“Whoa.”

Garrett’s eyes were fixed on the small, round window at the other side of the rec hall. I followed his gaze.

“Whoa,” I echoed. I squinted my eyes. “Am I seeing that right?”

I heard a snort to my right. “What, is this your first landing? Come on, it’s your turn. Just fold already.” Yasinski gestured at the card game on the table between him, Garrett, and me. Garrett looked absentmindedly at the game, then back at the window. Without a word, he got up and moved toward the window. He had left his cards face up on the table. A star and four rings. Yasinski looked at him incredulously.

“What the hell, man!” He shoved his chair away and followed Garrett, who had only made it a couple paces. He grabbed his shoulder roughly. The chatter at nearby tables quieted, and eyes had fixed on them tensely. Several off-duty cadets looked ready to jump in if something were to start. It wouldn’t be the first time with them. I rolled my eyes.

“Yasinski, it’s fine, let’s just start another round - “ I started.

“You’re just saying that because you had shit cards,” Yasinski shot back at me. My eyes flicked to my hand. He had a point.

“No, Garrett here had to ruin the game over a fucking planet. Every planet’s weird looking, dude. Get over -“

Garrett turned to Yasinski and brushed his hand off easily.

“There’s no color,” he said quietly.

“What?”

He grabbed Yasinski’s by the face the way a mother scolds a toddler. I sucked in a breath - Yasinski was a head shorter and a fair bit skinnier than Garrett, and he didn’t like being reminded of it - but before Yasinski could protest, Garret had swiveled his crewmate’s head so he was directly facing the window

“Just look.”

Yasinski swatted Garret’s hand away, but he did look. And then, miraculously, he was silent a moment. All the fight seemed to rush out of him as quickly as it had flared up as he stared through that tiny hole in the wall, warped by translucent plexifiber strong enough to withstand 100Gs. Light gasps and exclamations spread throughout the rec hall as people followed Yasinski’s gaze. Some looked back to Yasinski, questioningly. I did too. He may be a hothead, but Yasinski was no idiot. Rumor had it that he scored higher on the math portion of the admission exam than Hallow had. Certainly higher than I had. I cringed inwardly as the image of Hallow’s disapproving face swam up in my mind unbidden, fluorescent lights turning his white hair blue as he shook his head. I shoved the memory back down and focused back on Yasinski.

Finally, he scowled, rubbed his jaw thoughtfully.

“Maybe it’s just really bright,” Anders offered, seated two tables over. The broad-shouldered maintenance chief was sipping a drink across from Park, the resident doctor. If you handed Anders a gadget from another planet, he could fix it by tomorrow morning. But the science? People said he was a waiver recruit whose physical test and specialized skills made up for dismal exam scores. “It’s got to be - I mean, maybe it’s just… overexposed, like a photo, so everything just looks kind of black and white like that,” he said slowly. “Yeah,” he said, more assuredly now. “I mean, this sun is damn close, right? And if the atmosphere is too thin to reflect light particles back at us…”

There was silence for a moment, and then -

“Then it would be dark.” Callende, a young cadet a few tables over, had spoken up. Someone snorted. A subtle red crept up Anders’ neck and cheeks as he slumped back in his chair. “Just a theory,” he muttered.

Yasinski began speaking to himself again. It was it all took to regain the room’s attention.

“Any light reflected is reflected on the electromagnetic spectrum, and that spectrum emits color. A world without color would simply be a world with equal amounts of every color,” he said softly, and then looked up, as if just now processing what he had said. The room stared back at him.

“So, every single thing on that planet is the same exact mix of every color?” Callende asked.

Yoseph twitched his head. “More like, every single thing is reflecting back every single color on the spectrum.”

The room was collectively silent for a moment.

“Seems impossible,” Garret said.

“And yet…” I responded. I wasn’t sure what I had meant to say after that. I looked back out the window again.

Beyond it lay a truly greyscale world.