She nodded. “The Skyphoi like to use templates that we would recognize. That way they know what we can carry.”

“I wish they’d picked something else,” he said.

Now one of the Skyphoi started moving away, farther up the tunnel. “Where do you suppose he’s going?” Makali said.

They found an answer with the second Skyphoi, which dropped behind them and, strangely, began to expand, like an inflating balloon. “I think we’re being herded,” Zhao said.

“No,” Makali said. “Defended.”

Zack heard a growling buzz from somewhere down the tunnel…through the semitransparent body of the second Skyphoi, he could see swiftly moving shapes. “What the hell is that?”

“Oh, God, Daddy, it’s a Long Legs.”

Before he could ask for clarification, Pav said, “A type of Reiver.”

“Commander,” Dale said, “we’ve gotta go.”

Zack picked up the case. It was so light he wondered if it actually held anything useful. What did you use to reignite the power core of a starship? Well, Dr. Stewart, that depends on the nature of the core—anti-matter? Or something even more exotic?

He didn’t need to know. He just needed to make it work.

As the second Skyphoi fought its rearguard action, the humans followed the first creature up the tunnel…Zack, Rachel, and Yvonne in the lead, Zhao and Pav and Cowboy right behind…Makali and Dale at the rear.

“So the plan,” Zack said, huffing and puffing, “is this: Enter the core, place the unit within, get out. How long do I have?”

“I don’t know,” Yvonne said. “I really, really wish I could tell you, but I’m out of info.” She nodded at the floating Skyphoi. “They control the ignition. They’ll know.”

Zack wanted to scream with laughter. All the decisions he had made, from the crazy gravity gauge trick on Brahma to throwing the rover off the side of Vesuvius Vent, to confronting the first Architect to going overland from the shattered Beehive to the Sentry habitat…each one had been his to make, his to live with.

Now he was a courier for implacable, uncommunicative, unknowable aliens.

And not only his life, but the lives of every human on Keanu—and very possibly the lives of the entire human race—depended on them.

There was a universal lesson in that somewhere. But he was too tired and frustrated to appreciate it.

The Skyphoi brought them to a side shaft and a Membrane. “This is the core?” Pav said.

“Might be the entrance to another shaft,” Dale said. He turned to Zack. “Okay, Commander, hand it over.”

“It’s my job, Dale.”

Dale nodded toward Rachel. “Your daughter disagrees.”

“He’s right, Daddy,” Rachel said. “Let someone else do this. Please!”

Zack looked at her dirty, pretty, exhausted, distraught face, seeing traces of her mother. “I’d draw straws, but we don’t have any,” he said. That wasn’t enough, for either of them.

He took his daughter’s hand and led her away, to where they were directly under the floating, flashing Skyphoi…the closest thing to a zone of privacy. “I love you, Rachel—”

“Don’t say that! It means you think you’re never going to see me again.”

“I am going to see you again. In a few minutes, the moment I drop this thing off.”

“I’m afraid,” she said. “Mom went away, then she came back, then…” She collapsed against him, sobbing.

He couldn’t allow himself to do the same. Be a father. Be a leader.

“Look, honey, baby girl.” He kissed her. “Look!” He finally got her attention. “We’re all…information. That’s what the universe is. And it never really dies, okay? But it has to keep changing. That’s why the Reivers are bad—they’re frozen, they don’t get worse and they never get better. We may have to die or go away or change state to get better.”

“I hate that.”

“Don’t hate it. It’s the most miraculous thing humans have ever discovered.”

Saying it aloud, he almost convinced himself. But all around them, the air began to grow stagnant. Temperatures were dropping.

There was an ominous rumbling, as if Keanu were suffering death throes. Maybe that’s what a NEO’s death is like, Zack thought; it breaks up, scattering itself across space….

He had to act now. One last hug, one last kiss. “I’ll see you in a little while. Go with Makali.”

He turned to the others. He was almost shouting. “This isn’t a suicide mission. I’ll meet you guys right here once I’ve got this bad boy working again.”

He never let go of the unit. If he did, he’d never pick it up again.

He pointed to the Tik-Talk, which was now in Zhao’s hands. “Tell Harley that I expect a decent meal for the first time. Something in a steak should do it.”

Then, picking up the package, he stepped into the Membrane, and fell into darkness.

There was almost no gravity in the shaft. Zack was barely aware that he was falling.

The landing was soft, featherlike, so gentle that he was able to tuck his knees up—just like living in microgravity aboard the International Space Station—and land on both feet.

He wasn’t steady; the entire chamber continued to rock, like Los Angeles with aftershocks. It made every movement more difficult, more urgent—

He ended up in another ancient stone tile chamber with five shafts leading in different directions. Before he had to confront the decision of which to take, he saw that he wasn’t alone.

The Revenant girl Camilla waited for him. She had been sitting in the darkness. Now she rose.

Odd how this child seemed to haunt these moments.

Even odder that he kept having them.

“Everyone back at the Temple is wondering what happened to you,” he said, knowing she wouldn’t understand.

To his shock, she said, in English, “Regrettable. I became infected. I became an instrument of the enemy. It was like a fever—I could only sing this little song from my childhood about ‘ratos.’ I was warning you—”

“About the Reivers.”

“Yes.”

“But you’re no longer constrained.”

“Oh, no. I’m destroyed,” Camilla said. “But the infection is contained within me. When I die, it dies, too.”

For the first time since reconnecting with Rachel, Zack grew alarmed. This isn’t right. But the only comment he could offer was, “I’m sorry.” Then, feeling that to be inadequate, added, “Your communication skills have improved.”

“We are able to work more efficiently with young subjects,” she said. “I speak for the Architect.”

“I figured.” He looked around. “Do you know the way to the core?”

She immediately turned to the shaft across from them and pointed. “Okay,” he said. “Are you coming with me?”

“The effort is straining my body,” she said. “I have very little time.”

What did that mean? Was she going to sit down and die here? He held out his hand. “I’ll help.”

And, stumbling as another quake jolted them, she took Zack’s hand.

Steadying himself as best he could, he slung the kit over his shoulder.

It was like walking into the first few meters of the Beehive, though longer and straighter. Zack was grateful for the distance, since it allowed him to ask, “Do you take messages to the Architect, too? To Keanu itself?”

“That is the nature of communication. We hear you.”

“That’s good,” he said. They passed through another Membrane, the curtain shimmering in response to the quaking and shuddering. “Because this reboot and saving you, the ship, is only half the battle.”

“What else do you want?”

“To save Earth,” he said, surprised to hear those words come out of his mouth. “I want to keep that vesicle from reaching my home planet. Nothing else matters.” He imagined the Reiver vesicle splashing down in the ocean, or touching down in some remote forest or mountain range. How long would it take for the nasty little creatures, exposed to sunlight, awash in oxygen and soil and hydrogen, to start reproducing at some fantastic rate?