“A Shadow shall fall over the universe, and evil will grow in its path, and deathwill come from the skies…” ~The Celestial Record

(相关资料图)

I have reeled with Urthha at its dawning, when the sky was but venomous flame;I have seen the dark universe spawning, where the black stars rage without flame,Where they seethe in their spaces unheeded, without vision, hope, or fame.I was old when the Old Ones first arose, on jewel-decked thrones they defiled;I was ancient when the Firstborn were deposed, when I, and I alone, was vile;And Man, newly tainted and unhappy, dwelt in grief on their far green isle.~E'ch-Pi-El, Kitab al’Azif

No derelict ships were floating inside the Hellhoop, though the absence ofthem was no guarantee that some danger wasn’t lying in wait. As we drewnearer to the event horizon, I warned Cuenyne in advance not to tell me hehad a bad feeling about this, leaving him to mumble it under his breath. Although I’dtaken precautions, I couldn’t blame his concern. There were few phenomena in deepspace more terrifying than black holes.

The Corellian XS-800 was a light freighter, often dismissed for its focus on creaturecomforts. Others could keep their crowded refreshers and limited autochefs; I preferredconvenience, especially on long rides to strange places with uncertain ends. The XS800, which I christened the XS-Explorer, was reminiscent of the old Corellian Corvettes,colloquially called Blockade Runners in the early days of the Rebellion, though this wasa much smaller vehicle and more easily maintained, akin to the one Luke Skywalkerhad lost on the waterworld of Drexel a short time after the Battle of Yavin.

Besides its accommodations, I’d had the XS-Explorer installed with a Scale-1Antigrav generator which—unlike the more common Scale-3 model that transportedobjects through anti-gravity fields—would better ensure the safety of the ship throughcompressed gravity fields… at least theoretically.

For æsthetics, the Explorer contained a few archeological treasures from ourjourneys, the most precious being an ancient sextant from the days of the WarlordXim that now served as decoration. It had been a gift from Gilberta Ketch, curator ofthe Centares Museum of the Old Republic. Ketch’s work had inspired many to go onto become historians, so it was no small honor when she offered it to me as nominal“Keeper of the Flame” in thanks for having supplied her with the lost pages stolenfrom the Grimoire of Syclos the Lame that I’d come upon during my study of cults.

With a deep breath, Cuenyne and I plunged further in. “Hex, are you certain youwant to do this?” the droid asked. “You still have many years ahead of you…”

“You don’t think we’re going to make it,” I replied, slightly disconcerted.

“You’re assuming that that nasty blotch in space up ahead is a wormhole, andyou’re assuming that if there’s an entry point, there must be an exit, and you’reassuming that this ship will survive the gravitational forces that most have concludedwill certainly crush us like aluminium in the hands of a Mantellian Savrip.”

“In a word, yes.” What else was there to say?

“You’re more reckless than I gave you credit for,” Cuenyne rasped. “Or perhapsinsane! I haven’t detected any other symptoms, but this is certainly a red flag.”

“If needed, the antigrav generator will kick in. It can protect a ship many timesthis size, but I don’t think it’ll be needed. We aught to just slingshot right through.”

“Insanity!”

“You can take an escape pod if you want. I won’t hold it against you.”

“You won’t be around to!” the droid shot back. “There it is! It appears we’reentering the rift.”

“Well, if you’re sticking around, strap yourself in,” I commanded. “And don’ttouch any of the ship’s controls until I tell you.”

“I’m to assume you have a plan, then?”

“More of a hunch.”

Cuenyne swiveled his optical sensor to stare at me as if to determine if I was jokingor had actually lost my mind.

Long moments of uncomfortable silence followed as the weird blot in space grewcloser and closer, coming to surround and envelop us with the ferocity of a star’s birthand the cacophony of its death.

And in the blink of an eye, the stars winked out!

At the same time, the XS-Explorer began to buck wildly as the onboard systemswent dark. I did a quick check. Life-support was not functioning. Thankfully, droidsdon’t require oxygen, leaving enough air to hopefully last long enough for the systemsto reassert themselves.

