With a look and quick blink at the relevant icon, the compulsory preplay questions begin.

  At the time, it seemed a good idea to record us with full immersion. To think that I believed I’d want to relive that again and again! This is why there are warnings and several levels of opting in and confirmations of intent before you can record immersively; the people who made this technology know how well human beings can fuck themselves up. All the questions amount to the same thing: are you sure you want to preserve enough detail to trick your brain into reliving it again?

  Now those same protocols are asking me if I really want to fully immerse myself in something that happened twenty-two years, fifty-five days ago. Are you in a safe environment? Are you operating machinery? Are you in control of a vehicle? Most of the questions are redundant: the chip knows I’m doing none of those things but the software forces them anyway. It wants me to really understand the risk. I do.

  Would you like to prepare a message for your health care provider in the event of an adverse reaction?

  That one is a hangover from several cases where people recorded their own heart attacks and other near-death experiences and then played them back to themselves in some sort of weird therapy craze and had heart attacks. Idiots. I give a negative response. I don’t want Kay or anyone else to know I’m doing this. I’ve wedged myself in tight enough to not throw myself around by accident.

  Are you aware that deep-immersion playback can cause depression, anxiety, dissociative disorders and increase the likelihood of addictive behaviors?

  “Yes,” I reply.

  Are you aware that deep-immersion playback can trigger PTSD?

  “Yes, for fuck’s sake.” That’s what I’m afraid of.

  You have tagged the selected footage as critical. You may pause but not delete during playback. Please check your environment for any potential risks. We recommend the use of a tongue block. Here is a list of patterns to download to your printer.

  I skip that. I may end up a sobbing mess, but I’m unlikely to bite my own tongue.

  Finally, the little arrow floats across my vision. I clasp my hands tight together, fill my lungs with as much air as I can and blink twice at the arrow.

  I am no longer in my hallway.

  I’m in the loading bay on Atlas, just outside the doors to the airlock and decontamination chamber. The bare metal struts curve either side of me like the ribs of a great whale, and crates of equipment and supplies are stacked in their hundreds only meters away from where I stand. My body is held tight in my flight suit, the gloves feeling thick and cumbersome after years with nothing on my hands. The metal rim upon which my helmet will be locked rests uncomfortably on my collarbone and I want to pee. It’s just nerves.

  “Who’s recording?” Mack asks.

  “I am,” I say, raising a hand.

  “Me too,” says Hak-Kun. (A flitter of panic behind the re-experience, like a tiny bird taking off in a field behind me—I forgot that he was recording too.)

  “Don’t film my backside.” Suh twists to face me and I laugh at her, a little too loud. (Oh God above us, she is so beautiful. I want to touch her—did I touch her then? Can I feel that again?)

  “Mum.” Hak-Kun sounds unimpressed by her lightness.

  I can’t help looking down, now that she’s put the idea in my head, and I trace the outline of her buttocks through the flight suit, the way her hips flare out at the tops of her thighs, far wider than her waist and shoulders. She used to hate her short legs and pear-drop shape but since the coma she’s been above such things. I look away when Mack clears his throat and looks up at the list he’s just called up in his own vision.

  “Okay, quick roll call to satisfy the ship’s log and then we’ll do our last equipment check before running through the landing protocols one last time. When I say your name, acknowledge verbally, state your official role in the party and confirm consent to make Planetfall.”

  After we all nod, he begins. “Cillian Mackenzie, Captain, and I consent to travel. Lee Suh-Mi?”

  Suh is tying her hair back, fiddling with wisps that keep slipping free like black silk. “Pathfinder, and fully consensual,” she says and grins at me. (A wrench in my chest behind the excitement and fear and love.)

  “Lee Hak-Kun?”

  “Linguistics and xeno-communication, and I consent to this trip.”

  “Xeno-communication?” Lois, a tall woman whose arms are thicker than my thighs, is snorting with laughter. “When did you make that up?”

