Chapter One: The Bankrupt Manager's Lunar Hotel

industrial filters. When the ship left the atmosphere, weightlessness pushed his cheap meal toward his throat. Through the porthole, Earth shrank into a blue glass marble, and he remembered the night his father died. That night, too, he had been handling a guest complaint. His father called three times. Zhou declined all three. The only message that came afterward was from a nurse: He's gone. Ever since, Zhou had made a habit of solving everybody's problems. He had never played the three voice messages his father left. After sixty-one hours, the cargo craft touched down. Tranquility Zero had none of the silver domes or blazing arrival halls shown in its promotional renderings. It resembled a black eye half-buried in ash.