snapping back to Marshall.
“Milt McIlveen.” More ghosting. One of his images seemed to sneer at the other. Isa wanted to look away, shut down the transmission, but she could not. “—a good man. As fascinated in them as you.”
“But?”
“But…” That smile again, so two dimensional. “He has a true grasp of our requirements.”
“So do I, Mr. Marshall.”
“Yes. You do.” He went to sign off, then paused. “Isa, I know you see me as a Company man. And I am, through and through. My aims are pure in this. Can you imagine what would happen if the Yautja launched a true attack?”
“They’re not like that. Their society isn’t built or structured that way. They’re essentially loners, drawing together for special ceremonies, or mating, or perhaps other reasons we don’t know about yet, but they’re not conquerors. There’s no scheming in what they do. There’s an honesty to them.”
“That honesty killed over twenty station staff and two Excursionists at Southgate Station 12,” Marshall said. “And while I accept what you say, we can’t second guess them. We don’t know enough to do that. Keep your priorities in mind, that’s all I’m saying. Your assistant will be there in seventeen days.”
Palant smiled and nodded and kept smiling as Marshall’s image faded away. The holo frame drifted back to its dock on the far wall, and the room seemed unnaturally silent.
“Help is here,” the computer said. The doors opened behind her and three people stepped inside.
Palant crossed to the bodies and rested her hand on one of the coffin suits for the first time.
It was cold. Cold as space.
3
ANGELA SVENLAP
Love Grove Base, Research Station, LV-1529
May 2692 AD
Since the first signal had arrived a little over two years before, Angela Svenlap’s life had been taking on meaning. Before that fateful moment, she had passed the days, months, and years with a mysterious hollowness inside. Highly intelligent, curious, eager to learn, she had long proven herself to be a forward-thinking and energetic person.
From her birthplace on Jupiter’s moon Io, her journey out into the Human Sphere had taken years, because wherever she stopped she found something else to fascinate her. After a fateful meeting on Addison Prime, the focus of her curiosity had narrowed toward the Yautja. The old man had been a survivor of a Yautja attack on a Titan ship over fifty years earlier, and she had sat and interviewed him for days.
Since then, Svenlap had become an authority on Yautja appearances throughout human history. The veracity of such reports dwindled the further back in time they went. For several hundred years before there were fairly reliable accounts, stored in free access quantum folds, storage streams, or even a few old hard discs she had come across or been sent by others who knew her interest. From before that, there were some books still in existence that recorded what
might
have been Yautja presences on Earth before interplanetary space travel.
Before that, only conjecture.
She liked investigating. It made her feel alive. But even while immersed in a new case, with every waking minute spent reading, cross-referencing, trying to match evidence with diverse and seemingly unconnected reportage and accounts, that hollowness within persisted.
Sometimes she tried to examine it. Assessing it from afar, the void averted its gaze. Looking directly inward at it made her depressed. It was as if she was uncertain who she was. As if the person she believed herself to be—the Angela Svenlap who had been building herself up around this dark hollow for the full fifty-seven years of her life—was merely a mannequin, constructed to camouflage something deeper and more shadowed.
Then that message—a few simple words that had brought meaning.
The Founders have not forgotten you
.
Her life had changed in an instant. That change continued.
It was the older sightings she enjoyed researching most. She had one
“Milt McIlveen.” More ghosting. One of his images seemed to sneer at the other. Isa wanted to look away, shut down the transmission, but she could not. “—a good man. As fascinated in them as you.”
“But?”
“But…” That smile again, so two dimensional. “He has a true grasp of our requirements.”
“So do I, Mr. Marshall.”
“Yes. You do.” He went to sign off, then paused. “Isa, I know you see me as a Company man. And I am, through and through. My aims are pure in this. Can you imagine what would happen if the Yautja launched a true attack?”
“They’re not like that. Their society isn’t built or structured that way. They’re essentially loners, drawing together for special ceremonies, or mating, or perhaps other reasons we don’t know about yet, but they’re not conquerors. There’s no scheming in what they do. There’s an honesty to them.”
“That honesty killed over twenty station staff and two Excursionists at Southgate Station 12,” Marshall said. “And while I accept what you say, we can’t second guess them. We don’t know enough to do that. Keep your priorities in mind, that’s all I’m saying. Your assistant will be there in seventeen days.”
Palant smiled and nodded and kept smiling as Marshall’s image faded away. The holo frame drifted back to its dock on the far wall, and the room seemed unnaturally silent.
“Help is here,” the computer said. The doors opened behind her and three people stepped inside.
Palant crossed to the bodies and rested her hand on one of the coffin suits for the first time.
It was cold. Cold as space.
3
ANGELA SVENLAP
Love Grove Base, Research Station, LV-1529
May 2692 AD
Since the first signal had arrived a little over two years before, Angela Svenlap’s life had been taking on meaning. Before that fateful moment, she had passed the days, months, and years with a mysterious hollowness inside. Highly intelligent, curious, eager to learn, she had long proven herself to be a forward-thinking and energetic person.
From her birthplace on Jupiter’s moon Io, her journey out into the Human Sphere had taken years, because wherever she stopped she found something else to fascinate her. After a fateful meeting on Addison Prime, the focus of her curiosity had narrowed toward the Yautja. The old man had been a survivor of a Yautja attack on a Titan ship over fifty years earlier, and she had sat and interviewed him for days.
Since then, Svenlap had become an authority on Yautja appearances throughout human history. The veracity of such reports dwindled the further back in time they went. For several hundred years before there were fairly reliable accounts, stored in free access quantum folds, storage streams, or even a few old hard discs she had come across or been sent by others who knew her interest. From before that, there were some books still in existence that recorded what
might
have been Yautja presences on Earth before interplanetary space travel.
Before that, only conjecture.
She liked investigating. It made her feel alive. But even while immersed in a new case, with every waking minute spent reading, cross-referencing, trying to match evidence with diverse and seemingly unconnected reportage and accounts, that hollowness within persisted.
Sometimes she tried to examine it. Assessing it from afar, the void averted its gaze. Looking directly inward at it made her depressed. It was as if she was uncertain who she was. As if the person she believed herself to be—the Angela Svenlap who had been building herself up around this dark hollow for the full fifty-seven years of her life—was merely a mannequin, constructed to camouflage something deeper and more shadowed.
Then that message—a few simple words that had brought meaning.
The Founders have not forgotten you
.
Her life had changed in an instant. That change continued.
It was the older sightings she enjoyed researching most. She had one
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