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question she could not answer or judge her blouse as too casual for a presentation on the Martian climate.
    “No? Well then thank you for your time and have a good trip to Mars.”
    And then the audience faded away as the Virtual Meeting projector powered down. The four walls of her living room, synthetic plants, a fish tank, and a plush old sofa replaced the auditorium.
    Ellen let out a long exhale and trembled in relief.
    She drifted to the window, raised the heavy brown shade, and looked out on the suburbs. Her tiny house was one of several lined in a row outside Buffalo, New York. A bout of depression hit as she realized her taxi ride to the train station could arrive at any minute, and she would not see this view again for months.
    Her American Shorthair rubbed against her legs, providing a welcome distraction. Ellen pulled the shade again, picked up the cat, and sat on the couch.
    “Remember I said I was going away? Well that is today. But don’t worry, the service will stop by every day to take care of you and the boys,” she nodded toward the fish tank. “It is costing mommy a few bucks but it’s better than sending you off to one of those pet hotels.”
    The cat purred.
    “I don’t like it either, but I knew sooner or later I would get sent off-planet again.”
    When Dr. Ellen Kost chose her major in college, exo-meteorology was a discipline revolving around theory and telescope-based observation. That changed the year she graduated, when mankind settled the first Martian colonies. Suddenly exo-meteorology moved from theory and telescopes to space travel and field study.
    Fortunately, the company honored her request to focus on projects that kept her on Earth, often times in her home. She reviewed reports, conducted training seminars, and worked with equipment suppliers.
    Still, she did occasionally travel to Mars but that kept her away from home for only a week or so, nothing like her assignment this time. According to the man who had contacted her—Reagan Fisk—she was on her way to Uranus for a deep space mission.
    While she had traveled out as far as Jupiter, this would qualify as her longest trip ever, in both distance traveled and time away.
    Ellen’s eyes drifted to a suitcase and two duffels packed for the trip, but it was a small imitation leather handbag on the kitchen counter, zipped and ready to go, that really grabbed her attention.
    How will you hide that, Ellen?
    She looked away and focused on scratching her cat between the ears.
    “I’ll be gone a while, but it will be an adventure. That’s right, this is an adventure I will remember for the rest of my life. I’m not going to cry about it or worry, I’m just going to see new things and meet new people. I will be all right.”
    She stroked the cat and repeated, “I will be all right.”

7. Blast Off
    Commander Hawthorne and the others recruited by Reagan Fisk boarded a cone-shaped capsule, one of several waiting on a conveyor belt inside the Kerry Air and Spaceport in Boston. Ahead, Hawthorne saw a lime green vehicle with white script advertising Starbright Vacations and behind, a dark blue one with Utopian Endeavors, Ltd., in yellow lettering.
    Inside, six seats surrounded the pilot’s station that sat within a gyro. Fisk insisted Hawthorne fly the orbiter, therefore the Commander boarded first and climbed into the suspended chair.
    Next came Leo Wren wearing a Sex Pistols t-shirt. Noise—possibly music—came from two tiny plugs in his ears. Of course, he could listen to music privately through his thinker chip, but Hawthorne figured Wren enjoyed forcing others to hear his racket.
    Matthew Carlson followed, dressed in a gray flight jacket sporting a patch shaped like a volcano with the words “Tvashta Paterae 2103.”
    The third person was Dr. Ellen Kost, a middle-aged woman with a pear-shaped body. She sat tight in the seat, clutching a handbag that she refused to put in the cargo hold. The way her eyes darted around suggested a