"What does it feel like to sleep for 20 years?" "Just like normal sleep." "When you wake up, you just see the computer's display telling you 20 years have gone by." "Biologically, you'll have only aged a month." "It won't feel like long at all." "They told us that at the training center too, but is it really true?" "I sure don't want to wake up a wrinkled old hag." "Lily." "Ugh, you're taking a cat with you?" "Wouldn't you feel sorry for her?" "If I left her on Earth, she'd never see me again." "And what good is a cat going to do us, exploring planets?" "More than that weird toy of yours, I 'd think." "Huh?" "This?" "They might exist." "Aliens, you know." "Planet LA-03 was born 4.5 billion years ago." "That would be equivalent to the precambrian era on Earth." "The organisms inhabiting the planet... would be pillar shaped compositions of matter called stromatolites, or..." "How kind of you to tell me." "Huh?" "What's that?" "An employee from HQ doesn't recognize this?" "I know it's the corporate flag." "What are you bringing it for?" "I ' m going to plant it on company lands." "Though it's not part of my contract to do so." "How diligent." "But, I wonder, will they really uphold their end of the contract?" "A bonus and travel compensation." "Danger pay, too." "Yup." "That too." "We aren't coming back for 40 years." "They better not try to tell us we've reached mandatory retirement age when we do." "Don't worry." "I ' ll see to it that the contract is kept." "I n exchange, I ' ll be handling your work schedules." "So that's what the president's daughter is doing on this run-down old ship." "Hey, don't be rude to Miss Nancy." "Or to her cat." "We met a lot during training." "You're from the Japanese branch office." "I'm Dick Berry from the branch office in Australia." "Nice to meet you." "I sure don't want to be your partner." "Honestly, what a noisy bunch." "It's like we' re on a field trip with a bunch of grade schoolers or something." "I wonder what they think they' re doing, bringing along a cat and a shotgun?" "Don't be like that." "They aren't the only adults who've had a hard time letting go of their toys." "I've brought a toy of my own, you know." "Oh, you brought that thing again?" "That's right." "No matter how old I get, I can't let go of the things that hold memories for me." "Still, the quality of the teams they send out to investigate planets keeps on dropping." "It's the age of space exploration." "I n this time, when all these companies are in a frenzy to explore new planets... it's to be expected that the teams are thrown together in a bit of a hurry." "The captain of the Bikal was complaining about it while we were in port." "Seems it's the same everywhere." "I 've gradually lost my confidence." "Having to babysit groups like them." "They're a bunch of rank amateurs, but they speak so arrogantly." "Don't say that." "They' re elite company workers while we' re just hired sailors." "It's our job to assist them in their planetary exploration, isn't it?" "That said, I ' m still planning to make this my last voyage." "You're leaving the ship?" "Yeah." "To be honest, I'm tired of it." "This life as a space drifter." "Lily, where did you get off to?" "You had me worried." "When I checked your capsule, the lid had already been opened." "Hey." "Watt, how do the crew look?" "They' re at a total loss." "They talk big but they' re still a bunch of newbies." "Do you think there will be a delay in starting the work?" "Regardless, let's fire off a probe to gather geological information." "Captain." "What is it, Gott?" "There was an emergency call." "20 years ago." "E mergency?" "To be precise, it was sent 3 months and 1 0 days after departure." "What could it be?" "Let's hear it." "Captain of the S aides, Mr. Mike Hamilton." "I am Syncam's personnel manager." "After your departure, we discovered an important fact which I am calling to report." "This information is secret." "I don't care -, let it run." "There are no secrets on this ship." "This was a major mistake on the part of our personnel management department." "Among the candidates selected for this planetary exploration mission, there were nefarious characters who snuck in with forged I Ds." "I n other words..." "Two people who are not employees of our company, used forged cards to participate in the training program in Lunar City." "They then boarded the Saldes." "We have identified the culprits." "Their I D's and photographs will be sent now." "Detain them immediately and" "It's been