I opened my mouth to order the Trouble Dog’s shuttle to come pick us up, but stopped as I heard a splash behind me. I turned in time to glimpse something orange being pulled beneath the waves. At the same moment, an alarm pierced my ear as the Trouble Dog clamoured for my attention. Clay heard it too. She risked looking away from the hole for an instant.

“Hey,” she said, her face mirroring my confusion. “Where’s George?”

Two: Ona Sudak

TWO

ONA SUDAK

Despite being kept awake for most of the night, I forced myself to get out of bed at 0600 hours, same as every other morning.

Without waking Adam, I slid from the sheet and pulled on a robe. His gently snoring body lay like a bony xylophone. Loosened from its ponytail, his hair spilled down across his youthful face. His faux leather trousers had been carelessly tossed across the back of one of my chairs, and one of his boots, having been kicked away in the impatience of passion, now wallowed upended in my metal sink. I thought about kissing his forehead, but didn’t want to wake him. I had my morning routine, and I didn’t want him getting in the way. So I stepped out of the cabin and closed the door as quietly as I could.

The corridor outside opened onto a deep shaft, maybe fifty metres from top to bottom and half that again in width, bordered on all sides by balconies and hanging gardens. The air was sweet and pleasantly warm, and smelled of roses and rich, mossy soil. Birds and butterflies flittered through the empty spaces. Bees fumbled among the flowers. I stood for a few moments, drinking all of it in. One day, I intended to write a poem about life on the ’dam, or one of her pen-shaped sister ships.

One day, but not today.

Fastening the robe’s sash in a loose knot, I made my way to the nearest transport tube and descended half a dozen decks to the gym. Every morning without exception, I did an hour’s exercise before breakfast. It was a habit ingrained after long years in the—

I caught myself before completing the thought, and turned my attention instead to the waiting treadmills and weights.

* * *

By 0700 hours ship’s time, my muscles were cooling after a strenuous workout, and I was recovering in the pool, contemplating the distant glimmer of the dusty stars beyond the large picture window occupying the whole of the gym’s back wall.

In a couple of hours’ time, we would make a close approach to the Brain—the first of the Objects we were to encounter.