THE LANDER FLOATED, still and silent, above an unknown star.

Gradually the flashing errors and alarms on his myriad of screens returned to a stable, if somewhat abnormal, state. With nothing else to go on, the algorithms that guided his ship had apparently given up on finding the familiar and decided to lock on to this massive sphere of fusion for the simple fact that it was there.

The computer even gave the star a name: Unknown M-Class.

This did not help his frayed nerves.

Caswell did the only thing he could do and just sat there. A full-gamut frequency scan appeared on the main screen, searching for anything familiar. Nothing turned up. Another sweep began, specifically for the transponder from Alice Vale’s landing craft. It concluded with no matches. The scan repeated and would continue to do so. He relegated it to a secondary display, idly wondering if Alice had fled the Venturi only to plunge into the star on this side.

He realized suddenly that Monique’s recorded instructions had paused when the instruments went haywire. He tapped the screen and playback resumed.

This is without a doubt the greatest discovery in the history of mankind, and Alice Vale may well have ruined it. Not just with her knowledge of the ESA’s weapons experiments, though that is our primary concern.

We’ve cobbled together some data from the Venturi to help guide your ship. Unless our friends in Sci messed things up, you should start moving any moment now.

On cue the craft’s thrusters blipped and coughed, sending him into a harsh rotation on multiple axes. His stomach lurched. He suddenly became aware of a mild headache that, like a purple cloud on the horizon, threatened to become something much worse very soon. While Monique continued her explanation he set about finding medication and a meal.

A course has been set for the second planet in this system. As you may have already noticed, the planet orbits its star at roughly 1AU, same as Earth, and the similarities don’t end there.

Caswell felt silly. Overwhelmed and silly. He hadn’t noticed any of this. In fact he could barely form a coherent thought. He paused Monique’s message manually this time and shoveled a spoonful of soba noodles into his mouth. The simple movement of his jaw as he chewed served to ground him somehow, and with a few more bites inside him his unease began to abate.

Sipping a bulb of green tea he took stock of his situation.

First and foremost, he told himself, listen to Monique. Really listen. Latch on to her voice and devour every word. Memorize it, even though he’d eventually forget. Ground himself in her as his ship had just done with the star below. He could only imagine how she’d maintained such a calm demeanor through this. Certainly it all must seem as amazing—God, not just amazing, but absurd—to her. He simply had to trust his handler. He put himself in her shoes. Sending her “other half” through, of all things, a wormhole or whatever the hell it was, unable to converse with him or even to know his fate.

“This will be the most interesting mission you’ll ever forget,” he said aloud, echoing her words. He nodded at her picture. “You certainly had that bit right, Mo. Understatement of the century, more like.”

Caswell put the drink bulb aside. He tuned out all distractions: the ship, rattling at maximum burn; the lingering warnings on his screens and the near-total lack of recognizable names. He let it all become just background noise and tapped PLAY.

The similarities between this world and Earth are, in fact, astonishing. And they’re apparently why Alice Vale returned here.

For reasons that will become imminently clear, the planet to which you now approach was dubbed “Duplica” by the crew of the Venturi. Here’s a picture taken from just a few thousand kilometers altitude.

He drew an involuntary sharp breath as the image appeared.

Because he was looking at Earth.

The blue oceans and wispy white clouds, the familiar shorelines of her continents. It was all there. “Duplica,” he whispered. “Indeed.”

From orbit the planet would fool anyone. And yet it was not Earth. The planet was second out from its star. It had two moons, both rocky and with darker complexions than Earth’s. One was larger and orbited slightly farther out. The other was barely more than an asteroid.

According to the computer there was not a single artificial satellite in orbit.

His astonishment gave way to confusion and then simple curiosity. What is this place? How does a perfect copy of Earth even come to be? The implications of that made him shake his head, embarrassed at how quickly he’d leapt to such a conclusion.

I know what you’re thinking right now, and believe me, we’re as confused as you are. The folks in Sci have been working day and night since you sent the data. Those with enough clearance, anyway. I’m sure you can appreciate now the magnitude of this discovery.

