Swiftly the habitat grew to blot out everything else. For a moment Eberly feared they would crash into it, even though his rational mind told him that the ship’s pilots had their flight under precise control. He could see the solar mirrors hugging the cylinder’s curving sides. And bulbs and knobs dotting the habitat’s skin, like bumps on a cucumber. Some of them were observation blisters, he knew. Others were docking ports, thruster pods, airlocks.

“This is your captain speaking,” said a woman’s voice from the speakers set above each display screen. “We have gone into a rendezvous orbit around the habitat. In three minutes we will be docking. You’ll feel a bump or two: nothing to be alarmed about.”

The thump jarred all the passengers. Eberly gripped his seat arms tightly and waited for more. But nothing else happened. Except -

His innards had settled down! He no longer felt sick. Gravity had returned and he felt normal again. No, better than normal. He turned to the woman sitting beside him and studied her face briefly. It was a round, almost chubby face with large dark almond eyes and curly black hair. Her skin was smooth, young, but swarthy. Eberly judged she was of Mediterranean descent, Greek or Spanish or perhaps Italian. He smiled broadly at her.

“Here we’ve been sitting next to each other for more than six hours and I haven’t even told you my name. I’m Malcolm Eberly.”

She smiled back. “Yes, I can see.” Tapping the name badge pinned to her blouse, she said, “I’m Andrea Maronella. I’m with the agrotech team.”

A farmer, Eberly thought. A stupid, grubbing farmer. But he smiled still wider and replied, “I’m in charge of the human resources department.”

“How nice.”

Before he could say more, the flight attendant asked them all to get up and head for the hatch. Eberly unstrapped and got to his feet, happy to feel solid weight again, eager to get his first glimpse of the habitat. The inner terror he had fought against dwindled almost to nothing. I won! he exulted to himself. I faced the terror and I beat it.