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Tarver only ss, theout briefly as he clenches it He lets go of h his hair in a quick, jerky et quietly to work

I don’t do anything as well as he would’ve done it I’hting dizziness and nausea The cottage is thevision yet--and the side effects are worse The fire burns dangerously low because I can’t find much fuel, and the bed is lu, since we lost our canteen Cold dinner, cold snowht, with no blankets But if we have one night where nothing is right, at least it will be one night he doesn’t have to be responsible for it all

"You see it too, don’t you?"

His voice after such a long silencethe valley The house has faded, shie as the sun retreats behind the ht, even ests I would have loved to see it for real

I gather up what I’ve pulled out for dinner and move back to Tarver’s side "Your parents’ house?"

"Then it’s notthe sa, I’m not crazy And neither are you"

For athat all along But I just nod, and drop down beside hi to eat" I offer hirasses that taste okay raw We only have two ration bars left

Finally, he looks away froe--suddenly I can see what made him look at me the way he did, like I was mad

He’s quiet while he takes a few bites of the ration bar, and we settle into silence with the ease of faain, his voice is soft "We have to deal with a lot of crackpots who accuse thewith mind control, telepathy As cadets ould all joke about it, that the brass was in our heads, telling us to keep our bunks tidier But maybe it’s not a joke Maybe this place is an experi in the air, or the water, that ical connection"

After days of silence with only hts for co And I don’t think it’s so siesting I’m simply insane, is such a relief I almost don’t want to contradict him "But what about the cave-in? Neither of us could have known that was going to happen"

"More than once I’ve moved from a spot that was blasted out of existence a second later Maybe you did know, subconsciously"

But he doesn’t sound convinced

"Can I share a theory?" I’ve known this wasn’t a haunting since the cave-in--and now that Tarver is seeing it too, I can’t dis toto think I’ht away, he turns to look athere" I lickto articulate it "Life On this planet"

His brow furrows Skeptical But he’s not callingbelongs here"

"No--Ithat was here before the terrafor If it were only the visions, maybe it could be some kind of shared hallucination But the cave-in? Neither of us could’ve known I think so us" The words alone cause a shiver down h he wants to dismiss me I scramble to speak before he can "There are whispers, everyone knows it Even if nobody’s ever proven anything, there are always stories about what lies beyond the edge of explored space Even on Corinth, we hear them The corporations that built this placehad to drive thehtful noatchingatThe shock of seeing his parents’ house must have been worse than I realized He clears his throat "Don’t you think, if a corporation discovered intelligent life here, it would’ve been all over the newscasts?"

"Unless they’re keeping it hidden for some reason" I try not to think of my father, of the rooms upon rooms of isolated, secret servers and data cores I asked about theed to distract ift or a story, until eventually I wasn’t even curious anymore--his secrets were just a part of who he was

Surely he wasn’t the only corporate executive to keep certain things hidden from public view

"You think thesecrets?" Tarver asks

I take a deep breath "I dreaht before the cave-in That so me When I woke up, that so, but I couldn’t understand the words It’s like they--whatever they are--are trying to talk to us, but they don’t kno They’re pulling things out of ourhaunted, but if they’re seeing hts, then they kno torn up I am about the people who died on that pod Maybe it was the only way they knew to start a conversation, to pick up on the thing that was playing so much on my mind And maybe this, your parents’ house, is meant for you"