The Pathfinder was enormous. Zero had already known that it was the biggest spaceship ever built—even bigger than the Torchbearer—but seeing it in person was incredible. He stopped in the hallway and stared out the window at it: a gigantic cylinder, almost a full kilometer long and more than a hundred meters wide. It was even bigger than the space station.
“It looks like a skyscraper, lying on its side,” said Zero.
“It basically is,” said his father, standing next to him at the window. “It would be the biggest skyscraper on Earth, too, if it was down on Earth.”
Zero stared at it. “You built the whole thing in space, right?”
“We did,” said his father. “That made it a lot easier, for a lot of reasons, but mostly because it meant we got to ignore gravity. It never tipped over, we never dropped anything, and when it was done we didn’t have to launch it into space. All the room at the back, where we would have had to put a giant rocket booster, is just full of supplies instead.”
“Zero gravity is the best,” said Zero, and let go of the railing to float even higher.
“Don’t get too excited,” said his mother, grabbing him by the arm and pulling him back to the floor. “Let’s go find our pods.” She walked toward the boarding bridge, and the family followed.
“Yeah, calm down,” said Yen, and flicked him in the ear as he walked past. Zero frowned and rubbed his ear, but didn’t retaliate.
The boarding bridge was wider than the hallway on the station had been, and almost completely transparent, like a giant glass tube. It stretched out from Abassi Station to a door in the Pathfinder’s side, and it was full of people gawking—at the ship, at the station, at space, at everything. Zero stared wide-eyed at the empty blackness around him—it was practically like floating outside in space!—and paid so little attention to where he was going that he bumped right into Park.
“Watch it, Zero.” Park pushed him away, and Zero didn’t have anything to grab onto, so he had to float all the way to the far wall before pushing off of it and propelling himself back toward his family. Coming back meant he was facing a different direction, which gave him a whole new distraction to look at, and he bumped into his mom this time.
“Sorry,” he said quickly, and pointed out the side of the tube. “Look!”
His mother gripped Zero’s arm, so he wouldn’t float away again, and together they looked at the giant glowing blue marble of Earth.
“It’s next to us,” he said, staring in wonder. “I thought Earth was below us?”
“You’re in zero gravity,” said his mother. “Up and down can be whatever you want them to be.”
“Cool,” said Zero, and turned himself so that the Earth was under his feet. It made it look like everyone else was standing on the side of the tube instead of the bottom. “You guys look weird.”
“Not as weird as you,” said Park.
“Be nice,” said his father. “Do you want to see inside?” They hurried through the boarding bridge toward the ship, pulling themselves along with railings, floor bars, and a series of handholds placed all over the sides of the tube. When they reached the ship they floated inside, part of a crowd of other passengers, and Zero stared in wonder. The tube carried them toward the center of the giant ship, passing a bunch of smaller aisles as they went. Each aisle was short and narrow—a perfect size for Zero, but his father and maybe even Park would have had to crouch to walk through them. The center of the ship, on the other hand, was wide-open, laced with metal struts but otherwise empty.
“This is the main route through the ship,” said Zero’s father. “See that?” He pointed to a group of signs, painted directly onto the metal. The first said, “Ring 90.” The second showed an arrow pointing to the left and said, “Rings 1–89.” The last sign pointed off to the right and said, “Rings 91–300.” Zero’s father floated toward the signs and tapped the one that said “Rings 1–89. “That’s the back of the ship. It’s called the aft,” said Zero’s father. “The front of the ship is called the fore. The Rings are basically like the floors of a building, so you can think of this as a skyscraper with three hundred floors.”
“Our pods are in Ring 181,” said Yen, taking charge and pointing toward the fore. “This way.”
Their mother looked confused. “And we just … float through the center of the ship?”
“Yep,” said their father. “The outer edge of the ship is all stasis pods, and then there’s an inner Ring of cargo, and then this central column is how you get around. We could go through the outer tunnels, technically, but the open center is faster.” He turned himself sideways so that his head was pointing to the fore and jumped. He sailed toward the nearest metal struts, grabbed them, and turned back to look at the rest of the family. “Come on! It’s fun!”
