Eve sat in the transport bubble, hoping she had made the right decision putting Valentina in charge of the girl's side search. Next to her sat Lauren Thomas, the girl who had volunteered to come with her. Lauren was a relatively quiet girl who didn't socialize much. Eve realized she didn't know much about her.

"What made you volunteer to come with me, Lauren?" Eve asked over her spacesuit comm.

"I wanted to help find Najar. I'll admit that I'm also pretty curious about the boy's side. I'm surprised more girls didn't volunteer."

"It's not as if the boy's made a particularly good impression, today. Being stuck on their side until allowances reset next week might be pretty scary for a lot of people."

Lauren shrugged. "It doesn't seem to scare you," she said.

Eve decided not to correct Lauren, but the truth was that it did scare her a little. Would the boys turn out to be more like Victor? Or would they be carbon copies of Dixon? Eve shuddered at the thought, but she couldn't leave Rajia. It was, in part, Eve's fault for not trusting her instincts when Dixon had mysteriously appeared.

"At any rate, it won't be that long a time on their side. The week is over at the end of tomorrow. It'll only be a day."

The silence between them as the transport continued to move said what neither of them could: A lot could happen in a day.

-------------------------------

Lucas was doing simulated training in the virtual training arena when the comm call came from the Information Room. Fumio's face popped up in a square holo panel as the simulated people and physics ground to a halt.

"You find something?" Lucas asked, catching his breath.

"Yes. It looks like Victor, or someone, is on their way back to our side in the transport."

"Great," Lucas said, walking back to the exit of the training arena. Unlike the real arena, the training rooms were very small. Space was simulated so that more people could train individually or in small groups. There were showers just outside, in a sort of lobby area that came before the arena. "I'll be there in a second. Let's hope it's Vic. I really want to sock that kid in the gut."

By the time Lucas arrived at the usual holo table in the Information Room, Miguel and Edgar were already leaning over his shoulders.

"Lucas, you've got to see this," Miguel said.

"What is it, guys?" Lucas said. Has something changed? He came around to look at holo panel and saw that two figures sat in the transport.

"Who's he riding with?" Lucas asked.

"No one," Edgar answered, smirking. "Neither one is him."

Fumio tapped a button on the holographic interface and the hull cam zoomed in. The space suits were just tight enough that their figures showed through. Both passengers were girls.

-----------------------------

Victor Vance bolted up gasping from the place where he had lay in his cryogenic slumber. He was dripping wet and shivering. His vision was blurry. It was like he had an ice cream headache all over his body, in every muscle. All in all, much better than the first time waking from it when the first pods had dropped them on Nexus.

He tried to step out of his temporary tomb, but he ended up falling onto the floor. He craned his head upwards. He didn't see any other open chambers. Good. Eve had only reset his chamber. Now there was the question of whether he was where he thought he was.

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Slowly, taking deep laborious breaths and flexing his muscles gingerly, he woke his body enough to stand to his feet. He still had to use the cryo chamber for support, but at least he could see where he was, now.

A smile lit Victor's face when he saw that the room in which he currently stood was spherical. Things were off to a good start. In front of him he saw an enormous wall of cryogenic chamber slots, most of them empty. It was like the one in the med bay, but it seemed to be capable of holding twice the amount of chambers. Only about ten or fifteen of the slots seemed to be filled, about as many slots as people there had been who had for one reason or another ended up being put in the box. It seemed the real box was actually a sphere.

It was as he had hypothesized. No one went home from Nexus. Alex, Dixon, everyone else that hadn't been killed. They were all here. Victor dashed to the panel on the other side of the room, but fell to the floor on his still weakened legs. There was an automatic crane that took the chambers out of their slots and put them on the main floor when it was time for them to open.

Usually the time was at infinity, meaning that the box would only run out of time if someone manually released them. It probably wasn't possible to do from Nexus. But Eve had set his time before hand for a couple of hours. Long enough for him to be put with the others, he'd hoped. There was a small chance that he wasn't on the relay station, of course. There was a small chance that he was in deep space and headed back to the homeworlds. He had to know one way or the other.

Victor laughed at himself. The circumstances were different, but for the second time in recent memory he would have to crawl. He pulled himself along the floor until he reached the series of panels and buttons that comprised what Victor assumed was the control center.

The control center had various provision bags and crumbs scattered around it. Someone had been living here, and Victor had a pretty good guess who. Dixon. It explained how he'd been able to get to the girls side, and how he knew so much about the ship.

Victor pulled himself into a chair and scanned the buttons and levers impatiently until he spotted one that read: "Visor Lift". He pulled the small lever. Sure enough a visor in front of the control center lifted, revealing space outside. There sat Nexus in all it's glory. Victor realized that despite everything that had happened....No, because of it... This was his home now. He would be heartbroken when he finally had to leave it.

The panels were refreshingly simple to use on the relay station. Within moments, Victor found a list of the other people in suspension. Among them: Alex Normstrom. He beamed as he entered the command to release Alex from hyperbolic slumber. After checking the roster to make sure that Dixon had also reached the relay station and was currently in a box, Victor lay back in the chair and enjoyed the view of Nexus from afar. All that was left for him here now was to sit and wait for the mechanical arm to do its job.

He hadn't found Rajia, but this mission was still a success.