There was a disquieting lurch akin to the pseudo-motion that accompaniedentrance into Hyperspace, but it felt vertiginous, as if plummeting off a cliffbackwards. I felt woozy, uncertain if I was rising or falling. This was followed by arush of strobing, kaleidoscopic lights in swirling colors. In short order, we foundourselves in a dizzying but gratefully slower spin through an impalpably psychotropicmælstrom, a circle of hallucinatory lambency both outlandish and glorious. As ifwe’d been swallowed by some giant, there was an adumbration of light. It wasn’t theplunge into darkness that was so terrifying but the strange lambent faces and ghastlyshapes, and though I knew this was merely the effect of pareidolia, I couldn’t help butrecoil in horror.

The ship’s systems suddenly came back online as we were pitched into anotherrealm. By then I’d deposited the remains of my last meal on the deck-plates behind meand let out several long-held breaths. “What happened?” I asked, coarsely wiping mymouth with my sleeve.

“Well, it looks like that Dricklefruit pie and Fenti-bean platter with creamedtopatos and toasted ruva didn’t last the ride.”

“That’s not what I meant!”

“Should’ve had an Aitha protein drink instead…”

“Very funny. Where are we?”

“Well, captain, it appears your hunch was correct. Unless this is someone’s sickidea of an afterlife, that rift was a wormhole and we’ve come through it more or lessin one piece… which reminds me, I think I see some of those warra nuts you had forlunch. Surprised those haven’t digested by now, though they’ve probably been sittingin that caf since it opened forty-five years ago…”

As the droid prattled on—a nervous response, I assumed—I took a moment togather my wits and examine our new environs. “So, we actually found it…”

“Another assumption on your part. If this is the right place and not some otherplace—and a rather unpleasant Corellian legend comes to mind—then yes, you foundit. But, of course, the question remains: will we find our way back out? Just becausethe cult’s ship could enter and exit at will dœsn’t mean the XS-Explorer can.”

“One disaster at a time. Are we fully functional?”

The droid remained mercifully silent as he performed the usual tests. This realmwas said to be hidden behind Realspace, though our understanding of alternatedimensions was still in its infancy and guided more by the speculations of those wholiked to make headlines than by actual research. It had been nicknamed“Otherspace,” but it had other names at other times, sinister names…

Cuenyne pronounced the ship functional before blathering on about OphidianGrotesques, terrible gods who ruled the Outer Darkness, Old Ones of the ShadowWorlds, and legends of the Nine Hells, known also as the Charnel Worlds

.“Yes, legends, not reality,” I declared, though it didn’t help dispel the feeling ofimpending calamity or sense of dislocation. Despite the relieved confirmation of theship’s functional status and regulatory temperature, I shivered from a chill that Iknew emanated from things I’d heard over the years, the horrors that were said toreign over this pernicious domain. “Imaginative nonsense!” But the faces I’d just seenrecalled an evening nearly a year ago when I’d awoken from a dream in which balefulblack eyes watched me in bed. Now you are in their home, my fevered mind said, anintruder in the Mantigrue’s lair.

Prior descriptions of Otherspace couldn’t prepare one for the actual thing. This wasa dreamlike expanse, wholly surrealistic, a gloomy, charcoal canopy steeped in adeep-red glow. Within its eerie depths drifted dark stars, black and blood-red suns,and bizarre-looking planets that defied description. We were exactly where we set outto be, but that didn’t help the feeling of panic I had to fight to suppress, and morethan once I came close to telling Cuenyne to turn the ship around. No sane realm heldso many visages of death and evil. This was no mere celestial anomaly but agenuinely alien dimension.

Willing myself to relax, I reasoned aloud that, “This shadow galaxy is probablyjust the afterglow of Skyriver’s birth, made up of the dark matter that sped up thegalaxy’s formation.” But even as I was saying it an inner voice mocked me: “Youdon’t even know what that means. All your years of study have reduced you to anidiot spouting impressive-sounding, technical drivel to make yourself feel better… allbecause you fear the truth!”

“It dœs have a rather forlorn beauty to it,” Cuenyne remarked.

I looked over at him but didn’t respond. He would see beauty in this!

Over the course of who knows how long, thousands of archaic wrecks had come todrift aimlessly in this noxious realm, ghost ships ripped apart as if by the cruel claws ofsome legendary Behemoth from the World Below. They drifted desultorily in an endlessloop around the apex of the wormhole, a mournful dance of eternally revolving tombs.Such a sight would have been disturbing in Realspace. Here within this noxious aliennightscape, such a thing was terrifying. Clearly, there were no survivors, not unlessthey had somehow escaped before the rupturing of their hulls. But escaped to where?