erased." "There's no way to tell which two are the suspects." "But they' re all members of the same company, right?" "Wouldn't they all know each other?" "I would think they'd be able to I D the imposters." "Ahh, that's not going to work." "It won't?" "Syncam is multinational corporation." "These folks aren't only employees from the head office." "Some have been selected from branch locations as well." "E ngland, Australia, Hong Kong and Japan." "I n that case, I think the first time any of them met would have been at the Lunar City training center." "Cards are everything these days." "If they snuck in at that point, there's no way to tell, huh?" "Those two have done a lot to prepare for this." "They erased the disc." "I think we' re dealing with highly intelligent criminals here." "What?" "Are you saying they checked for reports while we were in hibernation?" "Yes." "Then they deleted any inconvenient information and returned to their capsules." "If they messed with the timer, it's not impossible to do." "Am I wrong in thinking that the incomplete erasure of the disc shows they were short on time?" "Well this is a fine mess." "Still, we can't leave them be." "What could their goal be?" "I doubt they're interested in playing Robinson Crusoe on a newly discovered planet." "They' re time escapees." "Oh, I 've heard of those." "After causing an incident on Earth, they sneak aboard a spaceship." "A single trip's what, 40-60 years?" "When they return, acting like nothing happened, no one remembers what they did." "Yeah, and because of the hibernation capsules, they themselves will only have aged about half a year." "If they want, they can start their lives anew or return to a life of crime." "Time escapees, huh?" "What should we do?" "What do you mean?" "S hould we search for and confine them?" "Confine them?" "We' re on a ship, you know." "We' re practically confined ourselves." "Leave them be." "This is boring nonsense." "Oh, here they are." "Ah, Captain." "Everyone, is "good morning" the appropriate thing to say here?" "I have been assigned to this ship as a full-time doctor." "My name is Harris Mead." "That's nice." "How do all of you feel?" "This is a bit sudden, but I should inform you all of the current situation on this ship." "Our ship, the Saldes, has safely arrived and is cruising in satellite orbit over Planet LA-03." "We are at an altitude of 36,000 km, and traveling at a speed of roughly 6000 knots." "Now you people will descend to the planet in transport ships." "You will be performing a geological survey and collecting minerals." "Captain, Block 4's temperature is dropping rapidly." "Bring it up on the monitor!" "Go back." "There." "The ducts have been damaged and coolant is leaking out." "Dular." "I want you to direct everyone." "You." "Jirou Takagi." "I'm Japanese." "And you are...?" "Morgan Scott." "I'll have you know I'm from HQ." "S ure, whatever." "You two go with Chief E ngineer Dular and repair the ducts." "Oh, leave your toy here." "You won't need it, I'm sure." "I feel naked without this." "I'll hold onto it for you." "Captain, it's strange." "What is?" "The damage to the duct in Block 4." "I believe the cause is contact with the remote manipulator." "The manipulator?" "Are you sure?" "There are records on the disc." "During our hibernation, someone was giving commands to the computer." "So what?" "That's all." "What?" "That's boring." "One of them did it." "Wouldn't it be one of the two?" "What's their goal?" "I don't know." "We'd have to ask." "Maybe we should try finding those two, after all." "I have a bad feeling about this job." "We could pull their records out of the computer, and have them each confirm them." "Do you think they'll comply?" "It's an invasion of privacy." "Let's wait and see for now." "I think our mission should come before playing detective." "Ow!" "Ow!" "Ow!" "This damned cat scratched me!" "It's because you were bothering her." "Ah, Lily!" "Do you like animals?" "I do, cats." "Not dogs, though." "Don't hear that often." "Absolutely." "I keep about 20 hunting dogs myself." "Thank you." "No." "My nose is itchy." "Captain, when do we start work?" "Once we've analyzed the data from the probe we sent to the surface." "Just rest for now." "It's fine, but I don't want to stay cooped up on this ship forever." "That guy seems the most suspicious to me." "God, what a boring ship." "Who's there?" "!" "Now then, do you think it's about time?" "Caroline, handle the data gathering." "Gai, Watt, you handle inspecting