28

There wasn’t much time. Gap was awaiting her decision, Lita was probably curious about her call to forgo the alien autopsy, and Bon would no doubt be utterly suspicious of her actions.

She briefly considered going back to her room and packing a small bag, but in the end nixed the idea for two reasons. For one thing, the sight of Galahad’s Council Leader walking to the Spider bay carrying an overnight bag would draw a lot of attention. This way she was merely performing one of her countless tasks.

But more than anything else she refused to subject herself to the pain. If she insisted that this was just another mission within the mission, that it was temporary, that she would be back soon … well, then her mind would be focused on the job at hand. A special trip back to her room meant a sort of good-bye, and she knew that the thought of leaving her connection to home—and, most important, the picture of her father—would torment her, and possibly affect her performance. It was better to simply walk straight to the Spider bay and be gone.

Entering the large hangar she found three workers from Sick House. They had arrived just minutes earlier, and were discussing where to leave the cart that carried the remains of the vulture inside the containment box. Triana kept her gaze away from the limp, dark mass inside the box while she talked with the crew members.

“Thanks for bringing this down,” she said. “Do me a favor while you’re here, will you? I think we’re going to try to maneuver a bit closer to the wormhole, so would you please load the containment box onto the pod?”

One of the workers, a tall, rangy boy from South America, gave her a puzzled look. “The pod? You mean one of the Spiders?”

Triana shook her head. “No, I don’t want us to take any more chances with the few remaining Spiders we have left. We’ll use the pod from SAT33 this time around.” She pointed to the metallic craft that had been intercepted during their rendezvous with Titan, originally launched by the doomed research scientists aboard an orbiting space station.

What she told the crew members was entirely true; she had no intention of robbing the Galahad crew of one of the precious remaining Spiders. When the time came for them to descend to one of the planets in the Eos system, they would need every remaining craft. As it was, they were already shorthanded and would need to improvise when the time came. In her mind, the SAT33 pod was a bonus, but it would do just fine for her purposes.

She was prepared to answer questions about her request, but instead the workers simply shrugged. They gripped the cart holding the containment box and quickly wheeled it over to the pod. After a few minutes of grunting and exertion, with Triana’s help they successfully stowed the box within the tight confines of the craft.

“Thanks,” she said with a smile. A minute later she was alone in the hangar, and quickly made her way into the control room.

“Okay, Roc, I’m assuming you have plotted everything out?”

“Not only that,” the computer said, “I have put together a tour guide that points out some very interesting sights along your way, and put together a tasty little snack bag with your favorite treats. Lots of chocolate, of course.”

Despite the butterflies she felt, Triana had to laugh. “I wish. Tell me, I know how much you’re able to control our Spiders, but what kind of help can you give me with this pod?”

“Actually, more than you’d think. I’ve already linked up with the onboard guidance system, and should be able to get you within shouting distance of the wormhole. The final nudge will have to come from you, of course. With your piloting skills it shouldn’t be a problem. Besides, it’s not like you won’t have a visual guide to steer right into.”

Triana crossed her arms and leaned against the console of the control room. “I have to be honest, there’s something that has been on my mind since I first brought up this idea with you. Not once have I heard you say ‘don’t do it.’”

“And I’ll be honest with you,” Roc said. “If I told you that, would it make any difference?”

“Probably not.”

“Well, there you go.”

“But you’ll miss me, right?”

“Do I miss you when you go to sleep at night?”

Triana chuckled again. “Meaning that I’ll be back.”

“Meaning that you could very well be back yesterday, which freaks out even a sophisticated thinking machine like me. Of course, we don’t know anything about the creatures that you’re going to meet. They might want to keep you as a pet. What’s the matter, Tree? Are we feeling a bit needy right now?”

She stood up and looked through the glass into the hangar. “You’re right. Okay, if everything checks out, let’s get going.”

“Get out of here already.”

She grinned, and inwardly thanked Roy Orzini for instilling so much of himself into Galahad’s ornery computer. She was about to fling herself into the most frightening and bizarre experience that any human being had ever known, and Roc’s creator had programmed a talking computer that actually had her upbeat and laughing.

The walk from the control room to the pod reminded her that just a few hours earlier she had been in this hangar to mourn Galahad’s first death. It was not lost on her that she could easily be the second.

She climbed into the pod, secured the hatch, then made her way past the rectangular containment box that held the vulture, past the suspended animation cylinders, to the pilot’s seat. Strapping herself in, she established communication with Roc, and then assisted him in going through a preflight check of the pod’s systems. It differed from the controls of the Spider, but not so different that she couldn’t figure it out quickly. Ideally she would have spent a few hours training, but …

“Securing the bay and opening the outer door,” Roc said. Triana took her eyes off the instrument panel long enough to look out the forward window at the door sliding open before her. A torrent of starlight streamed in, and she felt her nerves ratchet upward.

