Back at the Astronauts’ Residence, the six of us huddle for an emergency meeting in the living room. I study the five faces around me, waiting for a mask to slip, but the culprit plays their part too well. Then again, he’s grown up in a house of politicians. Maybe he learned how to pretend from the best of them.
“What happens now?” Dev asks, his voice barely above a whisper. “No one prepared us for this scenario. . . .”
“We—we could go back,” Sydney suggests, her eyes lighting up at the thought. “We could go back to Earth orbit and dock with the ISS. They have all the equipment to build us a new antenna, or even a whole new comm system, and they can patch us in with Mission Control right away—”
“Who would tear us to shreds for giving up on the mission,” Jian interrupts. “Everyone on Earth would.”
“How is it giving up?” Sydney argues. “It’s just taking a pause to fix what’s broken. That’s all.”
“Because turning around could cost us the entire thing,” I remind her. It hurts to say the words out loud—I wish I could indulge in her fantasy of going home, even for a minute—but I can’t deny the truth. “Delaying our trip to Mars means we miss the target alignment window, which tacks on an extra six months to our trip. And there’s no way the supply ship will last that long in orbit with its fuel leak.”
Jian nods. “If we go back, we’re making a definite choice—choosing ourselves over the mission.”
We sit in uncomfortable silence until Minka murmurs, “I wish we could.”
“Yeah, well, we can’t,” Beckett says curtly. “I think we’re all in agreement here that deserting isn’t an option?”
I grit my teeth. It kills me to go along with anything Beckett has to say—especially when we’re talking about the difference between returning to my family now, and never seeing them again. But this is bigger than me, bigger than us. I have no choice but to do the right thing.
“So,” Beckett continues, when no one contradicts him, “we’re just going to have to find a way to make this work—to get through our days in space without any help from the ground. The Mars supply ship has all the pieces we need to set up an advanced comm system once we land on Europa, so it’s just a matter of time before we’re in contact with everyone again.”
“You mean if we land,” Sydney corrects him. “Our success odds just took a huge nosedive, now that we don’t have any guidance from Mission Control.”
“We have the robots, though,” Jian points out, looking a bit more hopeful than before. “And the Pontus is flying a preprogrammed trajectory, so we don’t need Mission Control’s help there, either. When you think about it, the AIs and our flight software are way more crucial than whether we have contact with Houston.”
“We’re going to need to get used to only having each other to count on now,” I say grimly. “So it sure would be nice if the person here who did this to us would speak up and confess already. That way we can all know who the culprit is, and not have to spend the rest of this journey doubting and second-guessing the other five.”
My eyes fall on Beckett as I speak, and he shoots me a look of contempt.
“Yes, Naomi. I want the answer to that question as much as you do.”
Fifteen
LEO
AN ENTIRE WEEK GOES BY WITHOUT A WORD. I CAN FEEL THE isolation starting to change me, turning my insides as ragged as I’m sure I look right now, after these restless days and insomniac nights. My mind is running on a fearful loop, wondering what could possibly be important enough to keep Greta, Lark, and Asher from communicating, while at the same time imagining the different scenarios that might be playing out on the Pontus right now. Is Jian in the middle of charming Naomi, and will I show up to find neither of them wants me there—
“Leo! Are you there?”
Asher. For a second I think I’m hearing things, but then he calls my name a second time, and I dash over to the radio receiver.
“Of course I’m here,” I snap. “Where else would I be but stuck alone in space on this—this death trap of a mission that you all promised to help me through, before suddenly abandoning ship—”
“I knew you’d be mad.” Asher sighs. “I get it and I’m sorry, but we had no choice. We had to wait until we were sure we were completely alone—that they weren’t watching or listening.”
“What are you talking about?” I frown at the radio receiver. “Who’s ‘they’?”
“The dirty cops Dr. Takumi paid off,” he says roughly. “They came back, with orders to arrest Greta for kidnapping and to deliver the three of us back to Houston. There were so many more of them this time—” He breaks off, and my stomach seizes with dread.
“Ash? What happened?”
“They found us.” His voice lowers to a whisper. “But Greta gave us a chance to run. She created a distraction by sending in her AIs to fight back against the cops, and then she actually jumped into the fray with them, even though she knew they didn’t stand a chance against all the police ammunition. It was all just a ploy to keep them busy dealing with her, to buy us time to escape the lab and run to the safehouse Greta told us about.”
“So—so you’re saying they got her?” I ask in dismay. “Greta’s in jail?”
He doesn’t answer, and in the pause that follows, I realize it’s even worse than that. My heart slams against my chest.
“She’s gone.” Asher’s voice breaks. “The paramedics said the bullets killed her on impact. Greta had to have known this would happen if she tried to fight back, but still she did it, for us.” He takes a gulp of breath. “She died to keep all three of us—and your mission—alive.”
My hands slip off the railing I’m holding, and my body goes drifting. I can hear Asher calling me, but I don’t answer. I couldn’t speak even if I wanted to. I’m biting down on my lip so hard that I soon taste blood.
My mentor is dead. That larger-than-life force is extinguished.
And I’m on my own.