the transport ships." "Hey, Gai, if that Morgan guy is suspicious, who do you think the other one is?" "I think it's Jimmy." "I wonder..." "I was thinking maybe it's the Hong Kong girl." "Nah, not her." "Why?" "Because she's totally my type." "Hah, that's a good one!" "Ah, Lily!" "It's what you'd call Legionnaires Disease." "The bacteria built up in his lungs, causing death by suffocation." "Bacteria?" "The inside of the ship should have been disinfected." "Oh, they weren't bacteria from Earth." "What's most interesting is the curious way they behave inside the lungs." "I ' m not entirely certain as to the particulars just yet, but I ' ll investigate immediately." "Honestly, I never would have expected to have work so quickly." "Watt." "Gai." "Go inspect the transport ship." "The rest of you split into two groups and search the ship." "What's going on here?" "There are traces of space debris having been brought aboard the ship." "We think the bacteria may have been attached to them." "One group should go to Block 4." "The other should go to the corridor where Morgan collapsed." "Now people have started dying." "That bad feeling I had was on the mark." "Lily, was it?" "Here, here." "We didn't find anything suspicious." "Just who brought what aboard?" "I told you, you're bothering me." "I was just thinking there might be a message from my family back on Earth." "I found something interesting as a result." "Captain of the Saldes, Mr. Mike Hamilton." "I am Syncam's personnel manager." "After your departure, we discovered an important fact" "It says there are two people aboard this ship with forged I Ds." "I n our group." "On top of that, the report has been partially erased." "Can I get a reasonable explanation for this?" "We don't have time to spend figuring that out right now." "We have to find the space debris someone brought aboard first." "You don't get it." "Those two used the manipulators to" "Captain, come here!" "Dr. Harris has" "His symptoms are the same as Morgan's." "Was he infected through contact with the body?" "Just perfect." "With the good doctor dead, there's little we can do." "That's why I was saying we need to prioritize finding the two infiltrators!" "What's your nationality?" "Hong Kong." "Date of birth?" "Personally, I 'd rather not be doing this." "But it's something we all agreed to." "Date of birth?" "May 1 0th, 2281." "You're 23?" "Academic history?" "I graduated from Washington University." "Hmm, we have a illegitimate child with us, huh?" "What sort of life did you lead as a student?" "Can we continue?" "Mr. Dick." "You can all go through this!" "Everyone has one or two things in their past they don't want anyone to know about!" "We can all dig them up and ridicule each other about them!" "It's for the company." "Well then, how about I go next?" "Caroline, how is the check on the transport ship going?" "Isn't it about an hour before we reach the drop point?" "I still haven't heard anything from Gai and Watt." "What?" "!" "Nationality?" "Turn on the cameras in the hangar." "Watt!" "Gai!" "How did the ship maintenance go?" "I'll zoom in with the camera." "Oh my God!" "We' ll have to give up on sending out the first exploration team." "How long do we have to wait before we reach the next drop point?" "Three hours." "What will you do?" "S hall we keep infringing on each other's privacy until then?" "We have to be fair about these things." "Ah, Lily." "Lily!" "Will you look for her?" "S ure." "What an easygoing young lady, given all that's happened." "We're continuing with the I D checks so bring her back once you've found her." "And put a leash around that cat's neck." "That way she can't wander off whenever she pleases." "What's his problem?" "I don't like him." "It's almost like he got on this ship just so he could peek into others' private affairs." "There's something to be said about being too loyal to the company." "Lily!" "If she were still alive, she'd be around your age, huh?" "Huh?" "Nothing." "I'll look over here." "Lily!" "Lily!" "Lily!" "Hmm?" "Lily?" "Jimmy Mengel." "You were arrested for drug possession." "What?" "!" "I don't know anything about that!" "That's what the data bank tells us." "You were put on probation while you were in high school." "That wasn't me!" "I remember my high school years quite well!" "I had a friend named Jimmy Hengel back then!" "Our names were one letter off so we were often mixed up." "I remember him doing drugs and getting nabbed by the police!" "It wasn't me!" "It wasn't me!" "Who's