Percy sat staring at the wall… as he does, day-in, day-out. His father John followed Percy’s sightline, to an almost imperceptible blister on the curved stone regolith wall of the living pod where it met the skylight overhead.

Must have been a printing error in the 3D Additive Manufacturing extrusion process. He added it to the list of things needing attention.

It had not been easy to persuade the Space Agency Executives that a child with disabilities could continue in the Family Colonisation Programme. Mary blamed herself for that momentary lapse of attention, -for not fastening the chin strap of her son’s space helmet. One minute he was in the crèche pod clambering up the slide ladder, the next performing an Olympic-perfect front-roll over the restraining side bar; a rag-doll plummet,- helmet spiralling off on a visible “gun-shot” trajectory,- then a muffled thud as he was forked by the shard-ed lunar surface and a spreading of strawberry jam blood complete with pips… except they weren’t pips but shreds of brain matter. Mary ofttimes replayed the accident’s sequence of events. “Water” he had demanded of the obliging playgroup assistant who promptly topped up the empty reservoir of his space-playsuit. That was his last word these 12 years.