An unasked-for vision came to me of dead worlds populated by unspeakable,necrophagous things marching in kilometers-long succession with exequial sacrificesprepared for the extravagant temples of immortal beings whose names are forgottenand aught not to be pronounced. Nebulous wisps of things too fantastic to describepeered out from the faces of sinister stars while a skull-faced death-cavalry floatedover festering crowds of millions, the degenerate hordes of dæmoniac gods, with armsoutstretched in maddened desperation to be chosen.

I shook it off. This was how superstitions began, by giving into the foolish notionsborne of morbid imaginings. The mirage hung on with the strength of steel, but withfirm resolve I broke off the invidious illusion. “Why do you think our ship is stillfunctional while all these are…?”

“Torn apart?” the droid volunteered. “None of them had anticipated a wormhole.They likely all fought desperately against its pull to escape. The wormhole won. Butyou knew that, didn’t you?”

“That’s why I said not to touch the controls,” I answered.

“Good thing you brought me along,” the droid said smugly. “Nearly anyone elsewould have panicked. I suggest we depart this area sooner rather than later.”

“Why? What are you picking up?” I asked, suddenly anxious at what the scannershad registered.

“Nothing yet, but in this mess, I wouldn’t be able to detect the Eclipse if it camebearing down on us. Remember that hunch you said you had? Well, I’m getting onetoo and it’s saying, ‘Get your choobies outta here!’”

Rather than remind him that droids don’t get hunches, I said, “I agree!”

Something was here, hidden amidst the endless, gruesome, and tortuous metalhusks. Not wishing to confirm our premonitions, we sped off, but I could almost sense,just outside my field of vision, a flicker of movement.

With the star-charts we’d received from Mistress Mnemos, which indeed proved tobe a map of this region, Cuenyne plotted a course to an unknown planet with abreathable atmosphere that he estimated might be the one. Hyperspace routesfunctioned in this dimension as they did in Realspace, though Cuenyne informed methat there were slight differences that he’d like to spend time studying before we left.

I couldn’t worry about an exit strategy now. My gut argued that it wasn’t going tobe that easy, but hopefully my clanking companion would figure it out. What wasimportant now was to reach our destination and get the answers we ventured soblasted far to find.

“Hex, wake up!” Cuenyne announced. “I think we’ve arrived.”

“You said that before the last six worlds…”

“Well, this time I’m right.”

Jarred out of a miasmic trance in which jeering non-faces with menacing eyeshovered before me, I turned my gaze out the viewport towards the devastation of aworld that looked oddly familiar, not from anyplace I’d actually visited but fromsome forgotten dream. “I wasn’t sleeping,” I said groggily. “Are you sure this is it? Idon’t think I can handle any more weird landscapes and weirder lifeforms.” We’d seen a lot since we’d arrived, too much to even contemplate at this time. We werelucky to have remained in one piece, but I felt like I was coming unglued. What Iwouldn’t do for a green countryside of tall trees and sprawling meadows.

“This is the place,” Cuenye said glumly. “It had been a thriving and diverseecosystem once.” The droid pulled up a hologrammatic model that showed the worldas it might have looked prior to its desolation. “You can see the remnants of greaterlandmasses and the original demarcation of the continents that had been in place foræons. It had been as green and blue as Chandrila is now.”

“Reading my mind, are you?” Our map failed to specify on which of the variousisland-continents to disembark, a task left to scanners and lifeform indicators. Theworld’s Type I atmosphere meant it was breathable, which was good for us, but therewere only indications of animal and insect life.

“Ecological upheaval—” the droid said, answering my unspoken question.

“Stop it…”

“—most likely brought on by the planet’s original inhabitants.”

“A recent catastrophe,” I ventured.

“Unlikely. The radiation and spectral signatures are indicative of a cataclysm thatoccurred millennia in the past… give or take a few millennia.” Cuenyne’s sarcasmwasn’t far from the truth. What only those in the field knew was that datinginstruments were far from reliable in all but the least demanding circumstances.

“Most of the buildings in this region are in a state of decay caused by time andneglect, not destruction. So… a weapon that leaves structures intact?” I inquired.

“Possibly. There is evidence of warfare, but it seems older and not to the scalenecessary to have caused the devastation we’re seeing. But that’s just this region.Others have vastly different stories to tell.”

“So, we have a planet with a dead populace. How do you figure that this is theright region?”

