The best he could do was close his eyes and try to imagine he was at her side, that their fingers were entwined.

You have to hang on. You have to fight. I'm coming home to you.

"Bill? Are you okay?" He turned and saw Diana Estes float from the U.S. Lab module into the node. He was surprised she was the one inquiring as to well-being. Even after a month of living together in close quarters, he had not warmed up to the Englishwoman. She was too cool, too clinical. Despite her icy blond good looks, she was not a woman he'd ever feel attracted to, and she had certainly never favored with the least hint of interest. But then, her attention was focused on Michael Griggs. The fact that Griggs had a wife waiting for him down on earth seemed irrelevant to them both. Up here on ISS, Diana and Griggs were like the two halves of a double star, orbiting each other, linked by some powerful gravitational pull.

This was one of the unfortunate realities of being one of six human beings from four different countries trapped in close quarters. There were always shifting alliances and schisms, a sense of us versus them.

The stress of living so long in had affected each of them in different ways. Russian Nicholai Rudenko, who had been living aboard ISS the longest, had lately turned sullen and irritable. Kenichi Hirai, from Japan's NASDA, was so frustrated by his poor command of English, he often lapsed into uneasy silence. Only Luther Ames had remained everyone's friend. When Houston broke the bad news about Debbie, Luther was the one who had known instinctively what to say to Bill, the one who had spoken from his heart, from the human part of him.

Luther was the Alabama-born son of a well-loved black minister, and he had inherited his father's gift for bestowing comfort.

"There's no question about it, Bill," Luther had said. "You go home to your wife. You tell Houston they'd better send the limo to get you, or they'll have to deal with me." How different from the way Diana had reacted. Ever logical, she had calmly pointed out that there was nothing Bill could do to speed his wife's recovery. Debbie was comatose, she wouldn't even know he was there. As cold and brittle as the crystals she grows her lab, was what Bill thought of Diana.