His hands were steady, his concentration fierce as he drilled into the bone. A few millimeters too deep, and he could hit brain matter.

A thousand precious memories would be destroyed in a second. Or a nick of the middle meningeal artery, and he could unleash an unstoppable fountain of blood. He kept pausing to take a breath, probe the depth of the hole. Go slow. Go slow.

Suddenly he felt the last filigree of bone give way, and the drill broke through. Heart slamming in his throat, he gently withdrew the bit.

A bubble of blood immediately began to form, slowly ballooning out from the breach. It was dark red—venous. He gave a sigh of relief. Not arterial. Even now the pressure on Emma’s brain slowly easing, the intracranial bleed escaping through this new opening. He suctioned the bubble, then used gauze to absorb the continuing ooze as he drilled the next hole, and the next, a one-inch-diameter ring of perforations in the skull. By the time the last hole was drilled, and the circle was complete, his hands were cramping, his face beaded with sweat. He could not pause to rest, every second counted.

He reached for a screwdriver and ball peen hammer.

Let this work. Let this save her.

Using the screwdriver as a chisel, he gently dug the tip into the skull.

Then, teeth gritted, he pried off the circular cap of bone.

Blood billowed out. The larger opening at last allowed it to escape, and it gradually spilled out of the cranium.

So did something else. Eggs. A clump of them gushed out and floated, quivering, into the air. He caught them with the catheter, trapping them in the vacuum jar. Throughout history, mankind’s most dangerous enemies have been the smallest lifeforms. viruses. Bacteria. Parasites. And now you, thought Jack, staring into the jar. But we can defeat you.

The blood was barely oozing out the cranial hole. With that initial gush, the pressure on her brain had been relieved.

He looked at Emma’s left eye. The pupil was still dilated. But when he shone a light into it, he thought—or was he imagining it?—that the edges quivered just the slightest bit, like black rippling toward the center.

You will live, he thought.

He dressed the wound with gauze and started a new IV infusion containing steroids and phenobarbital to temporarily deepen her coma and protect her brain from further damage. He attached EKG leads to her chest. Only after all these tasks had been done did he finally tie a tourniquet around his own arm and inject himself with a dose of Ranavirus. It would either kill them both them both. He would know soon enough.

On the EKG monitor, Emma’s heart traced a steady sinus rhythm. He took her hand in his, and waited for a sign.

August 27

Gordon Obie walked into Special Vehicle Operations and gazed around the room at the men and women working at their consoles.

On the front screen, the space station traced its sinuous path across the global map. At this moment, in the deserts of Algeria, villagers who chanced to glance up at the night sky would marvel at the strange star, brilliant as Venus, soaring across the heavens.

A star unique in all the firmament because it was created not by an all-powerful god, nor by any force of nature, but by the fragile hand of man.

And in this room, halfway around the world from that Algerian desert, were the guardians of that star.

Flight Director Woody Ellis turned and greeted Gordon with a sad nod.

“No word. It’s been silent up there.”

“How long since the last transmission?”

“Jack signed off five hours ago to get some sleep. It’s been almost three days since he got much rest. We’re trying not to disturb him.”

Three days, and still no change in Emma’s status. Gordon sighed and headed along the back row to the flight surgeon’s console. Todd Cutler, unshaven and haggard, was watching Emma’s biotelemetry readings on his monitor. And when had Todd last slept? Gordon wondered. Every one looked exhausted, but no one was ready to admit defeat.

“She’s still hanging in there,” Todd said softly. “We’ve withdrawn the phenobarb.”

“But she hasn’t come out of the coma?”

“No.” Sighing, Todd slumped back and pinched the bridge of his nose. “I don’t know what else to do. I’ve never dealt with before. Neurosurgery in space.” It was a phrase many of them had uttered over the last few weeks. I’ve never dealt with this before. This is new. This is something we’ve never seen. Yet wasn’t that the essence of exploration? That no crisis could be predicted, that every new problem required its own solution. That every triumph was built on sacrifice.

And there had been triumphs, even in the midst of all this tragedy.

Apogee II had landed safely in the Arizona desert, and Casper Mulholland was now negotiating his company’s first contract with the Air Force.

Jack was still healthy, even three days being aboard ISS—an indication that Ranavirus was both a cure and a preventive against Chimera. And the very fact that Emma was alive counted as a triumph as well.

Though perhaps only a temporary one.

Gordon felt a profound sense of sadness as he watched her EKG blip across the screen. How long can the heart go on beating when the brain is gone? he wondered. How long can a body survive a coma? To watch this slow fading away of a once-vibrant woman was more painful than to witness her sudden and catastrophic death.

Suddenly he sat up straight, his gaze frozen on the monitor.

“Todd,” he said. “What’s happening to her?”

“What?”

“There’s something wrong with her heart.” Todd raised his head and stared at the tracing shuddering across the monitor. “No,” he said, and reached for the comm switch. “That’s not her heart.” The high whine of the monitor alarm sliced through Jack’s twilight sleep, and he awakened with a start. Years of medical training, of countless nights spent in on-call rooms, had taught him to surface fully alert from the deepest sleep, and the instant he opened his eyes he knew where he was. He knew something was wrong.

He turned toward the sound of the alarm and was briefly disoriented by his upside-down view. Emma appeared to be suspended facedown from the ceiling. One of her three EKG leads floated loose, like a strand of sea grass drifting underwater. He turned hundred eighty degrees, and everything righted itself.

He reattached her EKG lead. His own heart was racing as he watched the monitor, afraid of what he would see. To his relief, normal rhythm blipped across the screen.

And then—something else. A shuddering of the line. Movement.

He looked down at Emma. And saw that her eyes were open.

“ISS is not responding,” said Capcom.

“Keep trying. We need him on comm now!” snapped Todd.

Gordon stared at the biotelemetry readings, not understanding any of it, and fearing the worst. The EKG skittered up and down, then suddenly went flat. No, he thought. We’ve lost her!

“It’s just a disconnect,” said Todd. “The lead’s fallen off. She may be seizing.”

“Still no response from ISS,” said Capcom.

“What the hell is going on up there?”

“Look!” said Gordon.

Both men froze as a blip appeared on the screen. It was followed by another and another.

“Surgeon, I have ISS,” Capcom announced. “Requesting immediate consultation.” Todd shot forward in his chair. “Ground Control, close the loop. Go ahead, Jack.”

It was a private conversation, no one but Todd could hear what Jack was saying. In the sudden hush, everyone in the room turned to look at the surgeon’s console. Even Gordon, seated right him, could not read Todd’s expression. Todd was hunched forward, both hands cupping his headset, as though to shut out any distractions.

Then he said, “Hold on, Jack. There are a lot of folks down here waiting to hear this. Let’s tell them the news.” Todd turned to Flight Director Ellis and gave him a triumphant thumbs-up.