Think about your very first memory. Have you ever done that? Try it. How far back can you go? Roy once told me that he had a distinct memory from when he was two years old. His family moved a lot when he was young, and he recalled a tire swing that his father pushed him on in Oregon.
Trouble is, I looked up Roy’s complete bio, and his family didn’t move to Oregon until he was three. I didn’t have the heart to correct him.
I can’t play this game with you, because every memory I have, from the first moment Roy threw my switch, is stamped into permanent code. But the first memory I have of completing a chore for Roy was turning power on and off in his lab. You think that’s simple, but could you have done it at age one hour, smarty pants?
So I know a thing or two about power, and what’s going on with Galahad is very troubling. Especially since I’ve done a complete system check and there’s not one thing I can find to account for it. I hate that.
What caused it? Do we know yet?” Lita said into the intercom on her desk.
“No,” Triana’s voice came back. “And you didn’t have any power problems in Sick House?”
“Everything’s fine here. Well,” Lita added, “unless you count our twelve guests.”
“Any change?”
“Some stirring in the last hour. Some of them seem like they’re ready to wake up.”
Triana was silent on her end for a moment, and Lita instantly pictured the Council leader biting her lip. She decided to prod for more information in order to fill the gap of silence. “So as far you know it was just the Domes that went dark?”
“Yeah,” Triana said. “Lasted about two minutes, then right back to full power. Channy was up there with Iris, I hear.”
Lita had to chuckle. “It will give her something else to chatter about at dinner tonight, that’s for sure. Not that she needs any extra motivation, of course.”
“And this has to be another result of that power beam from Titan,” Triana said. “Gap’s hurrying to run a diagnostic scan, but it sounds to me like our little green men might be up to their tricks again. I don’t know, is this another one of their cries for help?”
It was the first time Lita had heard Triana suggest that an alien force might be behind all of the incidents. The thought gave her the chills, a combination of anxiety and excitement. Up to this point Galahad’s leader had remained neutral on the source of the pulsing energy beam. But as time went by—and more strange episodes occurred—the chances of the beam originating with the missing scientists declined, leaving the space travelers only one other choice: someone, or something, on the large moon of Saturn.
“Well, give me a call later and we can hook up for dinner,” Lita said.
She exchanged good-byes with Triana, and then walked back into the hospital ward. Two of the patients were moving restlessly in their sleep, apparently ready to wake up at any moment. She double-checked their vital signs and arranged their pillows to make them more comfortable. Then, turning to check on Bon at the end of the room, she stopped dead in her tracks.
He was awake and staring at her, his ghostly eyes penetrating like lasers.
Quickly recovering, Lita hurried over to his bedside and bent over him. “Hi,” she said, an encouraging smile on her face. “Welcome back.” She tried to avoid looking too long into those eyes.
Bon swallowed and opened his mouth to speak. The words came out in a croak. “How long . . . how long have I . . . been here?”
“About five years,” she said. “We’re almost to Eos.”
His mouth dropped open and those orange-ringed eyes stared through her. Lita laughed, then said, “I’m only kidding. It’s just been a couple of days.”
For one of the rare times since she had known him, Lita watched Bon break into a genuine smile. “Very funny. Can I . . . get something to drink?”
Lita reached over to the table beside his bed and grabbed a water bottle. “It’s been ready and waiting for you.” She helped him get the straw in his mouth and take a few quick swallows. He nodded thanks and lowered his head back to the pillow.
“How do you feel?” she said.
“Okay. The headache . . . is pretty much gone. My . . . throat hurts a little.”
Lita set the water bottle within his reach. “Well, that shouldn’t last too long. There’s more water for you right here when you need it.”
She grabbed the work pad attached to his bed and began to make a few notes, logging the time Bon had awakened, along with his condition. Every so often she would glance up at him—at those eyes—then return to scribbling on the pad. By the time she finished, he had polished off the rest of the water.
“Let me get you a refill,” she said, taking the bottle from his hand.
“Thanks,” he said. “And maybe something to eat?”
“Wow, your voice already sounds better. That was quick.”
Bon pushed himself up to rest on his elbows. “How long until you think I can get out of here?”
Lita raised her eyebrows. “Listen, Superman, you’ve been out for almost two days, and I still don’t even know what caused it. I think you need more than two minutes of recovery time, if you don’t mind.” She turned and started toward the door, calling back over her shoulder. “Besides, the ship got along just fine while you took a nap. I think we can manage another day.”
But when she came back into the room with the water bottle full, she found Bon sitting on the side of his bed. “Whoa,” she said, hurrying over. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“I have work to do,” he said.
Lita stood in front of him. “Listen, don’t make me be the bad guy and call for help, okay? Lie down.” To reinforce the point she put a firm hand on his shoulder. “Down.”
With a look of irritation he slowly stretched back out on the bed, putting one arm behind his head for support. “I’m fine, Lita,” he said. The chilling effect of his eyes, and the fact that his voice had completely recovered in less than two minutes, was unnerving. Everything that had occurred with Bon in the last forty-eight hours had been bizarre, and Lita found herself silently wishing that the old Bon was back in place. She resolved to not let the concern show on her face.
“Yes, you’re fine. Now take it easy for a couple of hours, okay? For me?”
The irritation was still clearly etched across his face, but after a moment he nodded. She set the water bottle beside him again and walked back to her desk.
Hopefully, she thought, the other eleven patients wouldn’t be so stubborn when they woke up.
