You are listening to a Clarks World magazine podcast. I'm your host and narrator Kate Baker.

Greetings, Clarksville Citizens. I hope this podcast finds you extraordinarily well. It's our fourth story for the month of September, 2025, issue 228.

And these stories, along with every story that we've ever brought you here at Clarksworld, is made possible by your ongoing support.

If you've checked a few bucks our way via patreon.com, forward slash Clarksworld,

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Our story is titled Aperture.

And is by Alexander Yablakov, with only a handful of stories, mostly for Asimov and a few well-received novels, Alexander Yablakov, established himself as one of the most highly regarded new writers of the 90s.

His first novel, Carved the Sky, was released in 1991 and was followed by other successful novels such as a deeper sea, nimbus,

River of Dust, and Deep Drive, as well as the collection of his short fiction, The Breaths of

Suspension. His most recent novel is Brain Thief. So my dear listener, I hope that you can sit

back, relax, and let me tell you a story.

The first time I entered the asteroid habitat's nave, that vast interior space was still cold and dark, the Habs bones remained trapped under ice.

And that ice was why I'd been called away from my own tasks. Someone on the nave architecture team had found out I could

help them determine which way the water would eventually flow when, months from now, the cylinder

of Ekbatan finally warmed through completely, and power could be redirected to the axial long sun,

filling the nave with light. We called that glow up. I needed to find a nave architect

named Ephraim, but had yet to see anyone in that roaring dimness as air currents circulated

and equalized temperatures. Somewhere on the curved surface

on the opposite side of the nave cylinder, three kilometers from where I stood, a small

constellation of glowing pinpoints showed where repair work was going on. A sudden gust of

...