“Will you promise to tell me when they are back in contact?”

“Of course,” he said, not at all sure that he would. Remilla’s only role now was to make sure that Adventure remained unmolested, and that Sanjay Bhat was safe until he could be transferred.

Those happened to be Taj’s jobs, too. And he was going to fail at both if he did not get some sleep.

Remilla offered a conciliatory hug, and finally left him.

Taj climbed into his car and started it up, hoping that the drive to his apartment would be trouble-free. He and Tea had spent most of their married life living on Raisina Hill in New Delhi, close to the Ministry of Defence. But with news of Keanu’s looming return, they had moved to Bangalore.

It had not been an easy year and a half for Tea. In fact, the entire last decade had been a challenge for his wife. When the Aggregates erected their financial and other walls around the United States, she had faced a choice: Return and submit to the new order, or stay away . . . and lose her pension.

She chose to stay away, and found herself having to make a living as a former astronaut, first woman to walk on the Moon, in a world that had no time for space exploration.

(It wasn’t about survival: Taj could support both of them on his general’s pension and other investments. But naturally Tea resisted that.)

She had finally found a way to keep busy, making speeches to female students in secondary schools and college classes about opportunities in science and technology—ISRO supported it; more to the point, so did the Ministry of Defence. (The more engineers it could enroll in the coming war with the Aggregates, the better!)

But it was not a happy existence. Tea had grown unhappy, with her work, her future, with India . . . with Taj.

And now she was off with Rachel. Taj was grateful that she finally had something worthwhile to keep her busy. He was quite unhappy, though, that neither of them had been able to work together—he with the “secrets” he had learned from Pav, she with . . . whatever she was gleaning from Rachel—

He had barely pulled out of the garage when he saw movement in his peripheral vision; it was Kaushal with two of his guards literally running out of the hospital. He spotted Taj’s car and clearly ordered the guards to pursue him.

Taj chose to hit the pedal and keep driving.

It was ultimately a foolish maneuver. His car was an underpowered electric Tata Sanand III, good for cheap, comfortable commutes, useless for flight.

He was also restricted to Yelahanka Air Base, with its many speed bumps, stop signs, and competing vehicles.

All of which meant that he didn’t get far . . . Kaushal’s Jeep caught him at the exit gate.

“Why are you running away?” the wing commander said. He was wide-eyed and angrier than Taj had ever seen him.

“I wanted to go home.”

Kaushal just stared. It was likely that he was as exhausted as Taj, and almost as likely that he realized it. “You should answer your phone,” he muttered. Taj was carrying two of them, but only the one that would connect him to Kaushal was on his person. His official unit was in his briefcase. “And you need to come with me, now.”

“What is this all about, Kaushal?”

“It’s the Adventure man Sanjay.”

It was already over by the time Taj and Kaushal reached the ICU.

“He expired without ever regaining consciousness,” the senior surgeon said. “Time of death was one forty-five.”

Taj rubbed his face. He was torn between relief—he had judged Sanjay Bhat’s injuries to be fatal the moment he first saw him—and a growing sense of panic. “Let me see him.”

The surgeon stood aside and allowed Taj and Kaushal into the room where Sanjay lay. The IV and other lines had been removed and the sheets rearranged after what, to judge from the pile of bloody cotton and bandages on the floor, must have been a frantic struggle to save the Adventure engineer.

The secrets this man held! The things he had seen! The places he had traveled . . . outside the heart of the solar system! Yet he had died as a result of a stupid missile strike!

Then there were the various plans Pav and Rachel had discussed with him—assuming Sanjay recovered, they wanted him flown to their destination. “Wherever we have our cargo,” Pav had said.

So much for plans.

Remilla entered, looking shocked. “Oh my God.”

“He’s gone,” Kaushal said, unnecessarily.

“What do we do?”

“I’ll call Rachel and tell her,” Taj said. He indicated that he wanted to get out of the room, and the others followed.

“Then what?”

“He has a brother,” Kaushal said, looking to Remilla for confirmation.

“I’ll get in touch with him,” Remilla said. “But then what?”

“What?” Taj said.

“The body!” Remilla said. “What do we do? Have a funeral? Ship him to his brother?”

“Let me talk to Rachel,” Taj said.

So much for rest.

Day Four

MONDAY, APRIL 16, 2040

Where did they go?

For two generations prior to the arrival of the Aggregates, tabloids and mass-market television shows feasted on stories of “alien abductions,” in which lonely humans would be plucked from deserted highways—never from downtown urban streets—and taken off for bizarre sexual or medical examinations in spacecraft.

What about alien disappearances? The crew of the Keanu-based Adventure spacecraft has vanished from the base near Bangalore where they were sequestered.

One report had them moving to Delhi, but that turned out to be false—fortunately, since an accident involving what was believed to be the Keanite convoy killed two and injured two others, according to incomplete information released so far.

We are sure of this: No one is speaking about the “aliens” present, not even the Keanites’ representative, Edgar Chang, who also seems to have gone dark.

SYDNEY MORNING HERALD,

MONDAY, APRIL 16, 2040

RACHEL

“How long have you been in touch with this Edgely character?”

“Not long,” Pav said. “And not often.”

The plane bumped, one of many since taking off from Bengaluru.

It was an executive jet, a thirty-year-old Gulfstream 605, according to Edgely. They were flying low over the Indian Ocean and, in Rachel’s opinion, coming far too close to nasty-looking storm clouds. The occasional bumps only convinced her that she was in the hands of crazy people.

And Pav had made this happen without telling her!

It wasn’t all bad. The turbulence probably added up to twenty minutes out of seven hours of flying. As for the rest of the time, well, the cabin was really luxurious: wide leather seats, soft lighting, carpet. There had been food and beverages shortly after takeoff, served out by Edgely and the two pilots—both Chinese, one male, one female, both younger than Rachel would have believed.

The takeoff had been swift and steep, with Edgely jokingly talking about “avoiding SAMs,” which Pav later identified as “surface-to-air missiles.”

“Like the thing that shot Adventure.”

“Correct.”

Which made her even more nervous than she had been. All during the escape from Yelahanka she had been focusing on China—what she knew, what they could do there, how long it would take them to move on. The shift to this aircraft and Mr. Colin Edgely and a destination in Australia had forced her to change her mind, never a happy or easy adjustment.