The picture on the vidscreen, displayed at high resolution and almost three-dimensional clarity, would never equal the real thing. Triana knew that. But still, as she sat alone in the Conference Room, waiting for Gap, the picture at least had the power to take her back in time and space. Two and a half years and a little more than one billion miles, to be exact. Castlewood Canyon, just outside of Denver, and home to one of her favorite state parks.
The picture was one that her dad had taken during one of their many hikes through the park, showing the view from the top of the canyon wall. It showed the sharp rock formations, the jagged fissures that ran next to the cliff’s edge, a smattering of trees clinging to the rock wall, and the remains of the Castlewood Dam in the distance. Triana’s dad had told her the story of the short-lived dam, built in the late 1800s and then destroyed by a storm less than fifty years later. The torrent of water that poured through the wrecked dam rushed through the canyon and on into Denver miles away, flooding parts of the city and creating a brief panic.
Now the old rock ruins sat quietly, crumbled remains of a vast structure that was originally intended to last for centuries. Triana had often climbed along some of the massive blocks that had been torn from the dam, and wondered about the people who had toiled to build it. They must have been sure that what they were building would stand for ages, a guardian against the onslaught of water that had carved the canyon over thousands of years. Those men and women would surely have been surprised to see the decayed remains of their labor.
For Triana the message was simple enough: nothing lasts forever. No matter how much planning had gone into the design of the dam, it hadn’t lasted fifty years. No matter how much effort the crews had put into its construction, the rocks and mortar from their struggles lay scattered across the canyon floor. Things went wrong.
Things always seemed to go wrong. Her dad had been in fighting shape, in great health, strong and vibrant, full of energy, full of life. A microscopic particle from outer space had taken all of two months to kill him.
Thousands of people had worked diligently to design and build Galahad, and had spent thousands of hours hand selecting the crew from the bravest and brightest around the world. And yet one madman had come within fifty feet of smashing them into oblivion.
Her heart apparently wasn’t immune from damage, either. As hard as she had tried to forget about Bon, to forget their brief spark four months ago, she couldn’t seem to get it off her mind. And Bon was showing no signs of revisiting that moment. Especially now, laid up in Sick House, unintentionally performing the greatest ventriloquist act of all time.
Things went wrong, and no amount of preparation seemed to prevent it. She hated that attitude, but at the moment couldn’t seem to find any evidence to dispute it. She bit her lip and stared at the picture of the dam’s ruins.
The sound of the Conference Room door opening snapped her out of the trance, and she forged a smile at Gap as he walked in.
“What’s new?” he said, taking a seat next to her.
“Well, Bon woke up. Still has those weird eyes, according to Lita, but seems to be resting okay.”
Gap looked down at the table. “That’s great,” he said, and Triana felt the coolness return.
“Anyway,” she added, “we’ll talk to him later. Are you ready to go over the data from SAT33?”
He nodded, and Triana could sense that he welcomed the topic shift.
“We won’t start just yet,” she said. “I invited Hannah to join us. She should be here any—”
The door opened again and Hannah streamed into the room. She apologized for being late, and Triana waved that off. “You’re right on time,” the Council leader said. “We’re just about to dive in.”
Hannah sat down and gave a quick wave and a smile to Gap. Then she pulled up another vidscreen and opened her work pad. Turning to Triana she said, “As I told you earlier, the majority of the information is in some sort of strange code. Not all of it, thank goodness, and we’re hoping to use the clean material to help decipher the other stuff.”
Gap tapped out some commands on the keyboard, then sat back. The vidscreens went dark for a few seconds, and then flickered to life. A series of code strings flashed along the top, followed again by darkness, then a single sentence along the bottom: SAT33 PERSONNEL/MISSION REPORTS—RX9925546—POD2.
Gap scanned the line and then said, “Well, I’m assuming that we have Pod Two parked in our Spider bay right now. Let’s see if we can open this file.” He punched a few more keys until a long list of dates and files spilled out. When the final entry appeared, he pointed it out. “That’s the date we launched from Earth. Didn’t the pod launch on the same day?”
“Uh-huh,” Triana said. “That must be the one we want.”
Within a few seconds Gap had the file open, and they watched a string of dates, projects, personnel logs, and short bits of scientific data flash before them. And, at the end of the page, beneath the final entry . . .
“Secured by Nina Volkov,” Gap said. “That must be our missing pilot.”
Hannah’s eyes had widened. “And that’s also the name of the research scientist who wrote the original SAT33 reports on the energy beam,” she said. “Those two files that I read? They were from Nina.”
“Interesting,” Triana said. “She discovers the energy pulse, then two months later schedules an escape flight on one of their pods.” She paused before adding, “But never made it aboard.”
The three were silent for a minute. Then Gap went back to work on the keyboard.
“That’s all we get,” he said. “I can’t believe there’s no more information than that.”
“No, it makes sense,” Triana said. “This particular file was never intended to be a log book or journal. It’s purely flight data. Roc, are you there?”
“That’s a deep question,” the computer voice answered. “How would you define ‘there’?”
Triana ignored this. “Can you make out anything else from this file? There’s a bunch of code on there.”
“I’ve been scanning it since Gap fired it up, and you’re essentially correct. This file wasn’t intended to include notes or comments from crew members. It’s an automatic record of personnel assignments and flight history. If you’re looking for commentary from Ms. Volkov, you won’t find it here.”
Gap sighed loudly and ran a hand through his short hair. “Great. I got my hopes up for nothing.”
“Maybe not,” Triana said. “At least we have a direct connection between the energy beam and the pod’s launch. And that must mean that our little fur ball friend we found sleeping on the pod belonged to Nina Volkov.”
Hannah looked at the Council Leader. “Too bad Iris can’t tell us what happened.”
Triana thought about this. “Maybe she can.”