MESSAGE ORIGIN: EARTH—UNITED STATES—S. CALIFORNIA
MESSAGE RECIPIENT: PONTUS SPACECRAFT—EARTH-MARS TRANSIT
ATTN: ARDALAN, NAOMI
[MESSAGE STATUS: DELIVERY FAILURE]
Dear Sis,
I’m trying hard not to panic, but the truth is, I’ve never been this effing scared in my life. Not even the night before my first open-heart surgery, and you know that one was bad. Now all I can do to stay sane is to tell myself over and over that the talking heads on TV are all wrong, that none of the grim scenarios they’ve painted are real. We may not be able to see you or talk to you, but the satellite trackers still show the Pontus making progress, keeping to its trajectory. So I don’t—won’t—believe the rumors that it’s just flying ahead on autopilot. I have to believe you’re still alive. It’s like Mom said, just before she lit every candle in the house and the three of us sat in a circle to pray: she said that we would feel it if you were gone. We’re too close to you not to know. So please, please let her be right. Please be alive and safe.
We had one distraction yesterday—a phone call from your old team leader at space camp, Lark! None of us had spoken to her before, and the last I’d heard about her was that she was apparently missing?! So needless to say, the call was a surprise. At first I was afraid she was reaching out to offer premature “condolences,” like some of our neighbors have been dumb enough to do. But it turns out she just called to ask about us. She wanted to know everything—how comfortable we are in this new apartment, if it’s far enough from the rising tides and fault lines, how my heart medication is working, when my last cardiologist appointment was, etc. THEN she told us something absolutely amazing: she’s spent the past few months working for none other than Dr. Greta Wagner . . . and if we need anything at all, to just call and Wagner Enterprises will take care of it! I mean, of all the times to not be able to talk to you! I would give anything to hear your reaction to this.
Mom started crying, and then Dad asked what we owe this kindness to. Lark said it was y
ou—that Dr. Wagner heard how special you are from one of your former teammates, and made a promise to take care of the one thing that mattered most to you: our family.
I said, “This sounds like the guy Naomi told us about, the one I’ve been trying to find. Leonardo Danieli. Do you know where he is?”
Lark got quiet, and when she spoke again, all she said was that she wished she had more to tell us. She had to go right after that, but promised to call again this week. So that’s been the bright spot of our days, and Mom even took it as a sign that you are still out there, and looking out for us from all the way in deep space.
I hope she’s right. I hope one day soon you’ll be reading these messages. And by then, hopefully we will have answers for you about Leo, too.
We love you,
Sam
Sixteen
NAOMI
I PACE UP AND DOWN THE COMMUNICATIONS BAY FOR THE fifth day straight, trying to unlock a solution. There has to be some other way to make contact with Earth, even without the X-band comm system. We still have our smaller low-gain antennas, but they only cover a ten-thousand-mile range. So while I can keep listening for signals and sending out my own, it won’t do me much good even if I manage to get a response. Anything close enough for us to communicate with now wouldn’t be human.
I slump into the nearest desk chair, in front of the heap of radio equipment I just finished rifling through. I don’t have a prayer of reaching Earth with any of this gear, but when my eyes fall on the handheld ham radio transceiver, I pick it up. We had one of these at home, back when Sam and I were elementary school kids going through a radio phase. Dad helped us set up our own station and choose a call sign (KNS2AR), and Sam and I would “deejay” a show every morning called “A.M. with the Ardalans.” I smile at the memory, even though it makes me want to cry at the same time.
I hold the radio close and then, on a whim, I switch on the built-in mic.
“Hello—CQ,” I whisper. “This is KNS2AR, calling from the Pontus en route to Mars. Can you hear me?”
I close my eyes and repeat the words, but there’s only silence on the other end. Just as I expected.
I toss the ham radio back onto the desk and resume pacing, my thoughts returning to my mental list of reasons to suspect—or trust—each of my crewmates. Beckett is obviously far outpacing the others in the “Suspect” column, and I’m mulling over the rest when I hear it—a faint, bell-like sound coming from the headphones I almost forgot I’m still wearing. I freeze, my heart stops, as I listen.
There it is again. Six notes, forming a haunting melody. I reach up with trembling hands to raise the volume in my headphones, and the musical phrase plays again, flooding my insides with a dizzying mix of hope and fear.
With a jolt, I remember the signal I sent to Europa days ago, “Sail to the Moon.” Is . . . is this our response?
I practically fly to the computer and open the signal-monitoring software, where a blinking green dot waits for me on-screen—a visual of the signal I’m hearing. I double-click, and the screen reloads with a full page of data on the signal. My eyes scan for the only data entry I care about: location.
The signal’s coordinates are as far from Europa as from Earth . . . but the scrolling numbers running across the screen show that the signal is moving closer and closer to us.
I jump up, reaching for the intercom button on the wall to broadcast a message throughout the ship.
“Meet me in the Communications Bay now—all five of you.”
My crewmates crowd over my shoulder as I turn the speakers up to full volume and cue the computer to play the signal.
“Here it is.” I swallow hard. “Sent to our ship from somewhere in deep space.”
