Chapter 3
Pollin Sollin walked quickly down the quiet street, stopping at intervals to check his surroundings. And once he stopped for a particularly troublesome tremor. Their leaders claimed the seismic activity wasn’t getting worse, but Pollin wasn’t sure he believed them.
He stopped in front of a two-story house—none of their buildings were particularly tall—glanced both ways and then slipped up to the door, using the shadows of the low-lying bushes in the yard as much as possible.
He gave the knock. Listened for the return knock. Knocked again.
The door opened just enough for him to slip inside. A blanket hung over the door, so that no light could escape into the street. The windows had been blacked out, too.
Despite these precautions, the lighting was dim, the shapes around the room shadowy.
Any other night, the precautions would have amused him.
He knew everyone there. And they knew him. There’d been no new members since Herk Taan had relocated to the southern pole.
He had been a good recruiter, too good some thought.
It wasn’t that their gathering was illegal. Their government was indifferent to their cause. But sometimes employers were less willing to overlook their level of interest in alien life forms.
“Has anyone heard from Herk?” Drun Marik was their unofficial head. He had to be particularly careful because he worked for state security.
His bosses probably knew what Drun got up to in his spare time, but he was good at his job and what was the harm?
Pollin took an empty seat at the back. He wasn’t sure, but he thought he was the last one there. He’d debated coming. He sat with his hands clenched in his lap, his fist clenching and unclenching.
At first, he’d been so excited. This was what they’d been waiting for, searching for, planning for.
But was this that?
He touched the data sheet tucked in his jacket’s inside pocket.
Two signals. He’d identified two signals. He’d confirmed two signals.
One planet based.
And one space based.
He wasn’t wrong.
He wanted to be wrong.
Only he wasn’t.
It wasn’t as if signals of this type could be faked.
He was almost one hundred percent sure they couldn’t be faked.
He knew one person who would know if Pollin had stumbled into something governmental, something that would be illegal to know about.
Drun would know. But if he knew, why hadn’t he said something or at least hinted at it?
Was it because one of the signals was space based? Had the government finally turned their attention to the stars?
There were so few of them who looked up, even in their group. From the time they learned to walk, his people looked down. It was the only way to keep from falling when a tremor hit.
If one was star gazing, one would soon be face planting.
“Any new business?” Drun asked.
Pollin realized he’d missed all the old business while lost in his thoughts. He took a steadying breath. It was now or never.
He lifted his hand, glad the light was too bad for anyone to see the tremble. Then he rose.
“I have,” he hesitated, not sure what to call it, “information.”