Not that there was ever likely to be a reason to restore his prior appearance: slim, dark-eyed, the carefully cultivated stubble, the close-fitting shirt and tailored trousers. Jaidev’s life had effectively ended when he was enclosed in the Bangalore Object.

But he had hoped that getting into a scuffle over food would have paid off with something. A Power Bar or even a drink of warm American beer.

Nothing…except bruises.

His participation in what began as a mad scramble for rations—one of dozens Jaidev had witnessed—had ended with a nasty punch delivered by Daksha Saikumar, a fellow Brahma enviro systems engineer. Daksha was a decade older than Jaidev’s twenty-nine, so hairy and slow that unfriendly colleagues dubbed him “the Gorilla.” Jaidev had never considered Daksha a friend, but he had never expected him to shove him aside, then complete the maneuver by striking him in the face.

Jaidev had been left to wander the fringe of the refugee crowd in search of something potentially edible.

All he—and several other members of the Bangalore group—had found was a large, shallow pool of muddy (looking) water, which everyone drank from even as Daksha sniffed in disdain, naming it “Lake Ganges.”

It was the latest in a series of humiliations. Jaidev couldn’t even blame the worst of them on the Bangalore Object.

He was from an IT family; everyone, his father, mother, an older brother, and two older sisters all worked in the Corridor in Chennai, though on a lower level. (One brother ran a call center.)

Jaidev had built on the family experience and earned a position at nearby Sathyamba University, a lucky move, since it allowed him to get out of his father’s house and into the hostel.

(The school had a fleet of buses available to students, too. Odd how those crowded, hot vehicles reminded him of the vesicle….)

The other bit of luck was that his specialty at Sathyamba was mechanical and production engineering rather than telecommunications or computing.

What struck his parents and sibs as an unproductive career detour turned out to be a direct route to study in the United States at Cornell, where he was first exposed to computational synthesis and advanced 3-D printing—processes that promised to revolutionize manufacturing. He had taken part in the development of so-called gray goo…material designed to serve as the building blocks of any substance or structure, mechanical or biological. They called this stuff plasm, preliminary lithographic assembly material.

It was Jaidev Mahabala the plasm specialist who was able to work briefly for the U.S. space program, then his country’s.

Right up to the week of the Brahma mission.

For the last readiness meeting in advance of the launch, thirty members of the Bangalore team flew to Rio de Janeiro.

Jaidev had done his work at the Brazilian Space Agency well; his team had been responsible for crew equipment and consumables. All of the final reports were accepted.

Leaving them all free to play. Leaving Jaidev, alas, free to get drunk in a gay bar on the Avenue Viera Santo near Ipanema Beach.

And to be arrested with a male prostitute.

Jaidev had embraced his homosexuality once out of his family’s home, making full use of the Internet to find other friends in Chennai, and especially visitors to the tech zone.

It had been fun—and continued to be fun during his time in the United States. He kept hoping to find someone special, someone he could commit to…and had decided to make that his number one personal goal at the conclusion of the Brahma mission.

The arrest had destroyed that plan. Rather, he was free to pursue personal goals, because the day the Object struck, he had been called into Vikram Nayar’s office and informed that he was being “transferred” away from the control center to an ISRO office in Ladakh, or someplace equally remote.

He’d been fired.

Word of the scuffle must have reached the new “leaders,” since a group of them came running to Lake Ganges. Most of them were Americans: people such as Gabriel Jones, Shane Weldon, and even Zack Stewart, all known to Jaidev from Brahma.

Stewart, Weldon, and Jones saw that there were no Houston types in the group and drifted off to consider the uses of the water supply.

Nayar was left to chastise the rest, all of them quieter. Even Daksha’s temper had cooled and he was now subdued, possibly shamed. It didn’t stop Nayar. “Look at you! Have you forgotten where you came from? Everything you learned? Two days and you’ve become beasts!”

“We need food,” one of the men said.

“You’ll get whatever any of us gets,” Nayar said. “Try to act as though you deserve it. Better yet—be proactive and start searching. Do something useful instead of lying around like this!”

“Vikram!” It was Shane Weldon calling from across the lake. “We need to get back!”

Nayar had turned away from the Bangalores in disgust, finding himself directly in front of Jaidev.

The Brahma mission director was surprised. “I didn’t know you’d been taken, too.”

“Bad luck,” he said. “If only you’d fired me an hour earlier.”

Nayar grunted; he was not noted for having any sense of humor. But his criticism had suggested something to Jaidev, who had been hearing stories of Keanu’s changing environment, of Revenants, of mysterious “goo” or soil that seemed to have the ability to transform itself. “Sir—”

“What do you want?”

“The materials in this place seem to be a very advanced form of plasm—nanotech assembly material,” he added, seeing that Nayar, like many his age, was unfamiliar with the term. “I’ve got some hands-on experience with it. Why not let me see what I can do with it?”

“What do you honestly think you can do?” Nayar said. “This is an alien environment, designed by beings thousands of years more advanced than we are!”

“Designed for us,” a voice said to Jaidev’s right. Daksha.

“You said we should make ourselves useful. I think I can be useful.”

Daksha joined them. “Me, too.”

“Into the Temple, then,” Nayar said. “Both of you.”

The director turned away, clearly expecting nothing.

Nevertheless, Jaidev felt better. He had taken one step toward improving everyone’s lot…and redeeming himself.

But first…Daksha. “What do you know about plasm?”

“Beyond the name itself? Nothing.”

Jaidev stared at the man. To think that fifteen minutes earlier, Daksha had struck him. “Will you work for me?”

“You’re the expert.”

“Come on, then.” Jaidev Mahabala didn’t expect to find lithographic molecular knowledge in this group, so one pair of helping hands was as good as the next.

Besides…what better way to plot a bit of revenge than to have his assailant at his mercy?

ARRIVAL DAY: HARLEY

The hours after landing and “merger” of the two groups were consumed by greetings, shouts, jostling, complaints, and what Harley soon judged to be unreasonable joy.

How had their situation changed? There were now two more human refugees, since Zack had no tools and damned little useful information that the Houston and Bangalore groups didn’t already possess.

Brent Bynum said as much to Weldon and Jones. “Don’t get me wrong,” he said as they trudged toward the Temple, Harley wheeling with help from Sasha and feeling every meter in his shoulders. “I’m sick happy that Stewart survived. He’s the only one who knows what happened here.

“But unless he’s got an alien spacecraft gassed up and ready to go, he’s in the same damn fix we are.”

Harley had more important things to consider. He had not intruded on the painful reunion between Rachel and Zack. Given Megan Stewart’s death in an accident that was Harley’s responsibility…throw in this mysterious rebirth…well, there was nothing he could offer. Best to stay away.