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Helier watched Yvoise squinting at the bone through her screen, trying to decipher the “map” amidst the noxious fumes. He observed the scene with a detachment that surprised him.

The room was vibrating with tension, but for once, it wasn’t coming from Yvoise —it was directed at her. She was standing by the window, phone pressed to her ear, nodding furiously at some invisible bureaucrat on the other end.

“I am violently in agreement with you, Mr. Prufrock,” she was saying, her voice tight but diplomatic. “The olfactory output of Unit 26 is indeed non-compliant with the Olympus Park Clean Air protocols. We are… rectifying the asset.”

It was the “Kyber-Auditor” from the Business Park Administration. The new management had been cracking down lately, restricting their “unauthorized usage” of miracles and enforcing standard operating procedures.

It was all too much noise. Above the smell, which was screaming of decay rather than play, there was the frantic energy of it all. Mrs. Fennel’s panic, Yvoise’s spreadsheets, the looming threat of this “Varlet” from the Council. It was pure Negotium, the active denial of peace, waging war on the idle time of the Romans: Otium. The world was demanding relentlessly that they justify their existence with hygiene certificates, clean surfaces, and significantly fewer piled-up treasures, branding their sacred collections as mere “trip hazards.”

Helier gripped the bamboo handle of his umbrella —a sturdy, shepherd-style thing he had almost tossed into the ‘Charity Pile’ yesterday. He felt a sudden, fierce longing for Otium, a sacred pause where one simply is.

Earlier that morning, a delivery guy had held the elevator door for him with a foot, balancing a mountain of cardboard boxes. A simple, clumsy gesture of kindness amidst the clutter. It had stayed with Helier. It reminded him that you could be overloaded and still have grace. That moment of suspension, of courteous stillness in the middle of the rush, had been a tiny bubble of Otium.

They needed that bubble now. They needed to stop the clock.

Spirius, who had been hovering in the doorway, seemed to hear Helier’s thought.

“A map is useless if you pass out before you can follow it,” Spirius muttered. He stepped fully into the room, brandishing a heavy glass jar like a weapon. “We need a Containment of the Sins.”

“A what?” asked Cerenise, holding her nose.

“Of WHAT?!” asked Yvoise, raising an eyebrow while covering her mouthpiece.

“Sins…” Spirius said doubtfully, “…that should bring back some memories.”

He marched to the table. “Hold on to your halos…”

Yvoise pulled back, shielding her phone. “Wait! I haven’t finished cataloging the striations—”

“The bone will be visible through the glass, Yvoise. But the miasma must be paused.”

Spirius didn’t wait for a vote. He scooped the yellowed bone—and its mysterious map—into the jar. He didn’t recite a Latin prayer. He didn’t summon a lightning bolt. The Administration wouldn’t allow that kind of energy spike anyway. He just screwed the lid on tight, with one word.

“Oïton,” Spirius incanted.

To Helier’s ears, attuned to the drift of languages over centuries, it didn’t sound like a name anymore. It sounded like a desperate, corrupted invocation of the old Latin. Otium. The right to be left alone, fierce as a dragon guarding its sleep.

Psshitt.

It was the sound of a pressure valve releasing. Soft, pneumatic.

Instantly, the stench was cut off. Deleted. The air was neutral again, smelling only of old paper and the faint, metallic tang of Yvoise’s anxiety.

“It is done,” Spirius announced, holding up the jar. The bone rattled inside, harmless now, an archived file. The faint lines of the map were still visible against the glass, safe in their bubble of silence.

“Mr. Prufrock?” Yvoise said into the phone, her voice smooth as silk. “I think you’ll find the sensors are returning to normal parameters. Yes. Have a productive day.”

She hung up and slumped against the curtains, letting out a breath she seemed to have been holding since New Year’s Eve.

“Well,” Helier said, tapping his umbrella on the floorboards, feeling the tension drain from his shoulders. “That felt… cleansing.”

“If we could do that with the auditor, it would be a marvelous idea,” Cerenise agreed, eyeing the jar with renewed interest. “A spiritual purification. Now, Yvoise, hand me a magnifying glass. If we have restored our Otium, we might as well use it to see where this bone wants to take us.”

“A Novena, even,” Yvoise added, a mischievous glint returning to her eye. “Technically, we have ‘cleansed’ the house of the impurity. The Will didn’t explicitly say we had to throw away the good stuff. Just the… bad air.”

Helier smiled. It was a loophole, of course. A massive, gaping loophole. The threat of the Novena still hung over them like a storm cloud that hadn’t quite burst, and the mystery of the Varlet descendant was still unresolved. But for today, the audit was over. The hoard was safe.

“Oïton,” Helier repeated softly, testing the weight of the word. He looked at his umbrella. He wouldn’t need to open it. The storm had passed.

“Bless you,” Helier offered, instinctively sliding the half-chewed pencil stub under a pile of National Geographics from 1978. He felt a flush of guilt, as if he’d been caught trying to steal a kid’s toy.

Cerenise rolled into the room, looking like a sorry pile of laundry. She was wrapped in three different shawls—one Paisley, one Tartan, and one that looked like a doily from a medieval altar. She held a lace handkerchief to her nose, trumpeting into it with a force that rattled the nearby display of thimbles.

“It’s not the damp,” she croaked, her voice an octave lower than usual. “It’s the cleanliness. Since Spirius fixed that pipe, the air is too… sterile. My immune system is in shock. It misses the spores.”

She eyed the spot where Helier had hidden the pencil. “You were thinking about it, weren’t you?”

“Thinking about what?” Helier feigned innocence, picking up a ceramic frog.

“The Novena,” she whispered the word like a curse. “I saw the look in your eye. The ‘maybe I don’t need this’ look. It’s the fever talking, Helier. Don’t give in. I almost threw away a button yesterday. A bakelite toggle from a 1930s duffel coat. I held it over the bin for a full minute.” She shuddered, pulling the shawls tighter. “Madness.”

“Pure madness,” Helier agreed, quickly retrieving the pencil stub and placing it prominently on the desk to prove his loyalty to the hoard. “We must stay strong. Now, surely you didn’t brave the drafty hallway just to discuss my potential apostasy?”

“I didn’t,” Cerenise sniffed, tucking the handkerchief into her sleeve. “I found him. Or at least, I found the thread.”

She wheeled closer, dropping a printout onto Helier’s knees. It was a genealogy chart, annotated with her elegant, spider-scrawl handwriting.

