They both made a lot of sense, Freyr thought, as she studied them over the rim of her cup. They hadn’t been involved with the Cradle their whole lives, and so brought a fresh perspective that the Human team evidently were lacking at present. “Hmm, yes. That does make a worrying amount of sense, chaps.” Dr Wetherall took his AR glasses off and began cleaning them on his lab coat.

“That also makes this investigation a lot more complicated.” Dr Kim cut back in. “One doesn’t simply [i]go to Earth[/i] and start asking questions. You know how they get - we’d be locked up in some gulag before you can say ‘don’t mention the war!’. Game over for us.”

“We might have more luck with other species first. I seem to remember a widespread on this star map the Navigator showed me…” Freyr closed her eyes and pinched her cheeks together, trying to recall what she’d seen; it was still so hazy. “It was tracking its colleagues before it crashed into Rothia, but there were pieces missing…anyway, my point is the vector could include all the civilisations in our cluster, and more."