Heaven's Fall by David S. Goyer, Michael Cassutt Page B

sleep on a floor, you remember”—and so he had gone with his father to see about the growing list of other problems the new arrivals faced.
    Yahvi had lingered in the conference room to play with her new Beta toy, to Rachel’s relief. Xavier had decided to check on Zeds.
    Somewhere within the pain was a voice: “Keanu calling, in the blind. Rachel, can you hear me? Pav, anyone? Keanu calling. . . .”
    “I’m Rachel,” she said, trying not to speak aloud. The implant system worked best when the user subvocalized, using facial, dental, and throat muscles to do everything but say the words. Tests had shown that Rachel could make words clear even if the pronunciation varied, so she tried to keep her messages brief and therefore clearer.
    It was as if she heard a rustle of leaves in her head, which surprised her until she realized it had to be applause or cheers from Keanu “mission control,” which she knew to be a makeshift collection of chairs and screens on the third floor of the Temple. She had recognized Harley Drake’s voice—that of the confident pilot-astronaut she had known most of her life—but wondered who else was with him. Sasha Blaine, surely. But she could think of no one else, and it bothered her—a sign that she was far away from her home.
    “You made it,” he said.
    “Yes,” she said, but felt she had to add quickly, “Sanjay is hurt.”
    “Say again?”
    She groaned. The pain was constant, and worse yet, now she seemed to be smelling burned rubber. Since there was no rubber burning in the empty hospital hallway, she had to conclude it was her brain on fire—or her olfactory nerve.
    As succinctly as she could, she told Harley about the missile attack and the crash landing, Sanjay’s injuries and current status. “What does this mean for your, ah, mission plan?” Bless him, Harley could not be anything but an astronaut. Mission over everything, even human relationships. She imagined Sasha Blaine shooting Harley a look of annoyance.
    “We can’t go anywhere until we know more,” Rachel said, breaking the message into chunks of two and three words. “We’re only on day one, so we haven’t been delayed.”
    “I don’t need to remind you about the need for urgency,” Harley said.
    “You do not,” she said.
    “Apologies,” he said. “It’s tough being so far from the action. Glad you made it. What’s it like being home?”
    Rachel understood Harley’s reason for asking the question—it was likely the one thing everyone with him wanted to know, beyond the simple fact of the crew’s safety. But she didn’t want to have this discussion right now. She felt terrible, and she felt exposed . . . as if the wrong word could ruin everything. “We haven’t been outside much,” she said. “Confined to a hospital since landing.”
    For a moment, the pain went away. Then it was back, as Harley said, “Losing the link. Glad to know you made it. Looking forward to more updates when you have them. Everyone here says, ‘Good work!’”
    Then, mercifully, it was over.
    Rachel blinked, then ran her hand through her hair, rubbing the right side of her head. It felt as though she had a fever.
    She wondered if Pav and Xavier had had a link, and if they had been similarly affected.
    God, what if this happened to Sanjay? What if the transmitter in his head had been discovered or removed by the Indian doctors?
    The technology wasn’t new—one of the space communications specialists among the HBs knew about similar implants from 2019, and Zhao, to the extent that he shared anything, seemed to know a lot about their design and uses. And surely the Indian welcoming committee would expect Adventure ’s travelers to have some means of staying in touch with Keanu.
    This was not a setback—yet. But it reminded Rachel of the risks she and her family had accepted, and the stakes.

    It was Melani Remilla who showed Rachel the living quarters. “We set aside four rooms in this wing,” the ISRO