Taj concentrated on arranging the mechanics and protocols for arrival and reception. He had firsthand experience of such an event—one of four humans on Earth who did—and it had not been pleasant.
Returning from their disastrous missions to Keanu in August 2019, survivors Tea Nowinski, Lucas Munaretto, Natalia Yorkina, and Taj Radhakrishnan had splashed down in the Destiny-7 spacecraft four hundred kilometers west and north of Los Angeles, not far from the Channel Islands.
In terrible shape—dehydrated, starved, filthy, and worst of all, incredibly traumatized by the utter, catastrophic failure of their mission—they were taken aboard a NASA recovery ship.
There they were separated and put in separate rooms—not staterooms, but tiny crew cabins that had been slightly modified to serve as temporary quarters for NASA astronauts. Taj had hoped and expected that he would be met by an ISRO doctor. That had been his first question after alighting from the rescue helicopter, drinking a considerable amount of juice (which he immediately vomited) and taking the shortest and best hot shower of his life.
It was aboard the ship that he learned that many of the Brahma control team were gone—some of them killed in the impact of a Keanu-launched object that destroyed the control center but eventually scooped up several dozen humans and took off with them.
The same thing had happened at Houston . . . which explained the absence of Shane Weldon, the Destiny flight director. Veteran astronaut Travis Buell came to welcome them instead.
Tea, Natalia, and Lucas crowded into the cabin at that point. They all looked better than they had upon exiting the Destiny spacecraft, without in any way looking good.
“Good,” Buell said, “now that you’re all here. I’m telling you you’re in quarantine.”
“We were always going to be in quarantine, Trav,” Tea snapped. She had flown to the Moon with Buell and, Taj knew, had not come away from the experience with a good relationship with the man.
“For two weeks,” Buell said. “This, unfortunately, is indefinite.”
“I’m a citizen of India,” Taj told him. “Natalia is Russian, Lucas Brazilian. You have no legal grounds to detain us.”
“Actually, we do,” Buell said, smiling. “You three entered the United States illegally. None of you are even carrying passports.”
Taj remembered wanting to laugh. The idea that a crew of space travelers might make an emergency landing had been considered for decades, especially after the first Russians to return on a space shuttle turned out to be without passports. His Brahma crew had carried appropriate papers—
—which had been vaporized on Brahma.
“But you brought us here!” Natalia said.
Buell seemed to be aware of the ridiculousness of the situation. “I suspect that will be a factor in your favor, should this ever get to a hearing.”
“What in God’s name do you hope to accomplish?” Tea said. “It’s not as though we’re planning to hide anything. You know the worst of it, anyway. Everybody does.” Indeed, four dead, two vehicles lost, human history changed.
“If anything,” Lucas said, “we’re eager to talk.”
“See, that’s the problem,” Buell said. “It isn’t the postflight debrief that worries everyone. We know you’re pros. You’ll tell us every detail.
“It’s these other . . . events.” He was talking about the miraculous reincarnation of Megan Stewart and several other humans—including Pogo Downey, killed on Keanu, then revived. “It’s bad enough that there are all these rumors around.”
“What kind of rumors?” Natalia snapped. As far as Taj knew, the Russian cosmonaut had never met Buell before. It was surprising how quickly she had developed a dislike for him. “We can’t possibly know what’s being said here.”
Buell stared at all of them. “I’m just going to call them zombies, for the moment. Space zombies is the term.”
“Travis,” Tea said, “you know what happened up there.”
“Do I?” he said. “I don’t know jack, right now.” Buell was quite religious, even by American standards. The idea that alien entities had the ability to bring people back from the dead, even briefly, with no more effort than humans would expend in accessing a website . . . surely that had to have shaken his faith. It had caused Taj to begin to develop his own new sense of Greater Powers in the universe. “But one thing I know is this: We aren’t going to allow any of you to be out in public discussing this.
“Not until we all agree on what happened—”
“—and what will be said about what happened,” Lucas finished. The World’s Greatest Astronaut was nothing if not quick to pick up on things.
As a further demonstration—as if being sequestered on a ship were insufficient—Taj and the others found armed U.S. Marines in every corridor and on every deck as they steamed toward California. “What do they think we’re going to do?” Tea said. “Swim for shore?”
It was only after they reached Vandenberg, the day after splashdown, that Buell took Taj aside in the crew quarters. “I want you to know,” he said, “that I asked them to have someone else do this.”
“Do what?” For a moment Taj had the crazy idea Buell was going to do something to him. That was how fatigued and stressed he was . . . and how bizarre the situation.
“This Bangalore Object, when it struck, damaged the center—”
“Yes, you said it caused damage and killed a dozen people.”
“It also,” Buell said, shaking with tension and momentarily unable to continue. He took a breath. “It also enveloped at least one hundred others on the grounds. It appears to have taken them into space.”
“And my son? Pav?”
“He is officially counted among the missing and presumed—”
“Presumed what, Buell? Captured by aliens?”
“I’m afraid that is exactly what we think. We’ve been able to track both Objects and they are returning to Keanu.” He glanced at his watch. “Predictions are that they will land there in less than two hours.”
“That’s impossible!”
“And yet . . .” Buell was trying to be sympathetic. “Look,” he said, “I have children. I can’t imagine what it would be like to lose one—or to have one taken from me like this. I can tell you that NASA and the Coalition are doing everything we can to figure out what is happening, and what we might do.”
“I take it a rescue mission is off the table.”
Now he saw the Travis Buell that NASA and America loved . . . the feisty, get-’er-done Buell. He seemed to grow several centimeters. “Nothing is off the table, Commander.”
But, of course, it was. Within days Keanu had propelled itself out of Earth orbit, resuming its journey into deep space, taking with it 187 humans from Bangalore and Houston.
Including, he learned from a frantic Tea Nowinski, Harley Drake, Shane Weldon, and Rachel Stewart.
Mrs. Remilla and ISRO had been as unenthusiastic about a Landing Day press conference as Taj but were overruled by the government types, notably Suresh Kateel. “The Adventure crew members must show themselves and be seen answering questions as soon as possible,” Kateel said in their final pre-arrival meeting.
It was odd, because Kateel had never spoken on the subject when it came up earlier—indeed, had rarely spoken at all. He was one of those silent “horse-holders,” to use a NASA term, so common in large organizations, possessing titles like secretary or deputy, but who wielded immense power.
Kateel was an older man, heavy, bespectacled, unremarkable by any objective standards. Yet when he finally uttered an opinion, even Melani Remilla closed her notes and considered the matter decided.