But now things had shifted again, and the call from General Pickler had thrown the colonel once more. He had not known this Captain Hawkson, or the crew of the King’s Transom, but Dr. West had been a frequent visitor to the Array. The colonel was not one to dwell on losses, probably because he had suffered so many himself, but the deaths of too many friends over the years had left him with a profound respect for those left behind, and so he would go and visit Neal Danielson and see if there was anything he could do.

He would also follow the two specific orders of General Pickler: firstly he would see that there was no more talk of further expeditions for a while, and secondly he would … encourage the young scientist to pursue the job the admiral had put him up for. Certain people wanted another strong voice in that job, and they had decided that voice should be Neal’s.

Standing, he went to the door, took his colonel’s cap from the hook on its back, and walked out of his office.

* * *

Neal had given up on his junk-strewn hotmail inbox after getting through about 1% of the crap that filled it, and put his computer aside. He needed a black suit, white shirt, and a tie. He knew he owned at least one of each of these items, but now he had to find them amongst a sea of clothes which any self-respecting hobo would spurn in disgust.

Walking over to the taller of his two easy chairs, he started wading through the randomly piled clothes, of varying cleanliness and age. He was near the front door, and the pile of mail around it was proving even more annoying than its electronic equivalent in his inbox. He decided to find the three things he actually needed to attend to so that he could mail in his responses: rent, internet service and electricity bills.

As he kicked his feet across the pile looking for the telltale envelopes, two other pieces of mail jumped out at him. In amongst the credit card offers, coupon books and magazine subscription offers were two plain manila envelopes. The unusual thing about each was that the address on each was handwritten.

Like most of America, he hadn’t received a personal letter since he was a child.

Picking them up, he returned to his spot on the edge of the bed and looked at the writing. It was phenomenally neat, but not familiar to Neal at all. There was no return address on them either, and they were on identical card stock. The only difference was that one had mailed two weeks before the other. He opened the most recent first.

‘Neal,