Chapter 1
Long Dusk
Every evening lasted eight Earth days at Rhea Point.
The sun did not set so much as surrender, thinning behind Titan's orange atmosphere until the methane sea became a black sheet beneath a copper sky. The lighthouse woke during that long surrender. Its outer shutters opened. Frost cracked from the lens housing. A coded beam began to sweep across Kraken Mare.
No ship had answered it in forty years.
Keeper Ansel Vale climbed the tower anyway.
There were one hundred and eighty-six steps from the living quarters to the lantern room. He counted them because the medical system insisted counting was good for balance, and because the tower had once been full of voices. Numbers filled space without pretending to be company.
At step fifty-three, the stair passed the old crew kitchen. The door was sealed. At step ninety, the tower narrowed around the original pressure spine. At step one hundred and forty-two, Ansel could smell the warm metal of the lamp machinery.
At one hundred and eighty-six, he opened the hatch and entered the light.
The beacon was not truly a lamp. Visible light was almost useless in Titan's haze. The tower sent a braided signal of radar, infrared pulses and one theatrical white beam that curved through blowing hydrocarbon mist. The white beam had been added for the first settlers, who had crossed the sea in ships named after birds and places on Earth.
