So she planned to enjoy every minute of her time in space while she still could.

She was looking over Allen’s shoulder now. He had Velcroed his computer onto a corner of one of the interchangeable panels that had been installed for controlling yesterday’s satellite launches. Beside it was a simple toggle switch, which he flipped on. He watched a self-check routine on the computer’s display, then when it gave him the okay he pushed a function key labeled “Transmit/Time.” The computer gave a loud beep, a beep echoed over the ship-to-ground radio link, and the top line of the display began counting forward in seconds. Allen nodded and pressed another key, which reset the counter to zero, then he tapped a few more instructions into the keyboard. Judy saw a series of numbers flash on the display. They were in groups of three, but she could see no particular meaning to them.

“What are those numbers?” she asked.

“Coordinates,” Allen replied.

“Coordinates for what?”

Allen smiled and pushed the function key labeled “Jump.”

“Us,” he said.

The radio beeped again. Carl, who was still looking out the aft windows into the payload bay, shouted something like “Whaaa!” and leaped for the attitude controls.

Judy’s flinch launched her headfirst into the instrument panel in front of her. She swore and pushed herself over beside Carl. “What happened?”

He pointed through the overhead windows, but it took Judy a second to realize what he was pointing at, or rather what wasn’t where he was pointing. In normal flight the shuttle flew upside down over the Earth, making for an excellent view of the planet overhead, but now there were only stars where it should have been. She pushed off to the front windows and looked out and to either side, but the Earth wasn’t there either.

Allen said, “Don’t worry, it’s—”

“Not now,” Judy cut him off.