She was, to put it simply, ready to kick up an interplanetary storm. As she opened the lavatory hatch, she knew the urinary outlet would be set to female, not because he had conceded this to be the ordinary social gesture round these parts, but rather because he had spent the last three moonphases locked in his chamber. Yes, it was difficult to agree on norms around this place, but for someone who spent most of his waking hours writing about a world whose culture exasperated itself with its own courtesies, he had adjusted to knowing they would never live there again quickly enough. The fact that the same planet was about to be the only civilisation to be eradicated by its own stupidity, was, as she often argued, entirely besides the point.

That and this wasn't really turning out to be the paid lunar vacation she had longed for.

 'With one hand held up high, I can blot you out, out of sight,' she murmured to herself, gazing into a telescope. Every song she wanted to listen to was every song not etched into her hard drive pre departure. She sighed a long sigh, took her in-ear speakers out and buried her head into her arms. One day she wouldn't remember the lyrics to 'Pi' anymore. Unless she decided working them out would be a suitable way to while away the time.

'Here, V.' he hollered. 'Will you make a pie chart out of this data for me?'

She groaned and stifled a familiar willingness to fling her control tablet across the main vault. No 'crash' fifteen minutes ago and there wouldn't be one this time, either. It would just bounce and slide back to her desk with a furiously self-satisfying click. Gah.

'Vee-vee...?'

'Adam.'

'Just checking.'

These were pies whose chunky slices went unappreciated. And the pie she had hoped a slice out of was too busy believing he could save the planet to notice a female of the species sharing their lunar residence. What was the point? Their counterparts on Bearforether always reacted like no progress on this mission had been made, despite the alarming findings they transmitted home daily. BASA had not been told the news they wanted to hear. Or rather, they were a bunch of apathetic lifeforms preprogrammed with dampeners in their aural receptors. Yes, one can understand that the work of satellite traffic controllers was one of the most stressful and protection from self detonation had become mandatory. Yet it seemed like recent news had trangressed the stress/calamity threshold and yeah, well... this was getting ridiculous.

'1. This table is invalid if reproduced without the conditions and footnotes...' she began.

Adam's placidity would not keep her calm for much longer. With no place to go and apparently none to return to they both knew their best hope was to fling themselves into the forbidden, namely, the improbable and unknown. Or, at the very least, towards that odd constellation looking very much like an oversized pomegranate. But what good was a spaceship, she sighed, without a repairs guarantee?

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