“Beta7’s coming into view.”
Zayn’s voice jolted Eos. She spun and saw Dathan and Nik already moving into the cockpit.
Heart in her throat, she stepped forward.
Dathan’s shoulder bumped hers. “What do you think, Doc?”
The first thing she noticed was the planet. Amoris was a beautiful blue-gray with spectacular rings. Then she saw Beta7.
It was beautiful, too. The small moon was covered in bright-red sand. It glowed like a rubia from the mines in southern Vedia. “I can’t believe we’re here.”
BEll’s snort echoed through the cockpit. “I never thought we’d get here either, Dr. Rai. Not with you on board. Technically, you were kidnapped twice.”
“Thanks for the reminder, you insensitive tin can,” Dathan muttered.
BEll was unperturbed. “Just stating the facts.”
“Can you run the scans, BEll?” Eos moved closer to the cockpit windows and pressed one finger to the synth-glass. “Focus on the coordinates I uploaded.”
“Already running.”
So close. She could already imagine holding theMona Lisafragment in her hands. Everything had been worth it.
There was a discreet ding. “Scans are finished,” BEll said.
“Display the results,” Dathan said.
“I can’t comply.”
Eos frowned. “Why not?”
“There’s nothing to display.”
The computer’s cheery voice was starting to grate. “What do you mean?”
“There are no signs of any ruins. No colony, no previous humanoid occupation.”
Eos shook her head, her stomach curdling. “Check again. You’re wrong.”
“BEll’s never wrong, Eos,” Zayn said, his face serious.
She wrapped her arms around her middle. “The mining scans showed the remnants of a colony.”
Niklas slammed his palm against one of the chairs. “Maybe they mis-labelled the scans.”
Eos held up a hand. “No?—”
“Or we just saw what we wanted to see.” Dathan shook his head, mouth set in a flat line. “There’s nothing on this moon but sand. And below that, more sand.”
Dathan saton the peak of a red dune and looked up at a sky of the purest blue.
In the distance the round ball of the sun was burning its way through the afternoon. A distant second sun followed behind like it didn’t want to be left out.
He looked down. Red sand stretched to the horizon. No mountains, no habitation, just unforgiving sand as far as he could see. And the weird, and very dead, vegetation.
The thin, twisting trunks of dead trees rose to the sky, like starving women with their arms outstretched. Small clumps of dried grass were scattered here and there.
He watched Eos march across the surface, her scarred boots kicking at the ground. He could smell her frustration.
