Flinching meant hesitating, and hesitation meant death in a city that was eating itself alive.

  He pulled his hand away from the window, leaving a ghostly print on the grimy surface. The glass was warm—always warm now, radiating the heat that the atmosphere could no longer release into space. The laws of thermodynamics, they'd learned, didn't care about civilization. Heat trapping worked exactly as predicted, which meant exactly as catastrophically.

  His apartment smelled of dust and the faint chemical tang of the air scrubbers working overtime in the hallway. They'd stopped being effective six months ago, but people still ran them anyway, the same way they still paid rent for apartments that were slowly being reclaimed by the elements. Habit. Denial. The desperate human need to pretend that things were still normal.

  Nothing was normal. Nothing had been normal for a long time.

  He crossed to the single mattress on the floor—his bed since the fire had taken the bedroom three months back—and picked up the photograph he'd tucked beneath his pillow. The edges were soft from handling, the colors faded but still recognizable. His mother and father, young and smiling, standing in front of a park that no longer existed. They'd been dead for twelve years now, taken by the first wave of the Collapse when the infrastructure began to fail and the hospitals became tombs.

  He didn't remember much of them anymore. Just impressions. Feelings. The warmth of a hand on his head. The sound of his mother's laugh, though he couldn't recall the joke. The smell of his father's cologne, though he couldn't name it. They were becoming ghosts even in his memory, fading the way everything faded now.

  But he remembered this photograph. It was the only thing he had left of before.

  He slipped it into the inner pocket of his jacket, close to his chest, and felt the familiar weight settle against his heart. The photo paper was getting soft, worn thin from nine years of being pressed against his chest. Sometimes he worried it would disintegrate, and then he'd have nothing at all.

  "Alex!" A voice from the hallway, shrill with panic. "Alex Chen, you in there?"

  He moved to the door in three quick strides and pulled it open. Mrs. Wang stood in the corridor, her weathered face contorted with anxiety, her thin body wrapped in a faded floral robe that had been fashionable thirty years ago. She was seventy-three, though she looked older—the kind of aging that came from surviving on recycled water and hope.

  "It's Mei," she gasped. "The building's shaking again, and she's trapped in the stairwell. The seventh floor's collapsed. I can't—I tried—but my knees—"

  "Show me."

  He didn't wait for her to finish. He was already moving, his worn boots striking the metal grating of the corridor floor. Mrs. Wang scrambled to keep up, her slippers slapping against the metal as they raced toward the stairwell.

  The building had been a residential tower once, back when such things still had names and purposes. Now it was just bones—concrete and rebar and the ghosts of a thousand families who'd either escaped to the outer colonies or died trying. The Beijing Space Center had been evacuating citizens for decades now, but the ships were never enough. There were eight billion people on a planet that could no longer support one.

  Eight billion. And only maybe ten thousand a year made it off-world. The math was impossible, and everyone knew it. That was why nobody did the math anymore.

  The stairwell was a chaos of dust and debris. Alex picked his way through the wreckage with the practiced ease of someone who'd been navigating collapse for years. The emergency lights flickered ominously, casting the scene in strobing shades of amber and black. He could hear Mei before he saw her—small, terrified sobs echoing up from somewhere below.

  The sound hit him in the chest. He'd heard that sound before, in the dark, in the rubble, in the places where hope went to die. It was the sound of a child who didn't understand why the world was ending.

  "Mei! I'm here!"

  "Alex!" Her voice was a whimper, barely audible over the groaning of the building. "I'm scared. It's dark. There's rocks everywhere. I can't move. I can't—"

  "Listen to me." His voice was steadier than he felt. "I'm coming to you. Don't move. Just tell me where you are."

  "Fourth floor. Landing. There's a big rock on my leg. I tried to push it but—"

  "Stay still. I'm almost there."

  He found her on the fourth-floor landing, wedged between a toppled concrete pillar and the wall. She was seven years old, small for her age, with wide dark eyes that seemed too large for her thin face. A chunk of concrete the size of a basketball pressed down on her leg, trapping her against the wall. Blood seeped from beneath it, dark and thick in the dim light.