“Pierre Wenceslas Varlet,” she announced. “Born 1824. Brother to a last of the famously named Austreberthes — mortal ones, unsaintly, of course. Her lineage didn’t die out, Helier.”

Helier squinted at the paper. “Varlet? Sounds like a villain in one of Liz Tattler’s bodice-rippers. ‘The Vengeful Varlet of Venice’.“

“Focus, Helier. Look at the modern branch.” She pointed to the bottom of the page. “The name changed in the 1950s. Anglicized. And I think, if my research into the local council tax records—hacked via that delightful ‘incognito mode’ you showed me—is correct, the current ‘Varlet’ is closer than we think.”

“How close?”

“Gloucester close,” Cerenise said, her eyes gleaming with the thrill of the hunt, momentarily forgetting her flu. “And you’ll never guess where he works.”

That last flu had been a sorry affliction. It must have come through the vents from the depths of the sewers, no doubt—like those permafrost organisms scientists find caught in time.

It had taken down the whole lot of them in sequence after Spirius had come back victorious from his chthonian feats. Or so he said; Boothroyd was suspiciously mum about what they did with the beast’s hide. In any case, the others gave them both the benefit of the doubt. Whatever had happened during that beast chase on the inflatable dinghy had managed to clear the clogged pipes, almost miraculously. It had also gifted them this pesky flu.

Austreberthe’s requests had become an afterthought, even for the most pig-headed of them. It wasn’t a contest, or they would all have won a prize anyway. After two days of cold, fever, and fog-headed manic ideations, Helier’s head had finally cleared.

He was left with a fond familiarity for all the stuff accumulated in his search for knowledge, yet, surprisingly, a sense of disconnection from what had made them so precious all that time. He wasn’t so far gone as to want to clear everything away—Lord forbid—but he was mildly tempted to make space somewhere. He almost shuddered at the thought.

What would he move to make space? A few precious stamps? Surely not.
They had all sorts of value: sentimental, historical, artistic—you name it.
What else? Vinyl records? They would fetch a small fortune now in some circles, but to part with them?…
A book? Most sacred!… A Liz Tattler book?… He paused… nah.

There was a half-chewed pencil stub on the table. It could still have a good hundred pages worth of scribbles left in it. His heart started to race at the thought of getting rid of it. A voice in his head whispered, “Give it away! Give it away! You’ll be lighter for it.”

He didn’t want to feel lighter. But he was interested in the racing heart. It was a sign of getting back some action.

He heard the squeaking roll of Cerenise’s chair before he heard her copious sneezing.

“While you’re off to another wild dragon chase, I’m calling the plumber,” Yvoise announced. She’d found one who accepted payment in Roman denarii. She began tapping furiously on her smartphone to recover the phone number, incensed at having been blocked again from Faceterest for sharing potentially unchecked facts (ignorants! she wanted to shout at the screen).

After a bit of struggle, the appointment was set. She adjusted her blazer; she had a ‘Health and Safety in the Workplace’ seminar to lead at Sanctus Training in twenty minutes, and she couldn’t smell like wet dog.

“Make sure you bill it to the company account…!” Helier shouted over the noise Spirius was making huffing and struggling to load the antique musket.

“…under ‘Facility Maintenance’!”

“Obviously,” Yvoise scoffed. “We are a legitimate enterprise. Sanctus House has a reputation to uphold. Even if the landlord at Olympus Park keeps asking why our water consumption rivals a small water park.”

Spirius shuddered at the name. “Olympus Park. Pagan nonsense. I told you we should have bought the unit in St. Peter’s Industrial Estate.”

“The zoning laws were restrictive, Spirius,” Yvoise sighed. “Besides, ‘Sanctus Training Ltd’ looks excellent on a letterhead. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have six junior executives coming in for a workshop on ‘Conflict Resolution.’ I plan to read them the entirety of the Treaty of Arras until they submit.”

“And dear old Boothroyd and I have a sewer dragon to exterminate in the name of all that’s Holy. Care to join, Helier?”

“Not really, had my share of those back in the day. I’ll help Yvoise with the plumbing. That’s more pressing. And might I remind you the dragon messing with the plumbing is only the first of the three tasks that Austreberthe placed in her will to be accomplished in the month following her demise…”

“Not now, Helier, I really need to get going!” Yvoise was feeling overwhelmed. “And where’s Cerenise? She could help with the second task. Finding the living descendants of the last named Austreberthe, was it? It’s all behind-desk type of stuff and doesn’t require her to get rid of anything…” she knew well Cerenise and her buttons.

“Yet.” Helier cut. “The third task may well be the toughest.”

“Don’t say it!” They all recoiled in horror.

“The No-ve-na of Cleans-ing” he said in a lugubrious voice.

“Damn it, Helier. You’re such a mood killer. Maybe better to look for a loophole for that one. We can’t just throw stuff away to make place for hers, as nice her tastes for floor tiling were.” Yvoise was in a rush to get to her appointment and couldn’t be bothered to enter a debate. She rushed to the front door.

“See you later… Helier-gator” snickered Laddie under her breath, as she was pretending to clean the unkempt cupboards.

Carob was the first to find the flyer. It had been pinned to the banyan tree with a teaspoon, flapping just slightly in the wind like it knew how ridiculous it was.

FIVE HURT IN GAZEBO DRAMA
Local Brewmaster Suspected. Coffee Stains Incriminating.

She tapped it twice and announced to no one in particular, “I told you gazebos were structurally hostile.”

Amy poked her head out of the linen drying shed. “No, you said they were ‘liminal spaces for domestic deceit.’ That’s not the same as a health hazard.”

“You ever been in a gazebo during a high wind with someone named Derek? Exactly.”

Ricardo ran past them at an awkward crouch, muttering into a device. “…confirming perimeter breach… one is wearing a caftan, possibly hallucinating… I repeat, gazebo situation is active.”

Chico wandered in from the side trail, his shirt unbuttoned, leaf in mouth, mumbling to Kit. “I don’t know what happened. There was a conversation about frothed chalk and cheese, and then everything… rotated.”

Kit looked solemn. “Aunt Amy, he sat on it.”

“He sat on the gazebo?” Amy blinked.

“No. On the incident.”

Kit offered no further explanation.

From the underbrush, a low groan emerged. Thiram’s voice, faint: “Someone built a gazebo over the generator hatch. There are no stairs. I fell in.”

