But he could see no bottom…Pav could barely make out the sides.

Then they bumped the wall, lightly, but firmly, and began to tumble slowly, which, in normal circumstances, might have been fun…but surely wasn’t, here.

During one of the gentle rotations, Pav saw a circle of light ahead of them…or below them.

And it grew. “Hang on!” Rachel said.

“To what?” he said.

Two seconds later, they all fell into a giant cavern that, to Pav’s disoriented vision, looked like their own human habitat. But wasn’t.

More specifically, he and the others had emerged from the floor of a similar habitat and were looking and falling up at a set of squiggly glowworm lights. Pav turned his head and saw that the floor, still separating as the five of them rose into the air, was completely built up! Filled with structures making it look like a Lego city. There were odd open areas, like pools or lakes. Far in the distance, a jet of bluish material shot toward the roof, then died.

Meanwhile, like rockets launched from a city park, Pav, Rachel, Zhao, Cowboy, and the mummy were now arcing high—

—and helpless to do anything but fall.

Some force was altering their trajectory, however…“Do you feel that?” Zhao shouted. He was below Pav, splayed like a skydiver.

“It’s like a wind!” Rachel yelled. She was above him, gently tumbling, as he was.

The mummy? Not in Pav’s field of vision. Nor was Cowboy.

“Air current!” Pav said. How was it supposed to go, maneuvering in microgravity? His father had shown him video from his space station mission…Tuck your legs, arms, and you’ll spin faster. Spread them, and you’ll slow.

He extended his arms and legs, which felt very strange indeed. But he was essentially weightless…like hundreds of space travelers. Like he’d been for two days in the Bangalore vesicle.

You’d think he’d be used to it! Tell that to your stomach! He couldn’t escape the horrifying feeling of falling, falling…

And that he was going to die.

Along with several massive globular clusters of plasm, the quintet seemed to be aimed at one of the open spaces…what might have been a city park in a terrestrial city, but oblong in shape, and huge.

At this height—even as it rapidly decreased—Pav couldn’t tell what the park surface was. Not green grass, certainly…it was yellowish in color.

He hoped it wasn’t brick or stone—

“Take my hand!”

Distracted by the spinning, growing landscape, Pav hadn’t seen Zhao flying up to him…with Rachel, Cowboy, and the mummy (who now looked more like a black female in a disappearing covering), all strung out behind him, Rachel holding Zhao’s left foot and clutching Cowboy’s paw, and the mummy, like flying children from Peter Pan.

Pav grasped Zhao’s hand, felt himself tugged and turned.

Now! With his other hand, he clutched the Slate to his chest and braced for the fatal smash—

He landed on his right side, and found that instead of being flattened and killed…he splashed, then bounced!

As he did, however, he slammed into Zhao, catching a shoe against the back of his head—and that hurt.

Then he skidded and settled, just in time to see Rachel and the mummy making their own inelegant landings.

He was lying on his back on what felt like sabudana pudding, thick and yielding. And, fortunately, either not too deep…or just thicker with depth. He was able to sit up.

Aside from what would surely be a lump on the back of his head, he was unhurt.

The others were arrayed around him, each one rising or sitting. “Is everybody okay?”

“Fine,” Rachel said. “God, that was freaky.”

“Where’s the dog?”

“I lost my grip the last few meters,” Rachel said, looking around. “Cowboy!” she called.

Zhao was slow to respond. “I may have turned my ankle.” He was trying to stand.

The mummy was seated facing them, giving Pav his first real look at this stranger, the human female wearing a layer of brownish material that had been torn off in various places, notably her face, which showed her dark skin.

“Namaste,” Pav said, adding, in his native language, “Do you speak Hindi?” Then he said, “What about English?”

“She speaks English,” Rachel said. She had gotten to her feet and now stood at Pav’s side.

“How do you know something like that?” Zhao said.

“She knows me,” the mummy said, turning to Pav. “Namaste to you, though.”

Pav flinched. He knew that voice, too. And, as she continued to peel off the second skin, the face.

It was Yvonne Hall, flight engineer for Zack Stewart’s Destiny-7 crew…the first human to step onto Keanu’s surface.

And who had died here more than a week ago, vaporized in a nuclear blast.

The introductions were quick and, to Pav, strangely low-key. “Yvonne, Zhao. Zhao, Yvonne.” “Nice to see you again,” and so on. Pav thought they should be shouting, that each of the humans should be jumping up and down.

Maybe they were too tired or weak. Or maybe they had just seen too many crazy things. Their supply of wonder and amazement had been used up.

Certainly Yvonne seemed used up. She stared at the plasm pooled around her feet, raising her head to speak, then slumping, like a puppet on strings.

“You’re sure it’s her,” Zhao said.

“It’s her,” Rachel said. “She used to come to our house for Fourth of July.”

“Yeah,” the woman said, her voice raw and raspy, “it’s me. But I wouldn’t blame anyone for doubting it.” She blinked, as if getting used to seeing after being in darkness. “I feel…” She was unable to complete the sentence; she began to shiver, as if her whole body were regaining functioning. Well, Pav thought, if this was really Destiny astronaut Yvonne Hall, and she had been brought back to life, that was what was going on.

Zhao knelt beside her, taking her by the hand. “What do you remember? What happened?”

Yvonne focused on him and finally forced a smile. “First, you guys tell me what the hell you’re doing here. I’d have to have been dead for fifty years before I’d believe that NASA could send you three to Keanu. And looking at these two”—meaning Pav and Rachel—“I know it hasn’t been fifty years.”

“More like a week,” Pav said.

“Okay, tell me how. But first, can we get out of this shit?”

The trip to “shore” was like a slog through coastal mud—amazingly tiring, even for a distance of less than a hundred meters.

Without discussing it, the group had simply headed en masse for the nearest “dry” place, which was an open space between two tall, featureless buildings. Rachel was the first to emerge. “Careful,” she said. “There’s some kind of step here.”

Pav saw that there was a solid border around the giant pool of plasm. He had to pull himself up, another procedure that was far more taxing than he expected. “Is gravity higher here?” he said aloud.

“I think it’s just that stuff,” Rachel said. “It grabs you.”

“This plasm…it looks like the same sabudana that got pumped through the tunnels,” Pav said.

He saw that Yvonne was struggling to extricate herself, so he stepped back in to help her. Then he helped Zhao, who was trying to hop on one good ankle. Eventually they were all together, bent over and panting, in what looked, Pav thought, like an alley in a terrestrial city—minus the graffiti, dirt, and noise.

“What did you call this?” Rachel said.

“Sabudana,” he said. “Like tapioca.”

“Okay.” She sniffed. “Sure doesn’t smell like pudding.”

“I don’t believe it’s supposed to be edible,” Zhao said.

“Too bad,” Pav said. “I could eat a liter or two.”

Suddenly Yvonne stepped away from them, vomiting against the nearest wall.

Rachel was already with Yvonne, holding her from behind as she retched. “I’m all right,” she kept saying, clearly lying.

She was sobbing now, too. And who could blame her? Pav knew few of the details, just that the American Venture lander had carried a small suitcase nuclear weapon…and that to protect the vehicle from some menace—Pav didn’t know exactly what—Yvonne Hall had detonated it, destroying Venture and Brahma, which had landed nearby, and vaporizing herself.