  Her parents had been on the fourth wave of evacuations six months ago, bound for the Mars colony. She'd been too young to go with them—the age restrictions were brutal, prioritizing skilled workers and genetic fitness over sentiment. The colony doctors had looked at her, tiny and underweight, and decided she wasn't worth the resources.

  Mrs. Wang had taken her in, the way the community had taken in all the children left behind. Nobody talked about where the food came from. Nobody asked where the supplies came from. Survival had its own economy, and morality had its own exchange rate.

  "I'm going to get you out," Alex said, crouching beside her. He kept his voice calm, even, the way you'd talk to a wounded animal. "But I need you to be brave. Can you do that?"

  She nodded, tears cutting clean tracks through the dust on her cheeks. Her lip trembled, but she didn't scream. Smart kid. Brave kid.

  He assessed the pillar—it was heavy, but not immovable. He found a length of rebar protruding from the rubble and wedged it beneath the concrete, using it as a lever. The muscles in his back screamed in protest. Twenty-three years of malnutrition and hard living had left him lean but not strong, wiry rather than powerful. But desperation was its own fuel.

  With a grunt of effort, he heaved. The pillar shifted, grinding against the concrete floor. Mei squeaked in terror but didn't scream.

  "Move your leg. Now."

  She wiggled free, pulling her limb out from under the concrete with a sob of relief. It was bent at an angle that made Alex's stomach clench—definitely broken, probably badly. But she was alive. She was free.

  She threw herself at Alex, her thin arms wrapping around his neck, her body shaking with sobs.

  "Shh," he murmured, holding her. "You're okay. I've got you. You're okay."

  "I thought I was going to die," she whispered against his shoulder. "I thought I was going to die down here, alone, and nobody would find me—"

  He felt something twist in his chest. Not the first time he'd felt it—the weight of a child's terror, the burden of their hope. But it never got easier.

  "But you're not," he said. "You're not. I've got you. We're going to get you out of here, get you fixed up. You're going to be fine."

  It was probably a lie. The medical facilities at the space center were overwhelmed, understaffed, running on fumes and desperation. A broken leg might mean rejection, and rejection meant—

  He didn't let himself finish that thought.

  Mrs. Wang appeared in the stairwell behind them, her face pale with relief. "Thank you, thank you, boy. The gods will reward you—"

  "We need to move," Alex interrupted. "This building's coming down. All of it. Tonight, maybe tomorrow. We need to get to the space center."

  Mrs. Wang's face crumpled. "The center? But that's—they won't let us in. We've no tickets, no credentials—"

  "They're taking anyone who can pass the physical." It was a lie, or close to one. The Space Center was selective, brutally so. But they were also desperate. The colonies needed people—workers, settlers, bodies to fill the empty habitats. Anyone who could pass the basic medical and pass the psychological evaluation had a chance.

  "I'll get you in," he said. "Both of you."

  It was a promise he had no right to make. But he'd made worse promises and kept them.

  The streets of Beijing were a graveyard.

  Alex moved through them with Mei on his back, her broken leg splinted with pieces of wood and strips torn from his shirt. Mrs. Wang clutched his arm for support. The old woman was faster than she looked, but her knees were failing, and he could feel her trembling with every step.

  The acid rain had stopped for the moment—a small mercy—but the damage it had left behind was everywhere. Buildings loomed like broken teeth against the toxic sky, their windows empty eye sockets staring at nothing. The roads were rivers of gray sludge, the remains of the city's final days, cars abandoned where they'd stalled, their occupants long since gone to find better shelter or simply given up.

  The air tasted of sulfur and copper. Alex had stopped noticing years ago, but Mei kept coughing, her small body convulsing with each breath. He adjusted her on his back, making sure her face was tucked against his shoulder, filtering what little air he could through his jacket.

  It wasn't enough. It was never enough. But it was what he had.

  "The center's too far," Mrs. Wang panted. "We can't—we'll never make it—"

  "We will." His voice was flat, certain. There was no room for doubt. Doubt was a luxury for people with options, and they had none. "There's a checkpoint two kilometers east. From there, we take the transit tunnel."

