“Yeah,” she said. And then couldn’t resist it: “Now I can die happy.”

They were halfway up the ramp—with less than two hundred meters to go—when Tea heard a magical sound in her headset. “—on UHF, comm check. Venture crew, Houston. Tea, this is Jasmine.”

“All right!” Tea said, practically shouting. The next few moments were a comedy of overlapping messages, broken sentences, all complicated by the eight-second round-trip lag. But eventually Houston knew that four were still alive and on the surface, that Zack was alive and yet to be heard from.

More to the point, Tea knew that Destiny was still operating in orbit around Keanu, and that the rocket scientists in mission control were seriously considering bringing it to the surface for a possible rescue. “That’s assuming Venture and Brahma are both too damaged for use,” Jasmine Trieu said.

“We understand,” Tea said. “Can you relay for Taj?”

“We’re already doing so,” Trieu said, after the lag.

“Then let’s get eyeballs on the situation.” Tea and Taj continued their ascent, covering the last fifty meters in what seemed like three flying leaps.

The view from the rim was disheartening. “Oh, fuck, Taj, where are they?”

The surface had been blasted clean . . . this small piece of Keanu real estate, which had resembled a glacial valley on Earth, now looked like the Moon, a vista Tea knew as well as any human being.

She had been prepared to find damage. What was killing her was this: Both Venture and Brahma were gone. It was as if both vehicles had simply launched without them.

“Tea, Houston. We did not copy your last.” Christ, Houston had heard her despairing comments. Nice work, Nowinski.

“Roger, Houston. Taj and I are at the top, noting, uh, some thermal effects of whatever happened.” What were they telling the people of Earth? “Are you getting imagery?” She had no idea if her helmet cam was working, or if working, capable of punching an image to Houston via Destiny.

“A fuzzy landscape,” the capcom finally said. “Can’t tell much except dark sky and brighter surface.”

Tea chose not to answer that directly. Taj had started toward the landing sites halfway around the rim of the vent, so she followed.

She hadn’t gone far when she saw a flash of genuine color next to a collection of smallish boulders near the rim.

She signaled Taj to go the private channel. “That looks like a Brahma suit.” It was a Brahma-style EVA suit . . . rather, the top half of it.

Tea heard a long, anguished sigh in her earphones. “Yes, that’s Dennis,” Taj said. Of course, Taj’s identification was unnecessary: Dennis Chertok was the only missing member of his crew. “What was he doing out here?”

Tea bent as close as she could. Not only had the body been fragmented by the blast, but the multilayered fabric and helmet had been fused to the rock. The helmet was still intact, but frosted on the inside, mercifully obscuring Chertok’s face. “I have no idea,” she said. “All I know is that there seems to be blood on the inside of his faceplate.”

Taj indicated the rocks behind the body. “Might be from impact.”

Tea straightened and turned away. There was no immediate value in trying to conduct a postmortem. Their goal now was to keep from adding to the body count.

She saw more color now . . . fifty meters away, four gold-colored uprights—well, two uprights, two that had been twisted and knocked over.

Venture’s legs. The rest of the twenty-ton, five-story-tall, two-billion-dollar spacecraft, the pride and joy of an entire nation, had simply vanished, along with Yvonne Hall . . . and Patrick Downey?

Taj joined her. He could see the same wreckage. “And over there . . .” he said.

To their left, looking toward the blue-and-white crescent of the rising Earth, was an even more appalling sight: the wreckage of Brahma.

Venture had been vaporized by the heat of the detonation, but Brahma’s wounds—though equally fatal—were more varied. In the first milliseconds of the blast, the Coalition vehicle had lost two of its legs, then toppled and melted as its fuel tanks exploded.

What remained was a lumpy, half-shattered cylinder lying on its side. It was still recognizable as a vehicle of some kind.

Taj was saying, “Do you suppose we’re being exposed to radiation?”

“Yes, and that would be the last of my worries at the moment. I mean, are we likely to live long enough to die from too many rems? Besides, the suits should offer some protection.”

Tea had to fight her emotions. She wanted to lie down and cry. Even as she reported the grim news to Houston—and heard Taj telling Bangalore—she fought to keep from simply sobbing.

There’ll be plenty of time to lie down later, she thought. If Houston can’t pull off its little miracle with Destiny.

“Houston for Tea . . . We, ah, confirm loss of both Venture and Brahma. We got some clear imagery. Stand by.”

They were wondering just what the hell to tell her.

“Copy that, Houston . . . Tell you what: Taj and I are going to head south of this site, roughly where Yvonne wound up yesterday. Give us half an hour and see if we can’t pick out a runway for you.”

Thanx for the kind words re my dad. He’s smart and strong and I know he’ll come through this! Love you all!

LAST POST FROM RACHEL STEWART ON HER SLATE

“Are you sure you want to do this?” Jillianne Dwight said, as she drove through the open, silent gates of Forest Park Cemetery.

“I can handle it,” Rachel said.

“I know, sweetie. It’s just . . . it’s been a weird couple of days.” She glanced at the Slate in Rachel’s lap. “Are you going to post something?”

Rachel shrugged. “That’s why I have it, I guess.” She also had a small garden spade in her bag. She had grabbed it from the back porch—where the Stewarts’ few plants were in severe distress—just before leaving the house.

“When did you start doing all that?”

“When didn’t I? I mean, Mom was always blogging or taping from the day I was born. She did a show on her pregnancy. It was like she wanted to save every moment of her life.”

“And yours, too.”

“I suppose.” She looked out the window. The sky was growing darker, some big storm about to blow up from the Gulf. In fact, the cemetery now looked much as it had the day Megan Stewart was buried. “What’s really weird is that I might have the chance to ask her.”

Jillianne kept her eyes on the winding road. “So you think that’s really your mom up there?”

“You don’t?”

“Honey, I just—Well, my momma taught me that all good people sit with Jesus. It took me a long time to sort of, you know, get past that.” She smiled sadly. “Not that you can’t work for NASA and be religious. There are a lot of people at the center who do both. But I had to choose sides, you know?”

“So you’re on the side that says those people up there are alien whatevers.”

“I don’t want to be on a side, young lady. I suppose if it was someone I knew and loved, I’d feel different. Sorry, I mean . . . well, I don’t know what I mean. But I think we’re here.”

Rachel hadn’t been completely sure that the “Megan” she had talked to was really her mother—

Until now. It was just like Daddy said: You don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone. If Megan’s intimate knowledge had brought Rachel ninety percent of the way to full belief, Jillianne’s gentle skepticism had carried her the final stretch.

Of course, there was still Megan’s body. . . .

Her grave lay twenty meters off the road, in a flat, open area surrounded by other graves, of course, most of them recent, many of them marked with crosses and angels. Rachel slid her bag over one arm, tucking her Slate under, then followed the familiar trail. Jillianne stayed with the car.