6

Time alone on Galahad was a precious commodity, and getting away from 250 crew members could be a challenge. With the crew quarters and most of the primary work and meeting facilities concentrated within the middle decks, it was no surprise that individuals would gravitate to the extreme upper and lower levels to seek escape. Many would sneak away to the lonely corridors near the Storage Sections and Spider bay in the bowels of the ship. With the dim lighting and narrow passageways—not to mention its reputation as the hideout of a maniacal stowaway early in their mission—the area was often described as spooky, and attracted only the hardiest souls.

This left the Domes as the primary getaway location. Prior to launch, noted psychologist Dr. Angela Armistead had briefed the mission’s planners that Galahad’s young explorers would be naturally drawn to all of the domes’ sensory delights, including starlight, gentle breezes—even manufactured ones—and the many smells that would remind them of open fields on Earth. Dr. Zimmer had consequently informed Bon Hartsfield to expect dozens of crew members to tromp through the farms of Galahad on a daily basis.

Bon understood as well as anyone, given his own upbringing, and grunted agreement.

Now, as dusk descended upon the ship, he knifed along a path that cut between one section of wheat and another of corn. As the keeper of this domain, he was intimately aware of the least-traveled pathways, and rarely had difficulty finding solitude. He could usually count on this particular route to be quiet, and had shared his secret with only one person.

He pushed aside the arm of a cornstalk that reached across the path, and there she was, sitting cross-legged on the soil in a small clearing. Beside her lay a small, portable lantern that emitted a soft glow, along with two personal water bottles, one of which she held up to him as he came to a stop.

“Thirsty?” Alexa said. Bon accepted the water and stood beside her.

She looked up through the mesh of clear panels that separated Galahad’s food supplies from the harsh vacuum of space. “This is my favorite time of day. I love it when the lights go down and the stars turn on.”

“Turn on?” Bon said.

She laughed. “Yeah, why not?” Pointing almost directly overhead, she said, “Tonight it was Arcturus that turned on first. That red one, right there.”

Bon glanced up momentarily, then back at the blond girl on the ground. “It’s a red giant. Probably similar to what our own sun will look like in a few billion years.”

Alexa raised her eyebrows. “Yes, but that’s not the good stuff.”

Bon shifted his weight to his right foot. “The ancient Polynesians used it to navigate back and forth from Hawaii. Is that the good stuff?”

“No, that’s the science. I’m talking about the romance. In Greek mythology, the story of Arcturus was rather sad.” When Bon didn’t answer, she leaned back on her elbows and stared up into space. “A story of love and jealousy. Would you like to hear it?”

“Mythology doesn’t really interest me,” Bon said. “There were two kinds of people in those days: those who sat around and made up stories, and those who used the stars to actually get work done.”

Alexa laughed. “And there’s no question which line you descended from.”

A smile flickered across Bon’s face. “You’re right about that. I’m a farmer, from a long line of farmers. You can thank the stars for teaching my ancestors when the time was right to plant and harvest.”

With a bow of her head, Alexa said, “On behalf of my silly romantic ancestors, thank you, thank you very much.” She patted the ground beside her. “Have a seat; you make me nervous standing there.”

Bon knelt and gently gathered an earthworm that was edging along the soil. He placed it a few feet away, then sat down. “You said in your email that you wanted to talk about something in particular tonight.”

His directness never failed to catch Alexa off guard. She took a moment to collect her thoughts before looking into his face.

“I’ve … I’ve had another vision.”

Bon studied her eyes. “You’ve had several, but you’ve never looked like this.”

She nodded, and her voice fell to a whisper. “This was different.”

They sat quietly for a moment. They heard distant laughter from a handful of crew members, but it was obvious they were heading in another direction and would not disturb this small clearing. Alexa fidgeted, looking upward again, toward the starlight that fought its way through the slowly dimming natural light of the dome.

“I wasn’t sure I should talk to you about this. Well, talk to anyone about it, actually. But … but I knew you would understand better than anyone.”

Bon ran a finger through the soil beside him, carving a miniature channel, before filling it in and starting again a few inches to the side. “Maybe understand isn’t the right word. You have visions; I get … feelings. They’re not the same thing.”

“But you understand how difficult it is to be on the receiving end,” Alexa said, and offered a smile with a shrug. “You’re at least a good listener.”

He kept his gaze down at the ground. “Tell me what happened.”

Alexa took several deep breaths before responding. “I saw death.”

Bon’s head snapped up, but he let his face ask the obvious questions.

“I don’t know who,” Alexa said, “and I don’t know how. All I know is that I saw someone’s funeral.” She spent a minute recounting all that she had seen in her dream, the words picking up intensity as they spilled from her. Bon listened, his finger once again scoring grooves into the dirt. When she lapsed into silence, he spoke.

“You said that people spoke at this … this funeral. Couldn’t you make out any details, any information about the person?”

Alexa shook her head. “I heard the sounds of people talking, and I understood that it was a eulogy. I don’t remember hearing anything specific.” She seemed to struggle to find the best description. “You know how you overhear a conversation, and you somehow know what they’re talking about without grasping any exact details? Besides, it was a dream, or a vision, or … something. It made sense at the time, while I was floating in the middle of it.”

Bon nodded. After a moment of hesitation he said, “Do you have any guesses at all? Anything that feels like … I don’t know, an instinct?”

A small chuckle escaped from Alexa. “Remember, that’s your specialty. I have the visions, you have the feelings.” Then, when he didn’t answer, her face grew serious again, and she reached out to place a hand on his knee. “Bon … I’m really scared.”

