On his way down the corridor to the Spider bay, Gap stopped by an observation window. He leaned against the wall and peered out, his arms crossed. The inky blackness of space, punctuated with countless pinpoints of starlight, was almost hypnotic. He was pretty sure that this view would never grow old.
His mind drifted to thoughts of ancient civilizations on Earth and their tendency to create pictures in the night sky by assembling groups of stars into constellations. Orion, Ursa Minor, Virgo, Libra, Cassiopeia, the familiar characters who had kept sailors and shepherds company, inspired heroic tales, and had become the inspiration for both religious and superstitious beliefs.
His mother had taught him to recognize many of them. On one of his last nights at home before the launch, Gap had wept as he pointed out to her the constellation that housed his future home. He choked as he described the similarity of Eos to the sun, and the twin planets that each held the best chance for water and a breathable atmosphere. His mother had gripped his hand firmly, refusing to cry in front of him, trying to remain strong for him. But later, as he climbed into bed, he could hear her softly sobbing behind her bedroom door.
Now, not for the first time, he wondered about the star patterns they would see when they arrived at Eos. Would some of them look the same as they had on Earth? Would there be a mixture of old and new? And would the star travelers of Galahad become star artists themselves, and create their own zodiac images?
A more frightening question forced its way into his thoughts: would they even make it to Eos? Only four months into the trip and they were already dealing with a second crisis, this one more perplexing than the first because of the eerie, unknown factor. At least with the mystery of the stowaway, as life-threatening as it was, they knew they were dealing with a person. Exactly what were they dealing with from Titan? How could they combat it when they still didn’t even know what it was? And could they solve the mystery before it was too late? They had five hours until the energy beam began its relentless assault yet again.
Gap turned his head and looked at his surroundings. This part of the ship, just down the hall from the Spider bay, was where they had originally confronted the madman determined to murder them. And it was where Gap’s heart had taken a direct hit.
It was one of the reasons he had stopped at the window just now. His assignment was in the Spider bay, but he was obviously stalling. Besides, Hannah had burst into the picture now, a complication Gap had never expected. But then, he thought, you never do, right? At least that’s what all the songs said. Was this moment of hesitation finally his chance to float all of his feelings to the surface, to figure out exactly how he felt?
That was the problem. He wasn’t exactly sure what he felt.
“All right, enough of this,” he finally said to himself, and pushed away from the window.
He swept into the Spider bay, which hosted Galahad’s eight remaining Spiders—one of which was unfinished and unable to support life in space—as well as the gleaming gray metal pod from Titan Research Station SAT33. Gap’s job was to give the pod another once-over to see if they had missed something, anything that could shed some light on how to deal with this deadly energy beam. In particular, he hunted for data discs. None had turned up in the original search, but their desperation called for another try. Hannah had suggested that a data disc on the pod, with direct recordings from Nina or other station members, would have been spared the scrambled code.
A couple of long tables sat near the pod, covered with many of the items already pulled out during the initial search. Gap walked past these, his footsteps echoing in the large hangar, pausing long enough to pick through the scattered collection, until the pod’s open hatch beckoned. He pulled himself up into the small craft, mindful to use his right arm primarily, still a little hesitant to put too much weight on his newly mended left collarbone. The pod’s lights were on, as were a couple of additional work lights that had been assembled by the original search team. These bathed the interior with a soft glow and reduced the number of shadowy corners and crevices that might hold secrets.
For a moment Gap just stood there, swiveling his head to look around the cramped compartment, taking in the scene, imagining what it would be like to be locked inside, asleep for months or years as the pod sliced through space.
But the cryo tube intended for an adult had been empty, which meant that the person who could answer their questions and solve the mystery of SAT33 had missed the trip. Had it been an accident? Or had they missed the launch intentionally? Was it possible that Galahad was the last place they wanted to be?
Why?
“Yeah, why?” Gap said to no one. He walked past the coffin-like tube, running his hand along the clear glass top. The storage bins along the wall had been searched, more than once actually, and yet he felt obliged to check every crack and dark corner again. He stood on tiptoes and felt along the top, unsure of why anyone would stash a data disc in such a remote location in the first place but determined to cover every square inch, if necessary.
He moved over to the pilot’s seat and gazed at the stitching along the back. No pouches, no hidden compartments. Crouching and climbing, he slipped into the padded chair with a grunt. The array of instruments that surrounded him would have been daunting without the extensive training he had received from Dr. Zimmer and the other Galahad instructors. His natural curiosity and love of anything technical kept him from being intimidated.
But there was nothing that looked out of the ordinary. Without having flown in this particular model, he could still recognize the gauges for rocket control, for internal life-support systems, for communication, for . . .
Wait. The communication system. He understood this switch, and this one. Even this one. But what was this? It looked like an extension to the communication panel, one that Gap wasn’t familiar with. A small set of buttons, and one additional toggle switch, sitting there by itself, calling to him, daring him to push it.
So, without hesitating, he did.
For a split second nothing happened. Then, two green lights around the switch blinked, went dark, blinked again, and then became solid points of light. Gap heard a mechanical whirring, and watched, fascinated, as a small panel slid open, ejecting a small disc, small enough to fit into the palm of his hand. It sat there, gleaming in the soft glow of the cockpit and reflecting the emerald flecks of light from the console.
This time, Gap did hesitate. He blinked a couple of times and put his hand up to his face, rubbing his chin. Even without knowing the contents of the disc, he somehow knew that this could be exactly what they were looking for.
He finally reached out, extracted the tiny disc from the slot, then held it up to the light. There were no markings. The shiny gray surface had all of the features one would expect from a generic data recording disc. The space usually reserved for writing an identifying description was blank. Sloppy work, Gap thought, something you wouldn’t expect from seasoned researchers assigned to such an important task.
Sloppy, unless the person recording the data was in a hurry. Or expected to be around to fill in the details later.
Maybe even expected to be on the pod when it launched, tucked soundly asleep in the cryogenics tube.
Gap slipped the disc into his shirt pocket and quickly scanned the rest of the control panel. Then, unfolding himself from the seat, he scrambled to the pod’s hatch and dropped to the floor of the Spider bay.
This time the idea of protecting his mended shoulder never crossed his mind.