'I'm not sure about this, Scott,' Jeff said, confirming what Scott already knew: his father had been seriously worried about him during the crash. 'I know Brains is sure that nothing can go wrong on Thunderbird 1 this time, but then we thought that before the last accident.' Next to the desk, Brains hung his head in shame. 'I just don't know if this is the best thing to do.'

'We need to test her out, Father,' said Virgil, stepping in. 'I trust Brains's alterations – I've checked them over pretty thoroughly myself. And besides, Scott and I have agreed that I'll stay ready in Thunderbird 2 in case anything goes wrong.'

'But what about if Scott loses radio contact again, like the last time? It's just too risky, Virgil.'

'Dad, Brains has EMP-proofed the radio, too,' Scott said in response, 'and besides, this time I'm taking the spare radio that we used on the Fireflash. At least that way I'll still have communications with John if everything goes down.'

'Yeah, and t-t-t-the n-n-new communi-c-cator designs, ah, should be i-interference proofed too, ah, M-M-M-Mr T-Tracy,' Brains added. His stutter had gotten worse after his bawling out by Jeff, Scott reckoned. Poor guy, he thought.

Jeff looked from face to face, and found himself looking at a three-person conspiracy.

'OK, OK,' he said, resignedly. 'But I'm not happy about this. Virgil, you'll head straight down to Thunderbird 2 and get her ready to leave. You'll remain on standby while Scott's away and be prepared to leave at a moment's notice. Scott, you'll take Thunderbird 1 over the island, but you'll stay in radio contact with John at all times, so far as is possible. At the very least, you'll check in with him every five minutes. Brains…' Jeff paused, not wanting to yell at his chief engineer again, but not sure how to proceed. 'Brains, you'll stay in contact with John and track Scott's progress, and you'll tell me straight away if you notice anything unusual. Understood?'

'F.A.B.,' said the three in unison.

'OK, boys. Away you go,' said Jeff, leaning back in his chair. He watched as his sons descended to their crafts in their usual manner, the nervous feeling he'd felt on Scott's disappearance returning to his stomach as the revolving wall swung his son away.

If there was a nervous feeling in Jeff's stomach, it was nothing compared to the anxiety Scott felt. For the first time, he almost had to grab the handrails as the floor extended to Thunderbird 1, the drop to the floor of her hangar feeling steeper than ever before. What if he crashed again? What if the tattoo removal hadn't worked, and he was still under the influence of the mysterious power? And worst of all… what if he was too late to find Nethya?

'Just hold on, Nethya,' he muttered, as he sent Thunderbird 1 down the ramp. 'I'm coming.'

'Thunderbird 1 calling Thunderbird 5, over.'

'Go ahead, Scott. Receiving you loud and clear.'

'John, can you confirm my location?' Scott asked. 'I'm over the island now – or at least I should be. I just want to check all the instrumentation is working fine, and I'm in the right place.'

'Looking good, Scott. What's the plan? Gonna make a sweep of the area, then head home?'

Scott breathed deeply, and gripped the controls a bit tighter. 'Not the plan, John. I'll explain everything to you once you're back off duty next week, I promise. But you're gonna have to trust me, because this time, I need to land. And then I'm gonna need a mighty big favour from you.'

John only paused for a second before replying, 'Sure thing, Scott. What do you need?'

'I need you to tell me if you can get a signal from my old communicator – the one I lost when I crashed on the island. Then I need you to direct me to it.'

'But why, Scott? Surely Brains gave you a replacement?'

'He sure did, but trust me – I need to get this one back. I'll tell you more when I get back to base.' And with that, Scott came in low over the island, and with a loud roar from the VTOL jets, lowered Thunderbird 1 gently in to land.

As the ship's legs touched down, Scott opened the viewing hatch. The scar of torn earth running along the ground into the trees ahead told him that he'd landed right next to the crash site. The sight alone was enough to make him feel slightly nauseous. He tried to tell himself that the sweat that gripped his skin and made his uniform stick close to his body was the humid jungle heat. But a part of him knew far better. Unconsciously he rubbed his left arm.

He stepped down the ladder out of the cockpit, into a scene that had been seared into his mind the past few days.

He found a beaten path through the trees, and wondered if it would lead him in the right direction. In other circumstances, he might have chanced his luck and tried it out, but there was no way he was taking chances now. He pressed a button on the communicator, and contacted Thunderbird 5. 'Which direction do I need to go, John?' he asked.

'North-north west, Scott, according to my reading.'

Scott headed in an exact north-north-westerly direction, guided by the compass in his watch. 'This way?' he asked.

'Almost. Turn right-right, five degrees.'

'Right-right, five degrees,' he repeated. 'Got it.' He adjusted his course, and found himself facing the path into the woods. 'OK, John. I think I've found a trail I can follow. Will radio in if I get into any difficulties.'

'F.A.B.,' said his brother, and ended the connection.

