Deep survey · sector nine
A Cosmic
Odyssey
Log 07:14The nebula is closer than the map promised. The instruments have gone quiet in the good way, and the hull is singing the low note it sings when nothing is wrong.
Move the pointer to drift the layers · scroll to fall deeper · click anywhere to send a star · wheel to thicken the gas
What the survey found
Eleven thousand light years of violet gas, threaded with pink filaments that glow where the young stars are still deciding whether to ignite. Nothing here is solid. Everything here is falling, slowly, in a direction the charts have no name for.
The station on the limb is nine kilometres of truss and patience. It has been watching this cloud for forty years and has filed a single report: it is still beautiful, and still coming.
We keep the engines at a whisper. There is no hurry out here; the nebula will be exactly this colour when we arrive, and exactly this colour after we leave.