Chapter 1

1
I rode into the dark, expecting to see my love in the moonlight;

But there was no moon, and not even a star.

Nevertheless, she was there.

I had but to find her.

—Walford Candles, “Ride by Night,” 1196

It started on an early spring afternoon while I was playing volleyball. We were on an outdoor court at the Tara Center when somebody began shooting off fireworks. Sirens sounded and I heard a commotion inside the center. We stopped for a couple of minutes and looked at each other, and when nothing more happened, we resumed playing. I don’t recall any more of the volleyball details, whether my side was winning or losing. I don’t even remember whether it was a league game or just a couple of teams that we’d put together. All that disappeared in the turmoil that erupted that evening. We showered, and as soon as I got access to my link, I checked it to find out what was going on. We were informed that the research vehicle Columbia had discovered intelligent life. The only details were that they’d found a small town and that they’d seen the inhabitants, who were green-skinned. The town was a long way out. It was an exciting time. Real aliens. We were informed that plans already existed for a follow-up mission.

I was excited not only because of the discovery, but for another reason: Robbi Jo Renfroe had been piloting the mission. I hadn’t known anything about it except that she’d been gone a long time.

There wasn’t much detail available about the flight. They’d named the place Korella IV but released minimal other information. There was no data regarding the world’s location. I tried doing a search for it, but I didn’t know at the time that the name had been selected by McCann.

Robbi Jo and I had been out of contact for a few years, but I hadn’t been surprised when I’d seen her name listed as the mission’s pilot. I remembered standing with her under a starlit sky when we were both about twelve years old. Robbi Jo asked me if I thought it ever ended, the sky. If it did, what was at the edge? Was there a wall of some sort? Her mom had told her no, that the universe wasn’t like that, that space was skewered. That was the term she’d used. So it didn’t come to a stop, it just became circular in a way that seemed impossible to understand. But if you went in one direction far enough, eventually you came in from the other side. And she recalled her refusal to believe it when her mom said it was pretty much all empty out there. Nobody home. Robbi Jo made it her lifetime goal to find someone. Anyone. Which was more or less how she eventually got caught up with the Columbia. And she’d made it happen! Good for her.

Actually, we’d never been especially close, but we’d met as Girl Troopers during our grade-school years. We both played on our high school’s basketball team, and for a time we’d hung out together. She’d always had a fascination with stars and galaxies. She’d told me once that she planned to become an astronomer. If anyone I’d known was going to be on that flight, she would be the one. The teachers loved her. She won the highly acclaimed Orion Award two years after high school for her article “Why Is It So Empty?” which appeared in the Antiquarian. It was a prize I’d have killed for, but I simply didn’t have the writing skills. Or maybe I just didn’t know how to dig into the cultural issues in a way that would hold a reader’s interest.

I knew she wouldn’t be home for a while, but I couldn’t resist sending her a congratulatory note. “Wish I’d been with you,” I wrote. And I added a reference to our basketball days in case she’d forgotten who I was.

The street was filled with people laughing and embracing and staring at their links. GREETINGS, ALIENS said the headline in the Andiquar Sentinel. There wasn’t much detail on what they looked like, other than their green skin, but the hunt that had been going on for thousands of years, producing nothing other than ruins and the Mutes, was finally at an end. United Media had an anchor and two guests discussing the story and wondering whether we’d wind up in a war again.

Several of us crossed Weyland Street to the Akron Bar, where we could join the celebration while the reports came in.

The pictures of the town, which had arrived as part of a hypercomm transmission, revealed a village that might have been located outside Casper County. Modest houses, dirt roads, a long building that looked like a school. Despite the town’s simplicity, there was a harmony and polish that underscored its unity. Everything seemed to be connected. It was somehow a single configuration rather than a group of individual houses and small buildings.