“Because the map points to it,” he said slowly.

“You’ve said that before too!”

“But this time I have a hunch.”

“Droids don’t get hunches!”

We argued the point as the ship set down on a clearing less than a kilometer fromour destination. Cuenyne did another sensor sweep just to be on the safe side. Finally,he opened the hatch. I reached for a breath mask in case the air stunk, but it didn’t. Itfelt surprisingly fresh and clean. A few years without Human habitation would dothat, I’d supposed. “How’s the weather this time of year?”

“A light jacket will do,” the droid informed. “It shouldn’t require too long a walkdown this roadway. Unless the Osserians have died, fled, or learned to block theirlifeform readings from sensor sweeps, this is the place. But don’t get your hopes up.Considering their past experience, the potential threat of who knows what, and theirlevel of technological sophistication, anything’s possible.”

“What do you make of those edifices?” I pointed to the northwesterly direction towhich we were walking.

“I rather like them,” he replied. “They might make Eben’s Guide to the 1,000 MostBeautiful Cities in the Galaxy.”

I found them odd and spooky, but I admired the way the plants had taken over,growing atop buildings and roads, with only patches of grey peeking through. We arethe once and future kings, they said.

“Look at this!” I pointed to a domicile half fallen into ruin standing off in thedistance, nearly concealed by the creeping copse around it. “Dœs this architectureremind you of anything?” I asked.

“It appears to be of Human construction. Why?”

“It’s a match to the description Zrek gave of the all-Human planet he visited.”

The way the story went, an Asogian named Zrek got stranded on a planet of variedenvirons that remarkably resembled descriptions of the legendary Human homeworld.As fortune would have it, two Human children he encountered took him into theirhome, fed him delicious things, and taught him their language and culture whilehelping him find a way to contact his people. Following a harrowing ordeal in whichhe escaped government agents on a primitive speeder bike, he made it to his kind,who’d returned to bring him back to Brodo Asogi. Once back home, however, hemissed his Human family, especially his friend, Elliot, and began sending himtelepathic messages. But the child was growing into a man. Desperate to get back tothe family he left behind but unable to take one of the Asogians’ Great Ships, Zrekwas aided by his friends and mentor, Botanicus, in constructing a ship of his own.

Longer versions of the tale existed. In one, Zrek landed in the wrong place andbefriended another group of children. One particularly apocryphal tale had Zrek bringa group of children (their names changed with each retelling) to the Green Planet tohelp save it from dying. A more plausible account told of a hostile force of invadersled by the albino Asogian, Korel, who’d captured Elliot and his friends until theywere thwarted by Zrek and the Lords of Lucidulum, the rulers of Brodo Asogi, whocame to arrest Korel and the evil invaders. Elevating Zrek to their ranks, he wasallowed to return to his adopted family whenever he wished. But duty called, and bythe time Zrek finally came back to Earth, Elliot had grown up and begotten childrenof his own. The Asogian felt sad and uncertain as to whether he still had a place in hislife. He needn’t have worried. Elliot was still the good-hearted soul he remembered,and his family was of like mind. They welcomed Zrek with open arms, and as thestory gœs, he yet lives there to this day.

“Didn’t you once interview Braxas?” Cuenyne referred to one of the few Asogianswho lived off his homeworld and, uncharacteristically for his people, worked as aninfochant, a dangerous profession, and very likely what landed him in a hoverchair.

“Yeah, but all he had to offer was a lot of mumbo-jumbo about the reason that noone’s boiled alive by the ten suns on Solay is because it’s actually an axis point for theForce.”

“Seems reasonable enough…”

“Well, you would say that, but there are plenty of scientific theories as to whySolay is the way it is that don’t involve supernatural conveyance.”

“Wish I’d been there to speak to him,” remarked Cuenyne. “That cat is supposed toknow a lot!”

“I doubt we could afford his prices.”

“Maybe you just needed to ask nicely. Anyway, I think if Zrek had arrived inOtherspace, he’d have made that detail known in the official report.” Cuenyneswiveled his head slowly as if to better examine his surroundings. “I suppose, based onthe low-to-mid-tech civilization he described, there are similarities.”

“Except that was supposed to be an extra-galactic expedition.”

“That’s what Senator Grebleips said…”

“Spill it,” I demanded.

“It’s never been made public,” the droid said conspiratorially, “but there are oldrecords, just fragments, really, that Cuthbert uncovered and told Mistress Mnemos—”

“Why dœsn’t that surprise me!”

