“Yes, it was almost certainly alien,” said Cora.

“And what was the cause of this energy burst?” asked Porter.

“He says that they’ve known how to send electromagnetic waves through these folds in space for a while, but matter. . . . while theoretically possible, he didn’t know that it had ever been done. All he knows was that if it was done, it would take an incredible amount of energy to do it.”

“So he’s telling you that what we saw was an energy burst that resulted in a hole being ripped in folded space that was big enough for matter to pass through it,” said Dr. Sev.

“That’s what he thinks, yes.”

Porter’s expression was like the face of a cliff, and he wasn’t bothering to mask the disdain he held for her. “What matter passed through the fold in space?”

“He thinks it was probably . . . a person,” said Cora calmly. “Or persons.”

The air became thick with sighs like steam escaping. She didn’t know what they’d expected. Best case it might be a drone of some sort, and without that family connection, hell, Ampersand wouldn’t even know whether or not that much was true.

“Whatever passed through this fold in space,” repeated Porter, “he thinks it’s definitely alive?”

“He’s pretty sure.”

Sol rubbed his face, ran his fingers through his wavy black hair. “Well, are we sticking with the typographical naming scheme? Asterisk?”

Nobody acknowledged the comment, or even looked at him.

“Or maybe ‘at sign.’ Is there a better name for at sign? Like does the at sign have a name? At sign is easier to actually draw than an asterisk.”

“Is it another refugee or refugee group?” asked Porter, keeping his voice steady. “Or is it a representative of their civilization?”

“He doesn’t know,” she lied. “All he knows is that it’s almost definitely amygdaline, not physeterine.”

“Physeterine,” said Porter as if he were pronouncing a foreign word.

“The name we’ve given to their sister species,” said Dr. Sev. “Hypothetical sister species, I should say. There have been some witness testimonies of alien sightings that line up with how Scio describes amygdalines’ ‘transient sister species’— he calls them ‘transients’— but we don’t have any direct evidence they even exist besides hearsay.”

“The technology to fold space is one only the Pequod Superorganism has, as far as he knows,” saiod Cora. “Physeterines are interstellar, but they can’t fold space.”

She looked up at the television. It was midmorning on the East Coast, and the politicians of D.C. had been awake for hours. Senator Todd Julian was giving an interview. The TV sound was on mute, but the chyron at the bottom was bold and sharp:

JULIAN: “‘ENOLA GAY’ DROPPED ITS BOMB,” DEMANDS ANSWERS FROM DHHS, CIA

“Enola Gay,” repeated Sol. “I guess it’s better than Asterisk.”

* * *