This morning, she woke to blue skies streaked with clouds still slightly pink from the rapidly retreating dawn. A vast panorama of trees showed red, orange and yellow, with the occasional almost startling green. As usual, she spent the last few minutes before her shift started drinking in the vista.

Yesterday, it had been raining and the fog had been so thick that the forest had vanished. Soon, the leaves would tumble, making a spongy red carpet for the brave walker and then there would be snow. Closing her eyes, she imagined the dark skeletons of the slumbering trees standing out against the stark white of the snow and a dull grey sky, pregnant with more. She shivered in her thin overalls, though the room remained as warm as before. She opened her eyes and looked again at the crisp autumn morning before her. Not yet, she thought.

Turning away from the view screen was almost physically painful, as usual. Still, she snagged her cap and left her bunk, heading for the engine room in the bowels of the starship.