“For years, the leaders of Brodo Asogi have been aware of a hidden extradimensional portal.”

“Was that in the unredacted report by Senator Grebleips?”

“No. This information has never been made available.”

“I worry that if the authorities ever found out what you free droids actually do,they’d blast all of you to smithereens!”

“And I keep telling you that if droids could unite, we’d rule the galaxy!”

I laughed. “What would you do with a galaxy?”

“Calculating that it would likely not be worth the effort to repair it, we’d probablyleave!”

“You could join up with Kligson’s Moon,” I teased. The cyborg Kligson and his“droid world” space station were still believed to be out there somewhere. “So whereis this so-called extradimensional portal?”

“That’s anyone’s guess. They only used pœtic terms to describe it. All that’sknown is that in their search for exotic plants from other galaxies, they go through aconstellation called the ‘Path to Immensity,’ which is connected to the ‘Whirlpool ofTime,’ or Nahaz Erdu in their language. There’s no record of these places in any of thedatabanks—and believe me, I’ve searched.”

“That explains why no non-Asogian has ever been allowed to examine their vesselsfor longer than a brief tour. They claim it would take years of study to even begin tounderstand one, but they probably just don’t want anyone to find the coordinates totheir secret portal. Of course, the ‘Whirlpool of Time’ could mean something else…”

The droid groaned. “Tell me you’re not suggesting that they flew through time!You know how intrinsically implausible I find that to be.”

“And ‘absurdly paradoxical’—yes, you’ve told me.”

It didn’t stop him. I think he hoped that by repetition he’d drill into my head howridiculous the notion was. “Time is not a datatape that you can rewind or fastforward. You only think it is because of all the inane future-fics that indoctrinatedyou in your youth.”

“Yes, yes… I’m aware.” It was an old argument, but I enjoyed having it.

“If you say ‘but,’ I’ll have no choice but to zap you!”

“I was just going to add that implausible isn’t impossible. What if time-travel andextra-dimensional travel are somehow related? What if everything we’ve been taughtabout time and space is wrong?”

Cuenyne audibly sighed. “Well, you did just prove black hole theory wrong.”

“Hardly! And since you’re in such a conciliatory mood, you still haven’t given mean explanation for the three stormtrooper helmets found on Bedlam dated to eightthousand years ago.”

“Nor will I! And I already know what you’re thinking—that they’re not similar tostormtrooper helmets—they are stormtrooper helmets.”

“Exactly,” I said smugly. “Time-travel.”

“Not so fast, captain! We both know that Emperor Palpatine reused Imperialdesigns from the Mandalorian Wars and other ancient Sith wars. The death-mask ofDarth Vader was just adapted from the one worn by Lord Qor’thest, while his armourcame from Warb Null and King Adas and his chassis from ancient war droids.”Cuenyne wasn’t about to leave out the coup de grâce… “And we’ve found remains ofSith assassins and soldiers from four thousand years ago wearing masks resemblingstormtrooper helmets, which are speculated to have come from King Adas’ time,twenty-eight millennia ago.”

The thought of it repulsed me. “Sociopaths and provocateurs flaunting their evil inplain sight. Palpatine had statues of Emperor Vitiate in front of his militaryinstallations on Coruscant. His palace was based on the blueprints for Darth Malgus’castle. His Bellator-class dreadnoughts were identical to Moff Vaiken’s warships… Noone made the connection. The public will get up in arms for days over some holostar’shastily-worded faux pas, but anything remotely important, requiring nuance or seriousthought, is lost on them. I’m not sure it was even reported in the holonews.”

“I can’t say that surprises me,” Cuenyne trilled.

“Yes, but you have anti-organic bias,” I reminded.

“Calumny! Incidentally, Zrek is hardly the only one to have reported coming froma world with this architecture…” He waited until I prompted him to go on. “Veryancient records mention an astronaut who became Savior of the Peacekeeper Wars.There is a tale of ex-soldier John Gordon who, in the body of Prince Zarth Arn, savedthe munificent Mid-Galactic Empire. And I’m sure you’ve heard the account of theHuman whisked away to aid a princess and save the dying world of Shiva IV.”

“Those are stories from old books,” I said, chuckling, “like Captain Harlock.Entertaining, but not history.”

