The EVA porch is narrower than Leaf Hall and more honest. Suits have labels. Labels have scuff marks where people have pointed at them in arguments.

Lina Cho sits on the bench, helmet in her lap, visor dotted with yesterday’s dust like cinnamon. She taps a gauge. A number that should be small—outside pressure—is small enough to make your teeth think.

“Mars air is almost all carbon dioxide,” she says. “That is the trick. People hear ‘CO2’ and think of a plant buffet. Outside is thinner than a sip. Less than one percent of Earth sea-level pressure. You do not open a window to feed tomatoes. You open a window to throw the greenhouse at the sky.”

Colored handles line the lock: blue, yellow, red, a green one with a warning collar. They look like a game. They are not a game.

Lina’s radio crackles with Imani’s voice, asking for a report. Lina raises an eyebrow at you. “You can learn why we don’t vent, you can cycle the lock because the storm looks like a dare, or you can sprint to Leaf Hall and leave the doors to luck.”

A strip of tape on the inner hatch says DO NOT BE CLEVER in Oskar’s handwriting. He wrote it after a trainee, not you, tried to be a legend.

“Storm means visibility goes to rumor,” Lina says. “Rumor is how people miss tethers. You are not in trouble. You are in a job.”