He politely allowed Maronella to slide out into the aisle ahead of him and then followed her to the hatch. The sixteen men and women filed through the hatch, into an austere metal-walled chamber. An older man stood by the inner hatch, tall and heavyset; his thick head of hair was iron gray and he had a bushy gray moustache. His face looked rugged, weather-beaten, the corners of his eyes creased by long years of squinting in the open sun. He wore a comfortable suede pullover and rumpled tan jeans. Two younger men stood slightly behind him, clad in coveralls; obviously underlings of some sort.

“Welcome to habitat Goddard,” he said, with a warm smile. “I’m Professor James Wilmot. Most of you have already met me, and for those of you who haven’t, I look forward to meeting you and discussing our future. But for now, let’s take a look at the world we’ll be inhabiting for at least the next five years.”

With that, one of the young men behind him tapped the keyboard on the wall beside the hatch, and the massive steel door swung slowly inward. Eberly felt a puff of warm air touch his face, like the light touch of his mother’s faintly remembered caress.

The group of sixteen department leaders started through the hatch. This is it, Eberly thought, feeling a new dread rising inside his guts. There’s no turning back now. This is the new world they want me to live in. This huge cylinder, this machine. I’m being exiled. All the way out to Saturn, that’s where they’re sending me. As far away as they can. I’ll never see Earth again.

He was almost the last one in line; he heard the others oohing and aahing by the time he got to the open hatch and stepped through. Then he saw why.

Stretching out in all directions around him was a green landscape, shining in warm sunlight.