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Reichs’s high-level clearance. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but something about his story didn’t add up. And how much of his seemingly deluded behavior was real and how much was an act? I had to admit, I wasn’t sure. My healthy cop skepticism had served me well in the past and I smelled something I didn’t like, and it wasn’t just the contents of Reichs’s pants.

5
    I followed Reichs down the gloomy stairwell running beside Shuttle Elevator 1, nearest the port side of the ship. This was his domain and, although I didn’t fully trust him and his time-ravaged mind, he at least knew his way around. The battery I carried under my right arm was bulky, but manageable, although I needed to take care not to drop it. For all I knew, it might have been the last functional one on the entire ship.
    He said, “Should be enough juice for a start-up. Once her main engines are all fired up, that battery will be brimming with electricity.”
    “Sounds good, Reichs.”
    “ Mr. Reichs! Didn’t I already ...”
    “Blah, blah, blah,” I muttered and blocked out the audible pollution and started thinking about the asteroid that Reichs said hit Earth.
    Firstly, was it true? I asked myself.
    I was far from being a scientist, but I took a keen layman’s interest. I’d always preferred books to TV—junk TV anyway. From what I’d learned, I knew that large impact events could throw up a lot of debris and particulates into the atmosphere where it could remain for years. This extra cover blocked out a good deal of the surface sunlight, reducing temperatures, meaning bigger icecaps, higher snowfall and more ice. With all that white stuff lying around, even when the clouds did start thinning, the ice would reflect more solar radiation back into space. And that’s how—in my mind at least—you got a snowball Earth. Perhaps Reichs knew more about it, being he was so smart and superior—or thought he was. I couldn’t bring myself to ask him as he continued jabbering away about his family’s wealth and such like.
    “Are you listening to me, peasant?”
    “Yeah, sure...”
    We continued past the landing marked, Landing Deck, and shortly after, Control Bulb . During our descent, and not for the first time, I wondered how it had ended for Mom and Nikki. What year did it strike and how old were they? I wanted to find out the truth but at the same time, I was scared of what that truth may reveal. It was not in my nature to remain in ignorance for the sake of comfort, though. Of course, I hoped it had happened after they’d lived long and full lives. The voyage time to Aura was one-hundred and twenty years—the recall order could’ve been at any point in that journey. However, I had a bad feeling that it was earlier rather than later. Two reasons. Firstly, the Janus Ark had vanished without a trace—not for sure, but as far as I could tell. Her remaining build time was a matter of seven years or so. The second reason was one of prediction. A certain percentage of large asteroids were still thought to be untracked at the time we left in 2070, but it was common knowledge that this was changing fast. Nobody had wanted to fund the tracking and diversion efforts for decades—not fully, anyway. But the UN treaty on Space Object Impact Detection and Prevention passed in 2066 and ratified by all the significant governments by 2069 should have changed that. Ten years down the track and they would’ve had the capability to detect and divert as the title of the treaty said. It wasn’t what I wanted to believe—an impact during the 2070s—but it’s what the evidence told me. I’d find out if I could. Surely, there were some records of what happened. Or maybe not. I owed it to my Mom and Nikki to know their fate. However it happened, their memory would always live on in my mind—the memory of how they were right up until the moment I left them in tears.
    “Here we are, cowboy,” screeched Reichs on reaching the door marked, Launch