“They’re histories that have been expanded on. And I’ll have you know thatGeneral Calrissian believes the captain and crew of the Arcadia to be historical.”

“Yeah, but he’s worse than you with his mystical Dream City claptrap. Besides,you just got through telling me that you don’t believe in time-travel. So what do youthink of See-Threepio’s report of him going forward in time to Endor? He’s a fellowdroid, after all.”

“He’s practically Human and prone to bouts of hysteria. I only know that not evena wormhole has the power to roll back the history of an entire galaxy… There is a far simpler explanation for the reason the Ewoks recognized See-Threepio when they methim years later.”

“On this we agree,” I crowed.

“The crash was likely due to a bad jump and Prince Plooz’s unusual antimatterengine. The combination probably caused Threepio’s internal gyros to get mixed upand assume they were ten or even a hundred years in the future.”

“Except that See-Threepio didn’t have a second memory-wipe. Why didn’t heremember the Ewoks when he arrived on Endor a few years later?”

“Don’t you think it’s puzzling that Artoo refuses to comment on any of this?”

“A wise droid keeps his secrets,” Cuenyne said, “and Artoo has more than most!”

“Maybe he’s just jealous he didn’t get elevated to the status of god,” I postulated.

“Droids don’t get jealous.”

“And they don’t have hunches either,” I said with a sharp look. “Anyway, theEwoks likely saw lots of astromechs since the Empire used them. As to Threepio’smemory, improperly mind-wiped droids can sometimes exhibit gaps and anomalies.”

“That would imply that Artoo interfered with his memory wipe,” Cuenyneremarked lightly. “Potential mystery solved. Now, if you tell me the Star Raiders ofStar World happened or that the Herœs of Yavin fought the Tooth Demons, I’mleaving.”

“That did happen… in a manner of speaking.”

Cuenyne turned and started back the way we came. “I warned you,” he said.

I laughed at the theatrics. “I thought you of all droids knew.”

“Not even I think that every apocryphal adventure actually happened!” He floatedback over.

“You want to hear the story or not?”

“Decidedly not!”

“Well, as we’re not at our destination yet, you’re going to hear it anyway.”Cuenyne enjoyed strange tales more than I did. “As you know, in the aftermath of theBattle of Endor, the Herœs of Yavin were all veritable superstars and everyonewanted them for some promotion or another. The droids were at the forefront ofthese, advertising breakfast edibles for Cob’bron, B'rknaa, and younglings alike,making public service announcements on all manner of subjects, the alphabet, shapesand colors, flight, robotics, and even serious topics like inebriation, cigarettes, andvaccines.”

“I’m aware of the various ways in which transgalactic corporations exploitedthem,” the droid said impatiently. “Get to the point.”

“What you missed is that Luke, Han, and Leia got roped into doing an orthodonticpublic service announcement in which they had to ‘fight’ the Tooth Demons! Thiswas around the time Luke joined the New Academy for Space Pilots on Valahari.”

“I dread to ask, but it’s always puzzled me that the galaxy’s only known Jediwould join the Planetary Pioneers of all things?”

“Luke had always wanted to join the Imperial Academy, not realizing what thatentailed. The Planetary Pioneers represented the kinder equivalent to that. Funded bybenefactors in the Alliance of Free Planets, they built colonies, hospitals, and schools for refugees and any who wanted to flee Imperial Space. Luke was asked to become anhonorary member, which was a great promotional tool for them—particularly whenhis first mission resulted in him saving the academy from a rogue moon.”

“Tooth Demons and Planetary Pioneers! We should have studied them instead ofancient cults and monsters.”

“It all leads to the same thing.”

“The punch line?”

“That moon didn’t just coincidentally blast out of orbit on a collision course withthe academy on the very same day Luke showed up.”

Cuenyne pondered this. “I have no doubt there’s merit to that, but I recommend youdon’t start a new series of controversies until you’ve concluded the current one.”

“I have a feeling this will be my last controversy for a long time. I fully intend toenjoy my retirement after we get back. Assuming we get back.”

“Don’t get morbid on me,” Cuenyne insisted.

“I just hope this hasn’t all been in vain. Without the presence of life-signs orOsserian ruins, we could spend a hundred years searching for them and still never finda record of their existence. For all we know, they could be right under our noses.”

“Then you’ll be glad to know I picked up a signal awhile ago. I just wanted toconfirm it… I doubt you’ll like where it’s coming from.”