  Hak-Kun folds his arms. “I’m the one best qualified to make contact or interpret alien language, should the occasion arise.”

  Lois shrugs. When he looks away, she makes eye contact with me and mouths “wanker” silently. I only hope Suh hasn’t seen what we make of her son. It’s hard being the child of one of the most important people in history.

  “Lois Stephenson?”

  “Yep.” There’s a pause and Mack stares at her. “Oh, sorry; security and threat evaluation and I am so ready to get my ass off this ship.”

  Mack smirks at that and then looks at me. “Renata Ghali?”

  “Pilot. I give my consent to make Planetfall.” (I sound so formal, my voice so tight with nerves.)

  “Winston Akembi?”

  “Present, doctor, and with God’s grace ready to meet him.”

  “It won’t be a he,” Suh says quietly. “Not like we conceive of it anyway.” All the nerves and joviality are shoved aside by a new sense of gravitas. We are in the presence of one chosen to lead us to our creator.

  “Should we say a prayer?” I ask.

  “Do we have to?” Mack sighs and everyone looks to Suh for adjudication.

  “Let’s take a moment,” she says. “You can all do whatever you need before we carry on.”

  Ever the diplomat. I close my eyes and whisper the Lord’s Prayer as I try to manage the fear. So many years and sacrifices and doubts all leading to this moment. I feel both huge and insignificant in the weave of history’s cloth. Now we discover if we’ve followed a madwoman or a visionary. Perhaps even a messiah.

  (Now, in the moment of black silence, I remember why I’m reliving this. After the prayer, I focus my attention on those in the group, forcing myself to look at the footage as if through a lens rather than my own eyes. Keeping a sense of self separate from that of the recording for anything longer than a few seconds at a time is hard, but I’m motivated enough to keep this mental distance while the last checks are made to the suits and helmets. I have to wait until I look—looked—at each person, all the while resisting the pull of immersion to examine what they’re wearing and carrying. I see nothing that looks like the source of the hinged artifact.)

  We step inside the airlock and when the door closes behind us, sealing us from the ship, I jump and almost drop my helmet.

  Suh reaches across to touch my forearm. “It’s all going to be fine, Ren,” she whispers. “Stay with me and you’ll be fine.”

  (There’s a noise and a part of me realizes I’ve cried out at the feel of her hand on my arm. Even through the flight suit and the thin layer beneath it, even separated by all the years and the knowledge and the lies I can feel her again and yet I know I never will again.)

  “You won’t leave me behind, will you?” I whisper back and she smiles.

  “Of course not. I need you to fly us back.”

  (My cheeks are wet and my breath judders in and out with each sob and God I need her! I need her back!)

  We put our helmets on and check our comms and air supply before and after the air is sucked out. We check one another for signs of stress, reassuring one another as best we can with nervous smiles and the occasional wink. Suh is the most calm of all of us even though she has the most to lose. If there is nothing down there, she’ll be the focus of the rage and disappointment. She acts as if she has no doubts though and I take solace in that.

  We’re sprayed and blasted with a full decontamination routine in the effort to remove any viruses or germs that may want to hitch a ride on us down to the planet. The shuttle has already been treated and anything that might be on its exterior will be destroyed upon entry into the planet’s atmosphere. The plan is to keep the helmets on from now until we get back.

  “I still think it needs a name,” I say as the doors open onto the short umbilical tunnel that connects the ship to the shuttle. “I’ve never been anywhere without a name before.”

  “It isn’t for us to name it,” Suh says, and I feel stupid, like a brash tourist complaining about a hotel breakfast on the way into a sacred temple.

  (My chest is hurting. There’s too much to contain. I will tear in two and my blackened, shriveled heart will tumble onto the brown moss between my feet.)

