Kaja Sobolewska enjoyed listening to the silence of the Lira station orbiting the Pallas asteroid. The metallic hum of the fans mingled with the breath of the reactor and the quiet crackle of the antennas. In the evenings, after class, she would take over duty on the Phoenix student listening network. It was semi-legal fun, but everyone pretended it was about science and safety. That night, something rang out that shouldn't have existed in the radio shadow of the station. On the screen popped up the co-ordinates located inside Lyra, right inside the closed Sector 13. The signal was narrowband, pulsating like a heartbeat and whispering her name with an alien intonation. Kaja increased the sensitivity, expecting a fluctuation, and heard... her own voice, jagged with interference. - 'That's impossible,' it slipped out, although no one at the station liked that word. Before the procedural supervisor could even open the form, Kaja was already pushing into the airlock. - Can you stop pushing into the airlock? - wheezed Tymon, tightening the magnetic fastenings of his shoes. - 'Sector 13 is transmitting,' she said more calmly and showed him a diagram that couldn't happen. Spark, their school inspection drone, fluttered its rotors like a nervous insect trapped in a jar. - 'If we get caught, we'll be patching pipes all term,' Tymon added, but took off. The service corridors smelled of ozone and the security lights trembled as if they remembered an old micro-storm. At the Sector 13 bulkhead stood a sign with the date of closure and a soiled warning sign. Her name sounded again in the earpiece, this time clearly, with the adduction of a sleep-deprived double. - 'If you can hear that, you're not alone,' said the voice, identical to her own. Kaja swallowed her saliva, plugged Spark into the panel and switched to manual override of the lock. The lock gave way faster than the reports, as if someone on the inside had expected exactly this sequence. Beyond the bulkhead, a narrow corridor waited, glistening with frost, and a triangular emergency light flickering at the end. Spark flew through first, scanning the air; the reading indicated trace oxygen and an alarming time shift. Tymon gripped her forearm as Kaji's console suddenly beeped and displayed the source of the transmission. On the screen it flashed: Sender: Kaja Sobolewska - time stamp: plus forty-seven minutes. At the same moment, something knocked from behind the last door three times, slowly and decisively.