“There is a repairing I want you to do!”

Where, I ask. “In the forbidden part below!”

I try not to smile. I knew there was a new thing going to happen and this is it. My father’s words come back again. Ninety-eight other chances.

Is this one of them?

I descend in the dark. There is no light in the dropshaft. Ship says I need no light. But I know the truth. Ship does not want me to be able to find my way back here again. This is the lowest I’ve ever been in Ship.

So I drop steadily, smoothly, swiftly, Now I come to a slowing place and slower and slower, and finally my feet touch the solid deck and I am here.

Light comes on. Very dimly. I move in the direction of the glow, and Ship is with me, all around me, of course. Ship is always with me, even when I sleep. Especially when I sleep.

The glow gets brighter as I round a curve in the corridor, and I see it is caused by a round panel that blocks the passage, touching the bulkheads on all sides, flattened at the bottom to fit the deckplates. It looks like glass, that glowing panel. I walk up to it and stop. There is no place else to go.

“Step through the screen!” Ship says. I take a step toward the glowing panel but it doesn’t slide away into the bulkhead as so many other panels that don’t glow slide. I stop.

“Step through!” Ship tells me again. I put my hands out in front of me, palms forward, because I am afraid if I keep walking I will bang my nose against the glowing panel. But as my fingers touch the panel they seem to get soft, and I can see a light yellow glow through them, as if they are transparent. And my hands go through the panel and I can see them faintly, glowing yellow, on the other side. Then my naked forearms, then I’m right up against the panel, and my face goes through and everything is much lighter, more yellow, and I step onto the other side, in a forbidden place Ship has never allowed me to see.