The distress signal came before dawn.
Not from the station.
From the “Asteria.”
“Captain!” Salomė’s voice echoed over the radio. “The ship’s power reserves are dropping. If you don’t launch within the next four hours, we won’t have fuel for the return maneuver.”
Lyra glanced at the timer.
Four hours should be enough.
But for the first time, she wasn’t sure she wanted to hurry.
She felt the station hadn’t finished speaking yet.
They gathered at the airlock.
Five people.
Exhausted.
Silent.
No one asked anymore what the others had seen.
Each of them understood the answer would be different anyway.
“We’re leaving,” Lyra said.
No one objected.
The corridor to the exit was straight.
But right before the airlock, they stopped.
The door was closed.
Though they had left it open.
“I didn’t close it,” Nojus said quietly.
“Me neither,” Salomė answered.
Lyra touched the control panel.
The system requested identification.
CREW VERIFICATION.
She pressed her palm to it.
The screen flickered for a moment.
Then words appeared:
IDENTITY NOT CONFIRMED.
Lyra tried again.
Same result.
“Not working?” Mira asked.
“No.”
Mira stepped up.
The system accepted her palm on the first try.
Nojus too.
Salomė as well.
Only Lyra went unrecognized.
The control panel stayed silent.
As if she had never belonged to this mission.
Suddenly footsteps sounded behind them.
Slow.
Calm.
The same ones.
Tak.
Tak.
Tak.
This time no one ran.
No one hid.
Everyone turned around.
At the end of the corridor stood five people.
Each one exactly like a member of the crew.
A second Mira.
A second Nojus.
A second Salomė.
Two more.
And…
A second Lyra.
No one spoke.
Neither did the doubles.
They only watched.
Without anger.
Without threat.
As if waiting.
“Who are they?” Salomė whispered.
For the first time, Lyra answered not out of fear.
“I don’t know.”
And that was the truth.
The second Lyra took one step forward.
She looked exactly the same.
The same scar above her eyebrow.
The same silver badge from the first expedition.
Only her eyes were different.
Calmer.
“You have no right to imitate me,” Lyra whispered.
The other woman smiled.
“And what if I’m not the one imitating?”
Silence fell over the corridor.
Lyra remembered Aronas’s words.
“That’s not the same as being late.”
She understood that her whole life she had tried to convince herself of a different story.
Not because she was innocent.
Because it was easier to live with.
She closed her eyes.
For the first time in many years, she didn’t try to justify herself.
She only said quietly:
“I chose to stay silent.”
The words came out almost inaudible.
But something changed.
The corridor lights stopped flickering.
The echo of footsteps disappeared.
Each double slowly withdrew.
As if they had lost their reason to stay.
One by one, they dissolved into the dimness.
Only the second Lyra remained.
She looked straight at her.
Then nodded.
And vanished too.
The control panel beeped.
IDENTITY CONFIRMED.
The airlock door opened.
The flight home was quiet.
No one wanted to talk about the station anymore.
In the official report, they wrote down only the facts.
Station found undamaged.
Original crew not found.
Nature of the anomaly undetermined.
Not one of them mentioned the doubles.
As if they had quietly agreed not to.
Four months later, the “Asteria” reached Earth’s orbit.
Welcome signals.
Journalists.
Medical examinations.
Everything proceeded just as it did after every successful mission.
Only one evening, back in her apartment, Lyra took an old childhood photo out of a box.
She looked at it for a long time.
Something was different.
She couldn’t understand what.
Only after a few minutes did she notice.
In the photo, Aronas was holding a toy spaceship.
It used to be blue.
Now it was red.
Lyra closed her eyes.
Maybe her memory was playing tricks on her.
She put the photo back.
That same night, thousands of light-years from Earth, in the abandoned station “Erebus,” a surveillance camera in one corridor briefly switched on.
A woman walked slowly past it.
She wore a captain’s uniform.
She stopped in front of the lens.
Raised her eyes.
And smiled, very faintly.
The image faded.
A few days later, Earth’s archives registered that Captain Lyra Vega had successfully returned from her mission.
No one asked the question that never made it into the official report.
When the airlock door opened…
which one of them came home?