The Institute of Applied Sciences was founded five thousand years ago. It became famous after it mastered thilium physics and created the first thilium drives. The Empire was quick to turn it into a government-owned organism with facilities spread across the universe.

One such facility—perhaps the second largest—was located on Bernice, in a former underground military base.

It was there that, day after day, Halden sat at his desk and tried to drown sorrow with work.

He had been sorting and entering data into the translucent 3D system for two hours when someone knocked at his door. He was so focused that it startled him.

Looking up, he saw one of his younger assistants walk into his office.

“Today’s data just arrived, Professor.”

The scientist nodded without a word as the younger man dropped the holofile on his desk, turned, and headed out.

Sitting back in his chair, Halden grabbed the file and browsed through the data. Halfway through, he paused and stared.

“This can’t be right,” he muttered.

After reading the offending section five times, he jumped out of his chair and rushed to the door. Popping his head through, he shouted.

“Groggan!”

It was the young assistant’s turn to be startled. He looked up from his desk.

“Yes, Professor?”

“Could you come here one minute?”

“Of course.”

The man hurried back into the office as Halden returned to his seat. He pointed at the file.

“What is this?”

“Today’s data, sir. I—”

“I know that,” said the scientist in annoyance. “When was it recorded?”

“Well, sir, the most recent is from a month ago. It does take time to gather the data and process it...”

Halden frowned. “Have you looked at it?”

The young man seemed surprised by the question.

“No, of course not! You always want everything to go through you first, Professor.”

Halden stared at his assistant, then at the file.

“According to this,” he said, “a spike of thilindrin energy was observed in the Tin’kisti Belt.”

“That’s wonderful news, Professor!”

“Is it now?”

“There must be a lot of thilium there.”

“Do you know where the Tin’kisti Belt is, Groggan?”

“No, sir, I don’t believe I do. Though the name sounds familiar.”

Halden sighed. These young men were all laser-focused on their careers and had little knowledge of anything that fell outside their intended field of expertise. It was disheartening.

“That’s because it’s a historical site. But what matters here is that it’s at the fringe of the Imperium. No thilium has ever been found on any of those worlds in the last two hundred years.”

“Maybe we’ve missed it?”

The scientist looked at his assistant with distaste, trying to remember why it was exactly he had hired him.

“This,” he said, jabbing a finger at the file, “indicates a source ten times more powerful than any other source ever found. That doesn’t just pop up out of nowhere in...” He frowned and made a quick search on his 3D terminal. “Well, looks like the Belt was last scanned only a decade ago. A source this big would have taken at least a century to develop. There should have been traces of it during that previous scan—not to mention the five before that. But there was none.” He looked back at his assistant. “What do you make of that?”

Groggan looked confused. “I... I don’t know, sir. It doesn’t make sense.”

Halden snorted. “That’s the most sensible thing you’ve said all day.” He sat back in his chair, staring at the file. “It truly makes no sense at all.”

He felt a tingle in his head, signaling an incoming call on his vircell. He motioned for Groggan to leave, and the young man did so, closing the door behind him.

Halden took the call.

The 3D face of an older man appeared on his retina.

“Marthus. What owes me the displeasure?”

He said this with some humor, as the two of them had been good friends for over three decades. But the other grunted.

“Have you double-checked any of the data you’ve sent me?”

Halden frowned. “What do you mean?”

“You’ve been inputting erroneous data...”

With a few quick gestures, the scientist brought up the last batch he’d sent and paled as he scanned it. Without noticing it, he had replaced some of the numbers with his daughter’s birthday. How could he have missed that?

“You need to take a break, Halden.”

He jerked back and stared at his friend.

“What?”

“You heard me. Nor is it the first time I’ve said it.”

“And as before, I’ll tell you that—”

“No, Halden. Not this time. This time, it’s an order.”

He groaned. “You can’t be serious.”

“Damn it, Hal! You’re lucky I caught this before it went further up the chain, or you’d be facing more than just a break. You’re on leave, starting right now. Take the whole month.”

“The whole month? What am I going to do?”

“Grieve, that’s what. You can’t escape it forever. You need to say your goodbyes to Lucy, and find closure.”

It hurt him to hear those words, but he also knew them to be true, deep inside.

He had tried to hide his pain, to drown it, but pain had a way to lash back at you when you least expected it.

The image of his friend faded without another word.

He stared at his desk for a few minutes, then gathered his things and left the building.