The mission also reported they’d found nothing else on the planet. Of course the assumption was that they’d probably sent the report immediately after sighting the village. But as time passed, we learned that they’d searched the planet and found no additional dwellings. How could that happen? It became the question of the hour.

The operation had been sponsored by the Visitation Project. The Columbia reported that in accordance with the Spaulding Mandate, they’d not made contact, would keep a respectful distance, and that there was no indication that their presence had been detected. They suggested a backup unit be dispatched to establish communications.

It was certainly not the kind of first contact we’d been hoping for, a lonely desolate village. But it was better than nothing.

The Department of Planetary Survey and Astronomical Research (DPSAR) maintained an office in Andiquar. One of their primary responsibilities was to maintain a training program designed to create specialists who could establish friendly communications should we discover aliens somewhere, or if they showed up over the Melony River. That was the Xenocon program. It was a tricky business, since nobody had had any experience with communicating with aliens. I don’t think anyone had ever taken the program very seriously, for that matter, but the lack of preparation led us into the war with the Mutes. If we came into contact with another alien species, we certainly didn’t want to do a repeat.

It was inevitable, I guess, that the day would come. So when it finally did, we were prepared to do some bridge-building. Connect our AIs with theirs, if they had any. Speak softly. Smile. Don’t do anything that could be interpreted as threatening. And don’t tell anyone where the Confederacy worlds are located until we have a good handle on their intentions. And hope we had it right. There was also a branch of DPSAR people who maintained that we should just stay away and keep our hands off.

A few days after the initial Columbia transmission had arrived, we got word that the mission had started home. There was no indication that anything had changed. Since it took two weeks for a hypercomm signal to arrive from Korella, the Columbia by then was halfway back.

DPSAR called in its Xenocon volunteers. I was among them. Don’t ask how I got involved. Even now I’m not sure. They had parties and the conferences were interesting, so I signed on. The director was Henry Cassell, who’d spent a lot of time with the Mutes. He started that first day by telling us DPSAR was looking for volunteers to travel to Korella IV and establish communications with the aliens. “They have electricity,” he said. “The houses look good. But beyond that, they don’t seem to have much technology. And one aspect that is especially curious is that they seem to be alone on the planet.”

Henry was a middle-aged guy with a kindly appearance and amicable green eyes, though they had an intense appearance that night. He looked around at us and asked who was willing to go. He was going. They needed five other people, plus a pilot. They had no way of knowing how long they would stay in the area, but Henry doubted it would be more than a few days. “But don’t sign on if you can’t manage a flight of at least three months.”

There were only a dozen of us physically in the building. But there were probably twenty more electronically present. Most were positioned on other Confederate worlds, and even though they were locked in through hypercomm, there was a delay of up to several minutes while messages went back and forth. Meanwhile three of those present raised their hands. Jim Pollard, who’d always maintained he would love to be part of a contact mission, hesitated and then put his hand in the air. I was still thinking about it when the electronic results started to show up. There weren’t as many as I would have expected. Aliens living in log cabins and stone houses just didn’t cut it. Since everyone knew this was coming, I’d talked it over with Alex before signing on. He gave me an okay, with the comment that it didn’t sound very exciting.

A woman on one of the electronic connections asked why we were taking only seven. “The Harbinger,” she said, “can carry twice that many.”

Henry delivered a tolerant smile. “Not for this distance,” he said. “Aside from that, we should all be aware there’s a degree of risk about this type of mission. We don’t need twice as many people as we can carry. And, for the record, we expect to take one of the people from the Columbia.”

The major question that dominated the meeting was whether we were actually going to establish contact. “We haven’t decided yet,” he said. “That’s a difficult question. We’ll go and take a look. And I suspect we’ll decide depending on what we learn about them. And don’t ask me how we’re going to learn anything without talking to them. We haven’t figured it out yet.”

