"Come on, lad, rise and shine."

"Why should I?" Jack growled, trying to burrow deeper beneath his covers. "What, the cows need milking? I'm going to be late for school? What?"

"There's something outside you need to see," Uncle Virge said. "Come on, lad, rise—"

"Okay, okay, I'm up, I'm up," Jack snapped the magic words, throwing off the covers and swinging his legs over the edge of the bed as he sat up. The sudden change in altitude made his head go woozy, and he sat there rubbing his eyes until the feeling passed. "You want to maybe turn the lights down a little?"

The light obediently faded from painful to merely annoying. Cautiously, he pried open his eyelids.

The first thing in his line of sight was the display screen on the far wall of his cabin. Normally, the screen was set to show engine status or current nav data or some such ship's function. With most of the Essenay's systems shut down since landing here two days ago, he had reset the screen to show the lush green Iota Klestis landscape stretching out beyond the main airlock hatchway. It was sort of like having a window in his room, though it had been so long since he'd had a normal groundside room with a normal window that he could hardly remember what it was like.

At least, the screen was supposed to show the outside view. At the moment, all it showed was black.

He turned to look at the clock built into the bulkhead beside his bed. No wonder there was nothing to see out there: the glowing numbers read 4:57 a.m. "Are you out of your shrink-wrapped mind?" he demanded. "It's five o'clock in the morning!"

"Go outside," Uncle Virge said. "There's something out there—"

"Yeah, yeah, I heard you," Jack sighed, plucking his jeans from the swing-out arm where they were hanging and pulling them on. Arguing with Uncle Virgil had never been a very rewarding pastime. Arguing with Uncle Virge was even less so. "This had better be good."