4

The Sun grew larger and brighter.

Max felt his mother’s hand in his, squeezing. Joe put his arm around his shoulders. People cried out in astonishment as they realized that somehow, in a few minutes at most, they would be vaporized. It was impossible that the habitat could have traveled from the outer fringes of the solar system in so short a time, and was about to fall into the Sun. It had to be a bad dream, Max told himself.

More than half the viewspace was now filled with the shimmering photosphere. Cancerous black spots waged war with swirling storms of plasma. Prominences shot out into space. People moaned and whimpered as the giant’s fiery tongues tasted the habitat.

Max looked at his mother. Her eyes were closed as she held his hand. His father’s arm was a vise around Max’s shoulders. “Can’t be,” Joe whispered.

Max tensed against his father as the Sun’s image faded to a gray ghostliness.

“A malfunction in the holo unit,” Joe said in a trembling voice.

Linda worked the console, but the view was unaffected. She looked up, then said something through the intercom on the panel. A voice answered faintly.

The ghostly hemisphere of the Sun disappeared. Linda sat back, then swiveled to face the gathering.

“That is the external view,” she said. “The universe seems to have vanished from around us.”

As Max gazed into the strange grayness, he realized that somehow his wish had come true. Everything he had feared was gone. The habitat was on its own again.

A murmur passed through the chamber.

“Is this a joke?” Muhammad’s father demanded.

“It must be!” a woman shouted, laughing.

“Sure—it’s a homecoming prank!” a man shouted from the back row.

Linda ten Eyck stood up. “No,” she said softly.

In the silence, Max felt a slow rhythm, as if another heart were beating inside his own. He looked at his parents.

“I feel it,” Rosalie said.

“So do I,” Joe added.

People were speaking to one another, or clutching at those nearest them, and Max knew that they were all feeling the rhythm inside themselves.

“Something’s very wrong,” Rosalie said.

“We’re being pulled forward!” Linda shouted.

As Max gazed into the gray holo, he sensed that something was waiting up ahead in the alien space.

Jake LeStrange got up and hurried over to the console, where Linda was leaning forward, talking to the control bridge through the intercom. He whispered something into his wife’s ear. Emil and Lucinda sat very still in the first row. Max took a deep breath and listened to the intruding, alien pulse within himself.

A giant black globe appeared in the gray space. The gathering cried out in fear and wonder.

“Oh, God!” Rosalie exclaimed.

The black globe hung in the gray void and seemed to pulse with energy. Long cables floated out from it. This, Max realized, might be the source of the beat they all felt.

“The object ahead,” Linda said, “is a hundred kilometers in diameter. Our drive is dead. We can’t turn away.”

The globe grew larger. Max glanced at Joe and Rosalie. They were staring at the holo with dismay.

An opening appeared on the black globe’s equator. Dazzling white light shot out.

“We’re being pulled in,” Linda said as the globe covered the entire view. The opening glowed white-hot, as if from a furnace, and the viewspace turned completely white. “No danger signals from our life-support systems,” Linda said. “Only our drive is out.”

“Something wants us,” Joe said, shaking his head.

“But who?” Max asked, wondering what had happened to the Sun.

Joe let out a nervous breath and looked baffled. “Are we being hijacked?” Max asked, feeling both curious and fearful.

The white light filled the amphitheater, making everyone very pale. Max looked at his hands. His veins seemed almost black in the glare.

The holo winked off.

“We’ve stopped,” Linda announced to the silent chamber. It’s swallowed us, Max thought.

After a long silence Linda said, “I think you should all go to your homes and wait as calmly as you can. We don’t know what’s happened. Announcements will be made as we learn more. There’s no point in waiting here.”

“Let’s go,” Joe said as he stood up.

People stood in the aisles and stared up into the dark viewspace. Max noticed that Emil and Lucinda were at the console with their parents. Suddenly Lucinda looked up toward him, her eyes wide with fear, no longer the confident person he had known.

“Come on,” Joe said. Max followed with his mother. They joined the crowd moving toward the ramp, and in a few minutes emerged into the nightglow of the hollow. A gentle breeze stirred across the inner countryside. The habitat was still the same; it seemed impossible that anything could be wrong.

Joe was silent as they came to the bicycle rack. Max saw his mother’s hands shake as she grabbed the handlebars and rolled out the bike. Suddenly he knew that for him home was just up the road; but for his parents it was another place they carried inside them, however strange that seemed to him, and he had told them that he wanted no part of it.

“Why did this happen?” Rosalie asked, her voice trembling. Joe sighed, then laughed nervously. They pushed off, turned on their headlamps, and pedaled up toward the rise, staring ahead and gripping the handlebars.

Everywhere in the hollow people were hurrying to their houses. They walked or rode bicycles and small vehicles along the walkways and roads of the inner surface. Max glanced overhead and saw house lights winking on. People were silent as he pedaled past them; worried faces stared back at him. Everything he had feared seemed suddenly unimportant.

* * *

They sat silently in the living room, Joe in his chair, Rosalie on the sofa, and Max cross-legged on the carpet.

“All the planning and effort,” Joe said bitterly. “All these years of success, and now this!”

“Is it some kind of accident?” Rosalie asked. “Did we do something wrong?”

“I don’t think it’s anything we did,” Joe said.

Max tensed, imagining that something had set a trap for his world.

Joe stood up suddenly and stuck his hands in his coverall pockets. “Makes no sense at all!” He shook his head. “My old friend Morey would go nuts over this. He’d say we were all dreaming, and try to wake himself up.” He glanced at his timer. “Have to get to my nine o’clock shift.” He looked at Max, then at Rosalie. “Try not to worry. We must keep up our routines.”

“We’re prisoners, aren’t we?” Max asked.

Joe sighed nervously and clenched his right hand. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

“Where will you be?” Rosalie asked.

“The maintenance teams will probably be at the drive housing, checking to see if this could have been caused by some kind of malfunction.”

“Who are we kidding, Joe?” Rosalie said suddenly. “We’re not lost, and there’s nothing wrong with the habitat. We’re inside a giant sphere. Someone built it, and it’s not anybody we know.”

Joe nodded. “Both of you try to get some sleep while I’m gone.”

Who would want to capture us? Max wondered as his father hurried away.