The path led through the dense undergrowth that he remembered. But it was nowhere near as long as it seemed in his memory. A mere fifteen minutes of sweeping away vines and clambering over dense ferns was enough to take him out into a wide clearing.

But the clearing was empty.

'Hold on a second…' Scott said aloud. He walked slowly around the clearing, sure that he recognised the place. This should have been where the huts where, where he'd woken up with Nethya. Only now, there was nothing left.

A few strides were enough to confirm his suspicions. He found the remnants of some wood planking. The grass nearby was flattened down in the shape of a large rectangle, and was a lighter green than that which surrounded it. It looked like some kind of building had stood there until very recently, and Scott was willing to wager it had been a wooden hut. But where had everything gone?

He was beginning to regret making Virgil stay back at base. Something was wrong here, and he would have given anything to have someone else by his side to talk things over with. He sighed heavily, and looked around the clearing, trying to work out which way he should go.

His wrist beeped, and John's face appeared on the screen. 'Just checking in, Scott. You stopped moving for a second there. Everything OK?'

'Uh… I ran out of path, and thought I saw something a bit suspicious,' Scott replied truthfully. 'Any chance of a bearing from here?'

'Sure thing. Go left-left, two degrees, and then it's straight ahead from there.'

Scott did as he was told. He wasn't entirely surprised to find that this brought him to another path. 'Got it,' he said. 'I'll call back if I need another bearing.' John nodded, and hung up.

This path was different. Scott could tell that immediately. The previous path had been carved out by him and Nethya as they struggled towards Thunderbird 1. But this path had been here for some time, and seen regular use. The floor was a dirt track, with the scuff marks of footsteps just visible on it, and the vegetation surrounding it had been beaten back to the sides. Every few yards, Scott came across a small mound of stones that reminded him of a wayside shrine. The clear marks of human habitation made the desertion of the clearing seem even more eerie, and a feeling of unease began to grow in his stomach. Something was wrong here. And that could only mean danger for Nethya.

He quickened his pace until he was almost jogging. Following the markers, he moved quickly through the woods until he came to a second clearing. But if the first one was completely empty, this one was not. Large piles of stones, similar to the smaller ones that had marked the path, were scattered around the edges of the clearing, leaving a large circular space in the centre. The piles were decaying, their stones covered in moss, grass growing thick around them, and some leaned heavily towards one side. These mounds seemed to mark the edge of a sacred space.

But the centre circle wasn't empty. As Scott made his way past the outer stone monuments, he found a tall heap of stones in the very centre of the clearing, with a flat stone slab propped up in front of it. And going over to it, he realised that unlike the others, this one was brand new. No moss covered it; no grass had grown around it. And the earth in front of it looked as though it had been disturbed very recently.

As Scott walked towards this new monument, the pile of stones he was trying desperately not to think of as a grave, his wrist beeped once again. 'OK, Scott!' his brother said, cheerfully. 'You're in the right spot. Your communicator should be right there in front of you!' Looking down, Scott saw that it had been placed carefully, as though deliberately, atop the stone slab. He picked it up and weighed it thoughtfully in his hand.

'Thanks John,' he said into the model attached to his wrist. 'I got it.' And he held up the old communicator for his brother to see.

'Great!' John responded. 'Guess that means everything's OK!'

But Scott was barely listening. Kneeling in front of the stone slab, he saw that an inscription had been carved on it, in an alphabet he didn't recognise. 'Yeah…' he replied vaguely, tracing the inscription with a finger.

'Something wrong, Scott?' asked his brother.

'No, nothing's wrong… I just might need you to do me another favour…'

The strange edge to his brother's voice made John bite back his sarcastic reply. 'Um, sure, Scott,' he said instead. 'What do you need?'

Scott faced his communicator towards the stone. 'Any chance you can work out what that writing says? I think it's some kind of Malaysian dialect. I'll send a photo of it up to you. It's important, John, so take as long as you need.'

John frowned. 'OK. I'll see what I can do.'

'Thanks, John,' said Scott, with a weak smile. 'I promise to fill you in on all this when you get home.'

'I'm gonna hold you to that!' John replied. 'And you're getting the drinks in, too. So long.'

Scott stared at the inscription for a minute, as though if he looked at it long enough, he might find out what secrets it held. Then he shook himself, and went to investigate the other mounds. They all looked like some kind of marker, he thought, but of what? None of the others had any kind of inscription that he could see. Nor could he work out why they were placed so far from the centre grave – if that's what it was. Feeling baffled and on edge, he walked slowly back to the centre and stood by the stone while he waited for his brother's response.

John's response, when it came, was not what Scott had expected. 'OK, Scott,' his brother said angrily. 'You wanna tell me what the hell this is all about?!'

Scott was taken aback. 'What?!'

John's eyes narrowed at his older brother. 'Before I tell you what this writing says, I think you owe me an explanation. Now what the heck is going on?'