gonna believe a story like that?" "The police make input errors too, you know!" "Is my personality to be determined based off false information?" "!" "Sorry, but this decides everything right now." "Well, it has nothing to do with the current issue." "That Japanese guy is next." "Captain!" " Hey, we've been waiting for you." " What happened?" "Come to the medical room." "The four corpses have vanished." "What's going on here?" "The corpses disappeared, leaving everything - even their underwear, behind." "And what were you doing here?" "Looking for the cat." "That's suspicious." "You went looking for the cat because it wasn't in here." "Lily!" "Nooooo!" "What's wrong?" "Lily!" "The wall...!" "It ate the cat!" "It's rusting." "That wall is made of high grade space alloy." "It can't rust!" "It's the bacteria!" "The bacteria are corroding it!" "Corrosion?" "What shall we do, Captain?" "If we don't know what the bacteria are, there's nothing we can do." "Everyone pull back to the main bridge." "We' re abandoning this block due to risk of infection!" "Are we safe from the bacteria?" "I wonder." "Captain, we' re getting close to the drop point." "Oh." "Even with the situation, the mission should still take priority." "Gott, go with Dular and inspect S huttle #2." "Don't forget to sterilize the hangar deck." "You decided the members of the first expedition." "There will be six people on the shuttle, two of which will be Gott and Dular." "As such, you need four people." "There's lots of time." "I ' ll choose carefully." "More importantly, we have two individuals who haven't been investigated yet." "The Japanese fellow, Jirou Takagi, and the young lady." "Dick!" "You even suspect me?" "!" "Morgan from HQ might've known you, but being from the Australian office, I 've never seen your face before." "There." "Happy now?" "What a rude guy!" "Looks like I ' m good too." "For now, yeah." "Dammit." "He won't let me catch him." "Are his suspicions cleared?" "Of course!" "What's with that guy?" "I don't get it." "Did the main office send us deliberate misinformation?" "What a troublesome company." "Misinformation?" "Where's Dorothy?" "Wasn't Dorothy with you guys?" "No." "Could it be..." "Maybe she went to the medical room?" "The medical room?" "What business would that girl have there?" "Who knows?" "How about you interrogate her when she gets back?" "Or will you go spy on what she's up to?" "You brat..." "Captain!" "What is it?" "The hangar deck door is opening!" "Caroline!" "It's not me." "The command came from the mother room." "Our connection to the mother room has been cut." "What?" "We can no longer control the ship from here." "Gott, Dular, can you hear me?" "We have an emergency!" "Evacuate the hangar deck at once!" "We can't release the lock." "Who's in there?" "!" "Was there someone other than the 1 3 of us on this ship?" "The only one not here is the Hong Kong girl." "You sure she isn't hiding in there?" "No, it's not Dorothy." "How can you be so sure?" "It's been a while since then but she hasn't come back." "Isn't that strange?" "Come to think of it..." "Don't tell me..." "Captain, come with me for a bit." "They vanished again." "What's going on?" "Dorothy was inspecting her own lungs here." "How can you tell?" "Because..." "Someone else did the same thing." "Someone else?" "You?" "!" "That's how you discovered the corpses had vanished in the next room over." "Jirou, don't tell me..." "That's right." "It's terrifying to imagine, but the bacteria may have already gotten inside our bodies." "Wha?" "!" "The doctor said it was like Legionnaires Disease." "It happened long ago, in the later half of the 20th century." "There was a party for legionnaires in a hotel in New York." "The next day, those who attended the party started dropping like flies, and the name stuck." "The cause of death is suffocation caused by breathing difficulties." "The test results showed that the bacteria had accumulated in their lungs." "Just like Morgan and the others." "The cause was the hotel's air conditioning." "Bacteria that had bred in the water tank on the roof spread to every room through the vents." "Then..." "The damage to the ducts in Block 4." "If we imagine that the space debris, which someone brought aboard... was sucked in through there after the airlock was released." "The ducts carried the object with the bacteria to the water tank." "The bacteria bred there." "They were spread to ev ery room through the v entilation!" "There will likely be variances in how long