They turned the corner and there it was. No mistaking it or its purpose – a casket just like the one Commander Kantell had found in her alien craft, the craft that still orbited Earth, still open to anyone who cared to visit. The same minimalist alien aesthetic – the centrepiece of an otherwise empty room, curved walls and a domed ceiling. Entirely absent was the ambience of Sibay backstreets that had filled their path to this place.

Standing next to the casket was Emi. She looked down at it then back at them. Tilted her head and gave a knowing smile; tinged, David thought, with a note of disdain.

Ernest seemed unmoved. "We should wait," he said. "Tell the others."

"Tell us what?" Accompanied by Gina, the other Ernest entered the room from its opposite side.

The four of them gathered by the casket, not even bothering to exchange glances. Physically it was unimpressive, incongruously so. A simple elongated pod, open at the top, lacking any of the flourishes of weirdness characteristic of alien objects. A casket, as the name suggested, though it could just as easily be called a bathtub, lacking only controls for the hot and cold waterjets.

"I wonder what it does," said Ernest. "The one they found orbiting Jupiter took them back to Earth, didn't it?"

"Perhaps it will take us to the aliens," suggested David. "Their home world maybe?" He looked across at his sister but saw nothing but a blank outer shell.

"Only one way to find out," said Ernest.

"I should be the one," said David. He turned to the two Ernests. "Sorry, but you are both too valuable to risk. Who knows what is going to happen – we may yet need you to fly us home." It had taken a small act of courage to say the first words, but now his mouth was moving he was on a roll. "Think about it. I'm the trained xenologist here. I'm the one who has studied the aliens for years, the one best equipped to interpret what I might encounter. Because that's got to be it, right? Why else would the aliens drag us all this way unless it was to communicate with us in some manner." Sensing a shrillness in his own voice, he paused a moment to assess responses. He turned to Gina, made an effort to adopt a more reasoned tone. "You know how much I need this. My career is going nowhere. If I could be the one who makes first contact with the aliens – surely that would change everything? Think of what it could mean for me. Back in Sibay I was probably only months from having to give it all away. To go work for mum and dad ... To come back from this mission with nothing – I just don't think I can face that."

Running out of words, David stared at his sister, bracing himself for the counteroffensive.

It never came. In its place a voice from behind him. "Not you," said Emi. "Him."

"What?" David turned. The unexpected interruption had him wrongfooted. "Why?"

"Because of what's in his head."

"You mean Jack's implants?"

Emi just shrugged.

David frowned, spent a moment trying to stare her down, long enough to see that no reply would be coming. "You never gave a proper answer before either. When my sister asked who you really are. You can't be the real Emi – so what are you? Some fragment of Jack's memories that the station has brought to life? An alien in disguise?"

Gina spoke up. "You look like the real Emi. And you say things that she might say. But the bits don't fit together. The real Emi would be just as freaked out by this place as we are."

"What does it matter?" said Emi, a hint of amusement in her voice. "Whoever I am, that's all I am. A messenger."

"Wait a minute," said the older Ernest, gesturing at his younger self. "You said he needs to be the one who gets in the casket because of what is in his head? But, in effect, what is in his head is me... If he gets into that thing, how do we know he will ever come out again? How do we know it's not some trick to get his body repossessed by its former owner?"

"Dunno," said Emi, showing little interest in the question.

Gina ignored her, addressing her words to the Ernests. "David's right. I know what I asked you, back on the ship when we first got here. But I've had time to think since then. I made a mistake. I should never have put you in that position. Nothing here changes that. I can't expect you to take such a risk."

"So it is going to be me then?" David rallied his courage, trying to make himself think of this as a good thing. He took a step closer to the casket and peered inside. Not that there was anything to see.

"No, I'll do it," said Ernest, stepping forward. "Maybe the implants are important? Who knows? I appreciate your concern Gina, but if the powers that be here are asking for me, then we should do what they ask. How else will we get any answers?"

David watched the play of expressions on his sister's face. Uncertainty and anxiety. Not emotions he would normally have associated with her.

Over by the casket, Emi cleared her throat, attracting the attention of Ernest. "Remember the story of Commander Kantell?"

Ernest looked confused.

Emi gestured at her clothes. "You'll need to take them off ..." She was grinning at him now.

Watching this exchange, David was struck by a strong feeling of déjà vu – the expression on Emi's face: it looked so familiar. Then he realized. It belonged to Gina. That impertinent smirk that had been so notably absent ever since his arrival on the ship. He shifted closer to his sister.

Ernest shrugged, began to remove his shipsuit.

"Gina, what's the matter?" He was a head taller than his sister. This had been true for at least a decade. The errant strands of hair – they too were the same as they had ever been. It was just that the face they framed had acquired a softness he had never before noticed.

"What do you mean?" Her response sounded distracted.

They were interrupted by a wolf whistle. "Go on, Misery, off with 'em." It was The Capt'n, emerging from another, previously unnoticed, entrance somewhere behind them.

The older Ernest was the first to react. "What the hell are you doing here. You were supposed to be waiting back in the concourse in case we needed help."

The Capt'n gave him a pitying look. Shrugged. "Got bored. Thought I'd take a stroll, see what I could find. Nothing valuable, it turned out. Just you lot."

"Can you just for once give up on this obsession with loot? There are bigger issues at play you realize."

"Bigger for you maybe. I'm here for my own reasons. So excuse me if I get a little agitated about not finding anything that might pay the bills." He cast his gaze across to the casket, a brief flicker of interest lighting his features, quickly deflating as he realized it was moulded into the station floor, not something that could be hauled back to the ship as bounty.

