22

They were soon approaching Ceres. As they drew near, the crew once again strapped themselves into their seats in the command capsule.

‘The closer we get to the planet, the bigger our change in velocity,’ said Akaitcho. ‘Ceres doesn’t have an atmosphere, so we can get really close to the surface, as long as we don’t hit any mountains.’

‘Where’s your camera, Hood?’ said Back. ‘Don’t you want to get any breathtaking shots?’

Hood did not respond, and the rest of the crew was silent as the soft gray surface passed beneath them.

‘I didn’t know you could have clouds without an atmosphere,’ said Greenstockings.

‘You can’t,’ said Akaitcho.

‘That sure looks like a cloud,’ said Greenstockings.

‘Where?’ said Ge Ge, sounding concerned.

‘I see it, too,’ said Hood, pointing out the window at a fuzziness just visible on the horizon ahead of them. It was difficult to see because it was so large.

‘That does look like a cloud,’ said Back.

‘Shit,’ said Ge Ge.

‘What’s wrong?’ asked Greenstockings.

‘Yeah, why shit?’said Hood.

‘If we go through that cloud, we’ll slow down.’

‘Oh, I thought it was something bad,’ said Greenstockings.

‘It is,’ said Lu.

‘Shit,’ said Ge Ge again.

‘If we slow down,’ said Akaitcho, ‘we won’t be where we need to be when the rocket fires. Wrong place means wrong trajectory, which means we could end up flying around the sun on sun aimless orbit.’

‘If we don’t get torn to pieces when we go through the cloud,’ said Lu.

‘That’s about our only hope at this point,’ said Ge Ge.

The ship drew closer to the surface of the planet and as their perspective on the cloud changed, it became clear that they were going to pass through it.’

‘Can’t we use the thrusters to adjust us over it or something?’ asked Richards.

‘You’re suggesting we do this manually? We’d have better luck hoping the cloud is nice to us.’

They did not have long to contemplate their impending doom. As the Investigator entered the cloud, it began to vibrate, whining like a high-pitched electric motor. The cloud was composed of tiny ice crystals emitted by one of the many volcanoes that studded the planet’s surface. Although it had appeared opaque before they entered it, their visibility was only mildly obscured from within. Indeed, the whole cloud would dissipate within the hour.

And then they were through the cloud, and everything was clear and crisp again.

‘That wasn’t too bad,’ said Hood.

‘The cloud didn’t look very dense,’ said Franklin, hopefully.

‘There’s no way to tell,’ said Ge Ge. ‘We won’t know until we hear from Earth.’

The Investigator’s rocket engaged moments later, sending different vibrations through the ship.