infection takes based on bodily differences." "But..." "I n the end..." "Dorothy realized that too." "No way!" "Are the vanishing corpses because of the bacteria too?" "That I can't tell you." "There are bacteria on Earth which will attach to objects and make them vanish." "But a bacteria that can eat away ev erything, even the bones, in such a short time?" "I can't imagine it." "You' re awfully knowledgeable about medicine." "I know a bit." "Huh?" "Well that's odd." "The records said that Jirou Takagi is an expert in space engineering." "You weren't a med student according to the records." "So that was it." "No wonder you' re so insistent on all this." "You're not a Syncam employee either." "You're a detective, right?" "I said I have some medical knowledge but..." "I never said I was a med student." "Why did you decide I was?" "You just said "either" didn't you?" "That's right, Detective." "I ' m the murderer who shot three people dead on Kings Street." "I planned for a time escape of 40 years, but..." "I never expected you to come after me this far." "Thanks for the confession." "That satisfies my pride as the one they call S idewinder Dick." "This isn't the time to be arresting anyone!" "Listen here, Captain." "When I ' m on a ship, I leave things to the sailors." "When I'm on a plane, I leave things to the pilot as a matter of course." "Worrying about things outside my area of expertise won't do anyone any good." "Getting this ship back to Earth safely is your job." "I ' m just being loyal to my profession." "Was the report from the personnel manager a trick you thought up?" "I spoke to him in advance." "The company was cooperative as well." "After all, we only knew that the culprit was a medical student and that he had fled to the moon using a Syncam employee's card." "We needed to smoke him out somehow." "If the conditions aboard the Saldes were normal, no one would criticize what you' re doing." "But, listen here." "How about we give you an x-ray exam like Dorothy." "You don't get how detectives are." "Even if you' re up against a dangerous criminal with a machine gun, there are times when you've gotta charge in and take him down bare handed." "It's a job where you're always faced with death." "I'm sure that I've already been infected by the bacteria." "I ' m sure I ' ll probably die like Morgan, too." "But, right now, I ' m alive." "And this guy here is alive too." "As long as I live, it's my duty to arrest criminals." "That's my job." "How immature." "I mmature?" "That's one hell of a thing to say." "How old do you think I am?" "Huh?" "How about Caroline?" "I'm 230 and Caroline is 1 53, I think?" "I'm 1 51." "It was like that for all of us." "Gott, Dular, Watt and Gai as well." "I n Earth years, they were close to 200." "Working as a space sailor is a cruel profession." "With the development of the hibernation system, you no longer have to age physically." "But once you come back from a voyage, 40 to 50 years have passed on the planet." "It was interesting at first." "Babies had aged to be older than you by the time you got back." "However, from the second trip on, you start to hate it." "Everyone you knew is dead, though that's only natural." "And, more than anything, it hits hard by how you can't keep up with the times." "New scientific developments, new ways of thinking, overwhelming amounts of information." "You can't keep up with it." "You fall into self-loathing, feeling you're a relic from the past." "And you realize those around you look at you like some sort of living fossil." "You get on a ship again, as if to run away, then come back to find yourself in a different era again." "Try experiencing that three or four times." "You start to have doubts about what it means to be a space navigator." "It feels so empty." "I ' m sure you' ll experience the same feelings." "Even if you drag this criminal back to Earth, who' ll be there waiting for you?" "The only ones who are going to remember a crime from 40 years ago are the computers." "Dorothy?" "What is it?" "!" "Don't shoot!" "Are you OK?" "The G-con's working, but that doesn't mean it's the same as Earth." "What was that monster?" "Did that thing come in with the space debris too?" "Don't know." "Anyway, we have to capture whoev er hijacked the mother room." "They should know something." "Caroline." "Jimmy." "You help too." "If you have medical knowledge, I ' ll ask you to treat that man." "Uncuff him." "We're lucky that this is the medical room." "Let's burn through the door." "I'm