The planet had been colonised for close to a hundred and fifty years. A tiny blue marble sparkling in the void, it swung leisurely around an unremarkable star. It was called Matilda's World.

It was not an unkind place. The people who had settled there were neither exiles nor entrepreneurs nor zealots, like so many of the little communities dotted across the galaxy; instead, they were farmers and scientists and people exhausted from life in the packed city worlds they had quietly left. It was remote enough that the wars and refugees and tourists did not bother with it, but close enough to the main shipping lane that bandits were rare. The tiny population who lived on and around the archipelago of islands that freckled its surface considered it to be a quiet but onerous kind of paradise.

Around it, arrayed like a necklace, spanned three disparate moons. Two were lumps of airless rocks, one large and one small; the third, however, was an entirely artificial construct, a space station left by the original settlers and since extended countless times over the generations. It was simply called the Hospital, because that was what it was.

Clara had only been to the Hospital once before, when she was much younger, six or seven or thereabouts. Her little brother had been found unconscious, having knocked himself out whilst playing some ridiculous game on a rope swing. Her parents had bundled them both into the back of the ambulance hopper, and they had shot up together through the clouds. She had watched, open-mouthed, as the surface of the water had dropped away from under the hopper, and the planet slowly but determinedly shrank until she could see the vast – incomprehensibly vast – roundness of it.

The Hospital itself had been sterile and silent, more populated by machines than people; and after the initial novelty had worn off she had spent the time watching cartoons in a deserted waiting room. Eventually they had all gone home, Doug woozy but fine; and the planet had reached up to embrace them again, and they had landed by their little home. For some time after, they had both schemed about how they could injure themselves sufficiently to ride in a hopper and see that strange, empty place again, but they only succeeded in accumulating grazes and bruises, and eventually stopped.

* * *

Her parents were both doctors. They lived and worked in an island group known as the Claymans, visiting clinics scattered across the islands, or calling into people in their homes.

One rare night they were both at home, having been to surgeries on islands close enough that they could return for dinner; Doug was already reading in bed, and while Clara was brushing her teeth, she heard them chatting in the kitchen about something.

'Yes, he's arriving next week. They've changed plans; he'll be in the non-T wing.' Her father was speaking. He was a pale, ginger haired man, with the faintest Edinburgh burr; this came as a surprise to many people, given he had only been to Earth once in his life, and then for a month.

'For how long? It's such an inconvenient time,' replied her mother, testily.

'I don't know. I'll probably have to be there a reasonable amount; there isn't anyone else here who knows about them, after all.'

'Knows about what, Dad?'

Clara stood in the door. Her parents were standing either side of the dishwasher, both holding dirty plates, her mother looking harassed. She turned to her daughter, and frowned.

'Oh, hello Clara. Aren't you supposed to be in bed?'

'Just on my way, Mum. Came down for some water.'

She walked to the tap, poured herself a glass.

'We were talking about a job I'm going to have to do for a month or so, Clara,' said her father, mildly, stacking the dirty dishes. 'It's up in the Hospital. I expect I'll come back a once a week. And I think Mum was worrying that, with your exams coming up, the disruption will be unwelcome.'

Clara nodded, sipping her water.

'Has it got net access?'

'The Hospital? Yes, it has, mostly, so I'll be able to call you. You'll probably see more of me than normal, I'm afraid to say.'

She smiled and placed the empty glass in the dishwasher.

'Actually, I was thinking that it would be a great place to revise. Could I come with you?'

Clara's mother stopped mid-wipe, looking incredulous, and then thoughtful.

'That's actually not a bad idea: there's no distractions there. What do you think, Ian?'

'If you can stand the terrible food. It would be nice for me, too; it does get pretty lonely up there. I'll ask. They might say no, but it's not an unreasonable request. It's not short of space, after all.'

She smiled. 'Thanks, Dad. Does that make it any easier, Mum?'

Her mother smiled back, tiredly, pushing her dark curls back from her face. 'Yes, it might. Now, go on. Get to bed! It's late. Good night darling.'

'Night Mum. Night Dad.'