The exopod slowed to subsonic speed fifteen hundred metres above the ground. Laura let out a relieved groan, which was immediately knocked out of her as the drogue chutes deployed, jerking the exopod viciously. Savage pain jabbed up her leg, and she screamed. Then the main chutes deployed. The exopod began to drift gently towards the planet’s surface.

It’s actually working? Fuck me!

Breathing heavily, Laura peered out through the port, eager to see the type of ground she was going to land on. It was a uniform ochre, undulating away to the horizon.

‘A desert!’ she shouted in fury. ‘After all this, a fucking desert? You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.’ She started crying, big tears rolling down her cheeks as she hung there in the straps, waiting numbly for the touchdown.

Ten metres above the ground, a cluster of impact bags inflated out from the base of the exopod. They hit and immediately deflated, cushioning the landing. The exopod rocked about sharply, gouging out a shallow crater in the sand before slowly coming to a halt, tilted over at about twenty degrees. The main chutes fluttered away for several hundred metres before collapsing.

Laura took her time unhooking herself from the straps. She was hanging slightly face down, and didn’t want to fall on her damaged ankle. Slowly she lowered herself onto what was now the floor. The hatch was level with her head. All the port showed was a patch of sandy ground in the shade cast by the rest of the exopod.

She reached up to one of the small consoles and studied the display screen. Power was down to fifteen per cent. She shut down the flight systems. All that was left now was the beacon, sending out its call for help, and the environmental unit. It could recycle her air for another three hundred hours with the remaining power.

‘Bollocks to that.’ Laura turned the environmental unit off, and pulled the hatch lever. There was a loud hiss as the pressure equalized, then the hatch swung open. A wave of warm dry air rolled in. She breathed it down, not too worried about spores or any other alien microbes. Even without functional biononics, her immune system was enhanced by Advancer genes; it could cope with a lot of dangerous biological crud. In any case, she was past caring. It wasn’t going to be bugs which killed her now.

She crawled out of the exopod and looked round. It really was a desert, a flat expanse of gritty sand with meandering rills rippling away in every direction. She crawled round the exopod to be sure, but nothing broke the desolate span of ochre sand except for the red-and-yellow striped fabric puddle of the chutes. There were no clouds in the sky. No wind. No humidity. Nothing alive apart from her.

‘Oww, bollocks.’

The sunlight was intense; she was already sweating. If she stayed out for much longer, she’d burn. Probably get sunstroke too.

She squirmed her way back through the hatch, only to find the interior of the exopod was now hotter than outside. The damn thing was acting like an oven under the midday sun.

Oh, just great!

The environmental unit came back on with an unhealthy clanking sound. It settled down soon enough, producing a slightly strained whirring. Laura didn’t care; she wormed herself into a sitting position with her face under one of the vents, enjoying the cool air blowing across her skin. When she checked the display screen above her, she saw the power levels dropping already. At this rate, the power cells didn’t even have enough charge to keep the environmental unit going until evening.

With a groan, she lumbered up out of the hatch again and scuttled round to a small panel in the base of the exopod. The emergency planetary survival kit was inside, but streaks of molten metal from some sensor or antenna had solidified over the panel, practically welding it shut. She tried prising at it with her telekinesis, but she certainly wasn’t strong enough to shift the metal bonds. She looked round, and found a sharpish rock. Flakes of the blackened metal broke off as she hammered away. The irony made her grin fiercely: a rock hammer to open a spaceship, surely the ultimate clash of primitive against sophistication.

She was sweating profusely by the time she finally managed to clear the panel and tug it open. The case slid out, containing basic supplies – four water bottles with built-in purification filters, another medical kit, a couple of array tablets with high-power transmitters, two insulated one-piece suits (which would be useful in this heat, she admitted), some simple tools, including an axe and multifunction knife not dissimilar to the Swiss army knife, two force-field skeleton suits (their processors didn’t even respond to her u-shadow’s ping), a pair of high-density power cells and an amazingly thin photovoltaic sheet that just kept unrolling. She spread that out, holding it down with rocks on each corner, and plugged it in to the high-density cells, then plugged them into the exopod’s power circuit.

Back inside, she gulped down a litre of water after her exertions. The photovoltaic sheet alone was producing enough electricity to keep the environmental unit going. Her exposed skin was starting to smart from sunburn, so she slathered on some salve. She spent a long minute staring at her damaged ankle. It hadn’t got any worse, but sun exposure definitely hadn’t helped. If she was going to put an insulated suit on she’d have to cut the trouser leg open first.

She turned to the two array tablets. They had black solar cases that would recharge their cells. So she set them to broadcast a distress signal at full power for ten minutes then charge up for fifty minutes before signalling again. As they were solid state, they should be able to maintain that cycle indefinitely.

After she’d set them outside she ate another tube of pasta and checked the sensors. There was no trace of the Vermillion or the other starships. The sky was clear of any signal. It made her wonder how far she’d travelled into the past. Not that it was possible. But if . . .

Four hours later the sun dropped below the horizon. After another hour it was cool enough for her to turn the environmental unit off. She looked out of the hatch without venturing outside. Above her, the Void’s nebulas dominated the sky. Below them, the desert was perfectly still – a silence that was unnerving now the environmental unit had stopped its wheezing and rattling. Looking at that vast unyielding stretch of grainy sand, she knew there was no way she could get across it on her own. The solar sheet would supply power long after her food and water ran out. All she could do was stay put and keep alive until Vermillion arrived. There was nothing else. Just wait and pray that, against all logic and science, Joey had been right.

*

In the morning she started an inventory of food. She refused to cut down on her water intake. That would be dangerous, but she could afford to eat fewer calories, especially as she planned on doing nothing.

She settled back in the tiny cabin and began reviewing the science data she’d assiduously stored in her lacuna. The molecular pathways inside the distortion tree were truly extraordinary. Mapping them properly was going to be a serious task. But it would stop her thinking about Ayanna and the others.

Seven hours after dawn, the environmental unit packed up. Laura just laughed at the silence. ‘What’s next? A tsunami?’ She was beginning to believe the Void’s controlling intelligence was taking a personal and very macabre interest in her. This catastrophic mission was her very own rat maze. And I can’t find the cheese.

She’d got the top of the environmental unit open when a sonic boom hit the exopod.

The harsh sound made her jump. She dropped the tools and stuck her head out of the hatch, searching the sky.

High above her, a small black speck was falling at terminal velocity, producing a grubby vertical contrail filled with twinkling embers. The contrail shrank away to nothing, and the speck fell in silence. Then a couple of drogue chutes shot out.