going to the boiler room." "Wait here." "If there's welding to be done, I know a bit about how to do it." "I'll help!" "Regretting it now does me no good, but I never should have come." "If I'd stayed on Earth, I might not have landed myself a beauty, but I'd be at the age where I'd have a wife and worrying about my kid's education." "You know, I never moved up in the company." "No matter how hard I worked, the higher-ups never recognized it." "You know what that's like?" "There' re people like that all over." "Then HQ called." "They were searching for a crew for a planetary exploration mission." "No one would apply." "The terms were good, but no one wants to leave Earth." "Not if they have to be separated from their families and lovers." "Why did you apply?" "It was the first time our section chief ever spoke to me." "He probably figured I was good for the job, given I spent my weekends all alone." "And so..." "I started to feel that way too." "I figured I 'd go on a grand adventure and surprise the company and the folks back home." "If I 'd known it'd turn out like this, I 'd have stayed on Earth and let them ridicule me." "That strange?" "No, everyone who gets on a ship carries some sort of wound in their heart." "They try to heal those wounds during the long voyage." "I've seen an awful lot of those kinds of people." "Sorry about this." "The key seems to have gotten thrown somewhere when I got blown back earlier." "I can't find it." "No worries." "I 've given you first aid." "Thanks." "Can I ask?" "About what?" "You don't look like a horrible murderer to me." "You can't judge people by looks alone." "It's true that I 've killed three people." "What happened?" "They turned my little sister into a druggie." "Narcotics?" "S he was a good kid." "S he was studying overseas for two years." "S he had sent word back to us every month." "That suddenly stopped." "I tried contacting her school." "They said she had long since dropped out." "I tried asking her landlord." "S he had already cleared out." "I searched all over." "When I found her a year later... she was a mess, both mentally and physically." "Where do you think I found her?" "A whorehouse on King's Street!" "Then... what happened to your sister?" "S he died." "That's why I killed them!" "Those bastards who dragged my sister into the world of drugs." "It's true that the Earth and moon have been tainted by drugs." "But you didn't have to kill them." "Those three were dealers that I'd been chasing." "Had I caught them, I could've gone after the larger organization behind them." "You made a mess of that." "Like I care." "I took my revenge and that's all." "That's fine." "Then you understand, right?" "You got in the way of my work and kept me from getting the chief commissioner's award." "I still resent you for that." "But how did you manage to become one of the company's selected members?" "One of my friends worked at your company's branch office." "That man, Jirou Takagi, suggested I run." "Would you understand if I told you he was my sister's lover?" " Where's Caroline?" " Look for her." "Caroline!" "The corrosion is progressing!" "Lily!" "A robot?" "This is the data on the bacterial corrosion!" "What?" "!" "This block is beginning to corrode as well!" "Hurry to the main bridge!" "What about Caroline and Jimmy?" "They've vanished." "They're probably..." "Hurry!" "This is some awful corrosion." "Run!" "I can't take this anymore!" "What's with this ship?" "!" "Does Syncam have a science and technology development department?" "Every company has one!" "Why are you asking that now?" "!" "Registration No. 23703." "Lily C.A.T." "A terrifyingly elaborate cat robot." "It looked just like your pet, Lily." "Why are you telling us this?" "That robot has been controlling this ship all along." "Your clever engineers didn't trust us people out in the field." "We're simply too old-fashioned." "Rather than a bunch of fossils who rely on experience and intuition, they entrusted the project to a machine that could control the computer more precisely." "I get it now." "Machines never sleep." "Even as we slept for 20 years, it was working." "Collecting any debris that passed by the ship as ordered." "It must have recorded more than enough data about this planet." "It's the most reliable and trustworthy employee the company has." "It even brought aboard a virus that is harmful to both people and the ship itself." "That's awful!" "It's a reverser." "Reverser?" "It's a terrifying effect some unknown bacteria