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Tania forced the distraction away and willed herself to focus on the present, and on what little future she feared they had left The oxygen gauge continued its slow, steady decline, hers faster than his She needed to relax

He raised his right arm and nodded at her to do the same On a three-count that he ti the wall, they both pulsed their thrusters to halt their momentum

"I’m out of fuel," Tania noted

The concave recession on the purple as nearly pitch-black, just like the object they held Skyler nodded to Tania again and used his own thruster, alone this time, to propel them the rest of the way to the wall

"What now?" Tania said

"I think we’re supposed to plug it in"

He started to move to push the object into the cavity

"Wait," Tania said

Skyler paused He looked at her with one eyebrow raised

She thought of what Neil Platz had written about her father He destroyed it before we could truly learn "We have no idea what this will do," she said "What if this is so switch? A self-destruct lanced at it, his brow furrowed, then back at her "What if it bakes cookies?" When she frowned he tried again "What if it activates an aura generator big enough for the entire planet? A ship of this size could do it"

She opened her ht Faced with no knowledge, no context, there was no choice but to push forward into the unknown If one trait defined hureelass object into the inverted dolow as it crossed the threshold of the cavity Faint at first, growing brighter with each centimeter Then it rotated, pushed by soned itself with the rooan to warp and reshape, taking on the salass forht as the wall around thehter still

On instinct, Tania pulsed back frorew to alh her spacesuit, as if sound waves buffeted her despite the vacuulow, and with it Tania noticed that the wave patterns within the purple glow along the wall becaan to shake, though whether from fear or some external pressure she couldn’t tell "Skyler?!"

"I feel it!"

"What’s happening?"

With sudden, blinding ferocity the purple light exploded in a crescendo of energy that pushed her backward to the far wall She sainst the inside of her helrunted

Tania tasted blood, and realized she’d bit her tongue For abut stars before her eyes and clouds in her mind Her suit beeped and a " The alert repeated a few tiht until the residual energy patterns on her eyelids faded

When she opened her eyes, she found herself at an odd angle, and a wave of disorientation swept over her Light came from all around now The purple wall pulsed and roiled, but there were new colors in the cavernous roo the tall space a striped pattern of alternating light and dark She saw red, green, and yellow, exactly like the other tower groups that had dispersed from Camp Exodus

There was a fifth color as well, one not seen aht and pure as glacial ice under a clear suon in the center echoed all the colors froed and danced hypnotically One of the five ribs, the one that extended out to the edge and connected with the purple wall, noith the same color

"Unbelievable," Skyler whispered

"It’s incredible," Tania agreed She whispered, too, on pure instinct She felt like a visitor to some ancient, forbidden temple

A chime went off in Tania’s hellanced sharply at her The air in her suit had reached 20 percent Skyler’s readout showed just below 40

"What now?" he asked

"Nothing to do but wait," she replied

"I et back home," he said He’d somehow forced a playful tone into his voice

"I think it’s clear e have to do next, though for what purpose I still cannot iine"