The road to the dome was farther than I had expected. At first, even when I managed to walk, it felt awkward to attach any real speed to my steps. Strictly speaking, I wasn’t sustaining upright—or even bipedal—movement. Having grown accustomed to something closer to a plank position, I would collapse with a thud, and when I came to, I’d find myself crawling—dragging my chin along the ground, lifting my hips, pushing forward. I moved by repeating shapes like “?” and “?” with my body.

  Every time I stood up and shook myself off, something was missing. One day it was food—its side torn open, trailing behind me. On the rare clear days, with visibility rated level three, I could see the stench and the scattered scraps of food waste plainly. When the weather worsened, they would all be blown away, buried, frozen, erased. My food was running out. I couldn’t afford to take a longer route back, and even if I did, there would be little left. Time did not wait for my circumstances. The sun was looking down. And the sun was shortening.

  For several days after I set out, I barely took my eyes off the dome. But from the moment I began to move, the light had gradually grown faint, and now it emitted nothing in my direction at all. Instead, light sometimes came from the opposite side—from where there was no dome. What if the light that had poured down all this time had never come from that dome? Or had it all been my delusion? Even in the 2070s, the Antarctic interior remained blindingly white. Light scattering, being swallowed, was common. Had I moved too hastily?

  Beside the dome, I had seen a river. I chose. There were no other options. Especially not Wilson. But what if what I had left behind there was, in truth, everything I could ever possess?

  When the weather turned bad, or when the sun set, I struck a match, counted what food remained, and boiled it. The crumbs of coffee I had once ignored became the reward of the day out here. Once inside the sleeping bag, surrounded by the tent, anxiety made my thoughts churn and my body toss. I rubbed my swollen, frostbitten feet, sore from walking all day through snow. I pressed spit against my cracked lips, even though it stung. When I came to my senses, the sky had already cleared.

  Antarctica was a desert. The deeper inland I went, the truer that became. Now almost nothing remained uncovered by ice. Some places required detours, or careful knocking before stepping forward. When there was no other way, I drove in ice screws one after another, consuming them as I advanced. The sound of the wind tightened like skin drawn back on a bowstring. My pace slowed. The night arrived faster. Polar night was approaching.

  I found a suitable place, lit a fire, and looked up at the sky. There were so many stars it was absurd. And I was alone. From horizon to zenith, across the celestial vault, I could think only that there were simply too many stars. Among them were some that stabbed at my eyes with artificial intensity. Satellites? Whoever orbited Earth aboard them could not move as I did. Were they sending me a signal? If someone was sending signals specifically to Antarctica, did that mean they had found no living souls at healthier latitudes? If that were true, I thought I couldn’t attach the names of the villagers to just one star.

  As I sat there passing time, one star suddenly fell toward the village rock. For a moment, an image flashed—of a child climbing that cliff.

  I was young then. She was younger. Not that young, honestly. I was sixteen; she was two years younger—fourteen, probably. Though younger than me, I had watched her long enough to know that her body, even at thirteen the year before, had already become something entirely different. The roundness of her cheeks had settled into the soft curves of her figure. She was nearly as tall as a grown woman. Her sudden growth left her clothes and shoes too small. Her gait was unbalanced.

  When she walked, she carried a faint floral scent. I remember it only as something artificially fresh. The boys our age mocked her awkward, inefficient sway, calling it useless, but their eyes weren’t on her steps. They were stealing glances at the swell of her hips, too large now for the old pants she wore, and at the hint of her chest glimpsed between too-small garments. I pretended not to notice their gaze.

  She had followed me like a shadow since childhood. Months before the incident, she had already grown afraid of climbing the cliff that had swallowed many others our age. Still, she took my hand and climbed the steps with me. From the cliff, at a height suited to a child, you could see the stars rise. She was captivated. She begged me again and again to climb with her. Each time, she came closer to the rock’s edge. One day, she called me up alone.

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  Her bright, ringing voice was too loud to reach only me. By then I was scheduled to work at Wilson and lived closest to the cliff, so I rushed up before her parents could notice. I climbed two, three steps at a time. Even before reaching halfway, my groin throbbed, my thighs trembled uncontrollably. She looked down from the top, laughing at how I bent double, hands on my knees, gasping for air. She teased me—was that all I could do?—and bounced in place. Each jump seemed to release a pulse of her scent, as though pressing the head of a perfume bottle.