  We enter the shuttle and I move to the front of the group, heading for the pilot’s seat. I pause at the sight of the planet, its curve describing an arc of blue and white and green at the lower left of the window. Only I can see it. The others are strapping themselves into seats behind me, facing one another. I feel privileged and terrified and doubtful of my ability. There are ten other people on Atlas qualified to fly this thing, but Suh insisted I learn so I could go with her legitimately. I’ve flown more simulations in the last two months than had hot meals.

  “Everyone secure?” Mack asks and I hurry to take my place. I tighten the straps over my shoulders, scanning the display in front of me and checking that everything matches the simulator.

  “Starting preflight check,” I say and the routine takes over. It calms me in the same way that washing my hands does.

  (My throat is burning and I fear I can’t keep doing this, but I have to. I have to last until Planetfall and at least until we reach God’s city. Otherwise I’ll have ripped myself open again for nothing.)

  “Ready to detach . . . Captain.” It feels unnatural, saying that, as if I’m playing an immersive military game with Mack.

  “Understood, Pilot.” His reply only reinforces the sense of pretension. “Detach in five, four, three, two, one, mark.”

  There’s a clunk as the clamps release and a dreadful lurch in my stomach as we lose the gravity we stole from Atlas’s rotation. My body pulls against the straps as my own weight no longer holds me in the chair. There’s just enough time for everyone to comment on it before I angle the craft to begin descent. They fall silent when the light stretching back to them from the cockpit shifts as the planet fills my view.

  I have to pull my attention from the clouds—clouds!—and colors of life to make sure the computer is calculating the trajectory and the numbers make sense. The data from the satellite we sent out from Atlas days before has already been examined and processed by both human and computer. I know what I’m aiming for and the shuttle’s navigation software is directing me to the right place to enter the atmosphere.

  I’m nothing more than a fail-safe really; the shuttle could fly itself, but by law a human pilot has to be fully trained, able to interpret the flight data and capable of manually controlling the craft if needed. That’s when it hits me that we’re so far from home; the law is nothing but an echo of civilization.

  “We’ll be entering the atmosphere in ninety-five seconds,” I broadcast to the communal channel. “The temperature in here will rise, but that’s totally normal and we won’t cook. Does everyone remember the simulation?”

  I listen to the affirmative replies. “Okay, then. Here we go.”

  The colors so reminiscent of Earth are soon replaced by a searing red that I only glimpse as the exterior shielding completes its slide into place. The external temperature of the shuttle soars along with the tension within. I keep my attention on the display rather than the hellish black on the other side of the window. I sweat and I pray and then we’re through the worst of it and my body becomes heavy again. Eventually the shielding withdraws and I can see outside once more.

  The sky is blue and below is a pillowy landscape of clouds. We could be flying above anywhere on Earth and I’m overwhelmed by a sense of coming home, even though nothing could be less accurate.

  “What does it look like, Ren?” Suh sounds breathless for the first time.

  “Cloudy,” I reply, wishing I could find something poetic or romantic to say. “Blue sky,” I add. “Just like home.”

  “This is home now,” she says, and then we hit the clouds and the shuttle shakes with turbulence.

  “This is normal,” I say. “It’ll probably smooth out when—”

  We break through the cloud base and I see the mountains and grasslands below. I’m the first human being to see this in person, rather than a satellite image, the first to weep at the sight of its majesty.

  “Ren?” Mack sounds frightened—the first time for that too.

  “It’s . . . it’s okay. Let me show you.”

  I link my camera feed to the communal stream and ping each of them an invite to share. A hush descends as they all watch what I can see.

  “That mountain on the right,” Suh says. “The highest peak. Head toward that.”

  I check the data and it’s the direction we need to go anyway. The shuttle changes course slightly and the peak swings into the center of the view.

  “Switch to manual, Ren,” Suh says.

  “Why?”

  “Because it should be one of us who brings us in, not a machine.”

  13

  SUH GUIDES US over the top of the mountain range, above the place now called Diamond Peak. The rock drops away from its topmost point, sweeping down to the grassland plain below like the folds of a gray gown dragging against a green carpet.

