2
p jerks violently and she's thrown again to the floor. She crawls to the eighteen sleeping pods, stacked like coffins three-high. Holding onto one of the pods, she gets to her feet and checks the display panels on each sleeper. Except for her own, all panels are dark and each hatch is sealed tight.
The ship bucks and Mirellen lands in her open pod. She raises her hand to touch the bottom of her mother's sleeper, then looks at the next stack and silently says goodbye to her father and brother.
She pulls down on the hatch and waits for impact.
Day 1
1. Just Quit
Standing against the back wall of the overcrowded funeral parlor, Ray Barker watched a holo of his brother's well-dressed body rise from the casket and rotate upright. With eyes open, the holo paused to raise a hand in a solemn goodbye, then closed its eyes and continued its ascent toward the rustic pine planks of the parlor's cathedral ceiling. Barker saw his mother sitting in the front row sobbing into a handkerchief. Next to her, Barker's young niece, sitting on her mother's lap, stared at the floor and fidgeted with her braids.
As the holo's shoes disappeared into the cathedral ceiling, Barker's head hummed the familiar tone of the New York office. When the priest stood, adjusted her robes and stepped to the podium to deliver the benediction, Barker slipped out the rear door and into the dim hallway. His head was humming again.
"Piper, what's up?" Barker said.
"Something's wrong with MarsDestiny," Piper said in Barker's head. "The lander's not responding and NASA thinks only one colonist is awake. This could be big. We're going live with the story after 'Prelude to Destiny.' Rindell wants you in Houston to do some weepy-relative stuff."
"I'm at my brother's funeral," Barker said.
"We signed off on you leaving Chicago, not taking a vacation," Piper said. "You know the rules. Something comes up, you go to work."
Barker saw a doorless room down the hall and walked toward it.