“How do you know there aren’t others still here?” she said slowly, as if trying to dip a conceptual toe into this strange water.

“I don’t,” Zack said. “Though Megan seemed to be saying—channeling this thing—that he was the only one.”

“Of his kind,” Harley said.

Zack looked at him, blinking, as if suddenly struck by a notion. “Yes, of his kind.”

“Wait,” Rachel was saying. “This Architect spoke to Mom?”

“Through her, yes.”

“Oh, shit—” Now she seemed truly upset.

Zack slid his arms around her. “It…didn’t hurt her, honey. She said it was just like…being on stage with an earbud, getting a prompt—”

“It’s not that. It’s just that…I barely had a chance to talk to her for more than a minute, but some big dumb alien had her for hours!”

Zack looked at Harley. Rachel’s point was inarguable. “I know,” he said gently. “It was unfair. Nothing about this whole business has been fair.”

Now it was Harley’s turn to change the subject. “You said Camilla’s ‘the only one still alive.’ I know they brought back Megan and Pogo, but…”

“There was at least one more,” Zack said. “A man from Natalia’s life, one of her athletic trainers. Konstantin was his name.”

“How did he die?”

Zack’s pained expression gave Harley most of the answer. Killed, was what it said. “He had an accident.”

“So, there were four Revenants,” Harley said. “Megan, Pogo, Camilla, this Konstantin. Three died in accidents. Why are you so curious about Camilla’s survival?”

“Because Megan said—channeling the Architect—that there was a…limit.”

Rachel rejoined the discussion. “What?”

“They were only brought back for a couple of days. Their job was to communicate with us.” Zack looked at Harley: Save me, his expression said. “That’s why the Revenants were all people we had known in our lives…so that we could communicate with them. Camilla for Lucas, Konstantin for Natalia.” He paused. “Megan for me.”

“Pogo Downey doesn’t fit,” Harley said. He was going to get this information even if the extraction and circumstances were painful for Zack. They all needed to know this.

“Well, he died here. He was brought back after Konstantin was killed. Maybe he was…I don’t know, an easier retrieval? Some kind of automatic response?”

“So, if we die here, we might come back?”

“Maybe. For a few days, at least.”

“Hardly seems worth it,” Harley said. “I’m not entirely convinced we’ve got this worked out.”

Now it was Rachel’s turn to stare at Camilla, who was up and around. She and the Russian woman seemed to be getting ready to go somewhere. “So if the Revenants only come back for a couple of days, why is she still here?” she almost hissed.

Zack looked tired. “Honey, I just don’t know.”

And then, whether newly energized by food, or just out of teen restlessness, Rachel suddenly arose. “I’ll be back in a few.”

“Where are you going?”

“For a walk.”

“I don’t think so—”

“Daddy! Come on, I’m not going far. It’s not dark yet.” Now she was directly challenging him. “There isn’t anything dangerous here…that’s what you told us.”

Zack looked at his daughter. Then he smiled the tightest smile Harley had ever seen. “Yes. That’s what I told you.”

“Don’t worry. I’m the one who’s always screaming at people in horror movies not to split up, right?”

“Right. Do I need to tell you not to get out of sight and hearing?”

“Probably not.” She smiled. “Daddy?”

“What?”

“Now you sound like yourself.” Victorious for now, Rachel smiled at Harley and walked away. A few moments later, Camilla and the Russian woman headed off the in same direction.

Zack waited until she had disappeared around the corner of the Temple. “Maybe Camilla survived because she’s younger, stronger,” Zack said. “Being the receiver…I think it was a real strain on Megan. Camilla didn’t have to do that.”

“Not yet,” Harley said.

“Nope, not yet, as far as we know.” With Rachel gone, Zack was more willing to let his anger and frustration show. “You don’t seem to be buying anything I’m telling you.”

“I’m just trying to figure out the difference between what we know and what we think.”

“Okay.” But now Harley wondered. Was he motivated by pure curiosity? Or by a vague resentment that somehow, something Zack had done had brought him here…. “Look,” Zack was saying. “I’m not hitting on all eight here. I can hardly believe what happened or the fact that I’m still here, and what’s really shaking me is that you and Rachel and a hundred and eighty other people are here, too.”

“I know.”

Zack was leaning back now, eyes closed. “I wonder where Tea and the others are right now? I still don’t see how they could really make it home….”

Harley Drake still wore his watch. It was a typical fighter jock’s toy, a Chase-Durer Warhawk Chronograph that had cost him seven hundred dollars. It would run for months on its battery, though Harley wondered how useful it would be in a world without a true night. “How long has it been since Bynum’s shooting?”

He knew that Zack was one of those people who carried a fairly accurate internal clock—he rarely needed to set an alarm—whereas Harley never went anywhere on time no matter how connected he was.

Zack shrugged. “Six hours,” he said, then, as was often the case, added, “and forty-five minutes.”

Harley just shook his head. “Fuck you,” and held out the watch. “Six hours and fifty minutes, and, frankly, I’m not sure my watch isn’t wrong.”

“Chase-Durer has been claiming for years that its watches can stand the stress of launch. Given that you came through it, I think the watch is okay.”

“That I came through it? Is there something about my physical condition that strikes you as nonoptimal?”

It was the first normal conversation he’d had in…what, ten days? Two weeks?

Two years?

“Maybe it will come in useful.”

“Like so much of what I know.”

“Sarcasm, darling. The children are listening.” Harley did some calculations. It was painful to put himself back in Houston mission control, even as a mental exercise.

But it allowed him to remember the last status report on the Destiny spacecraft that had carried NASA’s Tea Nowinski and three members of the Brahma crew—Taj Radhakrishnan, Natalia Yorkina, and Lucas—off the surface of Keanu and onto an Earth-return trajectory.

That flight would have taken fifty hours, not much different from the two-day journey the Objects had taken to carry Harley and the Houston group and the Bangalores to Keanu. (Harley wondered briefly if the vehicles had all passed each other….)

“Tea and the others were off Keanu safely, systems were working. They had enough prop to make the right burns. They should be down,” Harley said. “Sometime in the last two hours.”

He could barely imagine what kind of media freak show that landing was. “Four surviving astronauts splash down after insane adventures!” It was like Apollo 13 crossed with aliens.

“You miss Tea?” After Megan’s death, Zack had developed a relationship with fellow astronaut and Destiny-7 crewmember Tea Nowinski. What must it have been like to deal with his current lover and his late, now resurrected, wife…Harley had heard of, and been involved in, tricky love triangles, but this one was so unusual it stressed that word to the breaking point.

“Yeah. Given what happened, I’m not sure she misses me too much.” He suddenly sat forward. “These Objects that brought you. What was Nayar calling them? ‘Vesicles’?”

“What about them?”

“Where are they?”

“Back at the north end of the habitat, through a couple of tunnels, one for each of us.”

“I want to go there first thing tomorrow.”

“Why?”

“They got you guys here. Maybe they can get us home.”

ARRIVAL DAY: DALE