Past the Black Planet, the stars grew sparse.
A pale mist took their place.
At first it resembled an ordinary interstellar cloud, but as the ship sailed deeper, the instruments began, one by one, to lose their meaning.
The radar showed the same point in every direction.
The compasses spun slowly in circles.
The navigation screen erased the route.
Only a blinking message remained:
DIRECTION UNDETERMINED.
“What is this?” Ieva asked.
“A mirror nebula.”
“Is it interfering with the systems?”
“No.”
Aronas paused briefly.
“It interferes with those who trust them.”
He explained nothing more.
Beyond the portholes, the stars were no longer visible.
Only a milk-white haze.
Sometimes a streak of light briefly flickered within it, resembling a distant ship.
Drawing closer, it would turn out there was nothing there.
On the first night, Ieva woke with the feeling that someone was standing in her cabin.
She turned on the light.
Empty.
Only her own silhouette flickered briefly in the porthole.
She stepped closer.
The reflection stood motionless.
Too long.
When Ieva raised her hand, the reflection responded only a moment later.
As if it had needed to decide.
She stepped back.
The glass turned ordinary again.
On other days, it repeated.
Sometimes she’d see herself at the end of a corridor.
Sometimes by the navigation table.
Always alone.
Always silent.
Her face was no different.
Only the eyes.
They were so dark that the pupil couldn’t be told apart from the iris.
One evening she couldn’t bear it any longer.
“Do you see her too?”
Aronas didn’t even ask what she meant.
“I see her.”
“What is she?”
He stared for a long time into the mist beyond the front window.
“The mirror nebula likes to attach itself to passengers.”
“Attach… itself?”
“Sometimes it creates something very much like a person.”
He paused briefly.
“Don’t look at her.”
“Why not?”
“The longer you look, the less you remember which of you is real.”
That night Ieva drew the curtains in her cabin.
But before falling asleep, she still felt a strange urge to glance at the window once more.
She resisted it.
In the morning, walking down the corridor, she noticed a handprint on the metal wall.
As if someone had touched it from the other side.
She placed her own hand against it.
The print was exactly the same size.
Only the fingers were slightly longer.
That evening, passing by the porthole, she deliberately didn’t raise her eyes.
Still, from the corner of her vision, she caught that the other Ieva was still there.
She wasn’t trying to knock.
She wasn’t waving.
She only stood.
And it seemed as though she were patiently waiting for someone to finally look at her.