DATE: Year 486-B, Sol 668

  LOCATION: Hotel Florida Bar

  -I’ve got a big viewport because I do very well trading, Lister said proudly.

  -And the alien was outside it?

  -Yeah, Lister confirmed. And he looked just like us, well, except without the, you know, he said, patting on the body armor he and all humans wore, which provided radiation shielding, allowed the loading of oxygen tanks, administered vitamin shots, and otherwise helped humans survive in the harsh environs they carved out for themselves across the solar system.

  -What was he breathing?

  -He was just out there, in space, Lister continued. He lowered his voice. And I could hear him in my mind.

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  Poe had heard this before. Aliens were a myth humans remembered came with them from their days on Earth, before the Rip. The Saganites had, on their own, conducted extensive searches of the Jovian moons, and the West Martian archaeologists scoured ancient lakebeds for signs of a former Martian civilization, having taken the legends of a sleeping King of Mars found by the Chin-Astro Mining Concern in the early days of settlement literally. And there was the affair on Triton, when nearly three hundred men and women at the Triton Trading Outpost claimed to have come under siege by alien warships.

  In each case psychic abilities played a role in the stories. The legend of the sleeping king of Mars is that he communicated with the CAMC surveyors telepathically and the Triton traders claimed the alien warships had psychic weapons.

  So Lister claimed the alien outside his generous viewport communicated with him through thoughts.

  -What was he thinking?

  -Explosions, lots of explosions. Addis Ababa Station, the Mars elevator, even the Hotel Florida.

  -Yet you came here anyway, Poe pointed out.

  -He said he could stop it, Lister said in a whisper.

  Poe knew it was too late. The explosives had already been set, and even an attempt to remove them would trigger at least the outer layer, causing significant damage.