But the species may have learned something. Survey’s exploration teams, who are carrying on the search for whoever else might be out there, are extensively trained in how to respond to a contact. Similar training is now required of anyone seeking to purchase or pilot a deep-space vessel.

She gazed around the beach. It seemed smaller than she remembered.

Her link sounded. It was Flexner, who’d gone over to Survey with her. “Yes, Matt?”

“Kim, where are you?” He sounded annoyed.

She sighed. “I’m on my way.”

“Good. We need to know exactly what you’re going to say tomorrow so we can set everything up for the interpreters. And that has to be done tonight.”

She would be speaking, not in her own right, but as Emily’s sister. “I’ll be there in ten minutes,” she said.

“Good. And Kim?”

“Yes?”

“That means we have to stick to the script, right?”

“Right,” she said. “Absolutely.” She took a final look around, and climbed into the taxi. “Severin,” she told it. “Lakeside Hotel.”

It lifted off. Cabry’s Beach dropped away and she glided among the stars.

Acknowledgments

The author appreciates the advice and assistance of Jeffrey Hall of the Lowell Observatory; of Jimmy Durden, the Glynn County, Georgia, coroner; of my agent and friend, Ralph Vicinanza; of my son Chris McDevitt for devising FAULS; of writers Walt Cuirle and Brian A. Hopkins for their advice on early versions of the manuscript. Thanks also to Will Jenkins/Murray Leinster, for “First Contact,” and for his other magnificent forays into the imagination. To Caitlin Blasdell, my editor at HarperPrism. To Rebecca Springer. And of course to Maureen.

The underwater sequence in chapter XIV is loosely adapted from “In the Tower,” Universe 17, Doubleday (1987).

The epigraph for chapter XVI is from “The Ballad of Kansas McGriff,” © 1997 by Bud Webster, and first appeared in The Hobo Times, Fall 1997. Used by permission of the author.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.