“You’re damn right I can,” he growled. He could appreciate it very fucking much. Enough in fact to understand why he’d been asked only days ago to slaughter six people in cold blood. Angelina Monroe had dipped into the station’s datastore, perhaps even tried to copy or transmit the information. News like this required careful handling, surely. If Archon could own it…

His thoughts turned to the original crew of the Venturi, drifting lifeless in that medical bay. Had they met a similar fate? A remote command sent from some ESA boss to jar the station hard enough to kill all aboard?

No. It had been Alice Vale. “She went back to play God,” Monique had said. Murdered the crew. Somehow that detail hadn’t quite registered when she’d first mentioned it. But now…

We’ll know more soon enough, but these details are not the reason we sent you. They don’t activate people like you and me to do a geological survey, now do they?

“No, they do not.” Caswell steeled himself. Here it comes, he thought. The point. He could guess what she wanted him to do, but gritted his teeth and waited all the same.

Before Monique went on, the image of Duplica and her moons cross-faded to much closer footage, taken from low orbit. Viewed like this, minor differences became apparent. Most notable were the craters. A whole series of circular wounds that weaved like a mottled snake from southern Europe, down to India, and up through the Koreas. Though British raised, Caswell had been adopted from Korea. The sight of his homeland thrashed by impact depressions shook loose latent feelings of anger and sadness in him.

What he thought of as the Pacific Ocean drifted by, and the California coast came into view. The string of craters continued, all the way to the coast of Florida.

Thoughts came to him faster than he could process even their basic nature, much less any deeper ramifications. Should he think of these places in such terms? Was there an actual California or United Kingdom here, in the political sense? Hell, were there people at all? It could simply be a copy of Earth at the landmass level, a feat of terraforming never dreamed of before.

But the very fact that he saw so much green here meant plant life, at least, and that in and of itself was quite possibly the most important discovery in human history. Life existed here, something never found before despite all the effort made in that regard. Alice Vale and her crewmates had found extraterrestrial life.

She went back to play God….

A chill ran up his spine and settled across his scalp. “What did you find here, Alice?”

When England came into view the image zoomed in again.

Caswell went perfectly still. There were roads and villages. A massive city, as big as London, though not in quite the same location. This metropolis straddled the Severn River, not the Thames. Curiously, it seemed to be surrounded by nature, not sprawl, and similarly hard-edged towns and cities were sprinkled across the landscape. Thin roads, or perhaps tracks, connected these places.

What the crew of the Venturi found here is nothing short of miraculous. A planet almost identical to Earth, populated by intelligent life. Human life, Peter. Whoever they are, however they got here or how this place came to be, they appear to be at a technological level similar to where we were in the 1950s. The Venturi even intercepted radio transmissions that sound an awful lot like English, believe it or not.

“English?” he blurted to the empty cabin, unable to stop himself. He’d yet to get his mind around the idea of life, human life, on another world, geographic similarities or not. But English? “How the hell is that even possible?”

The footage began to cut from one scene to the next. All taken from orbit, grainy and unsteady, but what they showed was unmistakable. A train of sorts, powering along tracks. Boats with oddly curved sails bouncing along on whitecaps. A vast square of something like concrete with dark diagonal forms moving about chaotically like insects. Caswell squinted, unsure what he was seeing, and then it clicked: the shadows of people, meandering, in the late afternoon or early morning.

After their visit, the Venturi returned to Earth’s side of this wormhole and, from what we can gather, a huge debate began within the crew. They argued over what to do with this discovery, and who to tell about it.

At some point, Alice Vale formed ideas of her own. From the access logs you provided us, we know she spent the better part of a day in her bunk downloading data. Patent databases, schematics, knowledge archives on almost every topic imaginable. Mountains of information related to every technological advancement humanity has ever achieved. Even things like culture, fashion, and art.

