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"Thank you," he replied In truth, not that he’d ever ad for Tania when she e to do, Ti to raise them," hat he said "And hope there’s another way in"

The others were silent now

"Going to swing the dish back," Tim said "I’d hate to miss their call"

"Tim," Zane said

"Yeah?"

"Don’t beat yourself up You’ve done everything you can"

Ti Have I? "I’ll talk to you soon," he said, and cut the link

He watched, helpless, iantic mass continued to rise toward the Key Ship All of his hopes hinged on ould happen when it arrived Either the hexagon door would be covered, forever lost to him like the woman he loved within, or perhaps, just maybe, a new entrance would present itself, and Tania would find it They would find it and coht in her eyes at the sight of hi in the void while others took action "Alaiting"

A blip snapped his attention to one of the displays at the center of the console The radar, which s in si an unknown entity to the computer, was drawn in depth-coded wire-frah at this distance the display had not resolved any fine detail on it

Soe Sonized its transponder Ti it had coan to pound "No, daain, intent to alert Tania, not that she could hear hiue Would these newcomers be able to hear him, too? He had no idea if the frequencies used were coed

He clicked off again, watching the dot on his radar drift ever closer It see out his tiny , but he was too close to the gigantic alien vessel to see , and besides this ship was on the opposite side

"Perhaps they’re friendly," he said aloud "Maybe it’s Skyler" The thought filled him at once with hope and more than a little dread Of course, Skyler would be the one to swoop in and save Tania again "Stop thinking like that, Timmy Just be yourself Relax Think"

He decided to work under the assumption that they were not friendly If they were, he suspected he would have heard from them by now On a whim he searched for and found the switch that controlled his external lights, and flipped theone inside

Tim tapped the newcomer’s icon on the radar display and was happy to find additional details appeared on the right side of the screen Velocity Yes, they were indeed slowing, and rapidly at that

Dimensions That was odd This was no ERV Not even close The width spanned nation number filled in, and then below that, a name

MIDWAY STATION

Chapter Thirty

Midway Station

2APR2285

Samantha lay curled in a fetal ball, her wrists and ankles bound She ached all over and felt grateful for it The toxin had worn off No longer would she have to suffer the indignity of couards, Weck especially, had been cruel whileher helpless form to the cell she now lay in They’d let her sla the floor by her feet, her face scraping along the rough irregular surfaces of the utilitarian station

The roo quarters, but because of the way the station was ht--one of the walls had become her floor It had taken her mind a while to not let this little illusion ined herself on an ocean liner that had sunk, ile

No one spoke to her, and she made no effort to draw the her, and because of Grillo’s comment, she knehy: An immune had to place the object inside the Builder’s ship The temple, Grillo had called it At the very least he knew an immune had to be present for entrance to be possible

The fact that they had Skadz, too, complicated her situation and restricted her options i that if one of theladly die rather than help these people, but she doubted Skadz shared the same conviction So her resistance would only result in both of their deaths Better to wait, she thought Be passive, go with the flow, and take her opportunity when it cahn She wondered if they’d dispatched him with the same lack of emotion that had ended Kelly’s life Grillo, of course, knew of her relationship with the ainst her Not that this had done Kelly a lot of good Sa to remove her tumultuous emotions froe, actively worked against all the various regierous and cunning enough to warrant a swift execution

Vaughn had inal way in this latest gambit It was surely evident Sam had a soft spot for the man And Grillo, she kneould not hesitate to exploit any angle he could, which left her in a catch-22 If she acted as if Vaughn were nothing e, Grillo would likely kill him immediately His loyalty was surely in doubt, so there would be no point in risking his presence But if Sam showed concern for the ainst her And this, she felt, had the potential to be far worse for Vaughn than a quick death

Yet any moment he remained alive was aof tables