He woke up alone, unshaven and unkempt. He was groggy and still looked tired. The room was dim but for starlight bleeding in from the one window opposite the bed. He touched a control by the bed and flipped on the light. The entirety of the space faded up a dull white light quickly and his eyes struggled to adjust to the new brightness. He wandered to the window and looked out into space.

There was nothing visibly nearby - it all looked like night sky - all moving very slowly. The room was clean and brightly lit. Not perfectly clean - just some minor scuffs and oil residue showed on the light painted walls and surfaces. But clean enough to not feel like home. His luggage was scattered on the floor, flat and open.

His room was spacious but sparse. Weight was a premium here, but space was not. The room extended probably ten square meters. The walls were a bit rounded and pliable to the touch.  It was like living in a giant bounce house. The floor was rigid, textured and plastic-like, but the rest of the room had a tent like quality. The effect of the light emitting paint was like a glow of the sun through a tent. There was a bed, nightstand, desk, two chairs, and couch, all inflated, of course. They probably weighed less than a tenth of a kilo put together. But they adhered themselves to the floor and held their rigidity in the right places and so maintained the illusion of furniture. Gravity felt natural, like on Earth. He was vaguely aware of the gradual long arch of spinning that kept his room at 1G.

Watching out the window he could see the stars moving slowly, but he knew it was the ship rotating. With his eyes closed the room felt very similar to being on Earth but he thought he could probably tell the difference all things being equal. It was definitely different. Along with all the spooky noises hardly noticeable but ever present - the humming, clicks and knocks of the ship - it was all different. The muffled hum of the electromagnetic shielding was the most annoying. A constant hum like an aging fluorescent lamp. The sound was high enough to grate but muffled enough to not really be upsetting. He felt it was vaguely stressful to hear - like an aging fan. Overall the room was comfortable, but not peaceful.

He walked to the nightstand table next to the bed and removed a black half dome of kinetic dust from the table. The dome bubbled in his hand and disintegrated up his arm and formed a light blue band on his right hand with the time displayed in white on its face. 0200. An hour from his meeting. 

He walked back to the window and looked out. He didn’t like space travel, but he was needed as an expert for an operation that couldn’t handle the customary latency that his expertise, if remote, would require. Once this was started there would be minutes - not hours - for critical decisions. On remembering his mission a familiar sense of dread captured his mind. It had been over a year since he’d been contacted for the mission, and he’d been dreading it ever since.

He touched the window and the dim three dimensional starlight disappeared, replaced by a mirror. He looked at himself. He looked like shit. He debated doing something about it. Then laziness won out. He headed to the mess for a coffee.