Three months in an interstellar. I had a decent social life at that time, which I did not want to leave for an extended period. But it was hard to just stand there and do nothing. My chances would have been pretty good to get picked had I known where Korella IV was. That was why they wanted someone from the Columbia. And preferably that would be either Reddington or Robbi Jo. In the end, I wasn’t really that excited about a few hundred aliens in a town in the middle of nowhere. So I stayed out of it. The final count gave Henry twenty-two volunteers.

When it was over, he thanked us for our interest. “I’m sorry we won’t be able to accommodate everybody. We just can’t pack enough supplies into the Harbinger.” He shrugged, pretending not to be surprised at the level of enthusiasm. “We should probably have gotten hold of the Alhambra for this operation.” That got some laughs. We could have gotten half of Andiquar on board the Alhambra. He told us that it would take a while, a few weeks, to put everything together, and that he’d get back to the volunteers as quickly as he could.

I spent the weekend mountain climbing with Chad Barker and a few others. Chad was a boyfriend at the time. We took our first break at Wiley’s Bar & Grill, just south of Morley Canyon. We’d kept our links turned off, but the Columbia story was all over the news at Wiley’s. I stayed with it for the next two days. The hosts on every major show had people in to discuss what was happening, whether we should be concerned about who was out there, and what effects the connection with a totally alien culture might have on our own lives. Would the aliens be hostile? Would they have a religion? Could we be sure the ones in the cabins weren’t there to fool us into underestimating their tech capabilities? Transmissions from Quaid McCann on the incoming Columbia were arriving almost daily. And Greg Lindsay, the host of Night Talk, brought McCann’s wife Edna in for an interview. Did she wish now that she’d gone along on the mission?

“No,” she said. “If anybody was going to do it, I’d have put my money on Quaid. He’s been trying to find someone out there his entire life. Most of the people we know always thought he was wasting his time. But he just couldn’t be talked down from it.”

“Edna, are there any plans to bring some of the aliens back here?”

“You mean to Andiquar? No, they wouldn’t be allowed to do anything like that. Greg, you know there are laws against it.”

“Sure. But if we run into something that seems friendly, who knows how we might respond?”

“I’d be shocked if my husband ignored the law.”

Twenty minutes later Lindsay was talking to Clint Eliot, a historian whose area of special interest was the war with the Mutes. “Could it happen again, Clint? Could the aliens seize the ship’s crew and learn where we are located?”

“Well, Greg, that’s kind of a foolish question, since they’re already on the way home and there’s been no report of trouble.”

“Maybe they’re all at gunpoint.”

For a moment I thought Eliot was going to throw something at him.

When I got home, I switched on the Golden Network. The host, Morris Cassidy, brought in Jennifer Hancock to join the upcoming Harbinger mission. Jennifer had been on a previous flight, and she had a master’s in astrobiology. She was tall with dark eyes and a voice that made it clear she was completely reliable and in charge. “Yes,” she said, “of course we’re sending a research team out. We’re all trained for this kind of thing. We should be leaving within a week or two.”

“Will you guys say hello? The research team?”

“Probably not. Unless the aliens find a way to say something.” Her smile suggested she was toying with Cassidy. “We’ll be concentrating on finding out what we can without making a connection. That’s more for their benefit than ours. It looks like a pretty primitive culture.” Cassidy started to say something, but she kept going: “I understand they have electricity, but they’re living in a village. And they seem to be the only people on the planet.” She shook her head. “I don’t see any way they could constitute a threat.”

“Jennifer, where is this place? Korella IV?”

“It’s a long way out. In the Orion Nebula. Other than that, we won’t be making details public.”

“You don’t want people going out and taking a look?”

“It could be dangerous, Morris. Not so much to us as to them. We don’t want to scare a primitive culture. We don’t know anything about who’s there. So we’ll just keep our distance.” A warning had been issued that same evening that anyone attempting without permission from DPSAR to visit the place would be in violation of the law and subject to substantial penalties.

