She stopped. They’re only a few meters away, she told herself. “Zack!” she shouted. “Makali!”
Her voice was weaker than Zack’s…the sound seemed muffled, inaudible, as if she’d been shouting inside a recording studio—
Then she heard a clear fluttering sound as the light changed, growing even darker.
She barely had time to look up as a shadow fell on her, ending her pain and curiosity.
PAV
“What’s Keanu’s diameter?” Zhao said.
Yvonne Hall looked up. “Ninety to a hundred kilometers, uncertainty due to its shape.”
“You mean, it isn’t round?” Rachel said.
“Not remotely,” the Revenant astronaut said. “More like an egg.”
“Like the Earth,” Pav said. He had heard his father talk about things like this for years. He still didn’t know why it mattered. Earth wasn’t perfectly round; big deal. It had never affected him when he lived there.
And Keanu was even less perfectly round. Again…what does it mean to me, Pav, right now?
“Correct,” Yvonne told him, then turned to Zhao. “Why do you ask?”
All four humans were sitting on the floor of the railcar, which had been moving smoothly, and at a steady rate, through a whole series of tunnels for the past hour. Rachel was next to Pav, resting her head on his shoulder and holding the Slate.
Cowboy was curled up at their feet. Zhao and Yvonne sat across from them…a considerable distance, given the size of the railcar.
“If we’ve been traveling for an hour, and our speed is thirty kilometers per hour, which is likely a low estimate, we should have traversed a third of the NEO, am I correct?”
“If we traveled in a straight line, sure,” Yvonne said. “But…have you ever been in any big metro? New York, London, Moscow—?”
“I’ve been in Moscow,” Pav said, not sure why he had to contribute to the conversation. It was either talk, or doze off.
“And I’ve been in Paris, London, New York, Beijing,” Zhao said. “What’s your point?”
“These aren’t necessarily linear systems.”
“You’re applying human reasoning to alien engineering.”
“Come on, there are certain concepts that are universal. These people are seriously more advanced than we are in almost every field…but look at this thing.” She waved a hand at the ceiling. “Call it a module or an alien transport vehicle or whatever you want…it’s a subway car.”
“Yes, and it’s moving through an alien subway system toward a habitat—”
“—We hope,” Yvonne said.”
“You’re in touch with the whole system,” Rachel said, rousing herself and looking alarmed. “Don’t you know?”
“Everything shut down when the car started moving,” Yvonne said. “It was kind of a relief, I have to say. Like having the noisy folks next door turning off the loud music.”
“It leaves us blind, however.” Zhao said. “Or, rather…deaf.”
“Maybe it will start up when we get wherever this is going,” Pav said. He sure hoped so. For a moment, he imagined them simply ping-ponging through the interior of Keanu forever…or until they starved or died of thirst.
“Look, everyone, the voices told me to get in the railcar, go with it. It’s taking us somewhere—”
Zhao gestured to Pav and to Rachel. “Why aren’t you taking us back to our habitat?”
Yvonne blinked, like a student facing a surprise question on an exam. “Because the voices said to take you to the control center. Not back where you came from.”
“But what are we supposed to do there?” Rachel said.
“That isn’t clear,” Yvonne said. “I realize that’s…not satisfying. I don’t like it, either. But there’s a job you and I and maybe even Cowboy have to do once we arrive.”
The dog whimpered. Pav doubted he was responding to the sound of his name, because he seemed to be asleep. Pav wondered…what kind of dreams did dogs have? All about chasing animals? Eating?
What kind of dreams did Revenant dogs have?
Thoughts of eating prompted Pav to ask Yvonne, “Will there be food when we get to the control center?”
She smiled. “I hope so. I haven’t eaten since I got killed.”
“That’s so weird,” Pav said.
“Tell me about it,” Yvonne said.
“Why are you doing this? Helping us. Finding the control center, all of that. If I’d been dead and brought back, I’d still be trying to figure it all out.”
She gave a snorting laugh. “I’d like nothing better.” Then she grew quiet for a moment. “I screwed up,” she said. “About as big a screwup as anyone ever made—”
“My dad says it was Houston and Washington’s fault—”
“But I was the one there,” Yvonne said. “I was the one who…got scared and set off the bomb. So this is a way for me to put things right.” There was a faraway look in her eyes that made Pav uncomfortable, as if he were looking at a ghost.
Then she said, “I just wish I knew what made Pogo go so crazy.”
“I have no idea,” Pav said. He only knew what had happened, that Pogo Downey, one of the four American astronauts, had been killed, then turned into a Revenant. And that he had tried to go aboard the Venture lander.
“It’s not like I’ve had time to think it over,” Yvonne said, shaking her head at the sheer mystery of the experience. “To me, it all happened, like, half an hour before I met you guys. I thought he was trying to take over the lander. Take off with it and fly it back to Destiny and not only leave everyone behind, but become some nasty kind of alien invader on Earth. But, you know, second thought? I wonder if he was trying to provoke me—provoke NASA or the White House—to set off that nuke and keep Keanu beings from reaching Earth.”
“Could he do that?” Pav said. “I mean, aren’t you…under control?”
Yvonne laughed. “Well, hell, I suppose I wouldn’t really know, would I? But what I think, right now, is this: We’re messengers or facilitators. We’re supposed to be a link between the Architects and you. We have information, but we’re not puppets.”
Then Rachel stirred and shifted, distracting Pav. Yvonne reached for the dog, too, and the magical moment was over.
Pav was okay with that. He was feeling the way he had when his father talked to him about business or politics, where his lack of even basic information made him feel stupid. He didn’t like that feeling.
Rachel automatically opened the Slate in her lap, calling up the image of her mother, Megan. “You mind?” she said.
“It’s okay,” he told her. Even though he wore the Slate on a strap, even though it had the same mass as a print magazine, he was tired of lugging it through tunnels and while running for his life from hostile Long Legs.
Tired of worrying about losing it. Not that the unit was going to be much use when its battery died…tomorrow or next week, what difference did it make?
Oops, he was back to thinking about death. Stop it. Think about this control center Yvonne promised. Where you can fly the starship…access the other habitats…
Pav looked at the inkings on his arm. He remembered being obsessed with getting one. It was the one thing the vyomanaut’s kid could to do make himself momentarily cool, to remove himself from the science geek world and put him firmly into music. He wished he had a pen right now. There was a perfect spot to draw something…Captain of Keanu would be good. Or Long Legs Killer.
Rachel sniffed. Yvonne and Zhao were too far away to see, or pretended not to, but the girl was crying.
It was just one more annoying thing, from being angry all the time or weepy half the time, or too smart-ass or too needy or not fast enough or too young or whatever…he wasn’t sure he liked this girl at all.
But he would have been pissed if she’d been leaning on Zhao or Yvonne instead of him—