Yang in charge of her? Who gave her the right to lock her in a cell and keep her a prisoner? To punish her when she behaved in a manner the other woman didn’t like?
Were some people born to lead and others to follow?
At some fundamental level, she didn’t believe that.
Was it because Dr. Yang had brought her up? In human society, did that give her the right to decide the course of Destiny’s whole life? Surely there came a time when you should be free of the constraints to which you were born. When you made decisions based on what you knew and what you’d learned. When you earned the right to be independent.
Though she did believe that everyone needed to work for the greater good. For society as a whole. It was the only way they could survive. And if she had a pivotal role in that—whatever it might be—then she would do her duty, as everyone else did theirs.
But that was tomorrow, or the day after, or…
She jumped to her feet. This was her time to explore; she could figure the rest out later. She’d maybe leave the forest for daylight—she really didn’t want to have to shoot at anything. Instead, she headed back into the cave system.
Once inside, she stood for a while in the darkness, listening for any sounds that might indicate someone had followed them. There was nothing but silence, and she pulled the flashlight from her belt and flicked it on. She headed back the way they had come, but when she came to the first junction where they had headed upward, she took the other tunnel, which led her deeper underground.
Why had these tunnels been built? Had people lived down here? Had they been hiding?
The tunnel widened, and she came to another junction. Again, she took the tunnel heading farther down, making a mental note so she could find her way back. She stopped again and listened, but she was still alone.
After a while, the tunnel widened into a huge cavern, similar to the one they had teleported into, except without the hole in the roof, so there was no natural light coming in.
Parked in the center of the cavern was a spaceship.
Her feet stopped moving as she stared up at it.
It looked nothing like the ugly bulk of the Trakis Four. The ship that had brought them from Earth was about a quarter of a mile long, shaped like a bullet, and a dull khaki-gray color. This was smaller, though not as small as the shuttle that Milo had flown in on.
The ship was shaped like a horseshoe from back on Earth—she’d seen pictures—and was black and silver and sleek and beautiful. Some sort of script she couldn’t read was written along one side—the letters like nothing she had ever seen. The ship’s name?
Where had she come from?
Was she part of the fleet?
But Dr. Yang had told her all about the fleet, and all the ships were identical.
Was there intelligent life on the planet after all? If so, why had they remained hidden?
Or was this ship from other visitors? Like the Trakis Four.
She walked slowly toward it, her heart hammering, as she waited for someone or something to appear. She wasn’t sure whether she wanted that or not. What would they be like? Would they be able to communicate?
Why did she always have so many questions and no answers?
The ship was probably about a hundred and fifty feet in length, forty feet wide, and twenty feet high. Not a colony ship then, unless the colonists were really small. She walked all the way around it. At the front, high up, was some sort of glass window, but she couldn’t see in.
Stepping closer, she reached out a hand and touched the side. The metal was cool under her palm.
Nothing happened.
She backed away a little and sank to the sandy floor and just…stared.
“Hello?” she called out.
Again, nothing happened.
She jumped back up to her feet and studied the ship. There was no sign of a door or any way inside. She moved closer and knocked on the side. “Is anyone there?”
There was some sort of rectangular panel on the side of the ship. Similar to what opened the doors on the Trakis Four but bigger.
She touched her hand to it lightly. Then harder, pressing her palm flat against the metal. For a second, nothing happened yet again. But then a shudder ran through the ship and the side directly above her shimmered, lines forming