The Glynnville Archeological Society had its monthly conference two nights later. Gabe was scheduled as the guest speaker. I was pretty sure Henry Cassell would be there too. The last few days had been a major struggle. Henry had offered to include me with the crew of the Harbinger. I suspect my connection with Alex had something to do with that. I just couldn’t make up my mind about it. The flight would be historical, and a golden chance to establish my reputation as someone other than Alex’s assistant. Even without that, being present when we said hello to the aliens was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. And I should mention that I wasn’t among those who thought the follow-up mission was just going out there to look around and not make contact.

But I didn’t see anything particularly interesting about the village on the prairie. They were going to spend two months inside the Harbinger, say hello to the villagers, and presumably find out they just didn’t reproduce much. Or whatever. My life with Chad had taken off and I didn’t want to leave him. Especially since I’d seen how many of his bookstore customers were attractive young women.

Gabe planned to talk about some of the artifacts found during his recent trip to Morinda, a city at Point Edward that had been abandoned centuries ago for reasons still in dispute.

They traditionally do the event at the Acadia Hotel, adjacent to Oglebee Park. They’d turned on the force-field billboard that floated just a few meters above the top of the hotel, divulging the title and time of the event. Gabe’s name was prominently on display, as well as his topic.

Chad was interested in going, so I offered to take Gabe as well. He passed because he was scheduled to sign books earlier at a Mount Barrett store. But he supplied me with two tickets. Chad picked me up and we rode his skimmer out to the hotel. We descended into the parking area, went inside the Acadia, said hello to a couple of people we knew, and sat down at a reserved table. The place was almost filled. I spotted Henry, who unfortunately was seated on the far side of the room. I’d have loved to find him at my table, but he was a VIP, so there was no way that was going to happen.

The dinner was good, a choice between salmon and pork roast. I couldn’t help being happy that I wasn’t there to talk to that packed house. Nothing scares me quite as much as public speaking. When I’d finished the meal, I decided to order a dessert. Strawberry shortcake sounded right. It was hard to believe that in the ancient world we’d killed farm animals to provide food. That, of course, was before we developed nutrient generators, which use cloned cells to provide all the meat, fish, vegetables, and desserts we need.

I was just finishing when the society’s event secretary took her place at the lectern and spoke for several minutes about current projects. The society had selected a local high school student for its annual Jeremy Cranston Award. The winner was announced and came up to receive a plaque. She was also given passage to Dellaconda, where she could do some sightseeing, as well as participate in an archeological dig at a site near the ancient Kormite city of Barrakaia. After the applause settled down, the event secretary introduced the guest speaker, Professor Gabriel Benedict.

Gabe came onto the stage, bringing a drink with him. “Good evening, ladies and gentlemen.” He looked out over us with a broad smile that suggested he would have made an excellent talk show host. “We’re gathered together this evening in historic times. I know you were informed that my subject would be the recent recovery of artifacts found at Morinda, and that I would present a theory as to what really happened there. But I know, at a time like this, nobody really cares about a deserted city on Point Edward. This has been a fairly big week.” He smiled as “fairly” drew a ton of laughter. “After all these years, we have apparently actually encountered some aliens.

“I can’t help thinking that when we come back for the meeting next month, the Harbinger will probably already be on its way to Korella. And there’ll be at least one more meeting before we hear anything back from them.” He stopped, and momentary confusion wrinkled his features. “Bear with me. My physics isn’t exactly up to date. I’m not sure how long those hypercomm transmissions take to get back to us. But anyhow, we might by then have some serious news about them. About the aliens. Maybe when we get into the middle of the summer, we’ll have one of the aliens as our guest speaker. That’s one we wouldn’t want to miss.”

He switched back to Morinda and spent several minutes on why artifacts matter. “They provide the only real way we can touch the past, and that’s why we go to such measures to preserve them. Does the past really matter? Think what it feels like when you go back to the home you grew up in and everything’s changed. The AI’s been replaced by a stranger, the front porch is now enclosed, the house next door where the McClellands lived has become a tech shop.” He paused, and his audience applauded until he held up a hand. “It’s how we know who we are.”

