Taban: Okay, I’ve got my lunch. How are we on rations?

HARE: 45 days of full rations remain. More if you and USER Daley eat in half-portions.

Taban: So 90 days left. That’s cushy—more than enough for someone to get our signal and fly out here.

HARE: Yes.

Taban: Let’s see what we’ve got. Crossing my fingers for fried chicken. Fried chicken, fried chicken, fried chicken . . .

HARE: I wish you luck.

Taban (poking open the foil ration packet): Maple sausage. And yams. Hm.

HARE: Congratulations.

Taban: Why congratulate me? It’s not what I wanted.

HARE: It is still nutrition.

[The airlock of the Wyvern opens. Daley clambers in, his suit encrusted in frost.]

Taban: Welcome back. Lunch is ready.

Daley (climbing out of his suit): Oh, yeah? . . . Smells like maple sausage again.

Taban: That’s mine. Try yours; you might get lucky.

[Daley lumbers over into the cockpit. His face is red from exertion, his lips chapped and flaking from hours of exposure to the Eotian cold. He plops down across from Taban and the HARE and accepts another ration packet, shaking it to begin the self-heating process.]

Daley: I went out past the second marker, this time. More in the direction of those shards we saw.

Taban: What’d you get? Fried chicken?

Daley: The terrain changes a bit, out there. Instead of all . . . webby, the ice gets clear. Glacial. Like walking on glass, in places.

Taban: Oh, it’s curry. Why don’t they ever think these things through, the people that make this stuff? Who doesn’t get the shits from curry? And who wants to be trapped aboard a vacuum of limited air with someone who has the shits?

Daley: I’m going to try to push farther out in that direction tomorrow. I’ve got a feeling about it.

Taban: Oh, yeah?

Daley: Yeah. Maybe I’ll find something noteworthy before your reinforcements get here.

Taban: . . .

Daley (eating): . . .

HARE: . . .

Taban: . . . What did you say?

Daley: You heard me. I said, “Maybe I’ll find something noteworthy before your reinforcements get here.”

Taban: What are you . . . talking about?

Daley: You think I’m an idiot? When you activate the ship’s distress beacon, the undercarriage flashes. I know you called for help.

Taban: But the snow covers it up.

Daley: It must have melted. What the fuck is wrong with you?

Taban: Look, Daley, I—

Daley: I clue you in to the discovery of a lifetime, and you pay me back by calling ISF before we’re ready? What’s wrong with you? We agreed not to repair the comm—

Taban: We never agreed to that. We just agreed to fixing the FTL drive first. Which I did.