  When I finally reached the top and leaned against Wilson, breathless, she came over and kissed my cheek with a proud expression. Her fresh scent lingered there. The ledge of the cliff could be seen by anyone in the village. But above the crown of the cliff, it was only the two of us.

  My mind went blank. Instead of explaining herself, she asked me to help her climb the rock. Only then did I remember the adults coming up behind me from below. There was no time. I kept my distance but gripped her clothes tightly, assuring her safety. She seemed already skilled at climbing alone. She leaned forward, lunged, crossed her legs in sequence, pulling herself smoothly toward the edge. When wind rose to hinder her ascent, she waited calmly for it to pass. Then she moved again.

  That wasn’t something I had taught her.

  I stayed close behind her, holding the hem of her clothes, though I began to feel it wasn’t necessary. Unintentionally, the fullness between her legs entered my sight again and again. My heart, pressed tight against the rock, pounded as if lifting my entire body.

  “Dangerous! Come down!” The voices from below were getting closer. I swallowed dryly, remaining silent, quietly encouraging her. Growing more excited, she rocked her hips toward the rock’s crown. Finally, she straddled the neck of the rock she had so carefully tamed. She cautiously leaned her head beyond it.

  Perhaps in her view was the sheer terror her old friends had once seen beyond that rock—and at the same time, the magnificent Antarctic spectacle where polar day and polar night crossed, and stars seemed to fall before your eyes. The winds that had harassed her now wrapped her gently, almost like a kiss. From behind, her back seemed to draw in all the clarity of that day.

  Her parents and several friends arrived. They scolded me more harshly than her. They seized her—not brushing dust away, but gripping her fiercely. As she was dragged past me, I heard her say, “Thank you.” It was too loud to be a sweet whisper—the bold voice of an excited thirteen-year-old girl. The others teased me. To prove to the boys that I wasn’t “close to a girl,” I kept my distance from her afterward.

  Not long after, my friends urged me to persuade her to climb the cliff again—this time in tight-fitting clothes. I didn’t like it. But since they both ostracized her and stared at her blossoming body, I thought maybe this was the only way to bring her fully back into our circle. If I defended her outright, I would be mocked too. Still, if she climbed that rock, maybe I could persuade them. I knew her skill better than anyone.

  Using Wilson’s weather data, I chose a date and told her to come. She was happy.

  It was a night like this—crowded with stars. May, when polar day slips into polar night. Under the aurora embroidered across the sky, we waited. The older villagers slept. One by one, my friends gathered atop the cliff.

  She arrived in clothes that looked uncomfortable. Probably something her mother had put away because it was too small. As if aware of the dirty intention, she wore a skirt with undergarments—thin fabric that fluttered. Normally the boys would have jeered immediately. But since she hadn’t run away and had actually come, the air was quiet, tense.

  It was darker than before. She hesitated several times. The others grew anxious about waking the adults. The most anxious was me. If she didn’t climb, I’d never hear the end of it. I told her that from that rock she could fully enjoy the star-filled sky, no matter how dark it seemed. There were five of us her age in the village. She was the only girl. Whether we wanted to or not, we always watched her.

  At last, she lay against the barely visible rock edge and crept toward the cliff’s end. In the unbearable silence, my friends forgot even to turn on the light they had prepared. They only stared at her back. As she advanced steadily, our impatience grew.

  One friend nudged me, signaling to turn on the light and achieve our intended goal.

  Leaning against inverted moonlight, I had been glancing between her thighs and hips. Startled by the signal, I hurriedly turned the light on. At that exact moment, perhaps her skin had caught in a crevice. She turned toward us as if asking for help. Blinded by the sudden brightness, she covered her eyes with the hand that had supported her. She lost her balance.

  In the final moment, her overturned skirt looked like wings. For an instant, I thought maybe she would lift off on her own.

  But her scream fell before the body we had been stealing glances at. Without a word, we scattered to our homes.

  When her parents finally came for me, I was at Wilson. From Wilson, I had to monitor the horizon—for ships that might exile us all under international regulations. I told the next shift it was fine, that I would cover more hours. If I were her parent, I wouldn’t have wanted to climb that cliff.

  Eventually, the ship carrying them passed beyond the rock and disappeared past the horizon. In that instant, a single star fell after them. It lingered somewhere along the horizon, shining as though it were perishing.