  "The tunnel collapsed! Last month, I heard—"

  "Not all of it." He'd scouted the route two weeks ago, when he'd first started thinking about leaving. It was a risk. Everything was a risk. But staying was a slower death, and he had too much to live for to let Mei and Mrs. Wang die in a crumbling building waiting for rescue that would never come.

  They moved through the ruins of what had been a shopping district. The storefronts were shattered, their wares long since looted. A skeleton lay in the entrance of what had been a pharmacy, its bones arranged in the position of someone who'd lain down to sleep and simply never woken. Alex stepped over it without comment.

  There were bodies everywhere now. You learned to stop seeing them.

  A sound—a low, mechanical growl—made him freeze.

  "Under here." He dragged Mrs. Wang and Mei into the skeletal remains of a café, pressing them behind a toppled counter. The floor was thick with debris, but it would have to do.

  You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

  The drone swept past the window. A surveillance unit, probably automated, scanning for survivors to extract or resources to catalog. It didn't stop. It didn't see them. Alex held his breath until its engines faded into the distance, then let it out slowly.

  "That was close," Mrs. Wang whispered.

  "Too close. We need to move faster."

  The transit tunnel was exactly as he'd remembered it—dark, damp, and half-collapsed, but passable. They moved by feel for the first hundred meters, feeling their way along the wall until they found the maintenance lights, dim and flickering but enough to see by.

  The tunnel stretched for nearly a kilometer beneath the city, a vein of concrete connecting the old transit network to the industrial sector near the space center. Water dripped from somewhere above, steady and relentless, pooling in the low places. The walls were covered in a slick greenish-black film—mold, probably, or something worse. Alex didn't think about what they might be breathing in.

  Mei had stopped crying. She was quiet now, too quiet, her small body rigid on Alex's back. He could feel her heartbeat against his spine, rapid and frightened, but steady. She was holding it together.

  She was stronger than she knew.

  "How much further?" Mrs. Wang's voice echoed in the tunnel, strange and hollow.

  "Almost there. Another twenty minutes."

  They emerged into daylight—or what passed for it now. The space center loomed in the distance, a complex of gleaming white domes and towering launch platforms against the diseased sky. It was the most beautiful thing Alex had ever seen. It was salvation, crystallized into steel and glass.

  And between them and that salvation: a checkpoint.

  The checkpoint was a gauntlet of security drones and medical scanners. Alex approached with his hands visible, Mei still on his back, Mrs. Wang hovering behind him.

  "Halt." The voice was synthetic, emanating from a speaker on a security post. "State your designation and purpose."

  "We're here for evacuation processing." Alex kept his voice steady. "Three civilians. One minor, one elderly. Medical status: unknown. Requesting assessment."

  A scanner beam swept over them, green light flickering as it analyzed their vitals. For a long moment, nothing happened. Alex felt his heart pounding in his chest, loud enough that he was sure they could hear it.

  Then: "Processing approved. Proceed to Intake Hall Seven. You are late. Processing closes in ninety minutes."

  The gate slid open. Alex didn't wait. He walked through, his boots ringing on the metal floor, and didn't look back.

  The Intake Hall was chaos.

  Hundreds of people crowded the vast space, all of them desperate, all of them hoping. Families clutching children, elderly leaning on young, everyone wearing the same expression—fragile hope held together by stubborn refusal to give up. The smell was overwhelming: sweat and fear and the antiseptic sting of medical disinfectant.

  The noise was worse. Crying children, arguing adults, the mechanical announcements crackling from speakers mounted on the walls. Names being called. Numbers being shouted. The constant hum of machines scanning, analyzing, deciding who was worthy of survival.

  Alex found a relatively quiet corner and set Mei down as gently as he could. Her leg was swelling visibly now, the wood splints dark with blood. She bit her lip and didn't cry, but her face was white with pain.

  Mrs. Wang collapsed onto a bench, her face gray with exhaustion. Seventy-three years, and she was running on fumes and faith.

  "Stay here," he told them. "Don't move. I'll find out where we need to go."

  He pushed through the crowd, asking, probing, navigating the bureaucratic maze of evacuation forms and medical waivers. It took forty minutes—an eternity in a place where every second counted—but he finally found the right queue: Physical Assessment, then Psychological Evaluation, then Final Processing.

