“HEY, MONIQUE,” he sent as his craft approached the destination marker on its navigation screen. “What’s the bounce timer on this activation, anyway? Just occurred to me you never said, and we’re already flirting with the record.”

Any activation of his implant included an automatic reversion timer. If he were to run, or fall into enemy hands, this ensured there would be at least some hope of clearing his memory of any sensitive information before a potential disclosure—voluntary or otherwise—could occur. In his career he’d never gone more than one week under IA.

Her reply amounted to yet another disquieting detail of this entire affair: “I haven’t set it yet.”

Caswell shifted uneasily, a frown growing the more he thought about what she’d just said. A trigger without a reversion fail-safe? Was that even possible?

An hour later a blinking red message on the main screen caught his eye. He’d been locked out of manual control.

The short-range nav showed nothing other than a few tiny chunks of debris he’d been tracking for days now. In his six days flying it had barely changed. Zero sign of the other lander, or Alice Vale’s body.

His little craft sped away from the Sun at a blistering clip, his distance to the star now roughly equal to Earth’s, his position exactly perpendicular to her orbital plane.

Without warning the lander turned around to face the Sun. Her engines powered up, filling the cabin with a deep, unsettling hum. The sensation of gravity returned as if some invisible weighted blanket had been laid over him.

“I’ve turned about and am under thrust again, Mo. Hope that is expected. What’s this about? Mission aborted, or…?”

Something had been forgotten, perhaps. Surely it was too late to catch the Venturi again before she plummeted into the Sun.

He cursed the delay in Monique’s response for the hundredth time. All he could do was watch his velocity decrease. Caswell didn’t know much about astrodynamics, but this seemed like a horrendous waste of fuel. More disconcerting was the fact that he’d been locked out of manual control. It implied a lack of trust. That made him squirm in his chair. His trust in Monique, and hers in him, had always been absolute. It had to be.

Another thought struck him. “Mo, it’s possible this craft has been compromised. I’m locked out, and will soon be headed back toward the Sun.”

The calm, intelligent lines of Alice Vale’s face came to him, unbidden. Had something more sinister happened to the Venturi? Was she still out here, after all this time, and had she now sent him to the same fate as that doomed station? He discarded this idea as sheer paranoia. Certainly the woman could not have survived for so long. Besides, the radar screen showed emptiness all around him. There was literally nothing out here.

He waited ten long minutes until Monique’s welcome voice filled his ears.

“Relax, Peter. This is expected. Your course was carefully programmed. I’m sorry to trickle information to you like this, but rest assured it will all make sense soon. Very soon. In fact, keep an eye on your velocity relative to the Sun. When it hits zero, I will finally be able to explain.”

Caswell settled back into the cushioned seat and waited, eyes never wavering from the tiny readout that marked his speed in relation to the Sun. What the hell did coming to a dead stop have to do with knowing his orders? He pondered this as the number dwindled, the lander’s meager rockets burning through fuel at an alarming rate. Then, the moment the display reached zero, the thrust stopped. Everything went perfectly silent. He was sitting perfectly motionless above the Sun, exactly perpendicular to Earth’s orbital plane.

“Godspeed, Peter,” Monique Pendleton said.

“Meaning what?” he said aloud. Then, “Oh. Shit.”

Outside the stars began to vanish.