He sat there, waiting. The timetable said it should come soon, but he had been waiting a long time, knowing that it could just as well come early as late. He’d hate to miss the craft because of being late; there would only pass one in his lifetime and missing it was unthinkable. He sat and read a book. He was still rather young, but feeling old after waiting so long. He read the novel by Austen, trying to ignore the slight cold of the air in the open station high above the city. He was alone on the small, almost insignificant station. Only once had he seen someone else there, a guest who came up, looked around and frowned, a young man with long thin hair and a black leather jacket, false leather of course.

He had waited for ten years now, for the craft. It travelled from star system to star system, but the stars didn’t seem to know of it. They shone over his head and his book, almost the only light on the station, had it not been for one streetlamp, old and inefficient, but with the right mood for the station. The stars shone in such a way that had they been described as music, or could they sing the music of the spheres, the music had been cold, alienated tunes, unison only in loneliness.

The man, dressed in simple but clean clothes, looking inconspicuous, read his book with and without passion. He was drowned in it, having read it for ten years, ever since he arrived, young, hopeful and full of dreams, before he saw the timetable and learned how long he had to wait for the craft to come. He had never finished the book, but read it cautiously and with speed, never missing anything important of the story. He had read it for ten years without stopping, except perhaps when a sandwich had had a strange taste and he had to remove the stray fly that had caught a too great an interest in his lunch, breakfast or dinner.

He had waited patiently for that craft, waited on the station, fearing that if he left it for but a moment it would come early, and leave without him. Then he would never get another chance. He was reading, and perhaps as he read, waiting, still longing without noticing, he might miss the craft, not being able to stop reading about the things he was missing out on, reading and waiting, or perhaps just afraid that the wait would end, and that his hopes would never be fulfilled if he took that one craft he had waited for so long. So he kept waiting, reading, for another craft that might never come, or at least only long after his own lifetime had ended.