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Chance Nine pauses at an
observation portal where a starship floats before her. The Arc, white ribbed and gigantic, stretches into the starry distance like the mysterious bones of an interstellar whale, Earth visible between gaps in its frame.

In New Denver, Chance Five is playing football in an open-air night league. The timing of the game is purely coincidental, but it will make a credible cover if Chance is asked questions about a heightened stress response.

The goalie for Chance's side stops a kick, and Chance Five takes the opportunity to look up at the clear sky, where the stars are just beginning to show. What appears to be a large, wavering reddish star is actually light from the Derrick, a four-kilometer-square orbital way station and construction colony where the Arc is being built.

In addition to providing a platform for building the Arc, the Derrick is a stopover for most traffic to and from Earth. Space travel within the solar system has become almost routine, with three bleak but improving colonies on Mars and several automated-mining operations on moons and large asteroids.

Chance Nine is up there looking down at the Earth as Chance Five looks up at the Derrick. Chance feels a very mild, almost pleasant, sense of vertigo.

Chance Nine trained in astrophysics. At times, the coursework was excruciatingly difficult, but Chance persevered and finally got to upper-level courses that were really interesting—a series of practicums on deep-space mechanics. There, Chance discovered that Chance Nine—who had been Himiko—had a talent for visualizing particularly complex mechanics, the interplay of stress and structure.

Chance asked Reason for help getting Chance Nine a job with the Arc Project. The Arc Project is a major international effort intended to begin the era of human colonization beyond Earth's solar system. The Arc is designed to travel indefinitely, undertaking a multigenerational, interstellar voyage.

Seven hundred joins will crew the Arc, each sending a single drive. Many famous joins are participating, including both Excellence and Advocate. Chance Nine was the five-hundred-thirtieth drive selected as crew.

After Chance One also started working on the Arc Project, as a predictive event modeler in the security subsection, Chance bought an apartment on the Derrick.

Chance's view of the Earth from the Derrick is always spectacular—a blue, radiant presence defined by a precise curve, the starting place of infinity. Over the last eighteen months, that view has become familiar but never routine, evoking a clear and haunting sense of the Earth's fragility.

Chance doesn't like to talk about that sense of fragility. There is a plan for many more interstellar vessels to be built after the Arc. For some, those vessels make the Earth's fragility less relevant. Chance gets angry when people express that perspective.

The Arc's mission is to find and occupy a habitable, Earth-class planet. Chance Nine almost flinches as Chance considers the term “Earth-class.” She quickly turns away from the viewport, her face reddening and warming with a sudden, surprising shame.

A small man with body proportions that imply greater size is coming out of a teaming room to Chance's right. He sees Chance Nine and calls a greeting. The man is the seventh drive of a join named Gold. He is a biophysicist and member of the Arc's crew. Chance waits as he approaches.

“Are you going to help with the stress check in the hydro bays? You haven't confirmed yet, but Velocity said you're up.”

“Yeah,” Chance says. “Sorry, I thought I confirmed. I have valves.”

“No, it's”—Gold Seven blinks—“oh, yeah, valves it is.” Gold grunts while he considers something, then says, “I don't like late changes to the roster like that.”

Chance Nine nods, avoiding looking directly at Gold, and turns to walk away.

“Uhh, see you there,” Gold says, and Chance hears his frown in the tone of his voice. Chance Nine hurries, stepping quickly into a separate control corridor.

Even with Chance borrowing cycles to closely manage Nine's respiration and heart rate, that conversation was a disaster. Gold is going to remember it. Chance will need to do better at casual interactions.

In New Denver, Greengrocer's Goats
have just scored their third goal against Chance's football team, the Fourteeners, who are still scoreless near the end of the first half. Chance Five has been playing sluggishly as Chance prepares for what's happening on the Derrick. Bright Two, a Fourteeners midfielder who's running upfield, glances over at Chance.

“You want to sit out for a bit? Take a break, let someone else swing the pick for a while?”

Chance is taken aback. “What?”

“You seem distracted.”

Chance Five says, in a what he hopes is a pointed but friendly way, “No, I'm good. That last one was you.” Bright shakes his head and tosses Chance a noncommittal “Whatever” before turning and jogging away.

The control corridor that Chance
Nine is walking through extends in six regular well-lit segments toward a gate that leads into the Arc's superstructure. The Derrick's interior was designed to comfort the human mind and body. The corridor's walls are sheathed in a rich wood grain, the air infused with a loamy, slightly spicy scent of growing things. A subtle breeze stirs occasionally, and a quiet click, trill, or drip sounds at intervals in the distance. The whole effect simulates a passage through the semienclosed patio of a well-designed wooden manor on some supple alpine slope. The warmth of a late-morning sun shines on the back of Chance's neck.

An airlock at the end of the control corridor slides silently open. A mild, slightly moist gust of air riffles out of the Arc. Chance Nine steps across the threshold into the similarly designed interior of the Arc, and the door slides shut behind her.

It's a short walk to the hydro bay. She passes a couple of coworkers who greet her but barely look up from what they're doing. Once in the hydro bay, she opens comms and walks through a routine status check with Increase and Solve, the two joins with shift-oversight responsibility. Then she opens a pressure sensor panel and begins her visual inspection of valve circuitry. She engages her retinal overlay.

The germ of the idea had come to Chance during a Civ News report on the massive investment that would be required to make the planned Arc Project a reality. The report focused on the unprecedented marshaling of resources and level of international cooperation required to build the Arc. First, the Derrick would be enlarged to accommodate both its current missions and construction of the craft.

The Arc would be a grand symbol of humanity's ability to overcome differences and accomplish something that appeared to be almost impossible. Excellence had described Join as an enabling technology for multigenerational space travel. “As the ship explores the galaxy,” he said, “Earth will receive continual first-person accounts of the voyage.”

The Arc's primary systems, including energy, have been coming online during the last month. Today, as the energy translators and the hydro bays link up, their mutual fail-safes will be disengaged for three seconds. Chance One is part of the security team that modeled the event.

The Arc's energy translators rely on an incredibly precise mass calculator, similar to that used in pods. There have been a few issues with the mass calculator recently. Chance Nine has signed off on it, though. Because of the mass calculator, during the three seconds that the fail-safes are not engaged, a single body in an unexpected location could do serious damage.

Chance Nine moves to the next step in her inspection of the hydro-bay valves:
Observe the sealant condition on Valve C1.
Chance Nine straightens.

Chance is closely managing Nine's stress level, her pulse, and level of agitation. She'll appear normal on the hydro bay's biosensors. Someone across the bay swivels toward Chance Nine, and she nods a brief acknowledgment.

She walks toward a sealed bay door. On the other side of that door is Valve G1, which isn't part of today's inspection.

In New Denver, Chance Five
is rushing an opposition striker who has control of the ball downfield. Chance Five's pulse is hammering. His vision blurs as he slides at the ball, knocking it sideways with the tip of a toe and forcing the striker to hop over him.

On the Derrick, in the
security subsection's open office, everyone is suddenly quiet. An alarm light is flashing on Chance One's monitor. A panicked voice shouts, “Shut it down!” Chance One flushes and rocks backward in his chair. Chance is momentarily blinded.