On her way to the lower level, Lita made a quick stop into Sick House. She was relieved to find Alexa sitting at the desk, inputting data from the creepy incident with Bon and the other Cassini patients. Alexa looked up and pushed a lock of blond hair out of her eyes.
“So, what’s the word?” she said.
“We’ve had a scavenger hunt dumped into our laps,” Lita said, waving her hand when Alexa offered the chair, instead choosing to sit on the edge of the desk. “Not much of a challenge, though. We’re only looking for something we’ve never seen before, we don’t know what it looks like, and we have no idea where it might be. Other than that, no problem.”
“Ugh,” Alexa said. “Listen, I don’t want to be mean or anything, but you don’t look so good. When’s the last time you got any sleep?”
Lita chuckled. “What’s sleep?”
“That’s what I thought. What can I do to help?”
“I guess just keep an eye on the shop here. In a little over an hour that orange moon is going to pop out the other side of Saturn, and we might have another round of patients spilling into the hospital. I appreciate your help more than you know.” She stood up. “I’m heading down to the Spider bay. If anything comes up, you can reach me there.”
Alexa climbed out of the chair and gave Lita a hug. “I’ll be here if you need anything else,” she said.
Lita walked out into the corridor and turned toward the lift. She knew that Alexa was right, that fatigue was becoming an issue, not just with her but with the entire Council. And tired minds didn’t function nearly as well. She wondered if they would even be able to see clearly to find whatever they were looking for.
The door to the lift opened and Lita stepped inside. Think, she told herself, think. What would this translator look like? Think. And how would it be used? Where would you install it? Into a radio transmitter? Would it be something that Roc could use to intercept the energy beam and tweak it?
As the lift descended to the level that housed the Spider bay, she forced her exhausted brain to work harder than ever. How does the beam function? What effects did it have on the ship and the crew? For one thing it was taking over the power source of the ship. It also had linked up telepathically with Bon and several other crew members, channeling their thoughts and voices through the Swedish Council member. But what was its goal when it did that?
The door to the lift opened on the dim lower level, and Lita began the roundabout walk to the Spider bay, her mind still racing. Hannah had said that the power beam was a two-way transmission from Titan, delivering its “improvements” while taking back information about the ship. So that meant the beam was . . .
Lita froze in her tracks. Her face went slack, her eyes blinking slowly as the puzzle pieces began to slip into place. Of course, she thought. A two-way transmission from Titan.
“Why didn’t I think about that in the first place?” she said, a smile spreading across her face.
Fifty-four minutes. Fifty-four minutes until the Cassini, embedded throughout the mysterious moon of Titan, reconnected with its target, its latest fix-up project: Galahad.
With all of the pressure bearing down, with a countdown that was a virtual death clock sealing their fate, Triana wondered how she could worry about anything else. And yet, she hadn’t counted on this arrangement. All of the Council members, along with Hannah Ross, had agreed to meet at the pod to launch an all-out search for the SAT33 translator. Yet Lita had taken a quick detour to Sick House, Channy had gone to pick up Iris before joining them, and Hannah had not yet arrived. Which left Triana in the hangarlike Spider bay.
With Gap and Bon.
She felt an extra layer of tension wrap itself around her. Somehow it always came back to these two guys, one who had harbored obvious feelings for her, and another whom she had personally connected with for a brief instant. And now the love triangle—a corny expression, she admitted, but the only one that seemed to fit the circumstances—was exposed in a way that prevented her from escaping. She had to be here, there was crucial work to do, and somehow her feelings—and those of Bon, if he had any, and Gap, if they still existed—would have to wait.
Easier said than done, she thought.
At least there was activity to distract all of them. Triana sifted through the piles of objects that had been unloaded from the metal pod, three large tables’ worth. Gap stood to her left, leafing through a stack of papers from a folder. The frown on his face was evidence enough for Triana that he had found nothing. Or did the frown represent something else?
Bon, kneeling to her right, peered into several boxes that had been stacked under the table. His organizational system entailed tossing a finished box into a corner, accompanied by a silent curse. So far his search had turned up spare parts, another first-aid kit, and some more emergency food rations. As Triana watched, he threw another box into the corner, then wiped his brow.
“Where is it?” he said. “I’m sick of this.”
It dawned on Triana that Bon had an additional concern that she hadn’t taken into consideration. His unwillingness to submit as a pawn to the powers on Titan was obviously fueling his intensity at the moment. She realized that the countdown was more than just a threat to the ship for the temperamental Swede; for him it marked the end of his independence, a concept more alien to Bon than any life force they would find on a distant world.
She resisted the urge to reach out to him. That would only make things worse, especially in front of Gap. Thankfully the moment was broken by the sound of footsteps approaching. She looked up to see Hannah.
“What do you need me to do?” Hannah said.
“Just dive in, anywhere.”
Hannah hesitated, then walked slowly over to the table where Gap was hard at work. Triana thought she saw a flicker of a smile dart across Gap’s face as he waved hello, the first smile she had seen from him in a long time. A moment later the two had teamed up to sort through the mound of paperwork and folders on the table before them.
