“No Gen have landed on Earth for about a decade. Those traces would have faded in a month or two. This is almost certainly Lorannic in origin.”

Nat sat back with a smile. “Wow. Finally, some progress. Nice catch, Jack. Where is this located?”

I zoomed out on the image to show the industrial park where Nat worked, maybe a quarter mile south of the field.

Nat stared at the screen, her lip curling. “Well, that’s just friggin’ peachy.”

“What’s going on?” Patrick said groggily from his couch.

I turned to him and pointed at the laptop screen. “We found something, and it’s near Nat’s employer.”

Patrick came over, yawning cavernously. He leaned over us and peered at the screen. “Those outlines on the field look like … ”

I pointed at some details on the laptop screen. “Landing sites. And just north of the Harris Institute.”

“Well, to be completely accurate,” Nat replied, “just north of the industrial park where I work. There are a lot more businesses in there.”

“But the Harris Institute is the biggest,” I replied.

“That doesn’t prove anything,” Patrick said. “What if one of the hole-in-the-wall businesses is nothing but a front for the Loranna? They wouldn’t even have to show up for work most of the time, and no one would notice.”

Nat nodded thoughtfully. “Patrick’s got a point. No matter what else might be possible, Harris is a legitimate PR and marketing firm. We’ve done six campaigns so far this year, two of them national. I’ve seen our ads on TV.”

“Me too.” Patrick made a face. “They suck.”

“You think all ads suck.”

“Your point?”

I stared at the screen, ignoring the byplay. “Nat, have you seen anything, anything at all, that might tend to make you suspicious of your employer?”

“Not really, no. I mean, some of the executives are kind of reptilian, but I just put that down to them being entitled, rich brats.”

Patrick chortled. “The two conditions are not mutually exclusive, though.”

I leaned back in my chair and glared at the laptop. Unquestionably, this was the biggest clue we had found so far—okay, the only clue—and it needed to be investigated. But how, exactly?

Tapping my finger on the image for emphasis, I said, “Somewhere between two and four landing traces, all within the last month or two. A couple of landings a month? And not just a quickie land-and-leave, either. They have to park for a while.”

“At least five days in good weather, or two days if it rains,” Sheldon said. “I also observe that the patterns indicate two different sizes of landing gear. So at least two ships. The radius and size of the landing struts are consistent with specific Lorannic classes of vessel. Not military models, fortunately. Civilian, and quite low-end and old, which seems odd.”