David leaned his head toward his sister, pitching his voice below the two old men and their argument. "Okay ... dumb question. I know what's wrong. But this is what you have been working toward all these years. I thought you might be, you know, a bit more excited ..."

"Excited? David, this place is cursed..."

He waited for her to go on, but she didn't. Ernest's voice filled the gap. "... thanks to you I have my own experience with financial ruin – so excuse me if I don't come over all sympathetic."

"You? With no responsibilities but your own sorry arse? Remember who you are talking to Misery. No one knows more than me how much I had to pay you over the years."

A little annoyed by her unresponsiveness, David whispered at his sister, hoping perhaps to pre-empt what it was that had her so preoccupied. "Discovering this place is a result on its own. You know we don't need to get in that thing? We could still just turn around and go home."

The Capt'n was still talking. "... I should have paid your bills? You were the one who quit and left me in the lurch, remember. Seriously Misery, you have no idea. How the hell could I have paid when I was stony broke myself. It was only thanks to our mutual friend here that I was able to keep the ship for one more roll of the dice... But of course you wouldn't know about that because you were too busy running away."

"Running away? I was so broke that Mirimar Station was the only place I could afford. Then when I'm finally getting back on my feet, along you come and mess everything up again..."

David cleared his throat. "Guys. Clearly you have got a lot to talk about – and I'm pleased you've finally got some sort of communication going. But is this really the time?"

He was interrupted by his sister. "Yes, it is the time. I said this place is cursed and I mean for everyone. First Speith. Then Emi – the real one. Then Ernest being ripped away from the new life he had built for himself... The Capt'n put at risk of losing the one thing that matters to him... Even you – I dragged you into this whole xenology shell game. You could have spent your time doing something worthwhile with your life. Everybody here – you've all had your lives fucked up. And it's all due to me. That is what this place is all about. Punishment for my sins."

Gratified to have finally provoked a reaction, David could sense, too, an echo of the past in his sister's melodrama and self-centred interpretation of events. Perversely, it made him feel a little better, not that he doubted her anguish. The softness in her face had gone. Seeking something positive, he pointed to the younger Ernest who had been watching on from his position by the casket, bare-chested with his shipsuit bunched about his waist. "All of us? But what about him? He's been given a new youthful body, a chance to live his life all over again. Maybe all the rest of us are in a bit of a tricky spot just this moment, but at least Ernest is set to come out of this okay. Can't you take some comfort in that?"

It was the expression on the older Ernest's face that brought David's words to a halt. A look that was echoed on his sister's face. "What?" he asked, eyes swivelling between the pair of them.

"My younger self has fallen in love with your sister. Only he inhabits a body that fills her with sadness and self-recrimination whenever she sees it. So much so that it takes a special effort of will to remain in his presence. So no, his situation is really not so rosy."

"Poor old Misery..." The Capt'n's words, for once, were tinged with a note of compassion.

"That's why I need to be the one who goes in the casket." Gina's voice this time was authoritative. "This is my anomaly. I am the one who spent a lifetime hustling for this, even if all of you ended up paying the bigger price to get me here. Whatever come-uppance is waiting in there, it is waiting for me."

Emi had been quiet through all of this. Now she cleared her throat. "Un uh," she admonished. "It has to be him."

Acting quickly, before anyone could say anything, Ernest stripped off his suit for a second time and hoisted himself over the side of the casket. "There's only one way to find out," he told them, then laid himself down amid the tendrils that were slithering out to engulf him.

#

A silence followed. Several times, David was on the verge of saying something, only to stop himself. Was it an awkward silence or a healing one? He observed The Capt'n, who seemed equally uncomfortable with the lack of talk, equally uninclined to be the one to break it. He had spent a moment pacing about and inspecting the room – in the austere circumstances, a task that was over almost before it began. Now he just stood where he was, watching the casket with a look of irritation on his face.

It took David a little while to notice that Emi was no longer with them. When the realization came, he shrugged it off.

Ernest sat up in the casket. Ernest? David could sense the difference immediately.

It was Gina who crystalized the moment. "Jack?" Her voice sounded fragile.

"The fuck?" Old Ernest strode across to the casket, "What have you done with him?" He looked like he wanted to grab Jack by the shipsuit and given him a shake. Frustrated by the bare chest that confronted him, his arms instead hung uselessly by his side.

"Ernest is fine," said Jack. "He's exploring the Oracle, but this won't take long. He'll be back soon."

"What is the Oracle?" asked David. The question came out almost without conscious thought, his primary focus still on Jack's face. What was it, he wondered, that had made it so immediately obvious? A softening of features? A relaxation? David tried to cast his mind back to the Jack of old, but the memory had faded.

"The Oracle? You're in it. Physically at least."

"Yes, but what is it? What does it do?"

"It does what oracles do. It answers questions."

The Capt'n broke in. "Well that's good to know because I've got a doozy ..."

"Hi Clayton." Jack acknowledged him with a nod. "I'm sorry. Those trinkets we used to collect – they were just the breadcrumb trail that led to this place. There is no need for them anymore. You won't find any here."

Gina finally spoke. "Is it really you? Or are you like that Emi who was here before?"

"Emi?"

"She was here. Or rather something that looked like Emi and sounded like Emi ..."

Jack's expression did not lose its softness, rather acquired an overlay of perplexity. "I'm ... not sure."

"That Oracle of yours," said The Capt'n, "you sure it's all it's cracked up to be?"

Jack's focus remained on Gina. "We need to talk. But not like this. After Ernest comes back, will you come in next?"