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Fara.
    â€œQuantum entanglement remains a theory,” said Meia. “It has not been proved.”
    â€œNevertheless, we can find no other explanation for how the Contamination”—she paused and then corrected herself, deferring to the visitors—“no, for how the Others behave.”
    â€œExcuse me a moment,” said Thula, “but could someone explain what you’re talking about? What the hell is this quantum entanglement business?”
    â€œHow long do you have?” asked Meia.
    â€œExplain it to me like I’m five,” said Thula, folding his arms across his chest in a challenge.
    â€œAnd me too,” chipped in Rizzo, “but preferably in Italian.”
    â€œIt is a theory concerning very small particles—electrons, for example—that have interacted in the past, and then moved apart. Anything that affects one of those particles, such as an adjustment to its position or velocity, should instantaneously affect the other particle, no matter how distant they are.”
    Now they all stared at Meia in bafflement.
    â€œAnd that’s the bambino version? Is it even worth telling you that nobody understood a word of what you just said?” said Rizzo.
    â€œDon’t feel bad—it’s not you,” Thula told Meia. “Someone could be explaining to Rizzo how to open a door, and she wouldn’t get it. Unless she can blow it up or shoot at it, it’s all just Greek to her. Or Zulu. Ngicela ukhulume kancane , hey, Rizzo?”
    â€œScrew you, Thula,” said Rizzo. “And what the hell does that mean, anyway?”
    â€œIt means, ‘Speak more slowly,’ ” said Thula, and he winked at her.
    Rizzo said something presumably obscene in Italian, though no one felt the need to ask for a translation, before returning her attention to Meia.
    â€œWhat he just said,” Rizzo told her.
    â€œThat probably goes for all of us,” Paul added.
    Meia sighed, and even rolled her eyes. Sometimes Paul had to remind himself that she was an artificial being. She grew more human—or more Illyri—with every passing day.
    â€œImagine you had a twin sister,” Meia explained, focusing on Rizzo, “and she was on Earth, and you were here. Well, quantum entanglement is the equivalent of someone tickling you here, and your twin sister back on Earth laughing.”
    Rizzo considered what she had been told.
    â€œThat,” she said, after a few moments, “is the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.”
    â€œAlbert Einstein agreed,” said Syl, dredging up a memory from her lessons on Earth. “He called it ‘spooky actions at a distance,’ so he wasn’t a big fan of quantum theory either.”
    â€œAnyway,” said Fara, who had watched and listened with a combination of bemusement and irritation to these exchanges, “we believe that only some form of entanglement can account for the exchange of information between the Others.”
    â€œWhat else can you tell us about them?” asked Paul.
    Both Kal and Fara looked almost embarrassed.
    â€œVery little,” said Fara. “They are hostile, without mercy, and concerned only with the propagation of their own species. They resist examination. If necessary, an individual spore will destroy itself rather than submit to testing of any kind, but that’s purely a last resort. They prefer to attack. Infection is their best defense: a single spore lodges in a host organism, then uses the energy of the host to breed fragmentarily through asexual reproduction, with each new fragment capable of growing into a mature individual. Basically, one spore can turn its host into a kind of spore bomb.”
    â€œWe’ve watched it happen,” said Syl.
    â€œMy crew saw an entire planet being used as a breeding facility,” added Paul.
    â€œAnd what did you do?” asked Fara.
    Paul hesitated.
    â€œWe destroyed it,” he