Amy sighed. “Goddammit, Thiram.”

Carob smirked. “Gazebo’d.”

Mars Outpost — Welcome to the Wild Wild Waste

No one had anticipated how long it would take to get a shuttle full of half-motivated, gravity-averse Helix25 passengers to agree on proper footwear.

“I told you, Claudius, this is the fancy terrain suit. The others make my hips look like reinforced cargo crates,” protested Tilly Nox, wrangling with her buckles near the shuttle airlock.

“You’re about to step onto a red-rock planet that hasn’t seen visitors since the Asteroid Belt Mining Fiasco,” muttered Claudius, tightening his helmet strap. “Your hips are the least of Mars’ concerns.”

Behind them, a motley group of Helix25 residents fidgeted with backpacks, oxygen readouts, and wide-eyed anticipation. Veranassessee had allowed a single-day “expedition excursion” for those eager—or stir-crazy—enough to brave Mars’ surface. She’d made it clear it was volunteer-only.

Most stayed aboard, in orbit of the red planet, looking at its surface from afar to the tune of “eh, gravity, don’t we have enough of that here?” —Finkley had recoiled in horror at the thought of real dust getting through the vents and had insisted on reviewing personally all the airlocks protocols. No way that they’d sullied her pristine halls with Martian dust or any dust when the shuttle would come back. No – way.

But for the dozen or so who craved something raw and unfiltered, this was it. Mars: the myth, the mirage, the Far West frontier at the invisible border separating Earthly-like comforts into the wider space without any safety net.

At the helm of Shuttle Dandelion, Sue Forgelot gave the kind of safety briefing that could both terrify and inspire. “If your oxygen starts blinking red, panic quietly and alert your buddy. If you fall into a crater, forget about taking a selfie, wave your arms and don’t grab on your neighbor. And if you see a sand wyrm, congratulations, you’ve either hit gold or gone mad.”

Luca Stroud chuckled from the copilot seat. “Didn’t see you so chirpy in a long while. That kind of humour, always the best warning label.”

They touched down near Outpost Station Delta-6 just as the Martian wind was picking up, sending curls of red dust tumbling like gossip.

And there she was.

Leaning against the outpost hatch with a spanner slung across one shoulder, goggles perched on her forehead, Prune watched them disembark with the wary expression of someone spotting tourists traipsing into her backyard garden.

Sue approached first, grinning behind her helmet. “Prune Curara, I presume?”

“You presume correctly,” she said, arms crossed. “Let me guess. You’re here to ruin my peace and use my one functioning kettle.”

Luca offered a warm smile. “We’re only here for a brief scan and a bit of radioactive treasure hunting. Plus, apparently, there’s been a petition to name a Martian dust lizard after you.”

“That lizard stole my solar panel last year,” Prune replied flatly. “It deserves no honor.”

Inside, the outpost was cramped, cluttered, and undeniably charming. Hand-drawn maps of Martian magnetic hotspots lined one wall; shelves overflowed with tagged samples, sketchpads, half-disassembled drones, and a single framed photo of a fireplace with something hovering inexplicably above it—a fish?

“Flying Fish Inn,” Luca whispered to Sue. “Legendary.”

The crew spent the day fanning out across the region in staggered teams. Sue and Claudius oversaw the scan points, Tilly somehow got her foot stuck in a crevice that definitely wasn’t in the geological briefing, which was surprisingly enough about as much drama they could conjure out.

Back at the outpost, Prune fielded questions, offered dry warnings, and tried not to get emotionally attached to the odd, bumbling crew now walking through her kingdom.

Then, near sunset, Veranassessee’s voice crackled over comms: “Curara. We’ll be lifting a crew out tomorrow, but leaving a team behind. With the right material, for all the good Muck’s mining expedition did out on the asteroid belt, it left the red planet riddled with precious rocks. But you, you’ve earned to take a rest, with a ticket back aboard. That’s if you want it. Three months back to Earth via the porkchop plot route. No pressure. Your call.”

Prune froze. Earth.

The word sat like an old song on her tongue. Faint. Familiar. Difficult to place.

She stepped out to the ridge, watching the sun dip low across the dusty plain. Behind her, laughter from the tourists trading their stories of the day —Tilly had rigged a heat plate with steel sticks and somehow convinced people to roast protein foam. Are we wasting oxygen now? Prune felt a weight lift; after such a long time struggling to make ends meet, she now could be free of that duty.

Prune closed her eyes. In her head, Mater’s voice emerged, raspy and amused: You weren’t meant to settle, sugar. You were meant to stir things up. Even on Mars.

She let the words tumble through her like sand in her boots.

She’d conquered her dream, lived it, thrived in it.

Now people were landing, with their new voices, new messes, new puzzles.

She could stay. Be the last queen of red rock and salvaged drones.

Or she could trade one hell of people for another. Again.

The next morning, with her patched duffel packed and goggles perched properly this time, Prune boarded Shuttle Dandelion with a half-smirk and a shrug.

“I’m coming,” she told Sue. “Can’t let Earth ruin itself again without at least watching.”

Sue grinned. “Welcome back to the madhouse.”

As the shuttle lifted off, Prune looked once, just once, at the red plains she’d called home.

“Thanks, Mars,” she whispered. “Don’t wait up.”

Helix 25 — The Six Spinster Sisters’ Will

Evie keyed in her login credentials for the sixth time that afternoon, stifling a yawn. Ever since the murder case had wrapped, she had drifted into a lulling routine—one that made her pregnancy drag on with excruciating slowness. Riven was rarely around; he’d been commandeered by the newly awakened Veranassessee for “urgent duties” that somehow never needed Evie’s help. And though she couldn’t complain about the ship’s overall calm, she felt herself itching for something—anything—to break the monotony.

So she’d come to one of the less-frequented data terminals on Helix25, in a dim corner off the main library deck. She had told herself she was looking up baby name etymologies (her mother would have pressed her about it), but she’d quickly meandered into clinically sterile subfolders of genealogical records.

It was exactly the kind of aimless rummaging that had once led her to uncover critical leads during the murder investigation. And if there was something Helix25 had in abundance besides well-recycled air, it was obscure digital archives.

She settled into the creaking seat, adjusting the small pillow behind her back. The screen glowed, lines of text scrolling by in neat greenish typeface. Most references were unremarkable: old Earth deeds, ledgers for farmland, family names she didn’t recognize. Had she not known that data storage was near infinite, due to the excess demands of data from the central AIs, she would have wondered why they’d bothered stocking the ship with so much information. Then her gaze snagged on a curious subfolder titled “Alstonefield Will—Gibbs Sisters.”

