Taj and Wing Commander Asahi had been selected…and the whole Radhakrishnan family had relocated to Star City outside Moscow.

Pav had been eight at the time, and what he remembered most about the new home was that it was cold and dark, and nobody spoke Hindi.

ISRO sent a small support team to Star City; they were the only people the family could talk to, and not one of them was under the age of twenty-seven. They were forced to depend on each other—perhaps too much, because Pav’s mother, Amita, had fallen in love with…Vikram Nayar. When that got discovered, Taj had thrown her out—and Nayar had, too.

Amita had taken up with a Russian guy at Star City. And Pav’s life, not especially good at that time, had gotten much, much worse.

Pav had had to learn Russian in a hurry. His first words were chorny mat—“black ass,” the charming term his Russian classmates had for a person of color.

Eventually things had gotten better (Russians would still roll over for anyone who could play classical piano, which was Pav’s big skill), though never great, or even good. In fact, at the moment, Pav still thought the insane floating smelly ride in the Object and the crazy weird day on Keanu weren’t as bad as those first months in Russia.

Another one! Something had definitely hit the fucking ground about ten meters in front of him.

Pav slowly got to his feet, slipping on the sandals. He was going to have to check this out—

Carefully, he crossed the distance to the landing spot….

Two objects lay in the dirt. Pav picked them up…a lipstick and a coin, an American quarter—

“Boo!”

He had been ready for it, but he still started. “Goddammit,” he said. Really, it was all he could think to say.

“Sorry. I couldn’t resist. You’re Pav, right?” It was Rachel, Zack Stewart’s daughter. They had met at least twice back on Earth, but years ago, when she was, like, eleven. She’d grown up and filled out. But so had Pav; he stood almost six feet now.

“How long have you been watching me?”

“Not long.” Rachel’s voice was neutral, and in this fucked-up half-light it was impossible for Pav to tell whether she was giving him an I-saw-you-playing-with-yourself smirk.

“Do you want your things back?” He held out the lipstick and the quarter.

“Not unless you can show me where I can use them.”

“Well, I think the quarter’s no good. But you might need that lipstick—”

“When, for prom?”

But she took it and jammed it in the pocket of her jeans.

“What are you doing out here?” he asked her.

“Same as you,” she said, in a voice that was so noncommittal that he began to relax; he hadn’t been caught.

“Just had to get away?”

“Duh.” She saw the Slate in his hands. “God, you have music?”

“For a while.”

“Can I listen? Who is it?”

“Summer Jihad.”

“I know them!”

“Really.” He didn’t believe her for a second, but he handed over the unit, anyway.

“Shit, yeah! ‘Blow Me, Blow You,’ ‘Down, Up, Down,’ I’ve got them all on my Slate, too.”

“Where’s yours?” he said, having to shout a little, because Rachel had the earbuds locked in and was actually dancing around, already immersed in music.

“Buried it!” she said loudly. “In my mom’s grave!”

Pav knew all about Megan Stewart’s death, of course; he and his father had been present at the Kennedy Space Center when Zack got the news of the accident…had stayed in the United States to attend the funeral.

And in Bangalore Control, he had also heard the strange rumors that Megan Stewart had somehow been brought back to life here, on Keanu.

“Which one?” he said, daring to joke about what was likely a very sensitive subject.

And he hit home. Rachel removed the earbuds. “There only is one,” she said, suddenly very serious.

“Well, what happened, then? They were saying all kinds of strange shit….”

“Such as…”

“That whoever is running this place had made some kind of copy of her—”

Rachel was fiercely shaking her head. “No! No, it wasn’t a copy…it was my mother! She came back to life. I talked to her. I mean, she couldn’t fool me.” She was waiting for him to agree with her. “Wouldn’t you know your mother anywhere?”

“Not sure,” he said, “but my mother and I—”

“Fine. Not that I care, but just trust me: She was back.”

“And…?”

“She died again.”

She started to put the earbuds back on, but Pav stopped her. “Then where is she?”

“We don’t know. I mean, my father said she…she…” Rachel’s eyes filled with tears. “We don’t know, okay? Why don’t you go back to beating off!” And she wrenched his Slate and earbuds away and put them on again.

Which is why Pav heard the rumble, a groaning vibration that seemed to come from beneath them. It lasted maybe two seconds…but it freaked him out so completely that he forgot his embarrassment.

“What the hell was that?”

Rachel blinked and pulled off the buds. “What?”

“Didn’t you hear that?”

“Hear what?”

“Wait…” He put an arm out to steady Rachel, and himself. “I thought it was starting again.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Some kind of quake.”

“I didn’t feel anything.”

“Well, no, not dancing around like that—”

“Fine, then.” She shoved the Slate into his stomach.

“Look,” he said, “I’m sorry. Keep it for a while. I just…felt something. It’s like this whole place shivered.”

“You’re freaking me out.” She did look terrified. “What do you think is going on? Keanu’s a spaceship…do they even have things like quakes?”

“It’s really a small planet,” he said, having heard Makali Pillay state this fact half a dozen times. “It not only has quakes, it probably has worse quakes than Earth.”

“Is that supposed to make me feel better?”

“Yeah. We understand earthquakes. An object this size would have a lot of them, just because it’s in a tug-of-war between two really bigger bodies. Earth and the Moon,” he added, unnecessarily, of course. (Her father was an astronaut, too!)

Rachel stared at him. “What are you, some kind of astro geo guy?”

He was embarrassed again. He wasn’t all that sure of his facts, for one thing. And he never talked science, ever. He was into music; that was what he talked about, especially with girls.

Maybe he was just really changing the subject. “You know what it’s like when your family is in the space business. You can’t help hearing things like that.”

Rachel said, “We should probably go back. My dad used to freak out when I was late coming home, and that was in Houston.” She smiled. “Things are a little different here….”

“I hear you.”

By silent agreement, they turned and began walking toward the Temple and the others.

“Hey, what if that wasn’t a quake, though?” Rachel said. “What would all that shivering mean?”

“It would probably be very bad. As in, the place is falling apart…or about to change, and if it changes, it’s not likely to be good for humans.”

“You’re not very cheerful, Pav.”

“Not lately.”

ARRIVAL DAY: HARLEY

The last thing Weldon said to Harley Drake, while helping Harley out of his wheelchair and onto a mat of some kind of leaves that Sasha had arranged, was, “Stick with me tomorrow.”

“I ain’t going anywhere, Shane.”

“You know what I mean. We’ve got a lot of folks who’ve gotten through the first day like stunned cattle. They’re going to be more agitated tomorrow, once it sinks in that we’re stuck here.”

“Didn’t you listen to Zack? We aren’t necessarily stuck here, my friend.”

“Stewart is a goddamn optimist,” Weldon said, using a tone more appropriate to describing him as registered sex offender. “These access vents could be twenty clicks away, across a frozen vacuum we can’t possibly cross.”

“Or they could be ten clicks away, or right next door, if we just find the right passage.”