  He returned to find Mei and Mrs. Wang exactly where he'd left them. Good. They were listening.

  "Here's what's going to happen," he said, crouching to meet Mei's eyes. "We're going to go through some tests. Medical first—they'll check your heart, your lungs, your blood. Then there's a talking test, where someone will ask you questions. You answer honestly. Don't try to be brave or clever. Just answer."

  "What kind of questions?" Mei asked. Her voice was small but steady.

  "They want to know if you can handle the journey. If you'll be okay in tight spaces, away from Earth. If you can follow rules and work with others." He paused. "They'll ask about your family. About your parents. Answer truthfully. It's okay to miss them. It's okay to be sad. They want to see that you can handle hard things, not that you don't feel them."

  She nodded, her small face serious. Too serious. She shouldn't have to be this serious.

  Mrs. Wang grabbed Alex's hand. "And me? I'm old. My knees are failing. My lungs are half-gone from the smog. They'll reject me."

  "They might." He squeezed her hand. "But they'll also see that you've survived this long. That you've taken care of a child who isn't yours. That you kept going when everything said you should have given up. That counts for something."

  It might not be enough. They both knew it. But it was all they had.

  The medical assessment was brutal.

  They drew blood—Mei cried when the needle went in, but she held still, just like Alex had told her. Mrs. Wang wheezed through the lung function test, her breathing harsh and labored, but she finished it without complaint.

  The physician was a tired-looking woman with graying hair and hands that moved with practiced efficiency. She looked at Mei's leg and made a face.

  "Compound fracture," she said. "We can set it, but it uses resources. The committee will have to approve."

  "She's a child," Alex said. "She's seven years old."

  "I know what she is." The physician's voice was tired, not cruel. "I'm just telling you how it works. Put her in the queue for orthopedics. We'll do what we can."

  Alex didn't argue. Arguing was useless. He knew that better than anyone.

  He went through his own evaluation in a separate cubicle. The tests were familiar—blood pressure, heart rate, reflex checks, the endless forms asking about prior injuries and chronic conditions and family medical history.

  "Your nutritional markers are concerning," the physician said, frowning at her tablet. "You've been eating less than eight hundred calories a day for the past—" She paused, scrolling. "Six months?"

  "I eat when I can."

  "Your cardiovascular health is adequate. Respiratory function is within acceptable parameters." She looked up at him. "You're in better shape than most of the people who come through here. But the psychological evaluation is going to ask about your mental state. Are you stable?"

  "I'm alive."

  "That's not what I asked."

  Alex met her eyes. "I lost my parents at fourteen. I've been on my own for nine years. I've watched this city die, watched people I know get buried under rubble or fade away from sickness or simply give up and stop moving. I'm angry—I'm angry every single day. But I'm not unstable. I know what I want, and I know what I have to do to get it. That makes me more stable than half the people in this hall."

  She studied him for a long moment, then made a note on her tablet. "You'll pass," she said. "But the colonel's going to have questions for you."

  The psychological evaluation was held in a small room at the back of the processing center. The walls were white, the lighting harsh, and the only furniture was a metal table and two chairs. It smelled of antiseptic and something else—something Alex couldn't name but recognized. The smell of judgment.

  Colonel Xu Wei was waiting for him—a stern woman in her fifties with silver-streaked hair and eyes that missed nothing. She sat behind the table, a tablet in front of her, and she looked at Alex like he was one more piece of data to be processed.

  "Alex Chen," she said, gesturing to the empty chair. "Sit."

  He sat.

  "Tell me about your parents."

  It wasn't a request. He told her—how they'd died in the hospital collapse, how he'd been alone since, how he'd survived by doing whatever was necessary. He didn't soften it or dress it up. He told her about the things he'd done to stay alive, the lines he'd crossed. He didn't justify them or apologize for them. He just stated facts.

  Colonel Xu listened without interrupting. When he finished, she leaned back in her chair.

  "You understand that the colony ships aren't charities," she said. "They need workers. Engineers, doctors, farmers, technicians. People who can contribute. What do you have to offer?"