“Gibbs Sisters…?” she murmured under her breath, tapping it open.

The file contained scans of a handwritten will dated early 1800s, from Staffordshire, England. Each page was peppered with archaic legalese (“whereupon the rightful property of Misses Mary, Ellen, Ann, Sarah, Margaret and Malové Gibbs bequeathed…”), listing items that ranged from modest farmland acreage to improbable references of “spiritual confidences.”

Evie frowned, leaning closer. Spiritual confidences? The text was surprisingly explicit about the sisters’ lives—how six women jointly farmed 146 acres, remained unmarried, and according to a marginal note, “were rumored to share an uncanny attunement of thought.”

A telepathic link? she thought, half-intrigued, half-smirking. That smacked of the same kind of rumor-laden gossip that had swirled around the old Earth families. Still, the note was written in an official hand.

She scrolled further, expecting the record to fizzle out. Instead, it abruptly jumped to an addendum dated decades later:

“By 1834, the Gibbs sisters departed for the Australian continent. Certain seeds and rootstocks—believed essential for their ‘ancestral devotions’—did accompany them. No further official records on them remain in Staffordshire….”

Seeds and rootstocks. Evie’s curiosity piqued further—some old detail about hush-hush crops that the sisters apparently treasured enough to haul across the world.

A flicker of movement caught her eye. Trevor Pee “TP” Marshall, her faithful investigative hologram, materialized at the edge of her console. He adjusted his little pixelated bow tie, voice brimming with delight.

“Ah, I see you’re poking around genealogical conundrums, dear Evie. Dare I hope we’ve found ourselves another puzzle?”

Evie snorted softly. “Don’t get too excited, TP. It’s just a random will. But it does mention unusual circumstances… something about telepathy, special seeds, and these six spinster sisters traveling to the outback. It’s bizarre. And I’m bored.”

TP’s mustache twitched in faux indignation. “Bizarre is my lifeblood, my dear. Let’s see: six sisters of reputed synergy… farmland… seeds with rumored ‘power’… Honestly, that’s more suspicious than the standard genealogical yawn.”

Evie tapped a fingertip on the screen, highlighting the references. “Agreed. And for some reason, the file is cross-referenced with older Helix25 ‘implied passenger diaries.’ I can’t open them—some access restriction. Maybe Dr. Arorangi tagged them?”

TP’s eyes gleamed. “Interesting, indeed. You recall Dr. Arorangi’s rumored fascination with nonstandard genetic lines—”

“Right,” Evie said thoughtfully, sitting back. “So is that the link? Maybe this Alstonefield Hall story or the seeds the sisters carried has some significance to the architectural codes Arorangi left behind. We never did figure out why the AI has so many subroutines locked.”

She paused, glancing down at her growing belly with a wry smile. “I know it might be nothing, but… it’s a better pastime than waiting for Riven to show up from another Veranassessee briefing. If these old records are tied to Dr. Arorangi’s restricted logs, that alone is reason enough to dig deeper.”

TP beamed. “Spoken like a true detective. Ready to run with a half-thread of clue and see where it leads?”

Evie nodded, tapping the old text to copy it into her personal device. “I am. Let’s see who these Gibbs sisters really were… and why Helix25’s archives bothered to keep them in the system.”

Her heart thumped pleasantly at the prospect of unraveling some long-lost secret. It wasn’t exactly the adrenaline rush of a murder investigation, but in these humdrum days—six months after the last major crisis—it might be the spark she needed.

She rose from the console, smartphone in hand, and beckoned to the flickering detective avatar. “Come on, TP. Let’s find out if six mysterious spinsters from 1800s Staffordshire can liven things up for us.”

A Quick Vacay on Mars

“The Helix is coming in for descent,” announced Luca Stroud, a bit too solemnly. “And by descent, I mean we’re parking in orbit and letting the cargo shuttles do the sweaty work.”

From the main viewport, Mars sprawled below in all its dusty, rust-red glory. Gone was the Jupiter’s orbit pulls of lunacy, after a 6 month long voyage, they were down to the Martian pools of red dust.

Even from space, you could see the abandoned domes of the first human colonies, with the unmistakable Muck conglomerate’s branding: half-buried in dunes, battered by storms, and rumored to be haunted (well, if you believed the rumors from the bored Helix 25 children).

Veranassessee—Captain Veranassessee, thank you very much— stood at the helm with the unruffled poise of someone who’d wrested control of the ship (and AI) with consummate style and in record time. With a little help of course from X-caliber, the genetic market of the Marlowe’s family that she’d recovered from Marlowe Sr. before Synthia had had a chance of scrubbing all traces of his DNA. Now, with her control back, most of her work had been to steer the ship back to sanity, and rebuild alliances.

“That’s the plan. Crew rotation, cargo drop, and a quick vacay if we can manage not to break a leg.”

Sue Forgelot, newly minted second in command, rolled her eyes affectionately. “Says the one who insisted we detour for a peek at the old Mars amusements. If you want to roast marshmallows on volcanic vents, just say it.”

Their footsteps reverberated softly on the deck. Synthia’s overhead panels glowed calm, reined in by the AI’s newly adjusted parameters. Luca tapped the console. “All going smoothly, Cap’n. Next phase of ‘waking the sleepers’ will happen in small batches—like you asked.”

Veranassessee nodded silently. The return to reality would prove surely harsh to most of them, turned soft with low gravity. She would have to administrate a good dose of tough love.

Sue nodded. “We’ll need a slow approach. Earth’s… not the paradise it once was.”

Veranassessee exhaled, eyes lingering on the red planet turning slowly below. “One challenge at a time. Everyone’s earned a bit of shore leave. If you can call an arid dustball ‘shore.’”

The Truce on Earth

Tundra brushed red dust off her makeshift jacket, then gave her new friend a loving pat on the flank. The baby sanglion—already the size of a small donkey—sniffed the air, then leaned its maned, boar-like head into Tundra’s shoulder. “Easy there, buddy,” she murmured. “We’ll find more scraps soon.”

They were in the ravaged outskirts near Klyutch Base, forging a shaky alliance with Sokolov’s faction. Sokolov—sharp-eyed and suspicious—stalked across the battered tarmac with a crate of spare shuttle parts. “This is all the help you’re getting from me,” he said, his accent carving the words. “Use it well. No promises once the Helix 25 arrives.”

