His mother had given him a small handkerchief with that phrase from the Quran. It was just threads in his pocket now, loved to near nothingness. This, he thought, was also an act of love, taking every scrap of information he had collected, compiling every gleaned observation and laying it all out for someone healthier to understand.

“Your curiosity makes you a good scientist,” his dissertation advisor, Dr. Marcel Kio, had told him at a department party. “Your innocence makes you an outstanding one.”

Innocence, Kio had gone on to say, was hard to find and even harder to preserve. An innocent mind allowed for all possibilities, especially the ones a more cynical person might discard.

“I’ve never heard you say the words ‘that’s impossible’ and that’s . . . well, usually impossible,” Kio added. Probably a little drunk.

Rayan didn’t drink, but now he half wished he did. This whole process might be easier if he could take the edge off. But this had to be done. He wasn’t giving up; he was assessing all available data and coming to the most accurate conclusion: He was losing this fight, faster than he had hoped, faster than predicted, and all the innocence and optimism in the world couldn’t change that.

One had to go where the data led, and the data led him here, to this drafting table with the sum total of his work. It would be impenetrable for most people, but if the Brigantine was found and quarantined and studied, then someone at HQ would find it useful. It was, at least, a record of what had happened and proof that they hadn’t gone down without a fight.

He winced. He didn’t want to fight with his crewmates. Whatever had happened between him and Piero in the past felt like ancient history. Space was lonely, Piero was so . . . odd. And confident. Maybe he ought to regret it, but that seemed silly now. At the very least, the other man never made him feel discarded; all the parameters had been decided up front.

You’re such a beautiful boy, Piero had told him. Nobody had ever called Rayan beautiful before. Cute? Sure. Sweet? Definitely. Beautiful was different. When he closed his eyes and breathed in beautiful, it felt like walking through the peaceful, reverberating halls of Wazir Khan.

A rare, sweet memory that had been all but obliterated by Piero’s swift and mean descent, Rayan mused. His official task was done. The record was straightened and set. There was a blank space on the right side of the drafting table, and he ran his palm over it and thought. He retreated to his locker across the room in the lab. They weren’t allowed many personal effects, just enough to keep homesickness at bay, so Rayan pulled out anything of his that held sentimental value, and returned to his monument.