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I never saw the rocks that tore through the Explorer. They arrived without warning and were gone in an instant. Things like that happen when you move at eighteen thousand miles an hour. The meteor strike was over and done in the span of a heartbeat. Everything afterward happened in slow motion. I tumbled through space, stars wheeling, shards of glass and metal tumbling through the cockpit. Error signals flashed on the shattered display, and the photo of our child stared back at me from where I’d taped it. I thought about what we’d come here to do. “Arthur?” I