The Spheres of Heaven

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Dawn was breaking on Earth, and it could seldom have been more beautiful. The eastern sky wore a gorgeous stippling of salmon-pink and light gray clouds, the perfume of opening blossoms scented an easterly breeze, and soft bird-song filled the air.

Dougal MacDougal stared around him and hated every bit of it.

“Come on, come on,” he said to the short, scruffy man standing at his side. “I thought you said you knew the way? Get me out of this stink.”

His nose, accustomed to the filtered air of the Ceres habitats, wrinkled in disgust. Every moment that they stood on the surface of Earth, spores and bacteria and unknown filth made their way into his delicate and unprotected lungs. His boots, which five minutes before as they stepped clear of the Link exit point had gleamed bone-white, already bore a thin layer of grime picked up from the ground — the ground, he reminded himself, composed entirely of dirt to an unknown depth.

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