  "I'm strong. I'm adaptable. I learn fast." He paused. "And I don't give up. Ever. On myself, or on anyone I'm responsible for."

  "Responsibility." She tested the word like she was tasting wine. "You carried that child through eight kilometers of collapsed city. You brought your elderly neighbor despite the fact that she could have slowed you down. Why?"

  "Because they needed help."

  "Because they were burdens."

  Alex's jaw tightened. "Because they were people. Because I made a promise. Because that's what humans do—we don't leave each other behind."

  Colonel Xu studied him. Her face was unreadable, which was worse than any expression could have been. Alex waited.

  Then, slowly, she smiled.

  "That's the right answer," she said. "Not because it's what we want to hear, but because you believe it. You actually believe that people matter, even when it's hard, even when it costs you. That's rare. That's valuable." She stood. "Congratulations, Mr. Chen. You've been accepted for evacuation. You'll depart on the Exodus Seven, bound for the Kepler-442 system. Launch is in six hours."

  Something cracked open in Alex's chest—something that had been locked away for a very long time. He didn't let it show on his face, but he felt it: a flicker of warmth in a heart that had grown cold.

  "What about Mrs. Wang and Mei?" he asked.

  "Mrs. Wang has been accepted as well—medical override, due to her caretaker status for a minor. And the girl passed with flying colors." Colonel Xu handed him a small card. "She's young enough to be molded, strong enough to survive. That's what the committee said." She paused at the door. "This is your departure authorization. Don't lose it. And Mr. Chen—" She looked back at him. "Welcome to humanity's future."

  The six hours before launch passed in a blur.

  They were given clean clothes—real clothes, not the threadbare rags they'd been wearing. Fabric that wasn't torn, that didn't have holes, that smelled like manufactured cleanliness instead of dust and sweat and fear.

  They were fed warm meals for the first time in months. Real food—not the gray protein paste that passed for nutrition in the inner districts, not the recycled vegetables that came out of the vertical farms. Real food, with texture and flavor, the kind of meals that people had eaten back when eating was something other than survival.

  Mei ate like she hadn't seen food in days. Which, Alex realized, she probably hadn't. Mrs. Wang had to remind her to slow down, to chew, to not make herself sick.

  They were assigned bunks in the transit dormitory, small but private, with actual blankets and pillows. Real bedding, soft from industrial washing, smelling of detergent that didn't exist anymore on Earth's surface.

  Mei fell asleep almost immediately, her small body curled beneath the covers, her face slack with exhaustion but peace. The medics had set her leg—the bone was cracked but not shattered, they said. She'd walk again. Eventually.

  Alex sat on the edge of his bunk and watched her breathe. In, out. In, out. The simple rhythm of survival.

  Mrs. Wang appeared at his elbow, a cup of something hot in her hands. "You should sleep," she said. "It's a long journey."

  "I know."

  "Three years in cryo, they say. You won't feel a thing."

  "I know."

  She sat down beside him. "I've been thinking," she said. "About my husband. He died in the first year of the Collapse, you know. A construction accident. They said the building wasn't properly maintained. They said a lot of things." She stared into her cup. "I was so angry, for so long. At him for leaving me. At the world for taking him. At myself for surviving."

  Alex said nothing. He just listened.

  "But now—" She looked up at him, her old eyes bright with something that might have been tears or might have been the reflection of the artificial lights. "Now I think maybe there's a reason. Maybe I was supposed to meet Mei. Maybe I was supposed to meet you. Maybe all the suffering was just... preparation. For this."

  He didn't know what to say. He wasn't good at comfort, at hope, at all the soft things that other people seemed to know how to do naturally. So he just nodded.

  Mrs. Wang smiled and patted his hand. "Get some sleep, boy. We have a new world to find."

  Launch Platform Seven was a cathedral of steel and light.

  Alex stood at the observation window, watching the great ship rise on pillars of plasma fire. The Exodus Seven was beautiful—a sleek needle of silver and white, designed to carry two thousand souls to a new home among the stars. In six hours, he would be inside it, frozen in cryogenic suspension, dreaming whatever dreams the ship's systems allowed.