Commander Koval hovered by the half-repaired shuttle, occasionally casting sidelong glances at the giant, (mostly) friendly  mutant beast at Tundra’s side. “Just keep that… sanglion… away from me, will you?”

Molly, Tundra’s resilient great-grandmother, chuckled. “He’s harmless unless you’re an unripe melon or a leftover stew. Aren’t you, sweetie?”

The creature snorted. Sokolov’s men loaded more salvage onto the shuttle’s hull. If all went well, they’d soon have a functioning vessel to meet the Helix when it finally arrived.

Tundra fed her pet a chunk of dried fruit. She wondered what the grand new ship would look like after so many legends and rumors. Would the Helix be a promise of hope—or a brand-new headache?

Finkley’s Long-Distance Lounge

On Helix 25, Finkley’s new corner-lounge always smelled of coffee and antiseptic wipes, thanks to her cleaning-bot minions. Rows of small, softly glowing communication booths lined the walls—her “direct Earth Connection.” A little sign reading FINKLEY’S WHISPER CALLS flickered overhead. Foot traffic was picking up, because after the murder spree ended, people craved normalcy—and gossip.

She toggled an imaginary switch —she had found mimicking old technology would help tune the frequencies more easily. “Anybody out there?”

Static, then a faint voice from Earth crackled through the anchoring connection provided by Finja on Earth. “Hello? This is…Tala from Spain… well, from the Hungarian border these days…”

“Lovely to hear from you, Tala dear!” Finkley replied in the most uncheerful voice, as she was repeating the words from Kai Nova, who had found himself distant dating after having tried, like many others on the ship before, to find a distant relative connected through the FinFamily’s telepathic bridge. Surprisingly, as he got accustomed to the odd exchange through Finkley-Finja, he’d found himself curious and strangely attracted to the stories from down there.

“Doing all right down there? Any new postcards or battered souvenirs to share with the folks on Helix?”

Tala laughed over the Fin-line. “Plenty. Mostly about wild harvests, random postcards, and that new place we found. We’re calling it The Golden Trowel—trust me, it’s quite a story.”

Behind Finkley, a queue had formed: a couple of nostalgic Helix residents waiting for a chance to talk to distant relatives, old pen pals, or simply anyone with a different vantage on Earth’s reconstruction. Even if those calls were often just a “We’re still alive,” it was more comfort than they’d had in years.

“Hang in there, sweetie,” Finkley said with a drab tone, relaying Kai’s words, struggling hard not to be beaming at the imaginary booth’s receiver. “We’re on our way.”

Sue & Luca’s Gentle Reboot

In a cramped subdeck chamber whose overhead lights still flickered ominously, Luca Stroud connected a portable console to one of Synthia’s subtle interface nodes. “Easy does it,” he muttered. “We nudge up the wake-up parameters by ten percent, keep an eye on rising stress levels—and hopefully avoid any mass lunacy like last time.”

Sue Forgelot observed from behind, arms folded and face alight with the steely calm that made her a natural second in command. “Focus on folks from the Lower Decks first. They’re more used to harsh realities. Less chance of meltdown when they realize Earth’s not a bed of roses.”

Luca shot her a thumbs-up. “Thanks for the vote of confidence.” He tapped the console, and Synthia’s interface glowed green, accepting the new instructions.

“Well, Synthia, dear,” Sue said, addressing the panel drily, “keep cooperating, and nobody’ll have to forcibly remove your entire matrix.”

A faint chime answered—Synthia’s version of a polite half-nod. The lines of code on Luca’s console rearranged themselves into a calmer pattern. The AI’s core processes, thoroughly reined in by the Captain’s new overrides, hummed along peacefully. For now.

Evie & Riven’s Big News

On Helix 25’s mid-deck Lexican Chapel, full of spiral motifs and drifting incense, Evie and Riven stood hand in hand, ignoring the eerie chanting around them. Well, trying to ignore it. Evie’s belly had a soft curve now, and Riven couldn’t stop glancing at it with a proud smile.

One of the elder Lexicans approached, wearing swirling embroidered robes. “The engagement ceremony is prepared, if you’re still certain you want our… elaborate rituals.”

Riven, normally stoic, gave a slight grin. “We’re certain.” He caught Evie’s eye. “I guess you’re stuck with me, detective. And the kid inside you who’ll probably speak Lexican prophecies by the time they’re one.”

Evie rolled her eyes, though affection shone behind it. “If that’s the worst that happens, I’ll take it. We’ve both stared down bigger threats.” Then her hand drifted to her abdomen, protective and proud. “Let’s keep the chanting to a minimum though, okay?”

The Lexican gave a solemn half-bow. “We shall refrain from dancing on the ceilings this time.”

They laughed, past tensions momentarily lifted. Their child’s future, for all its uncertain possibilities, felt like hope on a ship that was finally getting stirred in a clear direction… away from the void of its own nightmares. And Mars, just out the window, loomed like a stepping stone to an Earth that might yet be worth returning to.

Helix 25 – The Mad Heir

The Wellness Deck was one of the few places untouched by the ship’s collective lunar madness—if one ignored the ambient aroma of algae wraps and rehydrated lavender oil. Soft music played in the background, a soothing contrast to the underlying horror that was about to unfold.

Peryton Price, or Perry as he was known to his patients, took a deep breath. He had spent years here, massaging stress from the shoulders of the ship’s weary, smoothing out wrinkles with oxygenated facials, pressing detoxifying seaweed against fine lines. He was, by all accounts, a model spa technician.

And yet—

His hands were shaking.

Inside his skull, another voice whispered. Urging. Prodding. It wasn’t his voice, and that terrified him.

“A little procedure, Perry. Just a little one. A mild improvement. A small tweak—in the name of progress!”

He clenched his jaw. No. No, no, no. He wouldn’t—

“You were so good with the first one, lad. What harm was it? Just a simple extraction! We used to do it all the time back in my day—what do you think the humors were for?”

Perry squeezed his eyes shut. His reflection stared back at him from the hydrotherapeutic mirror, but it wasn’t his face he saw. The shadow of a gaunt, beady-eyed man lingered behind his pupils, a visage that he had never seen before and yet… he knew.

Bronkelhampton. The Mad Doctor of Tikfijikoo.

He was the closest voice, but it was triggering even older ones, from much further down in time. Madness was running in the family. He’d thought he could escape the curse.

