The colony ship Meridian had been drifting for eleven days when Commander Yael found the old man in the cargo bay.
He was hunched between two cryogenic pods, his body so frail that his environmental suit looked like it was wearing him rather than the other way around. His hands trembled as he clutched a data pad displaying star charts she didn't recognize.
"Sir, you weren't scheduled to wake until orbital insertion." Yael kept her hand near the pulse pistol in its holster, not drawing — just reminding herself it was there. She'd learned long ago that desperate people in unfamiliar situations could make dangerous choices.
The old man looked up. His eyes were sharp despite everything else failing about him. "My name is Dr. Osman Favre. I've spent forty years in advocacy for the indigenous synthetic life we're about to colonize over. The council silenced me on Earth. They couldn't silence me here."
Yael studied him. She'd heard rumors about Favre — a xenobiologist who'd testified before seven different planetary committees, arguing that what the surveys dismissed as atmospheric interference was actually organized biological communication.
"You think something is already living on Kepler-9c," she said.
"I don't think." He turned the data pad toward her. The star charts weren't charts at all. They were signal patterns, repeating, rhythmic, unmistakably deliberate. "I know."
The ship groaned around them as the autopilot corrected their trajectory — bringing them closer, kilometer by kilometer, to a world that might already be watching them arrive.
Yael slowly moved her hand away from her holster.