have." "First, they destroy the body on a cellular level." "Then, they activate other cells." "As a result, they transform the body into something else entirely." "You know how the cells of caterpillars and butterflies work differently?" "Then you' re saying those terrifying monsters are all the transmogrified forms of our friends?" "!" "They' re Dorothy, Caroline, Morgan, and the others?" "That's why just their clothes were left." "Jeez, what a jerk." "I can understand how he felt." "He knew he wasn't going to make it, so he didn't want to die in vain." "If you think about why he got on this ship and chased me, he would never have take these cuffs off." "He chose to die in the line of duty." "I can respect that." "It's that thing!" "It's jettisoning the blocks that have begun to corrode!" "Just like it detached the hangar deck with Gott and Dular!" "What's going to happen?" "Is this place going to be thrown away?" "No, this is the very tip of the central beam." "It's not one of the blocks or cargo units, so we're fine." "But if the ship is stripped bare..." "Yep, it's a machine all right." "It's still desperately struggling, even though it'll still be wrecked by the bacteria." "What are you going to do?" "There's nowhere for us to go now." "Even if we stay on the ship, we' ll either become mummies, or wind up as monsters like Dick and the others." "I n that case, I 'd rather die here, y' know?" "What will you two do?" "I 've loaded three bullets." "Why did I ever get on this ship?" "!" "I just wanted to play around a bit!" "One of my friends was awful." "S he was clever and beautiful." "S he stole my boyfriend from me!" "That's why I wanted to play a little joke on her!" "I 'd go on a 40 year journey while I was still young, then come back when she's a wrinkled old hag." "It was going to feel great!" "I never thought something like this might happen!" "I think I'll go be with my sister." "W-Wait!" "It's a little late to be struggling in vain, Captain." "That thing won't corrode." "Even if we die, it's going to return to Earth!" "You're saying it won't be wrecked by the bacteria?" "I looked at the Saldes' corrosion data in the mother room." "The cargo units and blocks had almost all been ruined." "But the beam that the cable from the engine room runs along..." "I n other words, the main body of the ship was fine." "Why?" "It was due to the difference in strength of the generator's magnetic field." "When they come in contact with a magnetic field of a certain strength, the bacteria either die or become inactive." "I n that case, consider a robot which emits its own magnetic field." "It will probably make it back to Earth unharmed with the main body of the Saldes." "It knew that." "It cast off the blocks and cargo to increase propulsion." "Are you all right with this?" "The company won't be sad at all if the 1 3 of us die 1 0 light years away." "They' ll just be happy about the data that the machine faithfully sent back to them!" "Even knowing that, there's nothing we can do, right?" "What do you think we can do?" "Live!" "That detective said something good." "Even if we know we' ll die eventually, we' re still alive right now." "Remember?" "So long as we' re alive, we should think of ways to survive." "We can't!" "It's impossible!" "Go to the planet floating in front of your eyes!" "We have all the conditions necessary for survival!" "There's no ship!" "It was cast off!" "There is!" "My toy." "Come along." "It's a shuttle." "It's a memento from my first space voyage." "I 've brought it aboard every time since." "Gott and the others always laughed about it, but I couldn't make myself give it up." "Captain!" "Sorry for being such an unreliable navigator." "At least let me act like a proper captain at the end." "Captain..." "Live on, you hear me?" "Think of ways to live!" "Registration No. 23703, Lily C.A.T." "I ' ll reduce you to space dust!" "You' re not going back to Earth!" "Ready to fire electron beam." "Ann..." "I can finally go to be by your side." " Nancy..." " Help!" "Help!" "Nancy!" "Save me!" "Save me, Jirou!" "Save me!" "Stop!" "We were all supposed to land on this planet together." "What's wrong?" "What are you thinking about?" "Do you think the beautiful butterfly finds it repulsive that it was once a caterpillar?" "And does the caterpillar look enviously at the butterfly?" "We' ll eventually be reversed as well." "If that is to be our fate..." "Let us live, accepting it." "Because in the end..." "No one knows what the future holds in store."