It was a real place. Not like the artificial environments of the habitat ring. Some of the larger habitats came close to possessing this quality—the sense that you were in something close to a real planetary environment. But it was always dispelled as soon as you looked up and saw the opposite side of the habitat hanging a few kilometers above your head. Here, you could look up and see endless sky, the stars coming out, the gleaming necklace of the habitat ring rising perpendicularly from the eastern horizon. The thing that made it real was the air, the sheer quantity of it, the endless variety of its movements and its smells. She wished she had a glider so that she could go dancing in it.