Cole wondered how best to tell Riggs that they might be in hyperspace. But then, he couldn’t shake the doubt, the feeling that it had been an auditory hallucination. He couldn’t even remember what he’d heard, exactly. He glanced down at his flightsuit, looking for the bulge of the red band in his breast pocket, but he was unable to tell if it was there or not.

“You didn’t double-check your jump vector, did you? We could be anywhere in the galaxy right now, right?” Riggs groaned. “Flankin’ useless.”

Cole clenched his jaw to hold back the retort forming in his throat. He twisted his arm in the restraints, trying to force his thumb flat so he could pull it through the knotted rope.

“Well, at least they’re Human,” Cole told Riggs, trying to change the subject. “I think so, anyway. They were speaking English around me.”

“I can do you one better. They speak Late-Millennial English.”

“Do what? How can you tell that?”

“Junior Academy poetry reading.” Riggs grunted; it sounded as if he were attempting to arrange himself more comfortably, or pull himself free. “I had to memorize that accent for a recital.” He said the last in a strange voice, one that nearly matched what Cole had heard from the men.

“That doesn’t make any sense,” Cole said.

“What? Me in poetry class? Or that you either discovered time travel or jumped us to a frozen rock full of Late-Millennial poets?”

“They don’t hit like poets,” said Cole.

“Yeah, you’re right, but they don’t have to be poets, just from the same era.”

“Twenty-first century?”

“Late. Or early twenty second. Jeez, man, did you sleep through English and history?”

“Yeah, I was more interested in Planetary Astronomy. Listen, I don’t think we’re on a planet. What would you say if I told you we were in—?”

A click of metal and an explosion of light cut him off. Cole shut his eyes and turned his head to the side as hinges squealed, and a door across the room opened. He waited until he heard it slam shut—returning the small space to a comfortably lit state—before reopening his eyes. He blinked rapidly and tried to focus on the shape shuffling toward him. Several men wrapped in fur had joined them in the cramped space. Two of them crouched down on either side of the door, their goggles off and dangling around their necks. One had the fur over his face pulled down, exposing a snarl.

The third man approached Cole and Riggs. He slowly pulled his goggles off and pushed his arm through the strap to secure them around his elbow. His face was completely covered with strips of fur, dotted with melting snow. Reaching up, the man began unwrapping himself, gradually revealing a tan face with a leathery complexion and a head topped with a mop of bright, blonde hair.