“Guess we’ll never know now,” Zack said. He seemed quite angry about it.

“Zack,” Makali said, “who did this?”

“Dash’s connate, maybe?” He looked in the general direction of the habitat. “I have no idea how fast Sentries can move. Maybe they caught up to us.”

Dale thought that was silly. He had watched the pursuing Sentries long enough to see that they were at least half an hour behind the humans. “And maybe there’s something else around here,” Dale said. “These Reiver things, maybe?”

“Killers were Skyphoi,” an electronic voice said behind them.

Dash was there—for how long? Dale wondered. The Sentry looked slumped, as defeated as any of the bedraggled humans. “And who are the Skyphoi?” Zack said. “And why would they want to kill Valya?”

“Skyphoi inhabit the next habitat. They are a newer race, our enemies.”

“What are they doing here? Is this their habitat?”

“No. But they were the race that caused this,” Dash said.

“They’ve got nukes?” Makali said.

“They worked with Architects on the sanitization. They have unusual destructive devices.”

“What can we do?” Zack said. “What do they look like? How do we fight them?”

“They are air creatures,” Dash said, which told Dale very little that was useful. “Come now,” the Sentry said. “They will see the connate and my people—there will be war between them. We can escape.” Without waiting for further questions, or offering further information, the Sentry turned and began to walk away.

Zack, Makali, and Dale looked at each other.

“If we don’t reach that control center soon…” Makali said, and was unable to finish.

For once, Dale sympathized. “How many enemies does this guy have?” Dale said.

“I don’t know,” Zack said. “I just wish they all didn’t turn out to be our enemies, too.”

ZHAO

It was an article of faith among Zhao’s instructors in Guoanbu that no assignment was like any other, that no amount of training or imagination would be sufficient to prepare an agent for unexpected occurrences…for the weather that prevented a pickup, for the domestic problems that caused an agent to turn, for the sports team that unexpectedly made the playoffs, filling and then emptying a stadium and causing a drunk, violent traffic jam at just the wrong hour….

Colonel Dao, the most consistent proponent of this chaos theory, even had a name for such events, calling them “Zoo Animals,” a term Zhao had always found as inappropriate (what did confined creatures have to do with chaotic mishaps?) as he had unforgettable.

Zhao had been living through a gigantic series of Zoo Animals.

As he swayed and lurched in response to the actions of the giant railcar—which had stopped and started twice because of total blackouts—he pondered what appeared to be a literal representation: two children of space travelers, one a girl obsessively and selfishly using up the last dregs of power in their only Slate in order to stare at images of her mother and father, the other a callow, impulsive, surly, uncooperative teen male.

Then there was the alive-again American astronaut Yvonne Hall. In Zhao’s pre–Destiny and Brahma mission briefings, the African American woman had been described as equal parts intelligence and resentment, a potentially explosive combination that was, the material said, “likely to result in poor operational decision making.” Such as setting off a suitcase nuclear device during humanity’s first interplanetary mission? Talk about a Zoo Animal.

Her behavior since reappearing among the living had redeemed her somewhat. In Zhao’s judgment, Yvonne had served as an adequate link to the intelligences that controlled the Near-Earth Object Keanu. Not a perfect link—he still seethed with anger and frustration at Yvonne’s initial inability to relay any information of real or timely use. Had she been able to tune into the “voices in her head” earlier, for example, they might have been spared that terrifying encounter in that Museum of Lost Aliens, for example.

But that had improved. She had managed to contact—indeed, to summon forth, like an ancient wizard—an actual Architect, and to bring him on their latest, hopefully final journey. The giant Zoo Animal now sprawled across the railcar from Zhao, Pav, and Rachel, patiently answering questions from Yvonne—or so it seemed. The Revenant astronaut was making gestures and looking quizzically at the Architect. Zhao hoped the alien was responding.

And, finally, the closest thing to an actual Zoo Animal…the dog. The golden-Lab mix seemed to have made the smoothest adjustment to the strange environment. Certainly Cowboy had continued to act like a dog, barking at the threatening and sniffing at the interesting and unusual. When not so engaged, he simply kept company with the humans, as he did now, resting with head on forepaws and waiting patiently for the next event.

Of course, Zhao’s experience with dogs was limited. He might be missing obvious signs of canine distress and dysfunction.

“Okay,” Yvonne said, “we’re almost there.”

“I hope so,” Pav said. “I don’t want to be stuck here if the power goes out for good.”

“It shouldn’t,” Yvonne said. “Though that is a sign of problems with the power core.”

“Which someone is trying to repair, I hope,” Zhao said.

“To be continued,” Yvonne said. “When we arrive, we will let the Architect communicate with the Skyphoi—”

“Why?” Pav said, in that sneering voice Zhao had grown to hate. “Don’t they speak one of our languages? What kind of advanced race are they?”

Yvonne, obviously familiar with teen sarcasm, remained patient. “They don’t actually speak. They are basically like jellyfish, only they live in the air. They communicate by changing color. They’re chromatophores.”

Rachel stirred at this, closing down the Slate. “That might be cool to see.”

Cool to see. The trio of Pav, Rachel, and Zhao had seen enough wonders and marvels for the population of Shuandong for an entire century. Zhao wanted no more…cool things to see.

“Fine,” Zhao said, “we’ll stay in the hallway. What will our big friend be trying to do?”

“He wants to be sure that the vesicle is secure…”

“The what?” Pav said.

“The blob that brought us here,” Rachel said. Then she turned to Yvonne. “And might be able to take us home.”

“In theory,” Yvonne said, glancing at the Architect for confirmation. Zhao didn’t like the sound of that. Hadn’t the Architect already told them humans were needed in a war? A war taking place some ungodly number of light-years away? They weren’t going to help humans go back to Earth!

Yvonne was saying, “The important thing is that no one else takes it. Another one would take years to grow.”

“What about the blackouts we’re having?” Zhao said. Forget the mythical voyage home; concentrate on day-to-day survival right here.

“Part of the same process. Without steady power there is no ability to control the vesicle—”

“—Or anything else, I would imagine,” Zhao said.

Yvonne ignored that. “And the Architect believes the power core may need to be rebooted.”

Zhao felt as though he’d been stabbed. Yvonne’s casual tone, the single sentence, neither was sufficient to convey the impact of that concept. “And how,” he said carefully, trying to keep his voice even, “does something like that happen?”

Yvonne gestured in the manner that Zhao had begun to loathe, flapping her hands in front of her face. She might as well have said I just don’t know aloud. “I have images of something I’ll just have to call a starter kit. The Skyphoi have it.”

“And these Skyphoi…they’re quite powerful?” Zhao wished he could just ask the Architect directly. Given the being’s height, it was difficult to see its face, much less judge its engagement or indifference.

Fortunately, Yvonne continued to relay information. “The Skyphoi are fierce and independent. They came the closest, the Architect says, to being the allies they wanted in the fight against the Reivers.”