Bessie Starhopper wanted to build a pasture-station where cows could graze among the stars. Right now, she just wanted to keep her first fuel tanks from being smashed. She stood on the launch field, a green cow with red splotches and a cracked space helmet, and watched the sky spit fire. Meteors fell in bright streaks. One struck the dirt beside her welded girders and blew a crater the size of a pond. She had spent three months on those girders. They were the skeleton of her first launch rig. Another meteor cracked one strut clean in half. Bessie flinched and stamped a hoof. Open sky meant no shelter. Without cover, the shower would flatten everything by dawn. She scanned the flat ground for anything solid. Half-buried on the far edge sat an old building. Its panels were rusted and beaten. A broken radar tower leaned beside it. It looked dead. It also had a roof, thick walls, and a wide door. Bessie galloped toward it as another meteor screamed down behind her. She threw her shoulder against the door until it scraped open. Inside, dust hung thick. Cobwebs draped a metal toolbox in the corner. She flipped the rusty latch. Wrenches, a torch, and coils of cable lay inside, dry and usable. Better tools than her own. A meteor slammed the roof. The whole station shuddered. Panels rattled but held. This place could shield her rig. But the girders sat outside, exposed, and she could not drag a building to them. So she would drag the girders to the building. Bessie hauled the toolbox out, looped cable around each strut, and pulled with her full weight. Meteors kept falling. One clipped her helmet and left a bright scratch across the glass. She dug her hooves in and did not stop. One strut, then the next, she dragged them through the open door. By the time the sky went quiet, every piece of her rig sat inside the walls. Bessie leaned against the cold panels, chest heaving. Her work was safe. The station was hers now. Then she saw the crystals through a cracked window. Beyond the station rose a stone outcrop. A ring of black crystals floated above it, spinning slow. They gave off a low hum she felt in her teeth. Her rig had survived the meteors. But she had planted herself under something she did not understand, and it was watching the sky the way she did.