“I’m not leaving you—”

“You don’t have any choice. I may not last ten more minutes.”

He wanted to argue, but the evidence was compelling. She could barely stand. And yet her eyes blazed, reminding him of the angriest she had ever been at him . . . for some offense he could no longer remember. Or chose not to remember. “I lost you once. I can’t do it again!”

Suddenly her eyes were no longer fierce, but filled with tears. “You have to. Just remember . . . ‘the dead are free.’” She flung herself at him, for the shortest, most heartfelt hug of their nearly twenty years together, as well as a last kiss. “Now get the girl and go!”

Without waiting to see what Zack did, Megan charged directly at the Sentry.

Which turned its attention to her like some jungle beast. Then it opened itself and engulfed her.

Zack forced himself to look away and run toward Camilla.

He scooped her up. She hardly seemed to weigh anything, which was good.

It was time to run.

I wish to commend Destiny commander Stewart for his heroism in extraordinary circumstances. He has proved himself to be a true hero for the entire human race.

MESSAGE FROM BRAHMA COMMANDER T. RADHAKRISHNAN TO THE WORLD,

24 AUGUST 2019

“We’re coming up on the terminator,” Tea said.

A series of posigrade rocket burns had pushed Destiny out of the immediate clouds of debris surrounding Keanu, eventually dropping the vehicle into a lower orbit around Earth.

Of course, when even the perigee of that orbit was more than four hundred thousand kilometers, close was only a relative term.

The maneuvers also put Destiny on the dark side of Keanu. They could see the lopsided halo of the debris cloud shining in light from the Sun, of course . . . but the NEO’s surface was black, hidden, unknowable.

For a few moments, anyway.

“Destiny, Houston. Still showing you on track for retrofire in thirty minutes.”

“Copy that, Houston. Hope you can take some time off then.” Jasmine Trieu was still on duty as capcom—a fifteen-hour shift, if Tea had it right.

“I’m happy to stay here as long as you need me,” Trieu said. “Right up to splashdown, if necessary.”

“We’ll be getting some sleep before then,” Tea replied. Retrofire would put Destiny into an orbit with a much lower perigee . . . one that would intersect Earth’s surface about three days from now. “You should, too.”

Trieu’s answer was delayed by the lag, of course. Tea looked around the cabin. Lightly attached to the floor by bungee cords, Natalia Yorkina was sound asleep, eyes covered by Tea’s mask.

Lucas and Taj were yawning but kept busy bouncing between a laptop and one of the windows as they updated Russian mission control—the backup for destroyed Bangalore—on what had happened to Brahma.

Tea didn’t care what the rest of the world knew, or didn’t. She had no idea whether her conversations with Houston were being carried live.

She just wanted it to be over, to take the memories of Keanu and the resurrected Megan Stewart and the vaporized remains of Venture . . . and Zack Stewart’s sad, knowing smile . . . and hide them somewhere, like photos in a family album, to be opened at some happier time.

“Oh, Destiny from Houston. A bit of news. Tracking shows increased delta V for the NEO.”

“You mean it’s moving?” Tea had spent her entire professional life in engineering, most of that in NASA. She understood the need for precise usage . . . but there were times, like now, when she just wanted someone to use plain English.

“Tea,” Taj said. “Look out the window.”

While Tea waited for Jasmine Trieu to clarify her last statement, she floated up to the window, where dayside Keanu was coming into view.

She gasped.

Narrow swaths of Keanu’s surface were gone, exposing a shiny white surface. The NEO looked like an apple someone had started to peel. “What the hell?”

“Some of the snow and regolith are boiling away,” Taj said.

“I think that pretty soon it’s going to look like a big fat pearl,” Lucas said.

“Well,” she said, “we knew it was really a ship of some kind.” A ship that seemed to be shedding an accretion of debris gathered over ten thousand years. Shedding a skin to enter a new phase.

“Destiny, Houston, confirming: There have been eruptions on Keanu that are consistent with, uh, propulsion. It seems to be leaving Earth orbit.”

It was going farther than that, surely. “Houston, Destiny, I think our NEO is going home.”

It would be seven seconds before she heard an answer, but Tea Nowinski didn’t need it.

She was going home, too.

But of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat. For in what day soever thou shalt eat of it, thou shalt die the death.

GENESIS 2:17

Dragging Camilla, Zack emerged from the Factory tunnel to the Temple chamber into a shower. Rain was falling and blowing sideways. It wasn’t a downpour, nor was it a tropical gully-washer like those he’d experienced in Houston. It was more like a rainy day in the Pacific Northwest . . . but warmer! It actually felt good to have some of the grime wash away.

It felt better to let some of the water trickle into his mouth. He could not remember the last time he’d had a drink. He actually scooped some out of a shallow puddle and offered it to Camilla. “This could kill us,” he said. “But without it we’re going to die of thirst.”

This small gesture toward survival took Zack’s mind off the idea that the same Sentry that had killed his wife and the Architect was on their trail.

No sign of him so far. The respite allowed Zack time to consider his next move. Now that you’ve done such a great job solving the water problem.

Through the mist he could see, a kilometer distant, the top of the Temple rising over what, for lack of the proper term, he would have to call trees. He had no special desire to return there, but it was the only possible shelter he knew—and the only door he might be able to close.

“Come on,” he told the girl, knowing his words weren’t being understood, but hoping his gestures conveyed the message.

Camilla didn’t respond. She was looking past Zack, behind him—

Toward the tunnel.

Zack turned . . . and there was the fucking Sentry. The colloidal bubble dribbling out of the creature’s tool vest and down its torso was bloody. It made Zack want to rip the being apart with his bare hands.

That not being an option, he picked up Camilla and, hoping the Sentry had not yet seen them, plunged into the nearest stand of trees.

Camilla whimpered. It wasn’t loud, it was understandable . . . but it was potentially fatal. As Zack glanced back, he saw that the Sentry had heard the girl.

And was after them.

Knowing they would be faster if he dragged Camilla rather than carried her, Zack dropped the girl and led her through the trees. They had some advantage here . . . the trunks were close together. They could slip through, but the Sentry would have a more difficult time—

Until the creature simply slashed at several trees, clearing his way.

There was no point in looking back. Zack kept his eyes forward, always on the Temple. “Stay with me,” he said. “Keep going.” He was speaking to himself as well as to Camilla.

The clearing around the Temple loomed. The crash and crunch of trees being torn up told Zack that the Sentry was probably fifty meters behind.