"Yeah, but only a long time ago," Kaelin replied, bouncing slightly. "I don't really remember it, so this is kind of like my first time! How about you? Have you flown before?"

"Kind of," Amy said. "Like you, I was so little I don't really remember it now. And my little sister Audrey has never flown at all." Suddenly struck with a feeling of responsibility, she craned her neck around until she caught sight of Uncle Ian helping Audrey with her harness, a few seats back on the other side. He saw Amy looking, and gave her a thumb's up. Feeling a little silly, she waved back, then quickly turned back to the other girl. "I'm Amy, by the way. What's your name?"

"I'm Kaelin," she replied. "I bet your sister will like it. I think."

She giggled.

"What's been the best part of space camp for you?"

It seemed very likely Audrey would like flying. She was so excited to be on vacation -- and not just on vacation, but on vacation away from home, without Mom and Dad -- she would probably like it if they went on a tour of an old, smelly fish-canning factory. 

Her favorite part of camp? "Um --" If she was at school, she would have said the telescopes, or the arcade, or that anti-gravity area Audrey had been going on about but Amy hadn't been brave enough to visit. But she wasn't at school, and she supposed it didn't really matter if Kaelin thought she was cool or not. "So far just reading on the beach," she admitted. "I really like reading."

"Cool! I haven't been able to make it down to the beach yet," Kaelin said, glancing sideways at Maeve. She had her head back and her eyes closed. Kaelin pivoted in her seat, turning her back to her sister.

"What are you reading?"

Before Amy could answer, the Sojourner lurched and began moving.

"Oooh, here we go!"

After what seemed like forever and an age but was probably closer to five minutes if one was being generous, the bull decided to leave the monotony of the corridor and find a more interesting spot to wait. He poked his head into one door after another, discarding storage closets, crews quarters, and several lavatories in short order.

"Why did the builders make these rooms so small? It's like they never fathomed someone like me being here. So much for advancement!" he proclaimed to the air before sticking his head into the next door. "Oh, this looks interesting."

The bull wandered into a larger room filled with rows of buttons, levers, knobs, and lights on walls and benches. He eyed them for a moment and then snorted.

"They're so tiny! Obviously made for people with fingers. There's no way I could..." He paused and eyed the closest panel and then glanced at the door, which had slid closed behind him. "Moira won't be wandering over here any time soon. I could..."

With that, he started towards the benches and began trying to depress buttons and shift levers.

Kaelin chatted with her neighbor about this and that, then was one of the first out of her seat when the vessel leveled out at its cruising altitude. She stood and stretched. Just as Maeve had convinced herself that things would be fine and began unbuckling, the ship made a strange groaning, bucked, throwing them back into their seats, and again began to change altitude...quickly.

"I'm pretty sure we aren't supposed to break out of the gravitational field, right, Maeve?" Kaelin gasped, their new speed knocking the wind out of her. "Right? Right? Maeve!"

The next few minutes were harrowing, but when the ship again slowed and seemed to stop moving, Kaelin began to giggle. 

"Look, Maeve, look at my hair!" Kaelin said, pointing at her curls, which were now--literally--floating around her face. 

Taking off reminded Anthony of airplanes and roller coasters, and floating was novel and seemed to require more coordination than Anthony currently had. He ended up with his face plastered against a viewport, staring out at the stars.

They weren't the soft glittery nebulae he'd seen in pictures, but instead the lighting was crisp, like a Mozart minuet, instead of the more romantic Brahms. Space was vast, his brain struggling to reconcile the fact that he'd been able to see for miles on the road to camp, and now that landscape and more was somewhere below... 

Anthony had to take a deep breath, grabbing one of the supports next to the viewport which proved solid and unexpectedly made him think about home, before he tore his eyes away from the sight and glanced back into the reassuring scale of the Sojourner. 

It's okay, he told himself. This is what you wanted to see! Isn't it great?

It was great, grand, marvelous, and a host of other superlative adjectives, but it was making his brain hurt. He hoped they would head back, and then this could be a fantastic memory in hind-sight. 

But what about the music of the spheres?

Anthony risked another look out the window. All he could hear was the hum of the ship's engines, and they provided a soft, rhythmic background to his thoughts. Music, on the other hand, was harder to come by. Dies Irae, maybe, but that sounded too dramatic--or not dramatic enough. Maybe something quiet? Something contemplative?

"There's not an orchestra in the world that can do this justice," Anthony decided. But once he had his feet on the ground again, he thought he'd like to try.