| |
On the Ambassador, Sara was trying to explain brain waves to a very skeptical communications officer. To say he was skeptical would be an understatement. She was growing frustrated.
“Just humor me?” she said, an unusual edge to her voice, and left for her own cabin before he could object again.
“There you are,” Hooker said when she appeared in the sliding door.
“Yes?”
His smile abated a little. “What is it?”
She went over and plopped down on the couch. She’d been thinking about taking a nap, like Taland, but could see that wasn’t happening anytime soon!
“Nothing. Just tired.”
“You? You sleep better than anyone I ever knew.”
She looked at him. “Not so much lately, though. I mean, I am sleeping, but I wake up tired. I’m, uh,” she didn’t know how to tell him exactly.
“What? My snoring again?”
This made her chuckle a little. “No, well yes, that doesn’t help!”
“Sorry.”
She waved a hand at him. “No, you will think I’m crazy, but I’m having all these dreams, so real, so vivid, that when I wake up I feel like I’ve been fighting a battle and I’m just so stimulated that I am already tired.”
He came over and sat beside her. “I have dreams like that. I’m still just a captain, and I keep trying to check on my ship, look at everything, and I just can’t get it all done. It’s very frustrating, and as you say, tiring!”
She nodded distractedly. “I need to invent a dream monitor, or recorder...”
If anyone else in all the human worlds had said it, he would have laughed. But how many things had she invented? Only recently she had analyzed the communications used by Croto and adapted it to their and the Restan’s systems.
So, he just listened.
“You realize there is a field of thought that the Neanderthals had such a large brain, that they had paranormal, or psychic, abilities that we don’t? Or a great majority of us don’t, anyway?”
“Actually, yes. I just read that recently. It’s a wonder I am not dreaming of them, with all this information, and the fact we all discuss them, night and day!”
“But I have a feeling I am,” she said.
He looked puzzled. “Am what?”
“Dreaming of them. I just can’t remember when I wake up!”
He stared at her. “Maybe you should take a nap. Have some more dreams about them. I am serious! We have detected nothing so far coming from that star system.”
She wasn’t really listening to him, shaking her head distractedly, and at nothing in particular. She wasn’t used to not coming up with a solution to something. But she also trusted that her subconscious was working on it.
The door to their cabin slid open, and Tandew and Taland came strolling in. Great! No nap now, she thought.
“Hooker, Sara, we have a signal.”
They both just stared at Tandew. They weren’t so much waiting for him to continue, as they were just struck speechless.
“A signal from the Neanderthal planet?” Hooker finally said when no further details were offered.
“No,” Taland said. “From the vicinity of a star about 10 light years from what we think is their home.”
Sara jumped to her feet, energy flowing back into her tired body. “What does it say? Is it from them?”
“We have no idea, yet,” Taland said. “But it was directed at us, it’s not a random, escaping communications broadcast. Obviously, it was sent from someone intelligent, and someone who knows where we are and that we are coming in that direction.”
“And, if it’s them, it shows not only are they capable of all that, but that they have space flight as we do!” Sara said. “Let’s get to the Consultation Room, get everyone together!”