Park grinned and jumped after him. Zero turned himself the same way, ready to jump as well, but Yen pushed him hard on the arm and he flew sideways instead, bumping into a metal wall with a thud. It didn’t hurt, but Zero snarled and launched himself after Yen, ready to tackle him. The trouble was, he aimed himself at where Yen started, not where Yen was going, and he couldn’t change direction in midair. While the rest of the family flew gently toward the fore of the ship, Zero careened diagonally into another wall. Yen laughed again, and their mother scowled and warned them both to behave. Zero aimed himself better this time, trying to guess where Yen was headed and launch himself toward that spot, but this time he overshot, sailing far past him and all the way to the next set of metal struts. With his head pointed toward the fore of the ship, the same direction he was traveling, it felt like he was flying upward, making superhuman leaps from wall to scaffold to wall, and he laughed at the pure joy of it. He forgot all about tackling Yen, and Yen and Park forgot about teasing him, and soon the three of them were racing up the wide column, leaping and soaring like superheroes. Zero shouted a loud “Woohoo!” as he flew, and started trying to bounce himself off the walls: aiming at one side, turning himself in midair, and then landing on his feet and kicking off again. He could go even faster than his brothers that way, and soon they were all doing it, whooping and shouting as they found new ways to play in the zero gravity. Their parents struggled to keep up, but soon they all arrived at the sign marked ‘Ring 181.’
“This is it,” said Yen, and looked around. “What’s Section C?”
“It’s those hallways we keep passing,” said Park. “They’re all labeled with letters. See? This one’s H.”
Zero looked at the tunnels branching off from the center column, found C, and launched himself toward it. He got there just ahead of Yen, and hooked his foot under one of the railings. It was about the size of a normal Earth hallway, with smaller aisles running off on either side. The aisles were marked with colors, and each one was filled—absolutely filled—with rows of stasis pods.
“They look like glass coffins,” said Park.
Zero nodded in agreement. Most of the pods were empty, but some were already filled with sleeping people. Zero thought they looked creepy.
“Which tunnel is ours?” asked Yen.
“It’s probably on those cards Mom has,” said Park.
They waited, staring at the sleeping faces inside the stasis pods, until their parents caught up.
Their father pointed toward the far end of the hallway. “See that bulkhead?” he asked.
“What’s a bulkhead?” asked Zero.
“A wall in a ship is called a bulkhead,” said Yen. “Duh.”
“That’s right, but be nice,” said their father. “That bulkhead is special, though, because it’s the hull of the ship.”
“The outer hull?” asked Park.
Their father nodded, and Zero floated over to touch it. “Wow.” The edge of it was painted with a black-and-yellow line, like it was dangerous, and he pulled his hand back quickly.
“You can touch it,” said their father. “It won’t open.”
“This is a door?” asked Zero.
“This is the door the boarding agent was talking about,” said their father. “When we get to Kaguya, we’ll use doors like this to board landing barges and go down to the surface. So we’re practically going to be the first ones off.”
“Golden,” said Zero.
“We’re in this green tunnel,” said their mother, looking at the pod keycards the desk agent had given her. “Let’s find our pods.”
“Just a minute,” said Zero, “I want to fly around some more.”
“Come on,” said Park. “Stop slowing everybody down.”
“He can jump around for a while if he wants,” said their father. “It’s going to take us a minute to get these pods figured out anyway.” He looked at Zero sternly. “But don’t go far, and don’t touch anything.”
“I won’t,” said Zero eagerly, and scrambled back up the tunnel toward the open central column. He jumped, whooping again, and wondered what kinds of things he wasn’t supposed to touch. He hadn’t seen any computer screens or anything breakable—just halls and doors. He looked up—or fore, he reminded himself—and wondered if maybe there was something cool at the front of the ship. It was steered by a computer, but there had to be a control room or something, right? “Only one way to find out,” he whispered, and jumped.