01/16/21 Snippet, GHOSTS ON AN ALIEN WIND.

Right now I’m just adding bits in my head that I know I’ll need later. Actually making it all coherent will take more time. At least, that’s the plan.

I wasn’t looking forward to trying to get a straight answer from Oft about the Scout site at Erebus. I didn’t get one, either. And it was for a really annoying reason: he legitimately didn’t have one.

“I’m sorry, Pam,” he told me as we drank our beers. Including the Anticipant, who was surprisingly easier to handle once everybody had a couple of drinks in them. “If I knew what brought the Scouts there at the start, I would have told you. I was hoping the Anticipant would glean something from the site, but she could not.”

“How would you know?” I muttered.

Oft raised an eyebrow. “She may find it difficult to give details in a manner that you or even I can understand — no offense — but she knows what the phrase ‘This is important’ means, and she’s capable of saying it. If she doesn’t know, she can say that, too. And she has perfectly good ears.”