Ralph opened the door to the auxiliary bridge.

Janet was still outside and took a step back when she saw him.

He looked at her frightened face, suppressing the impulse to hold her. "You should go to your cabin," he said, striving for an outward calm that he did not feel inside.

"Pete will kill you."

This did not sound like a threat in Ralph's ears, but rather like a thought spoken aloud—a suspicion confirming his own.

"He can't change what has been done." He tried to keep his voice steady. "The descent is inevitable now."

Yet he didn't have the time to linger. Pushing past Janet, he started down the corridor. "Go to your cot," he shouted back at her and entered a stairway leading down to the living quarters.

When he finally emerged from the stairs, he found the passengers close to panic. People heading for their cots were milling with others looking for relatives, belongings or loved ones. Some of them were just standing there as if helpless and unable to decide what to do.

All knew Ralph by sight, most in person.

"Ralph," a woman leading a crying girl by her hand addressed him. "What's this about? Sophia has told us to go to our cots, but I need to find Julia first."

"Julia?" Ralph had the feeling he should know this Julia but did not remember anything about the woman in front of him.

"My daughter." Her mouth became a thin line.

How should he know where the woman's daughter was?

But he should know her. Pete would.

"Keep calm; there's still ample time. She'll turn up... or she'll find another cot." He tried his best reassuring smile, but the woman's face remained worried. Pressing his lips together, he moved past her.

Only a few moments later, he ran into a man he knew from school.

"Hey Ralph," the man asked. "What the hell is this about?"

"You've heard it." Hadn't these people heard what Sophia had said? "We're landing. Just go to your cot and wait it out."

"But why now? And why so suddenly?"

"Later," he answered, brushing past him.

Ralph slipped into a side corridor, hoping to evade the passengers. Leading people, he thought, that was Pete's forte, not his. But then, Pete had even refused to train the people for the descent.

He had to reach Claudio, the head of the scientists.