None of these had prepared her for Camilla Munaretto.

To begin with, and allowing for the fact that Portuguese was not in her top five languages, Camilla was the most articulate child Valya had ever met. It wasn’t just her vocabulary—which was better than Valya’s—it was her apparent self-possession and confidence.

The girl was also quite pretty…dark-haired, yet blue-eyed, one of those luscious South American hybrids who had come to dominate the fashion industry in the past generation. Had she remained on Earth and grown to the appropriate height, Camilla would undoubtedly have followed in her mother’s spike-heeled footsteps, onto some runway or into a catalog.

But even in Valya’s former “normal existence,” the fashion world was never high on her mental playlist. To think about such things here, in these particular circumstances, was quite silly to begin with. At present, Camilla wore a ludicrously large T-shirt proclaiming the virtues of a Ron Jon Surf Shop. Apparently, when first encountered, she had been nearly naked, saved from terminal immodesty only by some bizarre coating, flakes of which still covered her upper arms and thighs…at least those parts of her still visible around the edges of the billowing shirt.

She also had a nasty-looking scratch or bite on her upper left arm.

Their meeting had been arranged by Vikram Nayar, who had said, “She didn’t arrive with either group. She was already here.”

That had required some explanation, and with Zack Stewart assisting, Nayar had told Valya that Camilla Munaretto had been the niece of Brahma cosmonaut Lucas Munaretto.

“Had been?” None of that made sense to her.

Steward explained that Camilla had died of leukemia a year and a half before the Brahma and Destiny launches, and that she, like several other humans, had been revived here inside Keanu.

Valya knew something of this. She had heard that Zack Stewart’s wife was one of these “Revenants,” the term that seemed to be catching on with the refugees. She wasn’t sure she believed any of it, of course.

“What do you want from me?”

“You’re the only one who speaks her language.”

“I’m barely fluent in Portuguese.”

“No one else seems to know a word of it, so you are, by default, our expert.” Apparently he felt he needed to make sure Valya understood. “She’s a child in very strange circumstances; she needs to be able to talk to someone.”

Valya had already felt uneasy around Camilla. Glimpsed earlier, the girl had been fidgety, moving quickly from group to group, like a beggar on speed. Then, given a candy bar by one of the Houston people, she had sat down in the shadows of the Temple to eat the treat.

Somehow, without Valya’s seeing her, Camilla had crept forward, into the lit part of the Temple, where for some reason she had fixed on Valya quite some time before Nayar came to her with his “offer.”

The girl’s gaze was disturbing, and for an instant, Valya felt angry; she did not want to be tethered to this strange girl!

But she recognized the inevitability, if not the wisdom, of Nayar’s plan. If Camilla had truly been “brought back,” then she held vital information that would be lost without Valya’s help.

She realized that she was happier knowing she had something to do. “What do you want me to ask her?” she said to Nayar.

“Whatever you want. I have no…guidance to offer, though obviously, anything you think important…” This was surprising; in the time she had worked with or around Vikram Nayar, he had always had a plan of some kind. Age and disruption were damaging him.

So she had introduced herself to Camilla and been rewarded with a genuine smile, though not one of surprise…it was closer to an acknowledgment, as if the girl were saying, I’ve been waiting for you.

Nevertheless, Valya stuck to the basics, asked if Camilla were hungry, how she felt, all good, all normal. Then, since she wanted to know…“How did you get here?”

The girl took a moment to organize her answer, or so it seemed. And then she delivered a narrative so precise that she might have been reading it. “I died in a hospice in São Paolo on February 27, 2018. I had leukemia from the time I was six. It made me very sick and very sad.” And, yes, her eyes shone with tears at this point…Valya felt her defenses weakening.

As if a switch had been thrown, Camilla was suddenly upright and happy again. “Then I woke here, in one of the boxes. It was difficult to get out.” She made pawing gestures.

“You must have been…completely amazed, to be alive again.” Valya tried to imagine it but could not get past the inevitable preceding step, which was dying of cancer.

“I died in my sleep,” Camilla said matter-of-factly. “They gave me many drugs. It was just as if I woke from sleep…” And here she spread her hands, as if to say, Look at me now. “And I was well!”

Valya had to accept the story: the girl was here, after all. She had no clever way of confirming her story, only the information Nayar had passed along from what he knew about Lucas Munaretto, and about what unusual things had happened during the Brahma mission.

“Who brought you back? Who…made you well?”

“God did,” she said.

At last, Valya thought, an answer that made sense…not to Valya’s religious beliefs, which were non-existent, but for a young girl from Catholic Brazil.

“But he worked through the Builders,” Camilla said.

“Who are the Builders? The builders of this place?”

For the first time, Valya saw confusion or doubt in the girl. “Yes…” she said, though she seemed quite uncertain. Valya had heard Zack Stewart mention Architects and assumed Camilla meant the same thing. But she couldn’t be sure.

Valya looked around. Everyone was eating or sitting in an exhausted stupor…except for Zachary Stewart and his daughter and a few others, busily talking just far enough away that they could not be heard. Dale Scott was there, too.

They were watching her, of course, and especially watching Camilla.

“Have you told anyone about these Builders? Commander Stewart, perhaps?”

“Oh, he knows.” She seemed quite certain, though Valya noted that she did not actually answer the question.

“Who are they? Will we meet them? Are they watching over us, helping us? What do they look like?” In spite of herself, Valya grew excited. This was a game she could enjoy…

But Camilla was suddenly done playing or talking. She shook her head, as if to clear it, then stood up…somewhat wobbly, as if her legs had gone to sleep. “Not here,” she said.

And, without waiting for Valya, she headed for the Temple opening.

With a backward glance at Stewart and his party, who were now arguing with Dale, Valya painfully got to her feet, grabbed her bag, and gave chase as best she could.

Out in the twilight of the habitat, she saw Camilla fifty meters away, gesturing for her to come. She caught up with her and, after a brief exchange, wound up following her to the wall of the habitat opposite the Temple opening—literally behind the structure.

“Do you have a destination in mind?” Valya asked. “Or do you just want to take a walk?” She could easily understand the need…if, as claimed, the girl had been dead. Of course, Valya reminded herself, her body was new; it wasn’t really as if Camilla had to shake off a year or two of cold sleep in a coffin….

Physical issues aside, however, Camilla might well feel a spiritual need to walk, run, explore, to reconnect with her hereditary hunter-gatherer impulses….

“I don’t really know,” Camilla told her. “But I have a…picture in my mind of a place against this wall.” She stopped and glanced backward. “The Temple will be farther away.” She turned down-habitat again, resuming her march.

Valya discovered that she was a little out of breath, and that her legs were weak…yet the exercise felt good. She was moving…granted, it reminded her of a joke Dale Scott was fond of repeating (as he was fond of repeating every witticism in his repertoire), about a country woman whose young son had spent his hard-earned chore money on a merry-go-round: “Well, you’ve spent your money and enjoyed your ride…but where have you gone?”