text: [Themes: Science Fiction, research, moral choice, clothing, genetics]
  
  > Look around
  With all the machinery in here, the space remaining for you is little larger than a closet, except that the room extends upward a good fifteen or so feet, widening at the top into a bell of tinted glass.
  
  The comm terminal itself could be an invention out of Jules Verne. The keypad is arranged in the standard way, except that all the keys are slightly too small for the fingers of a normal human, and the pad itself stands up from the floor on a metal stalk.
  
  The comm screen, meanwhile, is round and surrounded by a copper ring, porthole-like. The whole arrangement is aesthetically pleasing and completely inconvenient.
  
  > leave
  Adjusted by your predecessors, and more like an Earth room than any other you've seen here. There are two paintings, a serious tax on someone's luggage limit. There is a plain floor that doesn't assume you can hover in midair. The foyer is back out to the north, and there's a child-sized Communications Room west of here.
  
  A crate, marked with shipping and import seals from Earth, sits in the middle of the room. It is still sealed.
  
  > Examine crate
  It is scuffed from its time in the cargo bay, but otherwise uncompromised.
  
  > Open crate
  You open the shipment crate, revealing a quantity of packing material, a mail packet, and a gift box.
  
  > Packet
  gift box: Taken.
  mail packet: Taken.
  
  Mentally you check off "acquire a gift box from the goods shipped" on your list of remaining tasks. You run over the things you still need to get done:
  acquire vaccine from the Museum (HC's orders)
  prepare gift for Ambassador Aylene
  wear something red(dish) (High Command's instruction)
  find a working float unit
  
  > look at the mail
  (first heading for the communications room)
  
  With all the machinery in here, the space remaining for you is little larger than a closet, except that the room extends upward a good fifteen or so feet, widening at the top into a bell of tinted glass.
  
  The comm terminal itself could be an invention out of Jules Verne. The keypad is arranged in the standard way, except that all the keys are slightly too small for the fingers of a normal human, and the pad itself stands up from the floor on a metal stalk.
  
  The comm screen, meanwhile, is round and surrounded by a copper ring, porthole-like. The whole arrangement is aesthetically pleasing and completely inconvenient.
  
  The following messages are available for you to read or reply to:
  
  11:21 am: Instructions
  10:02 am: Hello From Ivory Coast (R)
  9:34 am: Shuttle Departure Plans
  
  > look at the packet
  It's mail meant for Valenti.
  
  You read it anyway.
  
  Unsurprisingly, there's nothing to hint at close ties back on Earth. But there are a number of demands from people who wanted Valenti to research what happened to some family member who came over in the colony ships. Apparently these people don't understand how much time has passed in Aleheart terms. One or two even threaten to sue the Aleheart Colony at large for damages for "illegal exploitation of genetic material" from their relatives -- a claim viable only on Earth, and only where High Command has something to say about it.
  
  > examine the gift box
  A decorative box, obviously made on Earth, enameled like a Faberge piece. The exterior is covered in a design of leaves and morning glories.
  
  > open it
  You tilt open the lid of the gift box, but it's tantalizingly empty.
  
  > look at the packing material
  Soft and tightly-wadded.
  
  > eat it
  (first taking the quantity of packing material)
  It would leave little fuzzy bits everywhere. You've done enough.
  
  > examine the paintings
  They are not restful paintings, and look as though they were created by Van Gogh's angrier, more demented relation. As near as you can tell, one is of a circus performer about to fall off his unicycle, and the other is an extremely severe rainstorm. But still.
  
  > Go north
  At the top of the shallow stairs there is a spacious landing, with windows giving a view east across the Grand Solarium garden. Apparently past ambassadors have found this a pleasant place in which to read, because there is a small library of Earth books, otherwise impossible to get here.
  
  The entry to your bedroom is to the north, and an office area to the south.
  
  > go to the north
  Everything is on a smaller scale in the private quarters. There's no real bed, only a stone platform, too short to accommodate your full height, in the center of the room. The sole gesture towards comfort is a pillow of Earth style, perhaps left here by Valenti. A rich person's bedroom. People who paid for space would tuck the bed against the wall, and not let it waste the whole room.
  
  A refreshment room is visible to the west, and the hallway is back to the south.
  
  Your suitcase sits on the floor.
  
  > open suitcase
  You open the suitcase and experience a sudden deflation. There used to be a dozen new undersuits in different colors (or shades of grey, anyway); two carefully pressed jackets; hats and gloves for the cold climate; a parka; another pair of shoes.
  
  Now there're only few things, and one of them is a yellow paper, the kind you get when it's made of multiply-recycled fibers. Someone has written on it by hand. The letters have sunk in and blurred, but they're still legible.
  
  > read the yellow paper
  DUE TO MASS LIMITATIONS ON THIS TRIP ITEMS DEEMED TO BE OF LESSER VALUE OR PERSONAL SIGNIFICANCE WERE RECYCLED TO EARTHBOUND CHARITY. HAVE A NICE TRIP! DOCKWORKER 175.
  
  Which is funny, because with labor shortages you wouldn't have guessed there were a whole 175 people working at the space dock.
  
  > look in suitcase
  Out of all you couldn't bear to give away when you left Earth -- the Bach cello suites recorded by your great-grandfather, seven years of your parents' love letters while your father died in quarantine, your school medal for life-saving action -- here's what they deemed to be of personal significance: a yellow paper note, some fuzzy bunny slippers, and a silver kiddush cup.
  
  > look at the slippers
  They have rabbit ears and are a collector's item from before the plague years. They are also pink. Your friend Jane gave them to you, motivated by inscrutable Jane-like humor; they still bear the stamp of Salvage and Reclamation on the soles. Presumably your felonious dockworker recognized their worth and decided it was better not to steal them, but under the circumstances you'd rather have some of the clothing you actually intended to wear.
  
  It occurs to you that you left your old black sweater aboard the shuttle. Irritating.
  
  > examine the cup
  Your mother's silver kiddush cup. Most likely the only reason you got to keep it is the Star of David on the base, alerting the dockworker to its significance.
  
  Much of your time, the last days before departure, was spent getting rid of things. Jane helped, though no longer officially employed by Salvage and Reclamation. ("If you don't want to take the slippers with you, I won't be offended," she said, standing over a cardboard box, hands on hips. "It was just a present for fun." But you insisted on keeping them.)
  
  Getting rid of Katie: you hadn't been dating long, and neither of you pretended to consider maintaining a relationship at long distance. "It's been nice getting to know you, David," she said, before she hung up.
  
  Getting rid of obligations: you will not be home when your mother's yahrzeit comes around, and there is no one else. You have no brothers and no sisters. You had to look up the right words online; went to her grave with a flimsy print-off, and sang the Kaddish in a thin rain, though no one was listening to your prayers but a groundskeeper in a flap-eared hat. He watched with his arms folded from the next plot. When you were two-thirds through, he snorted and went away.
  
  So you still have the cup, at least. But you rarely use it, and what would it mean to do so here? Your music would have been more use.