Triana let out an exasperated sigh. Time was running out, and this didn’t seem to be getting them anywhere. It wouldn’t matter if a hundred people were helping right now; the translator was not going to turn up in this pile of junk, at least not in the next—she glanced at her watch—forty-nine minutes. For the first time, she felt her spirits begin to sink.
Yet she refused to let these feelings show. Instead, she tried to puzzle the situation out again.
“Okay,” she said to the others, “here’s the deal. All of this stuff had to have been stored on the pod for a while, long before Nina launched from the research station.” Gap, Hannah, and Bon stopped what they were doing and turned to face her. “But, as far as we know, the only things Nina brought on board were the bag full of gear and rations, the data disc that Gap found, and . . .” She paused before finishing. “And Iris.”
Gap looked puzzled. “What are you saying? That the cat is the translator?”
“No, but as far as I can tell, she didn’t pack anything else.”
Bon stood up and brushed the knees of his pants. “I agree. I think we’re wasting our time.”
Gap snorted. “So, what, we just give up?”
Triana was about to answer when the door to the corridor opened and Lita hurried in, smiling.
“Any luck?” she asked Triana.
“No. What are you so happy about?”
Lita didn’t answer at first. She grabbed a sturdy box that had been stashed under one of the tables and sat down on it. Then she said, “We better find that translator, that’s all I have to say. Because I think I’ve figured out how it works.”
Hannah tossed a handful of papers onto the table. “What? What do you mean?” She and the others closed in around Lita.
Again the door opened, this time admitting Channy, who held Iris up over her shoulder like a baby being burped. The Activities Director took one look at the scene before her and said, “What did I miss?”
“Nothing yet,” Lita said. “But I might have figured out how the translator works.”
Triana crossed her arms. “All right, let’s hear it.”
Lita leaned forward, her elbows on her knees, and clasped her hands in front of her. “Okay. It finally dawned on me that this . . . this force, or whatever you call it, is all about communication. It doesn’t have any feelings that we know of. It just relays information on how to improve the ship, how to improve the primitive life-forms on the ship, how to make everything more efficient.
“The ship has its own data banks and internal communications system, so when the Cassini retracts that information the ship is just basically acknowledging the changes. The ship has no feelings, either. It can’t say, ‘no, thank you.’ It just takes its orders and implements them. So our ion drive will increase power to the point of blowing itself up. It doesn’t have a rational mind of its own to tell the Cassini to stop. Like . . . like some aquarium fish; if you feed them too much, they’ll just keep eating until they eat themselves to death.”
Gap said, “I still don’t see how the translator works, then.”
Lita smiled at him. “Well, think about what happened with Bon and the others in Sick House. They went into a trance, right? Their eyes went crazy and a powerful energy beam started rattling around inside their brains because they’re on the same wavelength. The Cassini started tinkering with them. But—”
“But,” Hannah burst in, “it’s trying to take back some information at the same time!”
Lita nodded. “That’s right. Just like the information it took back from the ship.” She looked at Bon. “When you started in with your creepy little chant, with all of those voices, that was Titan’s way of acknowledging that they had accessed your brain. You were like a human blueprint that they were trying to read. They learned our languages pretty quickly, then went to work on ‘repairing’ you. Since then it’s been a one-way conversation. Notice that your headache went away, and so did the voices.”
Bon remained still, looking uncomfortable as the center of attention.
Triana bit her lip, then said, “Okay, that all makes sense. But I still don’t understand how the translator fits into all of this.”
Lita stood up and began walking in a tight circle around the group. “This power force, or beam, has locked on to Bon’s brain, and the others’, because they have frequencies that . . . fit, I guess you could say. Bon didn’t have to do anything. With his mental frequency, the door to his brain was open, so the Cassini just walked right in.
“Now,” she continued, her pace around the group increasing, “the translator should be nothing more than an object that he holds in his hands. It makes contact with Bon, and when the beam connects with him, his brain waves should be able to communicate with it. Turn it back into a two-way conversation. Then you can politely ask them to turn the beam off.” She came to a stop and spread her hands. “In theory, anyway.”
Triana stood still, biting her lip and staring at Galahad’s Health Director. The Spider bay was deadly silent. It seemed that everyone’s brain was spinning, each trying to make the leap that would solve the mystery of the missing device. Iris began to squirm, so Channy put her on the floor, where she began to sniff the objects taken from the pod.
Finally, Triana said to Lita, “Does this help us figure out what the translator would look like?”
Lita shrugged. “Well, for one thing it wouldn’t be very big. It would have to fit into the palm of your hand.”
“Right,” Gap said. “That eliminates some of this mess.” He tossed a handful of papers onto the table nearest him. “This would be almost like a small piece of electronics.”
“Has anyone seen something like that?” Triana said, looking around. Silent stares greeted her. Iris lost interest in the pod materials and began to purr and rub up against Hannah’s leg.
Suddenly Channy jumped, as if jolted by an electric shock. “Oh! Oh! Oh!” she exclaimed, her hands coming up to the sides of her face.
“What?” Triana said, growing alarmed.
Channy, her eyes huge, seemed to be in her own trance. Then she turned to Triana and said, “The translator. I know where it is.”
