Peris stood on the brink of the cliff and reached out with her mind while she held her lightstick over the chasm. Stray orange pebbles skittered into the murky schism below while she pitched her body in defiance of gravity. Night had already fallen, but she pictured the twin suns, fierce and blazing in the bright green of midday. Then she imagined the sky ...

They could always feel the difference at the heliopause where they stopped riding the system’s solar winds and Nor could stretch herself out and approach lightspeed. It was a limitless expanse of possibility. Neighboring stars elongated into streaks of plasma and Doppler shifted blue as they drew closer and red as they passed. But the ...

Peris couldn’t remember feeling more relieved than she did when Nor disengaged from the rusty hatch and they put the whole dirty-minded, overheated space station behind them. Let’s get away from here! She transmitted, but she barely bothered to stay engaged after they cleared the arms of the flimsy metal snowflake.   Nor glided blithely ...

Peris and Alfie sat facing each other on Nor’s ribs, their feet dangling. They continued to orbit the yellow star while Nor lapped at its energy, half-asleep. On a normal day, they’d be underway as soon as they woke up, but on this occasion, they let her doze.  “It feels wrong to exercise control over ...