Dale immediately headed for the right branch. “Wait!” Valya heard herself saying. Although physically she felt fine—better than she had in years—she hated not having anything to contribute, to being reduced to following Dale Scott around.

But she persisted, following him into the dark tunnel. Within ten minutes they had negotiated one major twist and found themselves staring at a brilliant spot of light. Dale loped forward into the clearing, where, arms outstretched, he bent backward to look up. “Looks like a shaft that goes to the surface,” he said.

“Are there any other openings?”

He turned around twice. “None that I can see.”

When they gathered again, the verdict was two shafts of some sort—“Possibly exhaust ports for propulsion,” Williams suggested—one flat-out dead-end (Makali: “There was a blank wall”), and one collapsed tunnel.

“Okay, that clarifies things,” Zack said. “The Marker suggests that Keanu is moving. Given the tools we’ve got, which would be none, the best way for us to know for sure is to get to the surface and look.” He pointed to the opening.

Valya knew Dale well enough to realize that he was spoiling for a fight. He did not want to go beyond this point.

But suddenly Makali took off.

“Now what the fuck?” Dale said.

“I don’t know about you,” Zack said, “but I’m inclined to follow her.”

HARLEY

“How’s it going, Mr. Mayor?”

Her arms free of sleeping or writhing baby for the first time today, Sasha Blaine plopped down next to Harley Drake.

“Could be better.”

Sasha brushed her red hair back from her face. In spite of all the stress, lack of sleep, and shortage of soap and water, she looked remarkably healthy and happy.

Another reminder that she was too young for poor old Harley Drake. “It’s not as though I needed a lesson in the futility of politics. Two days as HB mayor…hell, everyone is coming to me for decisions they could easily make themselves.”

“Maybe. But it’s a good sign. They trust you. They’re thinking of themselves as part of a community and not just freelancers.”

“It’s terrifying, Sasha. I don’t have the answers! I’m finding out how the Temple works right along with Nayar and a dozen other guys. In fact, given that they’re real engineers, unlike me, they walk in there knowing a hell of a lot more about moving walls and strange appliances and what any of it does.”

“You got the whole water business sorted out.”

“Nayar, not me. And it didn’t take a lot of political genius to say, ‘girls today, men tomorrow.’ The food thing…everybody’s off hunting and gathering. We just organized them into groups. So at least we’ve got food coming in. And this Xavier Toutant guy came up with garbage disposal on his own. Not my idea. I mean, that’s all I’ve got on my side of the ledger. Shall we look at what’s going wrong?” He began to tick them off with his fingers. “Zack Stewart has gone off to investigate the objects or vesicles—and, by the way, where the hell did that word come from?”

“One of the ISRO engineers.”

“It’s driving me crazy. Fucking engineers, always inventing names for things that already have perfectly good names. Where was I? Right, Zack goes for vesicles, somehow winds up at the Beehive—where, based on one message from Dale Scott, things aren’t going too well. Thanks for that, Dale. Very useful…Rachel Stewart is missing.”

“She’s a teenage girl,” Sasha said.

“I know, but I’m still responsible. I’m the reason she’s here.” He could feel his face flushing, but he simply couldn’t stop himself. “I’m the reason Megan Stewart died and everyone is here!”

He took a breath. “What else? Gabriel Jones is seriously ill and I haven’t had thirty fucking seconds of privacy to be able to nail him down on what the problem is. And the icing on the coffee cake…someone murdered the little mother, not only depriving the baby of its primary care, but forcing you to take the job—”

“You know I don’t mind,” she said. She was rocking back and forth, clearly upset.

“And last, but not remotely least…her death has created a goddamn mystery for us to worry about. So, really, in addition to being small-town mayor and de facto long-duration space mission commander, I’m supposed to be a criminal investigator, a judge, a logistics manager, a technical program director, and a social worker. It’s a lot for a guy who’s really just an airplane jockey—”

He stopped. He was worn out by his own vehemence. And he was finally hearing what he was saying.

“Finish it, Harley. You really live to fly airplanes and, what, nail cocktail waitresses?”

That was pretty close; Sasha knew him quite well for an acquaintance of only a week. “It’s a lot for a guy who’s in a wheelchair.”

He knew it was lame, but he also knew he’d overdone the complaining. The wheelchair card was the closest thing to a trump he had in his conversational deck. “Let me start over. What’s up?”

Sasha laughed out loud. “God, Harley, I came to tell you to hang in there, that you’re doing great and everyone thinks so.”

That wasn’t the response he’d expected, and it made him angry again. “Sorry for being such a disappointment.”

“Lighten up, Harley. Remember, we’re as good as dead; everybody knows and doesn’t need a reminder! Stick to the basics. ‘How are you doing?’ ‘Fine!’ ‘Fine!’ I mean, you could just ask me about the baby.”

“Okay, how’s the baby? What’s his name?”

“Her.”

“Her name.”

“Chitran never said. She never said a word that I heard. I’m calling her Chandra. It means ‘moon.’”

“Is it okay to say I think it’s a nice name?”

“Not yet.”

And she got to her feet. She was a tall woman and would have looked down on Harley in his best days. From the chair? She looked like an angry Amazon. “Oh, and by the way—I’m just fucking fine, too!”

She walked off, leaving Harley Drake more alone than ever.

RACHEL

“I think this is far enough.”

Pav had simply stopped walking. They had been at it for twenty minutes or so, using the Slate to light their way.

Rachel said, “But we haven’t found anything.”

“Exactly. We haven’t heard or seen the dog. Nothing’s changing here. No turns, nothing to see. This tunnel could be fifty kilometers long.”

“Unlikely.”

“Fine, then.” He seemed really irritated. “We’re running down my battery.”

“Too bad! Afraid you won’t be able to access your porn collection?”

There was a pause. With the light off, Rachel couldn’t see Pav’s expression or posture. His voice, however, showed that he was hurt. “Why the hell would you say something like that?”

She felt mean. “Sorry. I’m just…frustrated. Where is the stupid dog? How do we get out of here?”

“Don’t know and don’t know. Which is why I want to go back to the opening. I keep thinking someone will come looking for us.”

Rachel realized that she was ready to give up. “Well, now that you mention it…I’m kind of thirsty.”

“Thirsty and starving.” She sensed that he was waiting for her to make a move. “How far have we gone, do you think?”

Rachel looked back. “Well, I can still see a spot of light.”

“Come on, let’s go back.”

“Okay.”

She started off in the opposite direction. “It’s also that I really hate tunnels and darkness,” he said.

“God, me, too. I’d rather be anywhere else, frankly.”

The fact that he would admit that when he clearly thought it a sign of weakness…maybe Pav wasn’t so immature after all.

Halfway there, Pav came to a sudden halt again. “Okay,” Rachel said, “will you stop doing that?”

“Ssshhh!” He put out an arm to steady her, as if lack of motion would improve the acoustics. “I heard something.”

“No you didn’t—” Then Rachel heard a distant bark from somewhere ahead of them. “Cowboy!” she shouted, and started running.