The six notes echo through the room, their silvery tones sending goose bumps across my skin. The color drains from Minka’s face, Dev and Sydney seize hands, Jian takes shallow gulps of breath. But Beckett’s reaction is the one that sticks with me. His is different from the others—less surprised, more ominous—and I’m beginning to think this isn’t his first time hearing the signal.
“What the—what does it mean?” Dev sputters.
“All I’ve got so far are the notes: A-F-A-E-G-A. Does anyone here know if that translates to something?” I look straight at Beckett, but he’s back to his poker face, his eyes revealing nothing.
“Considering we’re all multilingual, if it’s not a word in a language any of us knows, then it must be some type of code,” Jian says. “But . . . what code uses musical notes?”
“There was one, back in the days of classical music,” Minka speaks up. “I learned about it freshman year. Shostakovich would hide ciphered versions of people’s names in the notes of some of his main themes, and it was called a musical cryptogram.”
I stare at her.
“Any chance they taught you how to decode those ciphers?”
“Hold on,” Dev jumps in before Minka has a chance to answer. “You really think an alien species would communicate with us through a code used hundreds of years ago by some niche group on Earth?”
“Technically we don’t know what sent it to us—but yes. If they’re advanced enough to send us a signal, then they’re smart enough to know that music is the universal language,” I reply, even as the thought of these sophisticated extraterrestrials makes me shudder. “Minka, any idea how to crack this code?”
“I think I can remember.” She steps up to the desk, swiping to open a blank page on-screen. Her fingers trace the screen as she scrawls the seven letters of musical notes, with the letters of the alphabet underneath. “The idea with musical cryptograms is that you’re spelling a word through sheet music. But since musical notes only use the first seven letters of the alphabet, certain notes correspond to multiple letters. So the note A doesn’t just stand for the letter A, but also H, O, and V—like this.”
“So we have to look at the letters under each note and find the combination that makes the most sense.”
She steps back from the screen, and we all stare at it, silently unscrambling the letters.
“Okay, so with the notes being A-F-A-E-G-A, that would spell out to . . .” Dev squints. “Amoluv or Ofozua or—”
“Athena,” I gasp. I reach up with shaking hands, connecting the letters on-screen. “The signal also happens to spell A-T-H-E-N-A.”
Minka lets out a cry of shock, and I hear Beckett swear under his breath.
It’s coming from Mars.
“Could it be . . . them?” Sydney whispers. “Alive and still out there?”
“Of course not.” Beckett shakes his head. “SatCon has been monitoring Mars orbit and tracking the Athena crew for years now. Their biomonitors have been dead the entire time, and there’s no trace of human life signatures coming from anywhere near the red planet. For all we know, this is just a stray signal and doesn’t mean anything.”
“So how do you explain what it spells?” I challenge him.
“Coincidence,” he replies without missing a beat. “Besides, who’s to say you’re right and it’s not really Amoluv or something else?”
“Because most of the time in science, and in life, the simplest answer is the right one,” I tell him. “And Athena is the obvious and simple answer.”
There’s something else that makes me believe, too. It’s the look in Beckett’s eyes, his eagerness to explain this away, that lets me know he’s scared. And that’s how I know, in my core—it’s Athena.
Seventeen
LEO
IT TOOK MARS TO BRING ME BACK TO LIFE.
The weeks after losing Greta passed by in a dark blur, where days ran into nights and nothing ever changed. I moved like a zombie between my bed and the helm of the ship. I tried to avoid letting myself think or feel too much, but when emotions did creep in, they were like an avalanche of regret. I never should have done this.
If I’d just said no to Greta’s proposition from the beginning, she would be alive today. Lark and Asher would be safe and free. But ins
tead, I’m alone in an environment that’s waiting for the opportunity to kill me—and dragging down my friends on Earth along the way.
I soon stopped keeping track of the days or believing we’d actually get there; I let the ship run on autopilot, with Kitt monitoring our progress. Maybe a part of me even stopped caring. But that changed when I saw the light in the dark—a flash of red in the distance.
“Oh my God.”
I gasp for air, convinced my eyes are deceiving me. My legs feel like jelly as I move forward, pressing my hands to the window glass. There it is—
—the flash of red. The beating heart I was searching for.
“We’re almost there.” My voice comes out like a whisper, and I try again. “Lark, Asher, it a—appears we’re approaching Mars orbit. Do you copy?”
The words sound too incredible to be real, like lines from a movie. I whirl around, turning to Kitt and impulsively throwing my arms around him in celebration.
“You hear that, Kitt? We made it!”
The AI emits a cluck-cluck sound that I suspect is his version of laughing.
“We have certainly been through a lot these couple of months, Commander.”
“Yeah.” My smile fades. “Starting with everything we lost. But if Greta’s plan works . . .” Then it could all be worth it.
It would be the greatest relief of my life, joining up with the Pontus and no longer having to navigate all of this alone. I know how lucky I am to have Kitt—I would have gone stir-crazy weeks ago without him—but each time I plug him into his charging pod at night, I’m reminded that he’s not real, not in the way of Naomi or Greta. And, as I’ve learned these past two months, there is nothing so lonely or disorienting as being the only human being for millions of miles.
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