Orbital

The typhoon makes landfall, obscuring Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Philippines from the station’s view. Nobody is awake to monitor it anymore since it is past two in the morning from their relative time in orbit. On the ground, the typhoon wreaks havoc on trees, buildings, and inland waterways. Floods sweep through the towns and cities.

Chie dreams of her mother still alive. The station passes over East Asia, which is untouched by the storm.

The novel presents Chie’s list of things she is looking forward to when she returns home. She began this habit during her childhood to combat uneasiness and control her anger. Her list-making habit revealed to her that there were no female pilots in Japan. This seeded her lifelong ambition.

Anton’s ambitions began when he played with spaceship toys and observed the illumination of dust motes in dark rooms, which resembled stars.

Nell dreams that Shaun and a child version of herself are diving to search for the lost Challenger astronauts underwater. They find a bonfire on the seabed and take it back to the surface, where Nell’s mother is waiting on a floating rock with the monkey from Cape Town.