Mortimor frowned and shook his head. Cole could tell he was getting annoyed, but he couldn’t stop thinking about what the Seer had said: that he would find a way out of hyperspace . . .

“There’s no way to transmit real-time coordinates,” Mortimor told him. “The best you could do is know a place that used to be safe, and even then, the only thing reliable out here seems to be longwave radio. Look, I appreciate your enthusiasm, but we’ve gone through all these ideas for years. We’ve wasted liters of precious fuel trying every trick in the book. If there was a way, we would’ve thought of it by—”

“I’ve got it!” said Cole.

Mortimor held up his hands, trying to calm him down.

But before he could, Cole launched into his idea, gesturing wildly with his arms, waving schematics in the air, pausing to slap Arthur on the back.

The two older men fell silent, listening. Then grinning. Then smiling at each other, nodding.

40

Parsona crouched down on her landing gear, her hatch already opening. Scottie had directed Molly to a small clearing in a wide forest a few hundred kilometers from Bekkie. While Parsona’s strained thrusters cooled, the cramped passengers exploded out into the fresh air where they took turns consoling and comforting each other; the sounds of their frustrated sobs wormed their way through the cargo bay and into the cockpit. Molly pulled on her helmet, shutting out the horrible reminders of what she’d just been through.

“Mom?”

“Sweetheart, are you okay?”

“I’m fine.”

Molly looked down at the stains across her chest, feeling anything but fine. “I’m sorry to keep you—”

“Nonsense. And no apologies. I—that was some amazing flying back there. How are those people holding up?”

“I’m not sure yet.” Molly looked over her shoulder at the thinning crowd in the bay. Cat was helping people climb out of the cargo pods recessed in the floor, and she could see Walter making his way forward, ushering several people ahead of himself. “I’m gonna go check on them. I’ll talk to you later—I just wanted to let you know I was okay.”

And I wanted to hear your voice, Molly added to herself.

“I love you,” her mom said.

Molly was too choked-up to respond. She pulled off her helmet and dropped it in the nav seat. The Wadi jumped after it, crawling through the open visor and curling up inside. Molly was about to get out of her seat when Walter entered the cockpit. She reached for him, pulled him over the control console and buried her head in his flightsuit. And she sobbed. She cried, as much in relief as in sadness. The dam of responsibility—that wall holding back her grief and horror—it ruptured, flooding her at once with all the tragedy of that day.