“Power is at full standby,” Roc said. “Ready for a little ride?”

Triana settled back into her chair and stared at the brilliant palette of stars. “Let’s go.”

She watched the bay door approaching, slowly at first, then picking up speed. Then, in a flash, she was out.

She realized that she had been holding her breath, and suddenly gasped for air. “Calm,” she told herself. “Calm.” She focused on the readings flashing onto the display screens, most of which made sense; Roc would understand the rest.

“Closing the bay door, pressurizing the bay,” the computer said over the monitor. “Your power is at eighty-eight percent, everything functioning like it should. You know, one thing I didn’t consider until now is that you could curl up inside that big cylinder in there and go right to sleep until you pop out the other side of the wormhole.”

“You mean in case it hurts, or something?” Triana said. “No thanks, I intend to experience all of it. I am truly going where no human has ever gone before.” She chuckled and added, “The other day I told Lita and Channy that I needed to shake up my routine. I guess this qualifies.”

“Coming onto course now,” Roc said. “Power at ninety-six percent. Approximately seventy minutes until you hit the bull’s-eye.”

Triana stole another glance out at the stars. “Seventy minutes,” she thought, and again concentrated on her breathing.

*   *   *

Midday had come and gone. Gap spent a few minutes in his room, then almost an hour in Engineering, expecting the call from Triana at any time. At one o’clock he casually sauntered into the Dining Hall and immediately scanned the back tables, looking for the Council Leader. She wasn’t there.

He was reluctant to page her on the ship’s intercom system; if she was deep in thought about the EVA he didn’t want to pressure her or become a pain. It was the reason he avoided going to her room. There was nothing to be gained by appearing too eager.

But he was eager. He had scoured every bit of data they had on the wormhole, every bit of information that the ship’s computer had on wormhole theory, and he was ready to go. In his heart he knew that it would be safe, that the alien intelligence that had extended the invitation would know what stresses a human being could withstand. And the knowledge waiting on the other side would be …

Where was Triana? Was she anguishing over this decision this much? That didn’t seem like her. Triana took her responsibilities very seriously, but also had no problem making a decision quickly. It was one of the many traits that he admired about her.

He stepped off the lift into the Control Room, hoping to find her there. A half-dozen crew members went about their business, but Triana was not among them.

Finally, he placed a call to Lita. She had not seen Tree for a couple of hours. “You might try Bon up at the Farms,” Lita said before signing off.

Bon. No, that was a call that Gap was in no hurry to make.

He stood at his workstation and once again studied the data.

*   *   *

With just under ten minutes to go, Triana saw it. It was nothing like she expected.

For one thing, it didn’t look like a hole at all. It was a jagged tear, a black rip in the fabric of space, a painful wound. Dust swirled around it, painting the opening in a vivid framework, the way a child created a dark outline in a coloring book. It seemed alive, fluctuating, pulsing. Triana tried to place where she had seen something similar, and finally settled on the medical image she had seen of the human heart, the pulsating valves pumping the blood.

Small tremors passed through the pod, not nearly as violent as what accompanied the wormhole’s opening and closing. According to Roc, they were likely the winds of space-time that leaked out. The tear was smaller than she had expected, too. Of course, she reminded herself, it didn’t need to be large; it was merely a passageway. She could not drag her eyes away from it.

With less than three minutes remaining, she once again made a conscious effort to steady her breathing; she willed her pulse to slow.

What had Alexa called it? Her Zen place. Triana closed her eyes, and her thoughts tumbled out.

Her father, tucking her in at night when she was five, reading not one, but two books to her.

Her father, talking to her when he fell ill. His last days, when she was unable to communicate with him at all.

His death. Her transfer from Colorado to the Galahad training complex in California.

Dr. Zimmer.

The launch. The encounter with the mad stowaway. The narrow escape from death.

Saturn. Titan. The Cassini.

Gap. Bon. Her developing friendship and reliance on Lita.

The Kuiper Belt. The Cassini Code. Merit Simms, and the near mutiny of the crew.

The vultures. Her confrontation with Channy. The wormholes.

Alexa’s death. The image of her carefully wrapped body disappearing through the bay door opening, spinning slightly as it rocketed into the cosmos.

Her father.

Bon.

The approaching wormhole.

Alexa’s childhood, her stepfather, her real father.

Dr. Zimmer.

The jagged rip in space …

Ripples in time …

Darkness.

“Thirty seconds,” she heard Roc say. She opened her eyes and drank in the spectacle as it closed in. She felt tears on her face, and realized that she had been crying for quite some time.

“Fifteen seconds,” Roc said.

She swallowed hard and watched the rip in space envelop the entire window. How could there be no light whatsoever in that forbidding space?

“Dad…” she managed to say as the pod penetrated the opening.

Suddenly, light.

She screamed.