There wasn’t much point that night in talking about anything other than aliens, however, so Gabe told stories from a couple of the expeditions he’d shared with Mutes. “Any archeologist will tell you that once the digging starts, they spend a lot of time hoping for what will be found. Maybe the lost body of the young Galatian hero Allie Moraas. Or Kim Marko’s notebook.”

Moraas had of course sacrificed himself to draw the savage Wakians away from the group of fleeing visitors at Tyro Falls. “It’s hard to believe,” he said, “that humans in an advanced society can still murder each other. Can kill strangers. But isolate them for a while, put them in an area seldom visited by others, and it happens.

“Marko’s notebook was the reason we were there. It had disappeared shortly before his death. Marko is generally credited as one of the best playwrights ever. I’ll confess I’m not a fan. His plays are a bit too complicated for me. But however that may be, the notebook, if we could find it, would be priceless.”

But Gabe could not help returning to the Columbia. “The one thought I suspect we’re all sharing this evening is how much any of us would give to have been with the people on that ship.”

He finished his remarks a few minutes later, after getting more applause and laughs. Then he invited questions. The first one was usually the same at all his speaking events: How did he get interested in archeology? “It’s hard to see how you can earn any money digging up ancient cities. Would you recommend it as a career?”

Of course the subject of the day surfaced quickly: “What about the aliens? Would you be interested in collecting artifacts from them? Would they be more valuable than stuff from Morinda?”

Gabe said he thought alien artifacts sounded like a good idea. That got more laughs. A few minutes later he wished us all a good evening.

Henry was slow to leave his table at the end. He waited for Gabe to come down off the stage, and then he got up and headed in his direction. Henry and Gabe got together and talked for a few minutes. Then Gabe said a few parting words to the event secretary and turned back to Henry. They knew each other pretty well. Chad and I stayed at our table. They eventually began to walk toward the doors. I was hoping to get Henry alone, but it didn’t look as if it was going to happen.

There were still a few people lingering at their tables, but most were now headed for the exit. Chad and I got up and joined them as bots began gathering dishes. We walked leisurely, off to one side, in plain view so Henry could see me. I’d told Chad that I’d been invited to join the Harbinger flight. When he asked about my intentions, I’d told him I hadn’t made up my mind yet.

We preceded Gabe and Henry outside and I took the only course available, walking directly over to them as they came through the doors. “Hi, guys,” I said. Gabe already knew Chad. I introduced him to Henry. When they exchanged greetings, I picked up a distinct coolness in Chad. He just wanted Henry to go away.

“Henry,” I said, “I didn’t know you were interested in archeology.”

“Oh, yes. Especially when Gabe has the floor.” He smiled at me but spoke to Gabe and Chad. “You probably both know she’s a Xenocon.”

“No,” said Chad. “What the hell’s a Xenocon?”

Henry smiled. “You just had dinner with one. They’re people who’ve been trained how to respond during an encounter with aliens.” He turned in my direction. “Chase, have you by any chance decided whether you’re going to join us on the Harbinger? I don’t want to rush you, but we’re running out of time.”

That was how the moment came. Make up your mind. “No,” I said. “I’m going to pass, Henry. Sorry, I just can’t manage it. But thank you.” Chad’s eyes closed momentarily. He looked relieved. But I could see the disappointment in Gabe’s expression. He’d expected more of me.

Henry nodded. “I understand, Chase.”

Gabe checked the time. “Got to get moving, guys. Chase, you need a ride home?”

“Chad’s got me covered, Gabe. Thanks.”

“Okay. See you tomorrow.” He headed into the parking lot.

Henry watched him go and then told Chad he’d been glad to meet him. “Chase,” he added, “I’m sorry you can’t make it. Take care.”