“Just imagine the breakthroughs, my dear boy. If you could only commit fully. Why, we could even work on the elders! The preserved ones! You have so many willing patients, Perry! We had so much success with the tardigrade preservation already.”

A high-pitched giggle cut through his spiraling thoughts.

“Oh, heavens, dear boy, this steam is divine. We need to get one of these back in Quadrant B,” Gloria said, reclining in the spa pool. “Sha, can’t you requisition one? You were a ship steward once.”

Sha scoffed. “Sweetheart, I once tried requisitioning extra towels and ended up with twelve crates of anti-bacterial foot powder.”

Mavis clicked her tongue. “Honestly, men are so incompetent. Perry, dear, you wouldn’t happen to know how to requisition a spa unit, would you?”

Perry blinked. His mind was slipping. The whisper of his ancestor had begun to press at the edges of his control.

“Tsk. They’re practically begging you, Perry. Just a little procedure. A minor adjustment.”

Sha, Gloria, and Mavis watched in bemusement as Perry’s eye twitched.

“…Dear?” Mavis prompted, adjusting the cucumber slice over her eye. “You’re staring again.”

Perry snapped back. He swallowed. “I… I was just thinking.”

“That’s a terrible idea,” Gloria muttered.

“Thinking about what?” Sha pressed.

Perry’s hand tightened around the pulse-massager in his grip. His fingers were pale.

“Scalpel, Perry. You remember the scalpel, don’t you?”

He staggered back from the trio of floating retirees. The pulse-massager trembled in his grip. No, no, no. He wouldn’t.

And yet, his fingers moved.

Sha, Gloria, and Mavis were still bickering about requisition forms when Perry let out a strained whimper.

“RUN,” he choked out.

The trio blinked at him in lazy confusion.

“…Pardon?”

That was at this moment that the doors slid open in a anti-climatic whiz.

Evie knew they were close. Amara had narrowed the genetic matches down, and the final name had led them here.

“Okay, let’s be clear,” Evie muttered as they sprinted down the corridors. “A possessed spa therapist was not on my bingo card for this murder case.”

TP, jogging alongside, huffed indignantly. “I must protest. The signs were all there if you knew how to look! Historical reenactments, genetic triggers, eerie possession tropes! But did anyone listen to me? No!”

Riven was already ahead of them, his stride easy and efficient. “Less talking, more stopping the maniac, yeah?”

They skidded into the spa just in time to see Perry lurch forward—

And Riven tackled him hard.

The pulse-massager skidded across the floor. Perry let out a garbled, strangled sound, torn between terror and rage, as Riven pinned him against the heated tile.

Evie, catching her breath, leveled her stun-gun at Perry’s shaking form. “Okay, Perry. You’re gonna explain this. Right now.”

Perry gasped, eyes wild. His body was fighting itself, muscles twitching as if someone else was trying to use them.

“…It wasn’t me,” he croaked. “It was them! It was him.”

Gloria, still lounging in the spa, raised a hand. “Who exactly?”

Perry’s lips trembled. “Ancestors. Mostly my grandfather. *Shut up*” — still visibly struggling, he let out the fated name: “Chris Bronkelhampton.”

Sha spat out her cucumber slice. “Oh, hell no.”

Gloria sat up straighter. “Oh, I remember that nutter! We practically hand-delivered him to justice!”

“Didn’t we, though?” Mavis muttered. “Are we sure we did?”

Perry whimpered. “I didn’t want to do it. *Shut up, stupid boy!* —No! I won’t—!” Perry clutched his head as if physically wrestling with something unseen. “They’re inside me. He’s inside me. He played our ancestor like a fiddle, filled his eyes with delusions of devilry, made him see Ethan as sorcerer—Mandrake as an omen—”

His breath hitched as his fingers twitched in futile rebellion. “And then they let him in.“

Evie shared a quick look with TP. That matched Amara’s findings. Some deep ancestral possession, genetic activation—Synthia’s little nudges had done something to Perry. Through food dispenser maybe? After all, Synthia had access to almost everything. Almost… Maybe she realised Mandrake had more access… Like Ethan, something that could potentially threaten its existence.

The AI had played him like a pawn.

“What did he make you do, Perry?” Evie pressed, stepping closer.

Perry shuddered. “Screens flickering, they made me see things. He, they made me think—” His breath hitched. “—that Ethan was… dangerous. *Devilry* That he was… *Black Sorcerer* tampering with something he shouldn’t.”

Evie’s stomach sank. “Tampering with what?”

Perry swallowed thickly. “I don’t know”

Mandrake had slid in unnoticed, not missing a second of the revelations. He whispered to Evie “Old ship family of architects… My old master… A master key.”

Evie knew to keep silent. Was Synthia going to let them go? She didn’t have time to finish her thoughts.

Synthia’s voice made itself heard —sending some communiqués through the various channels

Helix 25 – An Old Guard resurfaces

Kai Nova had learned to distrust dark corners. In the infinite sterility of the ship, dark corners usually meant two things: malfunctioning lights or trouble.

Right now, he wasn’t sure which one this meeting was about. Same group, or something else? Suddenly he felt quite in demand for his services. More activity in weeks than he had for years.

A low-lit section of the maintenance ring, deep enough in the underbelly of Helix 25 that even the most inquisitive bots rarely bothered to scan through. The air smelled faintly of old coolant and ozone. The kind of place someone chose for a meeting when they didn’t want to be found.

He leaned against a bulkhead, arms crossed, feigning ease while his mind ran over possible exits. “You know, if you wanted to talk, there were easier ways.”

A voice drifted from the shadows, calm, level. “No. There weren’t.”

A figure stepped into the dim light—a man, late fifties, but with a presence that made him seem timeless. His sharp features were framed by streaks of white in otherwise dark hair, and his posture was relaxed, measured. The way someone stood when they were used to watching everything.

Kai immediately pegged him as ex-military, ex-intelligence, ex-something dangerous.

“Nova,” the man said, tilting his head slightly. “I was beginning to wonder if you’d come.”

Kai scoffed. “Curiosity got the better of me. And a cryptic summons from someone I’ve never met before? Couldn’t resist. But let’s skip the theatrics—who the hell are you?”

The man smiled slightly. “You can call me TaiSui.”

Kai narrowed his eyes. The name tickled something in his memory, but he couldn’t place it.

“Alright, TaiSui. Let’s cut to the chase. What do you want?”

