The wanderer's hand found the armrest in the dark. Cold composite, worn smooth by other travelers' grips. The shuttle had gone quiet an hour ago — engines throttled down for approach, cabin lights dimmed to match the void outside. Through the crystalline viewport, nothing yet. Just black, and the faint reflection of their own face staring back.

The seat beside them was empty. Across the aisle, a man slept with his head against the bulkhead, mouth slightly open. Two rows ahead, a woman sat bent over a tablet, stylus moving in precise strokes. The blue-white glow caught the frames of her glasses, the geometric lines of a tattoo climbing her forearm. She hadn't looked up in hours.

The wanderer shifted. The pack wedged between their feet pressed against their ankles — familiar weight, faithful companion through too many transfers to count. Their shoulders still held the memory of its straps. They let it rest where it was.

Something changed in the viewport.

Not light exactly. More like the absence of it gaining depth. The black outside had texture now — a curve of shadow against a deeper shadow, the suggestion of mass where there had been nothing. The wanderer leaned forward.

The planet emerged in pieces. A ridge-line catching starlight. The glint of something metallic — structures, perhaps, or arrays. Then the rift.

It split the darkness below like a wound that had learned to glow. Blue-green light pulsed from somewhere impossibly deep, painting the viewport in slow waves. The wanderer's breath caught. They had seen images, read descriptions. Neither had prepared them for this.

The woman across the aisle had stopped working. Her stylus rested against the tablet's edge as she watched the planet grow in her own window. The wanderer noticed the stillness in her shoulders — the particular quality of attention that meant something had reached her.

She turned.

Their eyes met across the dim cabin. Neither looked away first. She had a face that didn't explain itself — sharp features, dark eyes behind those modern frames, an expression that offered nothing but presence. The wanderer held the gaze.

They turned back to the viewport together.

The shuttle banked. The rift slid away beneath them, replaced by the mountain spaceport rising to meet the descent. Lights embedded in stone — not harsh, but placed to guide. The worn paths between buildings visible even from altitude, pale lines where countless feet had traveled. Beyond the main cluster, a glass tunnel caught the starlight, running along the ridge toward something farther out.

The landing was gentle. The wanderer felt it in their knees — solid ground pressing back after hours of nothing beneath them. The shuttle's seals released with a soft hiss, and the first breath of outside air reached them before the doors opened. Thin. Cold. Carrying something mineral, something green.

They stood slowly. The pack came up with them, settling onto shoulders that remembered its shape. Around them, the other passengers gathered their things with the unhurried movements of people who had made this trip before. The woman was already near the exit, tablet stowed in a bag slung across her body. She didn't look back.

The wanderer followed the small crowd down the ramp. Stone underfoot now — dark volcanic rock, heat-scarred at the edges where shuttles landed, worn smooth in the walkways between. The spaceport buildings rose around them in low, practical shapes. Windows glowed with warm light. Somewhere nearby, water moved — a fountain, maybe, or a natural spring channeled through the complex.

The night was clearer than any the wanderer could remember. Stars crowded the sky so thickly they seemed to press down, almost heavy. The peaks rose in silhouette against them — sharp edges, snow-bright at the summits. The air went into the lungs shallow and cold, not quite enough on the first few breaths. The body would adjust. The body always adjusted.

The other passengers dispersed toward the main buildings. The wanderer stood at the edge of the landing area, pack straps digging into shoulders that had gone soft during the crossing. The path ahead was visible without needing to be shown — embedded lights marking the way toward the glass tunnel along the ridge. Beyond it, the observatory waited. They could see the bulk of it now, catching starlight on its curved surfaces.

The wanderer started walking.

The stone path wound between low walls, climbing gradually toward the ridge. Plants grew in sheltered corners — dark-leafed things that seemed to drink the starlight. The rift's glow was visible from here, a pale wash of blue-green rising from the far side of the mountain. Not bright enough to compete with the stars. Just present. Watching, or being watched.

The wanderer's pace was steady. Each step cost something — the altitude, the fatigue, the simple weight of having traveled so far. But the legs remembered walking. The lungs found their rhythm in the thin air. The path made itself legible: turn here, climb there, follow the embedded lights toward the glass that waited at the ridge's edge.

The tunnel entrance rose ahead. Glass walls, glass roof, the stars visible through every surface. Inside, the warm glow of the observatory beyond. The wanderer slowed without meaning to.

Behind them, footsteps.

Not close. Not hurrying. Just another person walking the same path, following the same lights toward the same destination. The wanderer didn't turn to look. They knew the rhythm of those steps somehow — unhurried, precise. The woman from the shuttle, making her own way through the mountain night.

They stood at the tunnel's entrance. The glass walls caught their reflection and the stars behind it, layered together. Inside, corridors branched toward sleeping quarters, common rooms, the observation decks that faced the rift. Everything they had traveled so far to reach.

The wanderer stepped forward. The footsteps behind continued at their own pace.

The glass closed around them. The stars stayed visible overhead. The rift's light pulsed once, far below and far away.