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was
never found, but ballistics identified it as an old Beretta like the one Rafa had kept
in their safe—until he inexplicably “lost” it a week before the arrest.
    Julie snapped back into the present. Her mother was still talking.
    “...help the girls. They’ll be so much better off when you put this whole thing
behind you.”
    “You think so?” Again the bitterness was there.
    “It’s surprising how resilient kids can be.”
    “Oh, sure, right. I sign some papers and their dad just evaporates like a bad
dream.” She could feel the anger welling up inside her.
    “Julie, they need to find a way to heal and have some closure to this whole
business. As long as you’re holding on to Rafa, they’ll keep expecting him to magically
come home some day. You have to show them how to move on.”
    “Finalizing the divorce isn’t going to make him go away. I’d be lying to myself to
think so. And teaching the girls denial won’t help anything.”
    “Look who’s crying denial! You still believe he’s innocent.”
    Julie met her mother’s accusing gaze for a split second, then turned away and
swallowed hard. Unwelcome tears cascaded down her cheeks. Yes , she wanted to
say, I still believe him. I do.
    But the words wouldn’t come. And that was what was tearing her up inside. When she
finalized she’d have to admit it.
    Her mother moved to comfort her, but Julie pushed roughly away and ran out into the
driving rain and blackness of the storm, her weeping subsumed by the low bass of
thunder.

3
    Night was falling over the Texas cityscape as Mike Satler pushed out the doors of
the monorail, hurried across the platform to an escalator, and rocked from foot to foot
while the stairs clacked down to the streets below.
    In a minute he was rounding a corner, bearing sideways through heavy pedestrian
traffic until he reached a glass and granite doorway. Passing through without a pause,
he headed directly for an elevator, hardly aware of the landscaped atrium with its
fountain and potted palm trees.
    The research wing was guarded by windowless doors, arranged airlock-fashion at the
mouth of a long hallway. It was a long-memorized routine: tap in this week’s password,
stare at the light as it scanned briefly over his retina, wait for the buzzer.
    The rest of the team was there already, arranged in an assortment of postures
ranging from ramrod alertness to casual sprawl. He surveyed the room and waited while
his gaze had its usual quieting effect. When the background buzz disappeared, he
unclasped his attaché case and frowned at the glow of his touchpad’s screen.
    “Erisa Explorer touched down twenty-three minutes ago,” he began without preamble.
“They still haven’t contacted us, which is why you’re all twiddling your thumbs. We
don’t know what’s happening yet. They came down in a heavy rain; you know that
complicates things. Our satellite is receiving the automatic signal from the tracking
beacon, and we haven’t had any direct indications of disaster, so for now we hope for
the best. Eccles, where are we with the vike feeds?”
    “I’ve got the setup heuristics idling. Soon as they’re transmitting, we should be
able to link you in.”
    “Good,” continued Satler. “I’ve already sent out a work schedule rotation to each of
your stations. We begin the minute they uplink; that means you’re going on standby
effective immediately. You all know the drill. I won’t waste time on the regular
procedures right now.”
    He paused for effect.
    “You are no doubt wondering why this mission was scheduled so suddenly. Several of
you were on vacation, I understand, when we called you in. And most of you were
training for a different planet.”
    “The truth is, I can’t get much of an answer about this abrupt shift in priorities.
Scuttlebutt has it that satellite recon found some really spectacular heavy metal
deposits in the southern hemisphere. I guess we’ll find out