Yahvi was shocked. “You mean you could be executed for what you told me?”

Now Counselor Ivetta spoke. “All three of us could be terminated.” Her humanity was showing, too: fear, and a desire to terminate Counselor Nigel for putting her in this situation.

“It will probably depend on how successful this is,” Counselor Nigel said, indicating Rachel and the plane.

“I’m sorry your lives are in my hands,” she said, not feeling very sorry at all.

“That’s true for all of us,” Zeds said out of the darkness.

It was after landing, while all of the passengers were waiting for the cargo ramp at the rear of the plane to drop, that Pav said, “I asked them to contact my father.”

“Good idea. Let’s make them work for us as much as possible, while we can.” Their phones had been confiscated on landing at Edwards.

“It’s not like him to go dark, not even leave a message.”

“We’ve hardly had coverage,” Rachel said.

“We’ve had some.” He indicated Tea, who seemed lost, distracted by some fascinating detail of the cargo plane’s interior. “She’s had no word, either.”

The aircraft had landed south of St. George, Utah, on a runway that looked raw and new, even in the darkness. (Rachel guessed it was between four and five A.M. local time.)

De la Vega and his assistants had flown with them—in a separate compartment, along with Aggregates and the proteus. Now the human leader divided the party into three groups, each one to be ferried by helicopter to the Ring.

“How much farther?” Colin Edgely asked de la Vega. Rachel felt sorry for the Aussie; he had only been trying to help . . . had been thrilled to play a role in this mission.

Now he was exhausted, a captive in a foreign land, surrounded by strangers, some of them hostile and murderous. By speaking to de la Vega he was essentially saying, I don’t give a shit what you do to me.

But the human leader simply said, “Forty kilometers. We can’t land an aircraft this size at the facility.” And turned to other business.

Edgely caught Rachel’s eye. He seemed to feel that he had accomplished something valuable, gained some vital information. Well, Rachel thought, whatever made him feel better.

Not that she was in any position to feel superior to Colin Edgely. Her presence here was due to the same random factors. Until August 2019, she had been a typical fourteen-year-old American girl. Yes, her father was an astronaut . . . but that only made her rare, not unique.

She had not dreamed of flying to other worlds, or living on them. Or having to become a leader of a community, and certainly not some kind of space warrior.

Maybe that was how it was for everybody, all those notable figures throughout history.

Time and luck—some of it bad.

Rachel, Tea, and Zeds were separated from the others—though not from Counselor Nigel and his crew—and put aboard a helicopter with Counselor Cory. Rachel didn’t like being separated from Pav and Yahvi, but at least they were together.

The Aggregates were all being loaded into a van instead of a helicopter. “Do you suppose they don’t like to fly?” Tea said, pointing to them.

“I think they are too numerous,” Zeds said.

“Truer words,” Rachel said. Tea laughed.

Before they could take off, Counselor Nigel returned and spoke to Rachel. “I’m sorry to say I have very bad news for you. General Radhakrishnan has passed away.”

Rachel took the news calmly, while thinking, Poor Pav! She had just said, “What happened?” when Tea groaned and reached out.

Oh, God, Rachel thought. Counselor Nigel didn’t know that Tea was Taj’s wife.

Then the door was locked and the helicopter rattled into the predawn sky.

Rachel had managed to trade places with Zeds—quite a trick in the cramped helicopter cabin—in order to sit next to Tea, who shook with sobs during most of the trip to the Ring. “God, I’m a mess.”

“You just got terrible news.”

“Poor Taj,” she said. She shouted across the cabin at Counselor Nigel. “Did they say anything? What happened to him?”

“Only that he died yesterday in Bangalore.”

Hearing this made Tea even sadder. “There’s no one to take care of him! I’m not going to be at his funeral!”

“Let’s ask de la Vega,” Rachel said, including her THE companions in the proposal. “Maybe they’ll let you go, compassionate leave?”

“Oh, honey,” Tea said. “First you have to have compassion.”

Counselors Nigel and Ivetta only exchanged glances, but their silence confirmed Tea’s statement. There would be no expression of compassion from the human leader and his Aggregate allies.

The helicopter turned then, giving Rachel a restricted but fascinating view of a reddening eastern sky, desert mesas casting insanely long shadows . . . and a portion of a glittering circular structure: the Ring.

The helicopter landed moments later. As the engines fluttered to a stop, Rachel said to Counselor Nigel, “Does my husband know?”

“No,” he said. “My orders were to inform you.”

Tea took Rachel’s arm again. “I’ll tell him,” she said, trying to smile through tears. “I’m his stepmother, after all.”

Rachel witnessed the dread delivery from several meters away. Tea had forced her way to Pav, but Rachel was held back; the helipad was crowded with two vehicles and disembarking passengers, all being herded toward stairways. Even Zeds, who could easily bulldoze a path, was stuck behind Rachel, and she behind Edgely.

By the time they were inside the building, Pav had already absorbed the blow. He accepted a hug from Rachel. “It’s so fucking unfair,” he said. “I just got him back!”

He remained stoic. Yahvi, however, wept openly. Xavier and Tea both comforted her. Zeds and Edgely looked on, each ineffectual in his own way.

De la Vega regarded them all with confusion; obviously he didn’t know what they were reacting to, and Rachel was damn sure she wouldn’t be the one to tell him. “Your equipment will arrive within the hour,” he said. “Right now you are going to the operations center to meet the project leaders. They will identify the devices we need and you can communicate that to Keanu.”

He turned to other business, leaving Xavier to ask Rachel, “How are we going to do that?”

“With whatever system they have.” She had seen several radomes at the perimeter of this facility.

“Fine. What are we looking for? Some specific tool we can use, some information?”

“Really?” Rachel said. “All we’re looking for is time.”

She glanced out the window at the desert morning, wondering . . . where was the vesicle?

Veteran NewSky TV reporter and on-air personality Edgar Chang died Friday, family and friends have revealed. No details were given, though family members claim he died outside China.

The 65-year-old Chang, well known to NewSky viewers for a generation, had been working with the six returnees from Keanu. They have not been seen in public for a week, since disappearing from an air base near Bangalore, India.

There has been no comment from NewSky.

XINHUA NEWS, APRIL 22, 2040

Does anyone have more information? Chang was with Colin!

KETTERING GROUP, SAME DAY

SANJAY

Sanjay awoke and was angry with himself.

He had so little time remaining! There was no value in wasting it with sleep, even if Keanu used that time to upload information to him. (He had had a series of strange dreams involving falling, being naked or lost in the passages of Keanu, or a mixture of the three.)

Like every member of the HB community, Sanjay knew about the Revenants . . . tortured Pogo Downey, brave Yvonne Hall, tragic Camilla . . . and, of course, the amazing Megan Doyle Stewart.