"What does that mean, exactly?" Victor asked. He had taken a few cautious sips from his glass and was now feeling pleasantly light.

"It means that things are just as I had feared. It's probably too late for my timeline."

Victor didn't know what to say. Even if they didn't disappear, things didn't look good for them. Eve didn't wait for a response.

"I suppose it's good news. With that, you might be able to stop Nexus from breaking apart. That'll be critical to stopping all of the awful things that come after. If Nexus splits, you'll be forced to accept help from the strange green alien. In one form or another, every misfortune we've experienced became inevitable at that point."

"I understand. When do I leave?" Victor had begun to resign himself to life aboard the new Nexus. Here he was a clueless kid whose role was uncertain. There, on that other Nexus, if it existed, he could still save everyone.

"It has to be soon. Things have gotten complicated here. I might not be Captain much longer." She poured herself another glass.

"Why what's going on?"

"The same thing that always goes on. This long, out here, there are some that revere people for being part of the original crew. For them, our orders are beyond question. Then there are others, people who have been born on the ship, but resent the fact that one of them has never been Captain. You don't need to hear the whole story since you won't be here much longer. Hopefully. Suffice to say, if it became known that I was conducting a secret mission that might wipe them from existence, their would be riots."

Victor didn't know what to say. He hadn't known things were quite this bad. Eve had a lot on her shoulders.

"We'll do it later, tonight," she said.

"Tonight?"

Eve nodded. "It'll be the last thing they're expecting. We pass the other Nexus pretty regularly. Almost as though it's a ghost ship, haunting us. I'll return to the deck alone and keep an eye out for it. In the meantime, we've prepared a room for you. Mainly because it would look suspicious if we didn't, but it'll come in handy to keep you out of sight until I come for you. Here," she said. She handed him a small device with a viewing screen. "I'll contact you when I've left the bridge and the way is clear. Meet me at your shuttle, then."

Eve escorted Victor to a room a few doors down from her own, nearer to the elevator. "We always keep at least one room empty, in case any number of things happen. We learned that lesson in the early days, when a few of the second generation couples started breaking up. I wasn't awake for it myself, but I hear it got messy." Eve entered a sequence of numbers into the key pad. "Here we are. The code for entrance is '2567', the year the original students left the homeworlds. Stay put until my return."

Victor entered the room, but Eve didn't. They kept eye contact as the door slid shut.

Now he was alone in a surprisingly nice room. It was a moderate size and had a comfortable looking bed. There was a holo-table extending from one of the walls, and a plain chair in a corner. Drawers and a shelf were built into the wall.

There was a scuttling sound from somewhere in the room. Victor slowly turned his head and looked around, making sure not to make a sound. He heard it again. It was coming from a small vent near the corner of the room, just outside the light.

"Psst. Over here," said a tiny voice. Victor cautiously investigated. A small ragamuffin girl was smiling at him from behind the vent grating.

"Hello there," Victor said.

"Hullo. My name is Victoria. What's your name?"

"I'm Victor. How old are you Victoria?"

"I'm five and a half cycles old."

"I see. And what are you doing in the vents?"

"Alexia and Lucia said I couldn't make it to high deck through the vents."

"Well, I guess you proved them wrong."

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Victoria nodded. Victor looked at her closely. Her face was smudged with grease or dirt of some sort. She was adorable, but her hair was ragged and her clothes were worn and faded. It was such a different look from the clean and well kempt denizens of Nexus that Victor had seen so far.

"Where do you live?"

The girl looked confused.

"I'm from the lower deck, silly. Can't you tell?" she said, shrugging and looking down at herself with a toothless grin. Victor's heart broke. What the hell was going on, here? He got the feeling that he would not like what he found on the lower deck.

"I gotta go back now," Victoria said. "You wanna come with me?"

Victor shook his head. "I can't. There's something I have to do, soon."

"Okay. Uh - I have to bring something back or they won't believe me. You got any food?"

Her stomach growled loudly. She smiled and shrugged. Victor decided to take a look. He couldn't risk going to the mess hall, but as luck would have it there was a drawer full of nutrient bars. He was surprised there were any left on the station. Food received a special cryogenic preservation, so even hundred year old bars should be fine, but he opened one and tried it just in case.

It was dry and tasted like dirt. Yep, they had been maintained perfectly. He grabbed as many as he felt the girl could reasonably carry and slid them to her through the vent cover.

"Thanks!" she said excitedly. She opened one up and took a big bite. "Mmmm,"

Victor raised an eyebrow, but smiled. Apparently the taste didn't bother her. Or she was that hungry.

"Goo-bye, misser," Victoria said, her mouth full. She swallowed. "I'm glad your name is Victor. Mother says people named after one of the two-hundred saints are always good. And you and I are named after the best one."

"Saints?"

"The two-hundred people on the original mandy-fest a long time ago, dummy," Victoria said, as if Victor had said the stupidest thing she had ever heard.

So the lower decks thought of their ancestors as deities of sorts. Victor wondered if everyone down there felt that way.

"How do you know I'm not Victor?"

Victoria rolled her eyes. "I don't think so. Victor would be much more impressive. He would be tall and old and have a big beard. Sorry, but you're nothing like he would be."

Victor laughed. He hadn't laughed so well in a long time.

"And why is Victor the best one?"

"It's 'cause when he's the only one no one knows what happened to him. When he comes back, he and his ants-bull stations will punish the upper deck and save everybody from the evil gods."

Victor kept in mind that this was probably the liberal paraphrasing of a child. Still, even accounting for that, it was odd to think of being revered in any sense, let alone that of a Saint. These people thought he was coming to save them. He wondered what they would do if they learned he was already here and not only had no intention of doing anything of the sort, but was abandoning them altogether and perhaps even wiping them from existence.

Victoria pushed something through the vent.

"Here. It's for you. I made it myself."

It was a bracelet made from different colored pieces of old coated wire woven into a band. Victor picked it up.

"Do you like it?" she asked, expectantly. Victor couldn't look her in the eye.

"Get back to your family, Victoria," he said, sadly. "They'll be worried."

" 'Kay. Thanks for the food, Victor. I'll come visit you again. Bye!"

She waved at him, then went dashing back into the vents without another word. Victor sat down to absorb what he had just learned, when the vid Eve had given him crackled to life:

"Victor. The other Nexus has appeared. Meet me at the docking bay where your shuttle is."

"Acknowledged," Victor said. But he was still looking at the bracelet woven from coated wire.