Next down the line was a man with wide brown eyes who looked like a teenager. “This is Zach Navarro, our flight engineer. He’s the baby of the bunch,” Duffy said.
“Hey!” Navarro protested.
“Not my fault you’re a child prodigy, kid.” Duffy ruffled his hair while Navarro made a face, but smiled at Catherine.
“Kevin Park is our mission specialist,” Duffy went on, pointing to a man with pale white skin and a shock of dark hair. “He’s an exobiologist. After what you found up there, he’s hopeful.”
“I’m glad they’re sending you,” Catherine said. “Claire Tomason was a hell of a scientist, but she was a geologist.” Claire had been the baby of their crew, and they’d all been mildly protective of her.
“I can’t wait to see it all for myself,” Park said. “Who knows what we’ll be able to find.”
But there’s nothing else there to find, she thought, although there was no way she could know that. She pushed the thought away and turned her attention to the systems operator, a bubbly blonde named Grace Kowalski. “It’s an honor to meet you, Colonel Wells,” she said. “I was so glad you didn’t die—I mean, I was glad you came back safe.” She pushed up her glasses, flustered. “You know what I mean.”
“I do,” Catherine said. “No worries.”
“Last but not least is the man who’s going to be there to save our asses, Dr. Nate Royer, our physician.”
Nate was attractive, with warm brown skin and an easy smile. And Catherine didn’t miss that he was sitting next to Cal; the two of them looked close, as much friends as colleagues.
“And of course, you’ve already met Cal, our resident cat herder.”
“Colonel Wells.” Cal nodded briefly, and Catherine would’ve sworn the temperature dropped in the room.
John’s phone beeped and he checked it. “Okay, the techs tell me they almost have the simulator ready for us. Hang tight for a bit; soon we’ll be able to take a look at what our new home is going to be like.”
The TRAPPIST-1f simulation was equal parts virtual reality and real-world environmental changes, like temperature, gravitational pull, winds. At first Catherine hadn’t seen the point of her joining in. It wasn’t as if she could verify how accurate they were. The science team was working off the little bit of information that had come back from Sagittarius I, not anything useful from her.
They settled in to wait for the techs to give them the go-ahead, and Morrison scooted over to sit next to Catherine. “Hey, I’ve been dying to ask. Is there anything about flying in ERB Prime that I should know? What’s the handling like?”
Catherine was thrilled to have a question she could actually answer. “Well, you’re hopefully not going to do that much flying in it. At least not in terms of controlling the ship. There’s only one way to go, and that’s forward.” She reached down for her water bottle. “It’s… like being on a track. All you control is the speed, not the direction.”
“What do you think happens if you go off the track?”
“I don’t think that’s possible.”
Morrison grinned. “But you tried it, didn’t you.” It wasn’t a question.
Catherine laughed. “Busted. That was part of our mission, to learn as much as we could about the makeup and properties of the wormhole. I did try to steer the ship off course.”
“What happened?”
“Not a damn thing. The ship twitched a little, but that was it. A tunnel. That’s a more accurate description. It’s like flying through a tunnel.” She paused. “Except you can’t hit the wall.”
Morrison looked as if she wished she were taking notes. “How close are the flight simulators to actually flying Sagittarius?”
Catherine had mentored new pilots before, when she was in the air force, but this was something different. She was the first to fly the Sagittarius model ship, and so far, the only. That added a little pressure to get the information right—there was no one else around who could correct her if she got it wrong. “They’re pretty close. As close as sims can get to the real thing, anyway. I think we pulled more Gs on liftoff than the simulators said we would. It was one hell of a push to get us going. Other than that… yeah, pretty close.”
There was a knock at the door and one of the techs stuck her head in. “We’re ready for you in the planetary simulation now.”
The six of them—Catherine plus the Sagittarius II crew, except for Commander Duffy, who was observing with Cal—suited up in the same space suits used on the first mission. The only difference was the VR headsets implanted in the helmets.
They started going through the planned “mission” for the session, gathering “samples” from the environment. The room was hot and humid, close to surface conditions on TRAPPIST-1f. The light dimmed and brought relief to Catherine’s strained eyes.
“You know, this is going to take away all the wonder from actually getting there,” Navarro complained. “It’s gonna feel like standing in a room in Houston.”
Before Catherine could say anything, a strange feeling came over her. She was hot enough to start sweating—that wasn’t so surprising—but it was harder to breathe. They had oxygen on. Even if the atmosphere in the room was a match to the planet’s, the oxygen would counter it.
It wasn’t a memory, exactly. More a feeling of uneasy familiarity. Her skin was crawling and she couldn’t explain why.
“Yeah, except it’s hotter in here than in the other sims we’ve done,” Park said. “And the commute’s a hell of a lot longer. I dunno, this is pretty exciting to me. We get to see another planet without the long trip.”
“Park, are you the kind of guy who spends his vacation touring the world through VR?” asked Morrison. When he didn’t answer, she laughed. “Oh my God, you are. Would you seriously rather spend most of the week exploring Venice via a headset rather than actually going there?”
“It’s not that, it’s just… easier that way,” Park said defensively.
Sweat beaded along Catherine’s temple. Through the VR goggles, she could see the projected landscape of TRAPPIST-1f. It might have been a desert anywhere in the Southwest: rocky ground, hot. The sky was a dull red, and was crowded with the other TRAPPIST planets, close enough to be clearly visible. They’ve got it wrong. Everything’s wrong. Something’s missing. It was a feeling, a deep, unsettling feeling, but it didn’t come with any memory of what the landscape had really been like. A shadow fell, and something glimmered in the corner of her eye. She turned sharply to the left. Nothing was there, but the feeling persisted. I’m being watched.
“All right, enough with the chatter,” Duffy interjected. “Wells, your vitals are going wonky. Heart and blood pressure rates up. Are you all right?”
“Yeah. Yeah, I’m fine.” There was a bitter, coppery taste in the back of her throat, adrenaline flooding her body. She laughed shakily. “You guys must have gotten this sim close to the real thing. I’m having déjà vu.” Of course you’re being watched. Half of NASA is observing you.
“Catherine, are you remembering anything?” That was Cal’s voice.
“No, it’s just… weird. This feels familiar.” Familiar but wrong. It was as if her vision were doubled, one image superimposed on the other, but the image in the background was too blurry for her to see it.
“Catherine, your blood pressure is shooting up, and I’m not liking your heart rate. If your vitals don’t stabilize, I’m going to pull you out,” Duffy warned.