Makali’s father was also fond of saying, “Don’t look back.” There was no point in trying to apportion blame; in some sense, Makali knew she should be grateful. When she took up exobiology, she had assumed her career would be spent constructing biospheres for newly discovered exoplanets and trying to determine which probe-gathered samples from Mars, asteroids, and the Earth’s surface would give proof of alien life.

As her lost boyfriend Cedric would say, “You’ve got that covered.”

(“Thank you, darling!”)

She reached the trees and, fully aware of the lack of food, immediately began searching for these vege-fruits.

The first problem was that others had been here first; the branches showed clear signs of having been stripped, eagerly, swiftly, and violently. She made a mental note to do some calculations relating the amount of available food to the daily needs of the population. She suspected the two lines would intersect rather soon, and they would run out…of course, why be pessimistic? Hadn’t she just insisted to Nayar that the Keanu habitat was designed for humans? She had no data on how quickly the habitat would produce more food.

Right now, however, it was looking grim…she had worked her way along the habitat walls, through the “orchard,” for several meters, perhaps ten, without seeing anything larger than an acorn.

And then she found something that disturbed her as much as the flickering sky-snakes had.

As far as she could see down-habitat, toward the far “southern” end, the trees were now covered with a black mold.

She touched it—what the hell, maybe it was Keanu packaging of some kind, like wax on an apple—and quickly regretted the gesture. Her fingers burned as if she’d dipped them in battery acid.

(“Cedric, baby, this isn’t good!”)

Turn around, then. Go the other way.

She had not completed the maneuver when a shape appeared in front of her—

—and struck her!

For an instant, as terrified as she had ever been in her life, she shouted and lashed out…before realizing her assailant was a dog! It was a Lab that had been scooped up with the Texans…certainly the animal had not been aboard the Bangalore Object. Makali had seen it earlier in the day, running freely.

Now it kept leaping on her, licking her. She had never been a dog person—no pets of any kind. Her experience with dogs, in fact, was this: They always jumped on you.

Normally it made her want to shove the creatures away, but circumstances had changed. In this environment, Earth beings needed to stick together. Wishing she knew the dog’s name, Makali nevertheless made what she hoped were soothing sounds.

“You bad boy,” she said.

The dog seemed to calm down. “You’re probably hungry, too,” she said.

Her human-canine communication skills were lacking—how arrogant she was, to think she could crack the codes of exobeings!—but she got the clear impression that the dog wanted to return to the Temple. He kept turning toward it, looking back, as if waiting.

Disturbed by the strange light and the Dead Zone, Makali decided it would be wise to pay attention to the dog.

As she came within sight of the Temple and the horde of refugees, she was suddenly sad. She missed Cedric, of course. But she also missed her father. She found herself blinking back tears.

It didn’t help that she saw the same emotion on the faces of those she passed. Now in a state of collapse, fed but looking into the great unknown, each was probably thinking about a husband or wife, about missing parents or children, friends, co-workers, everyday Earth life now gone, likely never to be regained.

“Cedric,” she said aloud, “help me get a grip.” She had developed a bad habit of talking to him as if he were present…their whole relationship, in fact, was based on her telling him things. Making excuses, at first. The one part of Makali Pillay’s existence that she had never been able to manage was money. Cedric Houghton had been the counselor she had been sent to when her credit card bills became a problem.

He had not cured her, of course. But he had stabilized her—and won her heart, at least for now.

Thinking about Cedric allowed her to put the sadness behind her, for this reason: On the day that the Object struck Bangalore Control Center, Makali Pillay still owed forty-three thousand dollars U.S. on five different credit cards.

And while she might never see Cedric or her father again, there was one bright side: She would never have to pay them off.

ARRIVAL DAY: ZACK

It was catching up with him. The strangeness, the loss, the endless strain.

Zack had collapsed inside the Temple, his back against one of its too-tall walls—in the same chamber where he and Megan had confronted the Architect or its avatar—and found himself unable to move.

Or even think.

Even now, two meters away, Vikram Nayar, Shane Weldon, and Harley Drake were carefully quizzing Makali Pillay about her journey into the Keanu twilight. He was hearing words like blight and Dead Zone and understanding none of it.

And, if possible, caring even less. He only had energy for Rachel…and she was presently out of sight. He knew, as a father, as a leader, that he should know where she was, who she was with.

Unlike, say, a typical Friday night in Houston.

That was how Zack knew he was at his redline, into a danger zone, beyond exhausted, beyond endurance.

He was paralyzed.

The only thing capable of drawing his notice was the dog wandering through the crowd, searching for food or water or a pat—or its master. Zack was not a dog person, but at the moment, he was happy the creature was around. It was a Revenant, too. And apparently immune to whatever caused human Revenants to wear out in a few days. Why? Because it didn’t have to withstand the stress of communicating on behalf of the Architects?

“Hey, Zack, you listening?”

Harley Drake slowly wheeled his chair closer and leaned down. Zack couldn’t help grunting in appreciation—once. Again, all he had energy for. “Yeah,” he croaked.

“You need water.”

“I need,” he said, exhausted by the expenditure of energy required to utter three words more or less in a row, “everything.”

Harley offered him a bottle of water. He had to hold it so Zack could drink from it. When Zack seemed full, he said, “Did you hear what Pillay was saying?”

“No.”

Harley looked at him with resignation. “I don’t want to have to go through it all again.” But he did, or at least the highlights, talking about the blight, the Dead Zone, the flickering lights. “Is that right?” Harley said, when he was finished, speaking to the others, who stood off to one side like a jury.

“Yes,” Nayar said.

The water had helped revive Zack. “It seems anomalous, maybe even troubling,” he said. “But I don’t have—”

“No one’s expecting a solution or an insight,” Weldon said. “But if this is anomalous and therefore troubling…well, I think it affects our next steps.”

“Which are?”

“Sorry,” Weldon said, “I don’t have them. Or even one. Let me say, ‘our next steps, whatever they might be.’”

Zack turned to the others. “If this habitat is changing or breaking down, we may have to move.”

“Where to?” Weldon said.

“Another habitat.”

“Is there another one?” Nayar asked. “Do you know this?”

“I don’t. But Megan hinted that there was. And just do the math: Keanu’s internal volume could hold a couple of dozen habitats this size…”

Pillay spoke up. “The last mass calculations we did would suggest that.” To the others, she said, “Keanu is not solid.”

“Good to know,” Weldon said. “Our first order of business tomorrow, after electing Zack as mayor, might be to send out scouting parties.”

“How do we get out of here?” That was Nayar. Zack had always suspected the man was an Eeyore; now it was confirmed.