She took all this with her, Peter. She killed the rest of her crew and ran back to this place as the sole representative of Earth, armed with all our collective knowledge. We don’t know why, but we can guess.

“To play God,” Caswell said aloud.

We think she’s going to give it to them, probably hoping they’ll reward her with wealth and prestige beyond anyone’s dreams. She’ll be a curiosity, a celebrity like no other. Perhaps even heralded as some kind of messiah.

“What a brilliant, crazy, ambitious play.” Caswell grunted in admiration, and then he brought Alice Vale’s image back to his screen. He found he could view her as an adversary now, and a formidable one at that. In her face now he saw the drive, the ambition, and perhaps a hint of the ruthless selfishness that drove her to take these actions. He’d mistaken it all before as pure intellectual intensity.

She must be stopped, Peter. I’m sure you can understand why, but let me make this very clear: She could ruin this place. Contaminate it in more ways than what is obvious. Perhaps she has already. Her weapons knowledge alone is very dangerous, but this goes way beyond that.

This is a sovereign world, full of unique cultures and intelligent human life. We should have done what the rest of her crew advocated: study them, make contact when the time was right, take every possible measure not to alter their course. This world is not yet spacefaring, and we should have waited until they were ready to meet us before introducing ourselves. We should have chosen what we told them very carefully. For all we know they’re vicious and bloodthirsty, and perhaps Alice Vale has told them where we are. She has the information required to educate them on every major weapon program embarked upon by humanity in the last two centuries. The sorts of things we’ve taken great pains to remove from Earth, and prevent ever being built again. And there was the weapon she and the rest of the Venturi crew were working on, which goes far beyond anything that came before. If she gives it to them, the results could be catastrophic. For Duplica, and possibly even for Earth.

Your mission is to eliminate Alice Vale. Secondarily, destroy any artifacts of Earth she brought along, most especially that data trove.

With any luck she never even made landfall. Or if she did, they saw her as completely mental and threw her in an asylum. Whatever the case, do the job and get away with minimal impact. For all our sakes leave nothing behind.

Due to the circumstances of this mission, I’ve set up a delayed IA reversion trigger. Upon landing on Duplica, you’ll have fourteen days to complete your objectives.

A timer appeared on-screen below Monique’s face and held steady at fourteen days, zero hours, zero minutes, zero seconds.

Be back aboard your ship in eight days, since it’ll take you six to reach the wormhole again. If that is not possible, then at a minimum get off the ground before the timer hits zero. Log your results in the secure drop, lock in the reverse course, and sedate yourself. It should have just enough fuel to get you back to this side and we’ll be waiting to pick you up.

I know this will test you to the very limit, Peter, but I have every confidence. It’s not so unlike one of your holidays, right? You’re the perfect man for the job.

Good luck, IA6.

~Monique Pendleton, IH6, out.

These details are classified per your contract with Archon Corporation. Any attempt to speak, write, or otherwise divulge your objectives will trigger immediate reversion. Thought-access lock ends.

He spent the days that followed studying video logs recorded aboard the station. As a nonscientist it helped him immensely to hear their discussions, their debates and hypotheses. Before the betrayal that would kill them, the crew of the Venturi had done a remarkable job during their brief visit to the world. At the time they had no idea if they would ever return home to share their discovery, making their efforts all the more impressive.

No matter. Whatever the tipping point had been, it had happened and Alice had embarked on this scheme.

She’d rigged a bomb. And a clever one at that. Killed the rest of her crew and departed with that data trove and, presumably, supplies to the planet below.

On a whim he checked for Lander One’s transponder again. The scan showed negative. Of course nothing would come up. In his professional estimation Alice Vale was simply too smart for a mistake like that.

He’d have to track her down the old-fashioned way: detective work, spycraft.

“With 1950s technology.” He collapsed back in his chair, overwhelmed as the enormity of the task ahead of him crashed down like an avalanche.