  But first, there was this moment.

  He pressed his hand against the cold glass, feeling the vibration of the engines through his palm. The ship rose higher, the fire brighter, the noise a thunder that seemed to shake the very bones of the Earth. Around him, other evacuees watched in silence. Some were crying. Some were laughing. Most were simply staring, their faces illuminated by the glow of the engines, expressions that Alex couldn't read.

  He thought about his parents. About the photograph still tucked against his heart. About everything he was leaving behind.

  Earth was still there, below them, dying in slow motion. The cities were tombs. The oceans were poison. The sky would never be blue again. Everything he'd ever known, everything his parents had known, everything that human beings had built over ten thousand years of civilization—all of it was slowly fading into the dark.

  But not everything. Not everyone.

  "We're going," he whispered. "We're finally going."

  The ship broke through the clouds, disappearing into the toxic orange sky. Somewhere above the atmosphere, it would accelerate to velocities that would have seemed like magic a century ago. Somewhere in the vast darkness between stars, it would carry its precious cargo toward a world that might be home.

  A world where children could grow up without coughing. Where the sky could be blue again. Where people could remember what it felt like to breathe clean air and drink clean water and live without the constant, grinding fear of the next collapse.

  Alex didn't look away until there was nothing left to see.

  Then he turned and walked back toward the dormitory. There was nothing left for him here—no family, no friends, no future in the ruins of Beijing. But there was something ahead. There was Mei, waiting for him with her bright eyes and brave smile. There was Mrs. Wang, who had lost everything and still found reasons to believe. There was a new world, waiting to be built.

  And there was him—Alex Chen, twenty-three years old, survivor of the Collapse, keeper of promises, carrier of the dead.

  He touched the photograph in his pocket, felt the edges worn smooth by years of handling.

  "I made it," he said quietly. "I'm taking them somewhere safe. I promise."

  The photo couldn't answer. But he felt, somehow, that his parents were listening.

  The cryo-pod was cold.

  Alex lay in the narrow chamber, the gel padding conforming to his body, the sensors attached to his temples monitoring his vital signs. The lid was open above him, revealing the sterile white ceiling of the preparation bay. In a moment, they would close it, and the freezing would begin, and he would wake up three years later on the other side of the universe.

  A technician appeared at his side, checking readings. "Everything looks good. You'll feel some disorientation when you wake—that's normal. The medical team will be there to help you."

  "Thank you."

  The technician paused. "First time?"

  "Yes."

  "Don't worry." He smiled—a small, tired smile that spoke of long hours and hard decisions. "Everyone feels the same way. Ninety percent of it's fear, ten percent wonder. But by the time you wake up, you'll have forgotten the fear."

  "That sounds nice."

  "It is. Welcome to the Exodus, Mr. Chen. Try not to sleep through the best part."

  He moved away. The lid began to descend.

  Alex looked to his left, through the glass of the adjacent pod. Mei was there, already frozen, her small face peaceful in the blue light of cryogenic suspension. On his right, Mrs. Wang's pod held the old woman, her features calm, her hands folded over her chest.

  They were going together. All three of them, off-world, away from the dying Earth.

  He thought about Earth. About the dying sky and the crumbling buildings and all the ghosts left behind. About everything he was leaving behind, everything he'd never see again.

  And about everything ahead.

  Then he closed his eyes, and the cold came for him, and the world fell away.

  He dreamed of blue skies.

  Not the toxic orange that had become his reality, but real blue—the color of oceans and waterfalls and the atmosphere that had once protected a world full of life. In his dream, he stood in a park that no longer existed, beneath trees with green leaves, breathing air that didn't burn his lungs.

  His parents were there, young and smiling, reaching out to touch his face.

  "We're proud of you," they said.

  "I know," he answered.

  And then he was falling—not down, but forward, into the darkness between stars, carrying everything he'd lost and everything he hoped to find.

  The cold wrapped around him like a blanket. Like an embrace. Like the ending of one story and the beginning of another.

  When he woke, three years later, the first thing he saw was the light of an alien sun streaming through the observation window of the Exodus Seven.

  And the first thing he felt was hope.