���Ҵ�ý�ƽ������

The Ascalon was barely more than a tin can with a rocket taped to the back. Long-range, low-profile, and always cold.

Vara clamped her helmet to her mag-sling as she stepped inside, and was greeted by the eye stinging chemical stink of hot plastics and filtered sweat. The crew was already aboard: Jos at the helm, his boots up on a panel he didn’t have clearance for, and Nyx hunched over a sensor suite like she didn’t trust its readings.

“Alright,” Vara said, letting the hatch seal behind her. “Here’s the short version.”

Nyx glanced up. “No briefing room?”

“No time. We're burning in ten.”

Jos muttered something about Martian rush jobs, but Vara ignored him. She keyed her pad and flicked the screen to show a simplified ops brief.

“Need-to-know protocol. Site designation: ECHO-1. Located just past the Tyre fracture. Gravitational distortion at the surface. Intermittent signal scatter. Brief says it's shaped like a disk. You're not being told what it is because I’m not either.”

“That’s the second time Europa’s screwed with us,” Jos said, frowning. “Estimated time?”

“Just under 10 days at constant one third-g. Standard three-day observation window, then back.”

“So just another quiet suicide run,” he said, strapping in, “Copy that boss,” Jos turned in his seat, “Elysium Tower, this is Ascalon M917, pad 12, IFR, one third g to Europa with information Sierra.”

Vara tuned him out. She wasn’t a pilot, and she didn’t care about startup code. Soon, she felt the pressure build as thrust settled in.

Nyx tapped her screen. “What kind of signals do you want me scanning for?”

“Gravitational anomalies, lensing, and anything that doesn’t fit. You’ll know it when you see it.”

Jos leaned back in his seat and added, “Ascalon is away. Kiss Mars goodbye.”

❖

The ship hummed while air recyclers moved stale air that was thick with sweat. Nyx had been watching the comms panel for the last hour, more out of habit than expectation. The ship’s sensor suite spit out ordinary telemetry, then a line indicating a tight beam error.

“Comms are down,” Nyx said without looking up when Jos passed the console.

“They’re rerouting through relay net 7, but latency is abnormally high and I’m seeing duplicate returns.”

Vara tapped her console. “Confirmed. Timestamp error, probably a sync hiccup with the relay net.”

“Is it them or us?” Jos asked.

“Both.” Nyx’s fingers turned the offending trace until it was centered in the UI. After a short pause she continued, “Maybe neither. Looking at this spectrum analysis, Europa is no longer acting like a black body. It’s absorbing all radio waves, causing our signal to get scrambled along the way.”

“So we’re flying blind?” Jos asked.

“No we’re flying with our mouth sewed shut and our ears ripped off,” Nyx responded bluntly.

Jos stood then shoved back his chair and scanned the room with the false casualness of a man trying to keep the mood light. “Anyone hungry? I can field tacos from bag three. Or lentils. Real gourmet.”

Vara looked up from her tablet. “I’ll take whatever’s less gruel and more food.”

“N���?”

Nyx did not look away from the panel. “No. Keep the lentils.”

Jos nodded and left to assemble lunch. Vara paused for a moment before following him.

❖

The galley smelled faintly of protein paste and recycled coffee. Vara sat across from Jos, chewing a mouthful of rehydrated lentils, when he looked up and asked,

“You think it’s alive?”

She frowned. “What?”

“The anomaly,” he said, as if they’d been talking about it. “You said maybe it’s

����������.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“You did. Just now.”

Vara chuckled nervously. “Stop joking around. This is serious.”

“I am serious,” his eyes heavy with worry.

They stared at each other for a moment. Vara’s mouth was set into a line. She leaned back and pushed her bowl aside with a fingertip, the action small and oddly precise.

“I, uh, should—,” Vara stood abruptly, flustered. “I should—” She cut herself off. “Check the logs.”

She shoved her tablet into her vest and left the mess in a hurried sweep that sent the remaining lentils skittering. Jos watched her go, then asked�� no one in particular, “What did I say?”

❖

A gentle insistence pulled Vara’s gaze back to the anomaly, again and again. She could feel it in her teeth. In the slow, warm beat of her pulse. Every equation, every law she’d trusted her whole life collapsed when she looked at it.

If it’s asking to be understood, she thought, how can I refuse?

She didn’t remember suiting up and stepping outside, yet she found herself standing on Europa’s icy surface, setting up instruments along the hull.

She recorded a set of numbers, then glanced back to find the same numbers already logged under a timestamp from minutes ago. Her stomach knotted. She blinked and found her glove halfway through a motion she hadn’t started.

“Vara, status?” Jos’s voice cracked over comms. It repeated, not from static, but like a record skipping. “Vara, status – status – status...”

“I’m fine,” she said, with a pit deep in her stomach.

She drifted closer to the boundary. It wasn’t a surface, but there was a place where space bent like molten glass. Light warped there, folding in on itself.

A panicked and distorted voice screamed through her headset. But she couldn’t understand a word they said, and at this point she didn’t care.

The anomaly pulsed once.

She stepped forward.

And through.

❖

Inside the anomaly, there was no transition. One step, and the ice beneath Vara vanished. She was standing in a void, not empty, full of specks of light.

The first thing she noticed was heat. Not warmth. It moved across her skin in waves, but didn’t burn.

Ahead of her, something flickered. A star, solitary and ancient, pulsed and shivered. She saw it collapse inward, and then rebound outward. Its red surface consumed the small planets orbiting it. Its light stretched from red into black, into nothing.

She was again surrounded by the void, this time dark and sterile. Then, like a breath, the void exhaled.

From the ashes, she saw another universe unfold. This would happen again.

Already had, and would again.

The star returned.

And then another.

And another.

A cascade of new beginnings.

She opened her mouth to scream or speak or weep, but there was no sound in the void.

❖

PERSONAL LOG 24-A / DR. VARA L. RENN / T–228:13:41 (UNVERIFIED)

The Universe died quietly.

I thought the collapse would sound like thunder. I thought it would give me an answer.

The Universe came back the same but different. Or I changed. I can’t tell.

I thought understanding would save me. It didn’t.