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CHAPTER 41

January 3, 2094 (Earth timeline)

July 28, 2092 (Ship timeline)

approximately 2.122 light-years from Earth

2.122 light-years from Proxima

“Charles, I was thinking about this and I cannot seem to get it out of my head.” Rain pointed at the image of the saboteur, Ray Gaines, on the screen in front of them. Rain had a thought in the back of her mind that she had seen that man before. She wasn’t sure exactly where, but she knew she had. “So, I went through a lot of video to find this.”

“What is this about, Rain?” He sipped at a beverage in his hand as he watched her excitedly flipping through files in front of them on the big screen in the galley.

“That Gaines fellow. We’ve both seen him before. Many times, actually,” Rain said.

“We what?”

“Look here.” Rain tapped at some icons in the air around her that only she could see. Then she tossed one of them toward the big screen. “You remember that day that Dr. Luce came on board the Samaritan while we were getting ready to leave from lunar dock?”

“I do,” Charles Jesus replied.

“Well, I went back and got the video feeds from security at the dock entrance. Look here.” She pointed with an arrow icon on the screen. “You see this guy here in the back of Luce’s entourage?”

“Yeah, from the looks of it he’s wearing a press badge.”

“He was. Records show him as Raymond Simms.” Rain tapped at the air a bit and then turned back to Charles. “Look, here are the dock airlock records showing his credentials.”

“Okay. He was a press guy. So, uh, where are you going with this, Rain?”

“He only appears in this video. Any other video where Luce is on the ship, he’s not there. Either he’s been edited out, or he wasn’t there. He came on the ship but didn’t stay with the MEP’s tour,” Rain said excitedly. “So, I took this picture here from the dock video and enhanced it using some planetary imagery astronomy software on my pad. And voilà!”

“It’s Gaines . . . ” Charles said quietly and leaned forward for a closer look, setting his cup down suddenly appearing to lose interest in the drink. “Holy . . . ”

“Ha! I was wondering if you’d say ‘Jesus’ like the rest of us,” Rain joked with him.

“You’re not funny, Rain.” Still, Charles laughed.

“But you’d be right to have said it. And there’s more.” Rain tapped some more in the air. “I got to thinking about Luce. You remember how he was such an ass during the UN hearings on whether or not to communicate with Proxima?”

“I do. And he was an ass,” Charles agreed.

“Well, I was thinking that the reason I recognized Gaines wasn’t because of the tour that Luce did on the ship. No, I recalled it from sometime before that. And I finally figured it out.”

“Go on.”

“Gaines, or Simms, or whoever he is, was there at the UN summit with Luce. I found him in the background of this press briefing here.” She tossed another video on the screen and drew a little red circle around a man in the background behind Luce. “See?”

“I would be hard-pressed to say ‘exactly’ from this video.” Charles sounded apprehensive.

“Well, watch this. Same enhancement algorithm.” Rain hit an icon floating before her again and the image zoomed in and enhanced. She then pulled all three images up. “Here’s Gaines, Simms, and this person. All three match to be the same face to a ninety-nine point nine eight correlation percentage. It was him.”

“I see, Rain. Jesus,” Charles said with a raised eyebrow. Rain chuckled.

“Now you’re just patronizing me.” She laughed. “But it’s him. And he was with Luce. I remember seeing Luce talking to him.”

“You know. Now that you mention it, I think I do too.” Charles sat up straight and turned to face Rain. “We need to show this to the captain and get it sent back home to the right authorities.”

“Alright. I’m sending this to you and Crosby.”



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