He looked at her hand for a moment before covering it with his own. “Yeah, I know. But not all of your visions have necessarily played out, right?”

“I don’t know. Some of them have been so unrelated to anything in my experience, I don’t know if they’re happening or not. I mean, they seem to be real.”

Bon raised his other hand palm up. “Right, but isn’t it possible that what you’re seeing are just possibilities? We barely understand even a fraction of the way the universe works, but we know that there are an infinite number of possible outcomes. It’s like … like an infinitely long hallway, with an infinite number of doors, all with a different future. Isn’t it possible that your mind is simply opening doors at random, and seeing something that might—or might not—happen?”

They both seemed to consider this, although Alexa’s face betrayed skepticism. The sounds of scattered activity around the dome filtered across the fields to their isolated setting, along with the gurgle of an irrigation pump two or three rows away.

“Are we going to get wet?” Alexa said, peering through the leaves.

A wry smile worked across Bon’s face. “I adjusted the system to skip this spot for another hour.”

Alexa grinned back, and gave his knee a small squeeze. “Wow, it’s nice to know the manager of the place.”

They remained that way for a minute, taking in the sounds, the smells, the atmosphere of their oasis of solitude. Finally, Alexa removed her hand and pulled her hair behind her ears.

“I suppose you might be right. I’m not even sure what I could do, anyway. I don’t think I should tell Triana.” She hesitated, as if waiting for agreement. When it didn’t come, she asked. “Do you?”

Bon shrugged. “What if you wait to see if it happens again? You’re right; I don’t know what anyone could do without more information. Maybe you’ll … I don’t know, see something else that might help.”

“I’d have to go back through that same door,” she said.

The gurgle of the irrigation pump was replaced by the thump of water pressure kicking up a notch. From twenty feet away they could hear water flicking across leaves. Alexa began to think that Bon’s attention had been diverted back to his work until he fixed her with a look.

“Perhaps,” he said, “you have some control over which door you open.”

She studied his face, as an image of endless possibilities opened before her.

*   *   *

Gap hunched over his workstation in the Control Room, shifting back and forth between two monitors, oblivious, it seemed, to the activity going on around him. Triana twice attempted to communicate with him, but gave up; with only minutes remaining until Galahad streaked through the cluster of vultures, his mind was locked onto the task of determining the outcome.

The fact that there were too many unknowns in the equation didn’t seem to make a difference to him.

With a sigh, he finally pushed back from his station and looked around the room to find Triana. She threw another fruitless glance at the large vidscreen before walking over to stand next to him. He seemed to understand what question her raised eyebrows implied.

“The best I can figure out,” he said, “is that there are close to ten of these things out there. They’re not that big, which makes them tough to nail down, and they’re in constant movement. They flit around almost like moths near a light.”

Triana nodded, even though this wasn’t exactly new information. She knew that Gap was doing the best he could, with an enthusiasm she hadn’t seen from him in a while. He recently had battled discouragement over his contributions—or his perceived lack of contributions—to the mission; in a way, for Gap the intrigue brought on by the vultures was good medicine.

Roc chimed in with his own observations. “Their wingspan is approximately one meter across, their composition is unknown, and their sense of drama is impeccable.”

“Can anyone make an educated guess what will happen when we cross paths?” Triana said. “I’m hearing a lot of ‘I don’t know,’ so how about a few cases of ‘I think.’”

“I think their mission is to either check us out as we shoot by, or try to board us,” Gap said.

“I agree,” Roc said. “They are obviously quite advanced technologically, if they were able to spot us, plot our course, and arrange to intercept us; crashing into us would not make much sense. Ever seen a bug hit a windshield? Yuck.”

Triana looked at Gap. “All right. How much time?”

“Two minutes.”

With a determined step, Triana walked to her command post and punched the intercom, which fed the entire ship.

“If I could have your attention,” she said, keeping her voice as calm as possible. “We have picked up some sort of escort out of the Kuiper Belt. Eight to ten objects, roughly the size of large birds. They are pacing us, and appear to want to make contact.” She paused, and could only imagine the impact these words were having upon a stunned crew. Swallowing hard, she began again. “I have no idea what we can expect; maybe a jolt, maybe something more violent. But whatever it might be, it’s going to happen in about one minute. Please prepare yourself.”

She snapped off the intercom and wondered exactly what that preparation would consist of. Holding on to something? Sitting down?

Roc began a countdown. “Thirty seconds to contact … twenty … ten…”

Triana found herself unconsciously reaching out and grasping the arm of Gap, who responded by putting one hand on her back. They both stared at the large vidscreen.

Suddenly Gap cried out. “Did you see that?”

Triana strained her eyes. “I didn’t see—”

But then she did. At the extreme edges of the screen, on both sides, wispy black shapes, almost appearing to be doing cartwheels, spinning, vibrating, flew into her field of vision. They flashed briefly, a muted shade of blue-green, and then were gone.

Half a minute elapsed, with no sound from anyone, and no apparent reaction from Galahad. Triana gradually let go of Gap’s arm. He kept his hand on the small of her back. They looked at each other without saying a word.

Finally, one of the other crew members on duty in the Control Room spoke up. “What happened? Did they miss us?”

Gap bent back over the panel before him, but it was Roc who answered.

“At the point of intercept we were able to positively identify eight of them. They are no longer registering. Wait, check that. I have one vulture, trailing us … now peeling off.”

Triana considered this. “And the other seven?”

“I have to assume,” Roc said, “that they have indeed grabbed hold of us, and are comfortably attached to the outside of our ship.”