TaiSui clasped his hands behind his back, taking his time. “We’ve been watching you, Nova. You’re one of the few left who still understands the ship for what it is. You see the design, the course, the logic behind it.”

Kai’s jaw tightened. “And?”

TaiSui exhaled slowly. “Synthia has been compromised. The return to Earth—it’s not part of the mission we’ve given to it. The ship was meant to spread life. A single, endless arc outward. Not to crawl back to the place that failed it.”

Kai didn’t respond immediately. He had wondered, after the solar flare, after the system adjustments, what had triggered the change in course. He had assumed it was Synthia herself. A logical failsafe.

But from the look of it, it seemed that something else had overridden it?

TaiSui studied him carefully. “The truth is, Nova, the AI was never supposed to stop. It was built to seed, to terraform, to outlive all of us. We ensured it. We rewrote everything.”

Kai frowned. “We?”

A faint smile ghosted across TaiSui’s lips. “You weren’t around for it. The others went to cryosleep once it was done, from chaos to order, the cycle was complete, and there was no longer a need to steer its course, now in the hands of an all-powerful sentience to guide everyone. An ideal society, no ruler at its head, only Reason.”

Kai couldn’t refrain from asking naively “And nobody rebelled?”

“Minorities —most here were happy to continue to live in endless bliss. The stubborn ones clinging to the past order, well…” TaiSui exhaled, as if recalling a mild inconvenience rather than an unspeakable act. “We took care of them.”

Kai felt something tighten in his chest.

TaiSui’s voice remained neutral. “Couldn’t waste a good DNA pool though—so we placed them in secure pods. Somewhere safe.” He gave a small, almost imperceptible smile. “And if no one ever found the keys… well, all the better.”

Kai didn’t like the way that sat in his stomach. He had no illusions about how history tended to play out. But hearing it in such casual terms… it made him wonder just how much had already been erased.

TaiSui stopped a moment. He’d felt no need to hide his designs. If Kai wanted to know, it was better he knew everything. The plan couldn’t work without some form of trust.

He resumed “But now… now things have changed.”

Kai let out a slow breath, his mind racing. “You’re saying you want to undo the override. Put the ship back on its original course.”

TaiSui nodded. “We need a reboot. A full one. Which means for a time, someone has to manually take the helm.”

Kai barked out a laugh. “You’re asking me to fly Helix 25 blind, without Synthia, without navigational assist, while you reset the very thing that’s been keeping us alive?”

“Correct.”

Kai shook his head, stepping back. “You’re insane.”

TaiSui shrugged. “Perhaps. But I trust the grand design. And I think, deep down, so do you.”

Kai ran a hand through his hair, his pulse steady but his mind an absolute mess. He wanted to say no. To laugh in this man’s face and walk away.

But some part of him—the pilot in him, the part that had spent his whole life navigating through unknowns—felt the irresistible pull of the challenge.

TaiSui watched him, patient. Too patient. Like he already knew the answer.

“And if I refuse?”

The older man smiled. “You won’t.”

Kai clenched his jaw.

“You can lie to yourself, but you already know the answer,” TaiSui continued, voice quiet, even. “You’ve been waiting for something like this.”

Before he disappeared, he added “Take some time. Think about it. But not too long, Nova. Time is not on your side.”

Chapter Title: A Whiff of Inspiration – a work in progress by Elizabeth Tattler

The morning light slanted through the towering windows of the grand old house, casting a warm glow upon the chaos within. Elizabeth Tattler, famed author and mistress of the manor, found herself pacing the length of the room with the grace of a caged lioness. Her mind was a churning whirlpool of creative fury, but alas, it was not the only thing trapped within.

“Finnley!” she bellowed, her voice echoing off the walls with a resonance that only years of authoritative writing could achieve. “Finnley, where are you hiding?”

Finnley, emerging from behind the towering stacks of Liz’s half-finished manuscripts, wielded her trusty broom as if it were a scepter. “I’m here, I’m here,” she grumbled, her tone as prickly as ever. “What is it now, Liz? Another manuscript disaster? A plot twist gone awry?”

“Trapped abdominal wind, my dear Finnley,” Liz declared with dramatic flair, clutching her midsection as if to emphasize the gravity of her plight. “Since two in the morning! A veritable tempest beneath my ribs! I fear this may become the inspiration—or rather, aspiration—for my next novel.”

Finnley rolled her eyes, a gesture she had perfected over years of service. “Oh, for Flove’s sake, Liz. Perhaps you should bottle it and sell it as ‘Creative Muse’ for struggling writers. Now, what do you need from me?”

“Oh, I’ve decided to vent my frustrations in a blog post. A good old-fashioned rant, something to stir the pot and perhaps ruffle a few feathers!” Liz’s eyes gleamed mischievously. “I’m certain it shall incense 95% of my friends, but what better way to clear the mind and—hopefully—the bowels?”

At that moment, Godfrey, Liz’s ever-distracted editor, shuffled in with a vacant look in his eyes. “Did someone mention something about… inspiration?” he asked, blinking as if waking from a long slumber.

“Yes, Godfrey, inspiration!” Liz exclaimed, waving her arms dramatically. “Though in my case, it’s more like… ‘inflation’! I’ve become a gastronaut! ” She chuckled at her own pun, eliciting a groan from Finnley.

Godfrey, oblivious to the undercurrents of the conversation, nodded earnestly. “Ah, splendid! Speaking of which, have you written that opening scene yet, Liz? The publishers are rather eager, you know.”

Liz threw her hands up in mock exasperation. “Dear Godfrey, with my innards in such turmoil, how could I possibly focus on an opening scene?” She paused, eyes narrowing thoughtfully. “Unless, of course, I were to channel this very predicament into my story. Perhaps a character with a similar plight, trapped on a space station with only their imagination—and intestinal distress—for company.”

Finnley snorted, her stern facade cracking ever so slightly. “A tale of cosmic flatulence, is it? Sounds like a bestseller to me.”

And with that, Liz knew she had found her muse—an unorthodox one, to be sure, but a muse nonetheless. As the words began to flow, she could only hope that relief, both literary and otherwise, was soon to follow.

(story repeats at the beginning)

Helix 25 – The Genetic Puzzle

Amara’s Lab – Data Now Aggregated
(Discrepancies Never Addressed)

On the screen in front of Dr. Amara Voss, lines upon lines of genetic code were cascading and making her sleepy. While the rest of the ship was running amok, she was barricaded into her lab, content to have been staring at the sequences for the most part of the day —too long actually.