He must step onto this world with nothing but the clothing on his back, and even that he’d have to swap for local garments as quickly as possible. He didn’t know their customs or, hell, know the first damn thing about the life-forms he would meet. Yet somehow in two weeks he needed to acclimate, find his target, perform the task, and leave? Monique had been right, he was the perfect man for the job. Every one of his adventure holidays had been in preparation for this mission. Only this was no holiday. A life would be taken. An entire world’s course of history was potentially at stake.

Peter Caswell decided to follow the spirit of Monique’s orders, if not the letter. A little extra risk of contaminating this place he could stomach if it meant his chances of success increased.

No matter what, he’d have to return to his ship before his implant released the biochemical agent in his brain. Every neuron, every synapse and dendrite in his brain that had changed since the moment his implant had first flooded them with the marker, would suddenly and irrevocably rewire itself back to that moment. Mentally he would find himself in that weightless instant staring at Angelina Monroe, only to emerge who knows where with a song lyric on his tongue.

The word is all of us…

The implant had other uses, though. And being hidden within his body it was perhaps the one technological marvel he could take with the confidence it would remain hidden.

Caswell closed his eyes and massaged his temples. He pressed his fingers hard into the skin there, savoring the slight pain that would signal his implant. A smartwatch he wore usually handled such tasks, regulating him automatically in subtle ways. This manual approach, by pressing the temples and thinking deliberate thoughts, he’d not done in years. He needed to be sure it still worked. The artificial gland in his neck released chemicals per his desire, calming him, sharpening his focus. He’d regret it soon, but for now he needed the edge. He had to get this right.

He turned to selecting a landing site.

It seemed likely that Alice would seek familiar ground. He studied her birthplace in the mountains of Colorado, but that area lay within the path of destruction. In one of the recordings Caswell had studied she’d mentioned a village in France called Olargues, some sort of childhood vacation spot, but it lay too in the wasteland of craters. He glanced at Alice’s file on another screen. According to the dossier she’d lived the last few years of her time on Earth near the ESA’s British headquarters in Lancaster, England. He scrolled there.

The culture on this world favored densely packed towns and cities, leaving much of the landscape wilderness, including the outskirts of Lancaster where Alice’s flat on Earth had been. In the end he picked a clearing near a lake roughly eighty kilometers from there. High ground near plenty of fresh water, and no roads anywhere nearby. Curiously, the water levels of just about every lake and river he saw were lower than Earth’s. The coastlines, too.

There seemed nothing else to do. His finger hovered over the landing sequence icon, though, as he tried to think of anything else he might have forgotten. He was no good at this sort of thing. Improvisation was his specialty.

The screen bleeped at him. The landing window was closing. He tapped the button and settled back, a shiver coursing through his body. Soon he would set foot on an alien world.

Within seconds the tiny ship began to reorient itself for atmospheric entry.

Flame roiled outside the tiny porthole. The craft bucked and hummed, every surface shaken to the verge of tearing apart. Then, as quickly as it had started, the flames gave way to blue sky. Clouds whipped past. A jarring lurch almost made him pass out as the landing rockets fired. The craft floated down the last hundred meters toward a blanket of snow.

On the screen in front of him, the IA timer turned yellow and ticked down by one second. Then another. Thirteen days, 23 hours, 59 minutes, 57 seconds.

Caswell started a timer on his wristwatch to match. His gaze lingered on the device. It was sleek, just a thin strip of titanium around his wrist inlaid with a curved, organic screen. A luxury smartwatch, packed with the latest tech. More powerful than all the world’s computers combined a hundred years earlier. What about here? What would happen if someone in England circa 1956 found it lying on the ground?

Not much, he realized. Their biometrics would fail to activate it. To them it would probably resemble a rather modern bit of jewelry.

There seemed no debate. He needed a timer synced to the one Monique had started. On Earth time, not Duplican. Even a small difference in the planet’s rotational speed could shave minutes each day off his window. He would leave it on, he decided. Absolutely worth the risk.

Get in, do the job, get out, forget. Ignorance is bliss; consequences require recollection. If Archon needed him to know anything about this place after the fact, they’d rebrief him.