Neal raised a hand and John paused. Neal was, understandably, stunned by what he had seen, but as fast as things were moving, he mind was racing, starting to stretch to meet them, and he knew it was his turn to show what he could do.

“Allow me,” Neal said, looking earnestly at John, his hand still raised, “Firstly, it is clear that if you meant us harm we would not be alive now. We have no way of defending ourselves against what I have just seen.”

John nodded, happy Neal was taking the opportunity to prove he could handle the responsibility John was here to put on his shoulders.

“Second, I am quite certain we cannot produce anything capable of what you can clearly do, so that makes me as close to certain as I can bring myself to be that you are … not … from … here.”

John nodded at Neal, who let that sink in, glancing at Madeline, who’d had much longer with this, but was still now only just getting to the place Neal was arriving at now.

It was clear why the scientist had been one of the few to surmise the importance of the meteors, and why he and his friends had been the only ones to figure out how to go after them. It filled John with something approximating hope that he had found these two, or rather that they had been the ones who found him.

Neal seemed about to go on, but John decided to give him a break, “Not from here, that is certainly one way of putting it, and maybe that aspect of my story is as good a place to start as any.”

John picked up three pads from the desk and handed one each to each of the members of his small but eager audience, keeping one for himself as he said, “You’ll need these.”

Madeline grabbed a couple of pens from the desk and took a seat next to Neal as John began.

Chapter 25: History of Travel

In the annals of the past, at about the time that the first caveman was accidentally striking a flame to life with what was to be the first flint firestarter, the still evolving people of another planet were also expanding across the continents of their globe.

They were, in many ways, very similar to us. They had evolved on four legs, their front feet eventually adapting to allow them to pick up, and finally manipulate the objects that surrounded them. They were also, like us, hunter-gatherers, the same natural selection bringing their two eyes to the front of what we would call their heads so that they could have the depth perception necessary for pursuing prey.