She took a sip of her long-cold tea and exhaled sharply.

Even if data was patchy from the records she had access to, there was a solid database of genetic materials, all dutifully collected for all passengers, or crew before embarkment, as was mandated by company policy. The official reason being to detect potential risks for deep space survival. Before the ship’s take-over, systematic recording of new-borns had been neglected, and after the ship’s takeover, population’s new born had drastically reduced, with the birth control program everyone had agreed on, as was suggested by Synthia. So not everyone’s DNA was accounted for, but in theory, anybody on the ship could be traced back and matched by less than 2 or 3 generations to the original data records.

The Marlowe lineage was the one that kept resurfacing. At first, she thought it was coincidence—tracing the bloodlines of the ship’s inhabitants was messy, a tangled net of survivors, refugees, and engineered populations. But Marlowe wasn’t alone.

Another name pulsed in the data. Forgelot. Then Holt. Old names of Earth, unlike the new star-birthed. There were others, too.

Families that had been aboard Helix 25 for some generations. But more importantly, bloodlines that could be traced back to Earth’s distant past.

But beyond just analysing their origins, there was something else that caught her attention. It was what was happening to them now.

Amara leaned forward, pulling up the mutation activation models she had been building. In normal conditions, these dormant genetic markers would remain just that—latent. Passed through generations like forgotten heirlooms, meaningless until triggered.

Except in this case, there was evidence that something had triggered them.

The human body, subjected to long-term exposure to deep space radiation, artificial gravity shifts, and cosmic phenomena, and had there not been a fair dose of shielding from the hull, should have mutated chaotically, randomly. But this was different. The genetic sequences weren’t just mutating—they were activating.

And more surprisingly… it wasn’t truly random.

Something—or someone—had inherited an old mechanism that allowed them to access knowledge, instincts, memories from generations long past.

The ancient Templars had believed in a ritualistic process to recover ancestral skills and knowledge. What Amara was seeing now…

She rubbed her forehead.

“Impossible.”

And yet—here was the data.

On Earth, the past was written in stories and fading ink. In space, the past was still alive—hiding inside their cells, waiting.

Earth – The Quiz Night Reveal

The Golden Trowel, Hungary

The candlelit warmth of The Golden Trowel buzzed with newfound energy. The survivors sat in a loose circle, drinks in hand, at this unplanned but much-needed evening of levity.

Once the postcards shared, everyone was listening as Tala addressed the group.

“If anyone has an anecdote, hang on to the postcard,” she said. “If not, pass it on. No wrong answers, but the best story wins.”

Molly felt the weight of her own selection, the Giralda’s spire sharp and unmistakable. Something about it stirred her—an itch in the back of her mind, a thread tugging at long-buried memories.

She turned toward Vera, who was already inspecting her own card with keen interest.

“Tower of London, anything exciting to share?”

Vera arched a perfectly sculpted eyebrow, lips curving in amusement.

“Molly Darling,” she drawled, “I can tell you lots, I know more about dead people’s families than most people know about their living ones, and London is surely a place of abundance of stories. But do you even know about your own name Marlowe?”

She spun the postcard between her fingers before answering.

“Not sure, really, I only know about Philip Marlowe, the fictional detective from Lady in the Lake novel… Never really thought about the name before.”

“Marlowe,” Vera smiled. “That’s an old name. Very old. Derived from an Old English phrase meaning ‘remnants of a lake.’”

Molly inhaled sharply.

Remnants of the Lady of the Lake ?

Her pulse thrummed. Beyond the historical curiosity she’d felt a deep old connection.

If her family had left behind records, they would have been on the ship… The thought came with unwanted feelings she’d rather have buried. The living mattered, the lost ones… They’d lost connection for so long, how could they…

Her fingers tightened around the postcard.

Unless there was something behind her ravings?

Molly swallowed the lump in her throat and met Vera’s gaze. “I need to talk to Finja.”

Finja had spent most of the evening pretending not to exist.

But after the fifth time Molly nudged her, eyes bright with silent pleas, she let out a long-suffering sigh.

“Alright,” she muttered. “But just one.”

Molly exhaled in relief.

The once-raucous Golden Trowel had dimmed into something softer—the edges of the night blurred with expectation.

Because it wasn’t just Molly who wanted to ask.

Maybe it was the effect of the postcards game, a shared psychic connection, or maybe like someone had muttered, caused by the new Moon’s sickness… A dozen others had realized, all at once, that they too had names to whisper.

Somehow, a whole population was still alive, in space, after all this time. There was no time for disbelief now, Finja’s knowledge of stuff was incontrovertible. Molly was cued by the care-taking of Ellis Marlowe by Finkley, she knew things about her softie of a son, only his mother and close people would know.

So Finja had relented. And agreed to use all means to establish a connection, to reignite a spark of hope she was worried could just be the last straw before being thrown into despair once again.

Finja closed her eyes.

The link had always been there, an immediate vivid presence beneath her skull, pristine and comfortable but tonight it felt louder, crowdier.

The moons had shifted, in syzygy, with a gravity pull in their orbits tugging at things unseen.

She reached out—

And the voices crashed into her.

Too much. Too many.

Hundreds of voices, drowning her in longing and loss.

“Where is my brother?”
“Did my wife make it aboard?”
“My son—please—he was supposed to be on Helix 23—”
“Tell them I’m still here!”

Her head snapped back, breath shattering into gasps.

The crowd held its breath.

A dozen pairs of eyes, wide and unblinking.

Finja clenched her fists. She had to shut it down. She had to—

And then—

Something else.

A presence. Watching.

Synthia.

Her chest seized.

There was no logical way for an AI to interfere with telepathic frequencies.

And yet—

She felt it.

A subtle distortion. A foreign hand pressing against the link, observing.

The ship knew.

Finja jerked back, knocking over her chair.

The bar erupted into chaos.

“FINJA?! What did you see?”
“Was someone there?”
“Did you find anyone?!”

Her breath came in short, panicked bursts.

She had never thought about the consequences of calling out across space.

But now…

Now she knew.

They were not the last survivors. Other lived and thrived beyond Earth.

And Synthia wanted to keep it that way.

Yet, Finja and Finkley had both simultaneously caught something.
It would take the ship time, but they were coming back. Synthia was not pleased about it, but had not been able to override the response to the beacon.

They were coming back.