  I minimize the overlaid flight controls from my vision, knowing we’re on a stable flight path for a few minutes at least. I want to see it like my crewmates do.

  Then I look up from staring at where the rock meets the plain and see God’s city ahead, rising from the grasslands a few kilometers away like a bizarre black flower from a giant lawn.

  No one says a word. There is nothing to be said at the sight of so many answers and so many questions encapsulated in one structure. The fact that humanity debated whether life on other planets existed for so long has finally been proven ludicrous.

  “That’s it.” Suh finally breaks the silence, as only she could. “That’s God’s city. That’s where we need to go.”

  “Set down half a click away from it,” Mack says.

  I reopen the shuttle interface and tap the appropriate places in my v-field, identifying the best place to set down. The flurry of activity caused by a manual landing distracts me enough to calm down again and roots me back in the practical.

  (There’s a lull in the barrage of recorded emotions and I’m able to ready myself for the next part. I remind myself to see through rather than simply see again and to look closely once we land. I become aware of an ache in my hands, still clasped so tightly together, and try to separate out the movements of my hands in the recording and the desire to separate my palms from each other now. I’m not even sure I’ve done it when my attention is snapped back to the recording.)

  It’s a good landing with no reported damage from either the craft or the crew. There are no congratulations, however; we’re all too fixated on the structure in front of us for it even to register.

  I fumble with the straps, unable to see them very well through the curve of my helmet, and then call up the data gathered by the environmental equipment on the way down.

  “It’s 21.5 degrees Celsius with 34 percent humidity and the atmosphere is near as dammit to Earth’s,” I report. “We could breathe out there.”

  “But we’re not going to, remember,” says Winston. “I don’t care what the temperature is or how friendly the air is; no one takes off their helmet, gloves or exposes any of their skin to the native environment.”

  We all agree. There’s no way I’d be tempted anyway, but it’s the kind of shit Lois would do for a dare. She’s been quiet though. Mack was worried she’d be bantering and being a jackass all the way through the mission, but she’s just as awed as the rest of us.

  “Open the door, Ren,” Mack says and I do so.

  I’m the last one to emerge and take my place with the rest of them, staring up at the alien structure.

  “I can’t see anything that looks like guns or weapons or defenses,” Lois says. “But to be honest, I wouldn’t know what the fuck anything that thing uses to defend itself would look like.”

  “Any signs of people?” Mack asks.

  “Not yet,” she replies. “But they must know we’re here, right? I mean, they’re waiting for us, right? Right?”

  Suh rests a hand on her arm. “Everything’s going to be fine. We’re expected.”

  “Okay, let’s get ourselves sorted out and then we’ll go and take a closer look,” Mack says. “Ren, stay with the shuttle.”

  “What!?”

  He laughs. “I’m joking, I’m joking.”

  I manage a smile before helping to open the compartment holding all the equipment.

  (This is it, the part I’ve been waiting for. Did any of them bring something else along not listed on the flight manifest? Some lucky object or—)

  The crate is heavy but not more so than on the ship. “It’s one G here, isn’t it?” Hak-Kun asks and I nod.

  “It’s so similar to Earth,” Lois says. “That can’t be a coincidence.”

  “It might not be as meaningful as you might think,” I reply as Hak-Kun opens the crate and begins to pass out containers to the relevant people. “It might simply be that life of the kind we’re used to can only flourish within certain parameters, so the results are familiar without there being some sort of intelligent design behind it.”

  “I thought you were a believer, Ren,” Mack says.

  “I’m also a scientist,” I fire back, irritated with his mocking tone. “They’re not incompatible.”

  (It’s easy to tune out an argument with Mack; I’ve had so many over the years, freeing my attention to look at what everyone is taking out of the containers. It’s mostly small boxes with sensor prongs sticking out of them, and in Lois’s case a small gun that leads to a brief argument between her and Mack, which she wins. But there’s nothing I can see that explains the metal artifact.)