After they’d eaten, Dunne, Sam, and Matthew took turns showering the cryoliquid off their bodies and changing into new suits. Matthew was just walking back into the control room in fresh clothes when he heard a sound of electronic squawking and buzzing. Soon the buzzing clarified into the sound of a woman’s voice.
“Corvus. Come in, Corvus. Do you copy?”
The quantum transceiver. Matthew moved toward the control room, then grabbed the transceiver and clicked the button on the side. Sam and Dunne moved close to hear.
“Copy, Control. This is Corvus.”
“Who am I talking to, Corvus?” The voice sounded like that of a young woman not so much older, Matthew guessed, than he was.
“This is Matthew Tilson. And who’s this?”
“My name is Alison Nagita, transmitting from Exo Project Mission Control.” A pause, then Alison continued. “What’s your status? We got a reading from your transceiver that the Corvus is in orbit around H-240. Is that right?”
“And the rest of the crew came out of the freeze all right?”
Matthew winced. “A little shaken up still. But we’re all alive.”
“Good. We’re going to need you to get into your suits, prepare to initiate the entry sequence.”
Matthew glanced back at the table. Dunne’s face was stricken, ashen.
“I thought they’d give us some time,” she said, gazing at the table and speaking quietly, as if to herself. “I thought we’d have more time.”
Sam snorted. “Why? We’re going to die down there; may as well get on with it.”
He looked up at Matthew and nodded. Matthew nodded back and pushed the button on the transceiver.
“Roger that, Control. Preparing for descent now.”
Matthew gritted his teeth as the Corvus rattled and pitched, jostling him in his seat. Displays and buttons lit up in different colors reflected on the visor of his helmet like spots swimming before his eyes. Past the glare, a mist washed over the cockpit window as the ship sank deeper into the planet’s atmosphere.
There was a stomach-churning moment of free fall as the ship hit a pocket of warm air, then a bone-rattling crash as the Corvus regained stability once more. Matthew let out a breath and glanced toward Dunne and Sam, strapped in next to him. Their arms were clamped down at their sides, their helmets facing straight forward.
Matthew looked back at the window just in time to see the planet come into focus below. The land was flat as far as he could see, with low, gentle swells rising up one after the other like desert dunes. As the ship sank lower, he saw movement atop the dunes, grasses dancing this way and that.
Matthew’s breath fled his throat and buried itself in his chest.
The feeling he’d had when he first looked down at the planet from the ship returned, stronger than before. Matthew knew this place. He didn’t remember how, but he knew it nonetheless. The sight of the planet’s surface lodged like a splinter in his brain. It was an itch he couldn’t reach, a piece of grit that wouldn’t blink out of his eye.
The horizon rose up, squeezing out the dark night sky. The ship bucked and jostled as it made contact with the ground, then sank down slowly as the landing gear settled in place and gently let the ship down. The thrusters fired one last time, and in the control room the blinking displays went dark one by one.
A hand on his shoulder shook him out of his reverie. He looked to the side, to Dunne strapped into the next seat over.
“We made it,” she said, but there was no pleasure, no relief, in her voice or her face.
Matthew nodded and returned his eyes to the window.
The Corvus had landed.