Days passed. The Odyssey completed its own mission—atmospheric sampling, cloud seeding tests, routine work. But Elara found herself at the observation deck every shift, watching 6868c's slow tumble. Dmitri reported her logs were filling with strings of numbers. Binary, but wrong. Asymmetrical. "It's a cipher," he told Park. "But not human math."
Commander Elara Voss was the first to see it up close. A routine spacewalk to repair a solar panel turned cold when her tether snagged. She twisted, helmet lights sweeping across the void, and there it was—drifting only fifty meters away. 6868c wasn't dark. Its hull shimmered with a faint, oily iridescence, like a soap bubble filmed over metal. And it was humming. Not a mechanical vibration, but a low, subsonic thrum she felt in her molars. Days passed
"It's not a weapon," she whispered. Her eyes had taken on the same oily sheen as the satellite's hull. "It's a question. And we've been answering it since the Venture got here." Dmitri reported her logs were filling with strings
Park wanted to evacuate. Dmitri wanted to shoot it down with a jury-rigged EMP. Elara said neither. "It's a cipher," he told Park