Rachel and Zack had their cemetery rituals, visiting every year on Megan’s birthday in November, and on Mother’s Day. And now and then, just on impulse.

There was a simple stone with Megan’s name and years. And one thing that had always freaked Rachel out: the empty plot next to it. “That’s for me,” Zack had told her, the first time she asked about it, early one summer morning almost two years ago.

“That’s seriously creepy, Dad.”

“Don’t worry, I’m not planning to occupy it any time soon.”

“But doesn’t it bother you to think that someday you’re going to be there for a thousand years or whatever?”

Since Zack rarely wore sunglasses, he had blinked in the brilliant sunshine. “It’s just not that big a deal.”

“If it’s not that important, why do we keep coming back?”

“You got me.” He had closed his eyes for a moment, thinking. Then smiled, as if he’d solved a big problem. “Wait. It’s because coming here gives us a place to think about your mom.”

“We could do that at home.”

“No, there are too many distractions. This is just . . . a special meditation zone dedicated to her, okay?”

Rachel had remembered that. She was never comfortable offering prayers, anyway. She didn’t like going to church and, after a series of heated arguments, had persuaded Zack to let her skip religious education.

But meditation? Thinking good thoughts? She had been able to do that.

Though not today. She examined the grassy surface of the grave, then knelt to run her hand across it.

It didn’t seem to have been disturbed. But how to be sure?

She took the little spade out of her bag and jammed it into the sod. It went in easily—of course; with all the rain, the ground was soft, soggy.

She chopped out a square two feet on a side, then began sliding the tip of the blade around the edges. She had just started to peel up a corner of the sod when a man said, “Rachel Stewart, what are you doing?”

Startled, Rachel sat up.

Harley Drake was a few feet away, his powered wheelchair finding slow if silent going. “We’ve got to stop meeting like this.”

“What are you doing here?”

“Hiding,” he said.

“Really.” She went back to her excavation.

“Really? I just wanted to check on something.”

“What?”

“You’ll laugh.”

“I don’t think so.”

He was at the grave now. He looked uncommonly serious. “I just wanted to be sure the grave was still intact. Weird, huh?”

Rachel managed to peel the square of sod off the grave. Her hands were dirty, so she wiped them on the grass. “You’re nuts.”

“Before you make judgments, tell me what you’re doing. Because it almost looks as though you’re worried about the same thing.”

“What? That aliens stole my mother’s body so they could fool everybody?” She knelt again and quickly dug a hole of sorts where the sod used to be.

“I wouldn’t put it quite like that, but, well, yeah.”

Rachel smiled. Poor Harley. “Nope.” She picked up her Slate and dropped it in the fresh hole. With several swift moves, she covered it with loose soil.

Harley watched this. “Uh, that’s a pretty expensive item. . . .”

“My father used to say it was really just a paperweight.”

“Now it’s a muddy paperweight.”

She put the sod back in its place, then walked on it.

“All that blogging and stuff, that was my mom’s world. I need to take a break.”

“Unplugging? That’s not the worst idea you’ve had lately.”

They both laughed. In moments, the laughter turned to tears—even hardcase Harley Drake. Rachel knew it had nothing to do with her disposal of the Slate. She gave him an awkward hug. “Her old body is still under there, Harley. But that other part seems to be up in space.”

“You’re sure about that?”

“Yeah.”

“It makes things really difficult, then.”

At that moment, Harley’s phone rang. “I don’t believe this.” But he answered it, listened for a moment. “Wow, okay. Yeah, I’ll be right in.”

“What’s going on?”

“Your father. The rest of the crew is on the surface, but not him.”

“He won’t leave without my mother.”

“Guess not.”

“What’s going to happen?”

“I have no idea, but I think you need to come with me.”

This is Destiny mission control. The team here is following a number of unexpected developments, beginning with the anomalous loss of contact with the Venture spacecraft on the surface of Keanu at 103 hours, 34 minutes mission elapsed time and associated venting on the NEO’s surface. Mission manager Shane Weldon has issued the following statement: “We consider this to be an extremely serious situation.” He adds that the orbiting Destiny spacecraft is still providing downlink. We will continue to bring you timely updates as warranted.

NASA PUBLIC AFFAIRS COMMENTATOR SCOTT SHAWLER

“Maui got this twenty minutes ago,” Shane Weldon said.

On the main screen, the white crescent that was Keanu still showed the traces of the detonation as a faint, symmetrical cloud.

With Rachel tagging along, Harley had rushed to mission control without stopping at the Home Team. But he had found Sasha Blaine already waiting, lost in the group grope, since at least a dozen people crowded the usually sacrosanct area near the flight director and capcom stations. Bynum was here, too, of course, and so was Gabriel Jones, still, to Harley’s eyes, looking like a phantom.

“Is this real-time?” Bynum asked.

“Just watch the damned screen,” Jones said. His voice sounded weak, and the idea that the Johnson Space Center’s director would snap at a representative from Washington was further confirmation: Jones was out of it.

Even in real time, what happened next made Harley’s heart go irregular.

There was a flash of light from beyond Keanu’s bright limb— something exploding or erupting on the side away from the Earth-based telescope.

But instead of dissipating like the debris from past events, a small object fell away from Keanu. “What the hell is that?” someone said. Harley could not have phrased the question any better.

“Keep watching, everyone,” Weldon said.

Then it happened again, though this time the eruption seemed to come from Keanu’s south pole. But the result was the same . . . a bright object that, like its predecessor, separated from the NEO.

Within seconds, both objects had left Keanu behind. The Maui scope smoothly tracked with them; Keanu fell out of frame, leaving two white blobs on the screen.

Several people began talking at the same time, all asking the logical questions. How big are they? How fast are they moving?

And Harley’s new favorite, “Where are they going?”

“People, please!” Weldon said. “We don’t actually know much more than you do.”

Into the sudden silence, Harley said, “Is there better imagery?”

Weldon simply nodded, then jerked his head to one of the operators.

One of the objects suddenly filled the screen. “It’s still nothing but a blob,” Bynum said.

“Correct,” Weldon said. “We have other sites besides Maui tracking this, and no one has seen any edges or definition on this thing. At the moment, all we can say is that it’s a blob moving at thirty-two thousand clicks an hour.”

“Two blobs,” Jones said.

“Were they simply fired, like bullets?” Sasha Blaine said, speaking up. “Or are they accelerating?”

“We haven’t seen any maneuvering yet,” Weldon said. “So far, we’re treating it like a launch.”

“What could those things be?” Bynum said.

He looked genuinely baffled, and for once Harley couldn’t blame the man. “I can only think of two things,” Harley said. “Pure mass, like ice or rock, or a vehicle, which could be a spacecraft or a missile.”

“If it’s a missile, is it a counterstrike?” Bynum said.