“Hey, hey! Dude, cut it out!” Sam barks. “I’m trying to drive up here.”

“I don’t know what’s going on!”

“Pull over!” Six yells.

Sam rips the vehicle onto the shoulder of the road and slams on the brakes, stone and gravel crunching and pinging us. The six planets and one sun dim in brightness, and the planets start to whip around the sun at such a rate that it’s hard to focus on any single one. With each orbit the planets are absorbed into the sun until it’s the size of a basketball. The new globe rotates as though on an axis, and then it produces a flash of light so bright that I’m momentarily blinded. It slowly dims, and sections of its surface raise and recede until what’s left behind is a perfect replica of Earth itself, all seven continents, all seven seas.

“Is that . . . ?” Sam asks. “That looks like Earth.”

The planet spins near my head, and on its third or fourth rotation I see a small pinprick of pulsing light.

“Do you guys see that little light?” I ask. “Look at Europe.”

“Oh, yeah,” Sam says. He waits for another rotation and then squints. “I would say that’s in what? Spain or Portugal? Can someone reach the laptop? Hurry.”

With my eyes still on the globe and the tiny pulsing light, I crash my hand around behind me until I find the laptop. I hand it to Six, who hands it Sam. He looks up at the globe hovering in the backseat, types and looks up. “Well, it’s definitely in Spain, and it looks to be close to . . . Well, the closest city seems to be a place called León. But that’s, that’s slightly off. We’re looking at the Picos de Europa Mountains for sure. Anyone ever heard of them?”

“Definitely not,” I say.

“Me neither,” Six says.

“Is that maybe our ship?” I ask.

“No way, not in Spain. Well, at least I highly doubt it,” she says. “I mean, if it is our ship then why would it just start glowing now, showing us where it is? That wouldn’t make any sense. Besides, you’ve looked at these things how many times?”

“A dozen,” I say. “Maybe more.”

Sam hugs his headrest and raises his eyebrows. “Right. So it’s as if something just activated it.”

Six and I look at each other.

“It could definitely be one of the others,” Sam says.

“Could be,” Six says. “Or it could be a trap.” She looks at Sam. “Has there been any suspicious news from Spain?”

He shakes his head. “Not as of five hours ago. But I’ll check again right now.” He starts typing on the keyboard.