Baikonur dawn notes

Some mornings the notebook opens to a place the book no longer needs. Today it was Baikonur again, an early tangent from the space-station research, pages dated months ago and left with a coffee ring in the margin. Getting there was not a roadside pull-over: months of invitations, a Russian-side clearance chain, a Kazakh escort badge, a bus that only runs when the zone says it runs, and a guide who counted cameras before we rolled past the first fence. From the approved overlook the complex is still mostly distance: wind, steppe, work lights before sun. Almost none of it earned a final paragraph. The story had other rooms to furnish. Still, the notes stayed.