If anyone in the family could out-stare and out-stubborn Scott, it was John. There was no point trying to pretend that nothing was up. Besides, his middle brother was the cleverest of them all, and he'd clearly worked out that something was wrong. But Scott didn't think he could face telling him the full story, not from where he was, not looking at something he feared was a grave – and a specific one at that.

Heart pounding in his chest, and a sick feeling in his stomach, Scott felt lost, as he had never felt lost before. 'I don't know, John,' he replied, his voice in danger of breaking. 'I'm trying to figure that out. I don't know the full story yet. But I promise you, John, the second you get back to base – and I'm gonna see if I can get Alan to go a few days early – I'll fill you in on everything that's gone on. But please – you have to tell me what it says on that stone.'

Scott was pleading now, in a way he never normally did. He felt more vulnerable than he had for a long time. By the change in expression on John's face, Scott knew his brother saw how he felt almost as keenly as Scott felt it himself.

'OK, Scott,' John replied, the look on Scott's face convincing him. His tone became softer. 'Uhhh… it's not good. At least, I don't think it is. It says… "The grave of Nethya, only daughter of Belah Gaat and Rani Manja, wife of… er, it says, wife of Scott Tracy…"' And John trailed off.

Scott couldn't say anything. The sick feeling that had taken over his body rooted him to the spot. All he could do was look at the gravestone and shake his head over and over. Time stopped. He felt as though he should stop breathing, stop feeling. This woman had died to save him, when it should have been him saving her.

'No,' he said under his breath. 'No.'

He stood in silence, not hearing or seeing anything beyond the writing that stood in front of him, condemning him.

Eventually he realised John was trying to talk to him. 'Scott!' his brother cried. 'Scott, please! Tell me what's wrong, and I'll try to help! What happened here? Who is this Nethya? And why on earth does that stone say she's your wife?!'

Scott shook himself, and looked down at the communicator, giving his brother a sad smile. 'I can't answer that right now, John,' he said, the pain in his heart making every work hard to say. 'I promise to tell you the rest when I see you in person. Right now I… I just need to be alone for a few minutes, OK?'

John nodded reluctantly, a perplexed, worried expression on his face. 'If I haven't heard anything, I'll be back in contact in ten minutes,' he said. 'And Scott… I'm here if you need me,' he added.

'Thanks, John,' Scott replied sincerely, and closed the connection. Immediately, he opened a new channel, and said 'Scott Tracy to Virgil Tracy, over.'

Virgil's face replaced John's. 'Any luck, Scott?' he said, but the look on Scott's face told him everything he needed to know – even before Scott's soft shake of the head.

'I'm… I'm gonna spend a couple more minutes here, looking round, OK, Virg?' Scott said, trying to keep his voice on a level. Virgil nodded in reply.

'OK then. Just keep John and Father occupied. I don't want them to worry about me, but… there's something I need to do. I'll be back in radio contact when… well, when I'm ready, I guess. Oh, and if John calls you… tell him as much as you think he needs to know.'

'OK, Scott. Will do,' Virgil replied. 'I'll have the rest of that bottle of Scotch ready for your return.'

His words said very little. But the look he gave Scott, even over the small screen, said everything Scott needed to hear. It spoke of sympathy, of brotherhood, and of fierce support. Scott nodded wordless thanks, and once more ended the connection.

He was alone. Perhaps more alone than he'd ever been in his life.

Scott looked down at the mound of stones before him and sank to his knees in front of it. 'So this is it,' he said, putting one hand onto the mound. 'This is where it ends.'

With no effort, he brought Nethya to mind – her eyes, her hair, the simple dress she'd worn, the shape of her body under the sheet. He remembered the fragrance he'd smelled on her skin when he lay next to her, and the determination on her face as they fought their way through to the crash site. In his mind's eye, he recalled her shocked face and her concern as he fainted in the jungle. And above all, he remembered her bravery – her sacrifice allowing him to leave safely, but at a terrible cost. For the first time since the incident, he found himself regretting having the tattoo removed, the one thing he'd had to remember her by.

'I failed,' he whispered to the stone. 'Nethya, I'm so sorry. I failed you.'

And silently, he took the old communicator and with his bare hands, dug a small hole in front of the mound. He put the communicator in it, and filled the earth back in on top. 'Goodbye, Nethya – my wife,' he said softly.

And Scott Tracy sank down against the stone and put his head in his hands.

From the woods, a pair of dark, almond-shaped eyes in a golden-brown face watched him silently, tears streaming down the golden-brown cheeks. 'Goodbye, Scott,' the watcher whispered, and stayed silently watching until the man stood and slowly trudged back to his craft.

As he climbed the ladder into Thunderbird 1, Scott paused. A strange sound rang in his ears, like a whisper on the breeze. It sounded like a woman's voice saying a single word:

'Goodbye.'