The earth was blue, but there was no god in space.  -Senior
Lieutenant Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin, the first human in space
Chapter 1  The choice is simple, yet mind-numbingly hard to
accomplish. I turn over my right hand and look at the analogue
wrist oxygen meter. The hand is almost at the edge, long past
the red area. What is hard about the choice laid out before me
isn't how to make it possible, but to choose it. The emergency
batteries in my EVA suit ran out about half a minute ago, the
only thing that works is the oxygen supply system, for oxygen
that's about to run out. HUD in the helmet flickers, then fades
to black. I can't use the compressed gas to move. You float and
float and realize that sooner or later you're going to be
swallowed by utter darkness of the eternal void. I can't contact
Fee on the ship, neither the fishbone. I'm still connected to
Tanabe in the fishbone by the cable though, but that doesn't
matter. What matters is the choice. I reach my belt and pull off
the standard issue emergen