Ezra grunted as he did a final lunge. Even with life support set to a cool temperature, sweat spread across his face and back. He sighed, and droplets of it gently floated away. His muscles complained. Long months spent weightless took their toll, despite hours of exercise each cycle. He shrugged out of both resistance bands.
Eyes closed, he rested. That was the one perk of this life. The same microgravity that ate away at his muscles and bones also made for magnificent full-body relaxation. So did the solitude. For a moment he allowed body and mind to drift, lulled by the whine of fans drawing in heat and moisture from his exertions.
These moments of total calm were the only things he missed when he was back on the Ring. Out here―traveling long, slow paths among the rocks―he missed many more. He opened his eyes and turned his face to the front monitor. Above the ship's primary controls, it showed an image of two kids. A girl shared his own dark, curly hair, while a boy favored the white-gold of their mother's. He closed his eyes again, suppressing a pang of need. May we all stand again on Old Earth one day, he thought.
Out loud, he addressed the ship's intelligent agent. "F8," he said, pronouncing the agent's designation like the word 'fate'. "What's our mission time remaining?"
"Two weeks, four cycles, seventeen hours, and twenty-three minutes," a calm, disembodied voice replied. It paused for half a beat, then continued, unprompted. "How are you feeling this cycle, Ezra?"
Ezra sighed and kicked off from a wall, floating toward the front area. "I'm fine, F8. Just hurting from the exercise. I'll be better after time on the Ring."
"What about emotionally, Ezra?"
He pulled himself into his command chair, working buckles with exaggerated care and toweling off what sweat remained on him. Then, finally, he could stall no longer. "I miss my family, F8. I miss Seri and Az."
"I'm sorry, Ezra. I know it's hard. But what you're doing out here with me is important to them. Even more important than the time you spend with them on Ring One."
"Even with their mother gone?"
"Yes, Ezra. Especially with Leah gone. Among many fine qualities, she was an excellent miner."
Ezra grimaced and said nothing. Instead, he fiddled with the controls, resetting the temperature and replacing the image of his children with a diagram of his route home.
"I'm sorry, Ezra," F8 said. "Perhaps it would help if you validate what you're doing in your own words."
"We go through this all the time. More and more. You're manipulating my feelings."
"Please, Ezra. I'm not manipulating you. I just want to influence you to be at your best. Why not try?"
He breathed out a slow breath. F8 might be right. Sometimes words helped. He wasn't sure they would this cycle, but maybe it was worth trying.
"I'm building the future," he said.
"And what does that mean, exactly?" F8 prompted.
"I'm gathering the ice we need for water, oxygen, and reaction mass. Gathering rare elements for electronics. Gathering metals to build the Ring into something more."
"And what are we building Ring One into?"
"A way out of here. A vessel that can get us to a new home, so our many-times children's children will walk on another Earth."
"Why?"
Ezra's eyes filled with wetness. In microgravity, nothing shaped it into tears, so he was blind in an instant. "Because," he said in a rough voice, "we've got nowhere else to go."
