Her biggest weakness was that she still relied on Harley Drake and Sasha Blaine, and on Jaidev and Zhao and Makali Pillay and so many others for not just support, but to be the mature ones, the better informed.

To be her parents. Rachel was sufficiently self-aware to know that she had never recovered from losing Megan, then Zack, along with her entire life on Earth, within two years.

She had disagreed with all of them at one time or another, or found them to be in error on one subject or another. Now, here on Guam, on her way to a terrifying Reiver Aggregate facility in the former United States . . . she tried not to feel panic, to wish for one of the adults to confidently guide her.

She reminded herself she was not twelve again, but thirty-four, older than the men who had worked in mission control during the Apollo program . . . older than soldiers, sailors, pilots . . . older than Jesus when he went to the cross.

So why didn’t she feel more sure of herself?

Maybe no one did, not even generals or presidents or ship captains in the middle of storms.

None of it mattered, anyway. Unless Rachel surrendered the authority the others had granted her, giving up and telling Pav or Edgar Chang to make the decisions from this moment on . . . Tea’s advice was the only one to follow.

Forward.

Xavier’s transmitter worked beautifully. The moment Rachel switched it on, she heard Harley Drake’s voice as clearly as if they were in adjacent rooms inside the Temple. “About time,” Harley said. He was never one for idle chat. As long as Rachel had known Harley, it seemed that conversations rarely began, they just resumed.

They had a tremendous amount of catch-up to do, about the decoy trip out of Yelahanka, the flight to Darwin, the Chang-Edgely involvement . . . the nature of the Reiver Ring in the United States, and their plans for the ultimate assault on it.

Ultimately, their conversation lasted fifty minutes and left Rachel with a headache that affected her vision.

The most maddening aspect was the four-second lag between the time her words left Earth and were received on Keanu, and vice versa. Rachel had experienced it to some degree on the voyage from Keanu to Earth, but not like this. It turned what should have been a conversation into a series of statements.

Finally, she had been compelled to discuss the terrible thing that had happened to Sanjay. “We had gotten the message,” Harley said. “We’ve already told the community and held a service.”

Then Rachel had to admit that they had done nothing of the sort for their colleague . . . that she had abandoned him in the hospital at Yelahanka, that she had no idea what had happened with his body—

“Stop yourself,” Harley told her. “You left him with Taj, and that’s all you could do under the circumstances. I don’t want you to beat yourself up about this any longer, is that clear?”

Rachel reluctantly told Harley that she would.

Then Harley said, “By the way, Dale is working in league with Zhao.”

“I’m sure you know what you’re doing,” Rachel said, not feeling that way at all.

“We’re watching him very carefully,” Harley said. “And Sasha tells me we are about to lose you. . . .”

The signal ended abruptly, as the antenna on Keanu’s surface rotated below the horizon as seen from the Pacific Ocean.

The exchange left her feeling better—at least Harley and the others knew Rachel’s situation. It was up to them to execute their half of the operation, or rather their two thirds of it.

For the first time on her trip to Earth, Rachel began to feel as though she was the beneficiary of some decent luck.

They would need it. By returning to Earth orbit, she and the other leaders had essentially painted a big red target on the Near-Earth Object, bringing Keanu within range of some kind of Reiver planet-killer beam.

Rachel was turning toward Xavier, to thank him for the use of the communicator, when Edgely arrived.

“The second plane is on approach.”

Greetings! Emerging from radio and other silence to say . . . all is well.

I’ve been traveling, seeing the sights, working on fulfilling a lifetime dream. (For those of you who have been following me for twenty years, you know what I mean.)

Which is all I can say here. “But soft, we are observed!”

Hoping for some news I can talk about soon!

COLIN EDGELY TO THE KETTERING GROUP,

APRIL 18, 2040

DALE

“What exactly do you know?”

Once he had penetrated the vesicle factory and been confronted by Zhao, Dale knew he could no longer escape. Zhao had closed and locked the exit from the habitat, even though Dale was fairly sure he could still find a way out.

But he didn’t particularly want to. Something in his head—not the map, but some part of the connection with Keanu’s controlling intelligence—told him that this was where he needed to be, and possibly that Zhao was the one human to meet.

The former spy had shed his Skyphoi environment suit and was busy checking on the odd-looking, lumpish proteus-created controls that operated a set of spray guns and other devices that were slowly but steadily building the vesicle. He was talking to Dale, but not concentrating on him.

“Shouldn’t I be asking you?” Dale said.

Now Zhao turned away from his work to face him. “I realize you can’t help being an ass, but please try. Surely you know that Harley told me you had resurfaced with some vague warnings.”

“I wouldn’t call them vague.”

“And you still have the incredibly annoying habit of picking on a modifier and arguing about that instead of the substance of an entire sentence. Fine, to repeat while also expanding: What exactly do you know about the dangers to the Adventure crew?”

“That their approach had been detected and tracked, that some hostile force fired on them . . .” Dale trailed off, since Zhao kept nodding as if he already knew that much. Well, if he had talked to Harley, he did.

“Anything specific?”

Dale weighed his answer. During his trek from the human habitat, he had felt a growing certainty that Rachel and her team were in danger again. But in order to fully access the Keanu data banks, Dale needed to engage in his naked interface . . . and there had been no opportunity.

Nevertheless, earlier memories seemed to have grown clearer. “The Reivers have a big project that is about to go live. When they pull the trigger, a lot of humans are going to die.”

“Did you tell Harley this?”

“No. It wasn’t—”

“I should take you back to the habitat and lock you up so everyone can hear your big secrets. You did escape, correct?”

“Ask Harley. He kept insisting I wasn’t a prisoner, or that if I was, it wasn’t his decision.”

“Oh, you were. And in a sense, are.” Zhao smiled, never a happy look. “But then, so are we all.”

Zhao nodded beyond Dale. He turned and saw half a dozen HBs approaching, two women among them, and one of them, amazingly, appeared to be Makali Pillay, the Aussie exobiologist who had shared Dale and Zack Stewart’s long, weird trek across the surface of Keanu. They did not seem hostile; they didn’t even seem to notice Dale, but rather fanned out to work on the vesicle. Zhao said. “To be honest, there’s no point in locking you up. Things are moving too fast. We actually need some help.”

“Doing what?”

“Getting this ready for launch.”

“To Earth?”

“Well, it’s not going to the fucking Moon!”

“But you already sent Adventure there!”

“And look how that’s going! They’re in everyone’s crosshairs. I know it seems like we sent six people up against an entire planet, but come on, Dale. We’re going after the Reivers, but not with Adventure.”