The captain continued in a routine tone, “You’ll see this system forms a food chain of predator and prey relationships, going well beyond the primary consumers. We once harvested some of the eyeless shrimp and found them quite good in a New Orleans sauce.” A chuckle.

The ballast tank rattled and they moved directly over a smoker.

Tube worms were everywhere. Rachel knew they absorbed nutrients directly into their tissues, so they didn’t even need a mouth or a digestive tract. Bacteria lived inside them. The primitive creatures made her flesh creep. The captain pointed out a big snail armored with scales made up of iron.

Fraq began chanting. It was a deep bass note that reverberated in his chest, building harmonics in the passenger sphere. Rachel shot a glance at the translator.

“It is a religious ritual, I believe,” the hapless woman said. And shrugged.

“What kind? And does he get…?”

“Active? Yes, I believe there’s a dance that goes with it. But, but—he can’t do it in here—”

As the words left Natal’s mouth, Fraq began climbing to the low ceiling. He dug hands and feet into crevices and swung madly around the ceiling, never ceasing his long, rolling chant.

“What’s going on there?” the captain shouted over the comm.

Rachel ignored the shouts. She watched the alien make his graceful arcs, barely above their heads. The bass tone shifted, mounted to higher chords. And suddenly she understood.

“It’s a form of worship,” Rachel said. “This kind of place must have been how life began on his world.”

The translator was startled. “He’s making contact with the origin of life?”

“This has been a religious pilgrimage, maybe.” Rachel wondered how she could use this to decipher the meaning of Fraq’s home world, their intentions.

She had been studying for their descent, and now it all made sense. The old “warm pool” story about the origin of life had a rival. Amino acids had formed deep in the Earth’s crust—deep drilling proved that. The acids got shot up in hydrothermal fluids into cooler waters, where lower temperatures and clay minerals could form a substrate. Pre-life’s complex interactions needed structure, and clays could provide it, lattices immersed in a rich chemical bath. Plenty of extremophiles and other organisms still lived around deep-sea vents like this. Everything else on Earth had left such watery homes for better prospects.

If life on Fraq’s home world had begun this same way, they had a bond. Had Fraq been looking for this connection?

“We’re running out of time,” the captain’s voice boomed. “Quit horsing around.”

Fraq spoke as he settled back into his couch. Whatever his strange swinging and chanting had been, plainly it was a ceremony now done. Rachel had given up trying to read his facial expressions, but his body was more relaxed, wing-arms loose, and the golden eyes danced less. They focused on the primordial wealth around the black smoker, and Fraq took a deep breath.

Natal said, “We can ascend. He has much to tell us.”