Prologue
Whether a planet has ever been discovered doesn't depend on whether anyone has set foot on it.
It depends on whether those who went there came back.
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Synopsis
The Explorer is an extraordinary spaceship.
Launched in 2093, this is its seventh voyage. There are nineteen people aboard, from eleven countries. Its job is to enter blank zones. On the star charts, those places are marked with a single coordinate and the note: Unexplored. None of the first six voyages ever made the news.
Eleven days ago, the communications officer intercepted a distress signal. It came from the Pioneer, which set out in 2088 with twelve people aboard. Its registry still lists it as “in transit.”
They changed course and descended.
The ship didn't land directly. It circled over the forest once before touching down in a dry riverbed. The water was gone, but the stones remained, solid beneath them.
Its four legs pressed into the ground, one by one. With the final impact, the whole ship sank half a handspan and came to a stop.
As they landed, fog rolled in first. There was electricity in it. Hair stood on end, radios crackled with static every ten paces, and speech was impossible to make out beyond two hundred paces.
One night, something passed outside the tents. The next morning, a drag mark ran across the fallen leaves and straight into the forest.
One person was missing.
After that day, there were more footsteps in the forest than there were people.
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Characters
Captain Luo Yiming.
Chief Science Officer Chen Wei.
Mechanical Engineer Zhao Zheng.
Ship's Doctor Bai Fei.
Field Operator Han Lang.
Communications Officer Ye Zhiqiu.
Crewman Old Zhou.
Wei Shoucheng of the Pioneer.
Field Operator Xiao Chen.
Field Operator Gao Xiang.
Repairman Mo Kai
