“The coincidence that the eveloi happened to be the dominant life form on the first planet we came to cannot be a coincidence. They are too central to the commerce/ intercourse/politics of all the hundreds of species in this corner of the Galaxy. It would be like landing on Earth at random and stepping out on the White House lawn or Ngoma Square.

“Epsilon Eridani was one of dozens of targets within range of Newhome. Some of the ones with reasonably comfortable planets, like BD 50, would have been real disasters because of the native life forms. If we had stopped there, we couldn’t have stayed. And we would not have had fuel to go on.

“We were steered here, somehow. The eveloi somehow were able to manipulate the mission planners long before the war, when the first drone probe was sent. When you confront them with that idea, though, they answer with evasive coyness.”

Like everybody, O’Hara had initially assumed that the eveloi were native to the planet because there were so many other, lesser, creatures that were obviously related to them. We know now that the predatory gasbags themselves had no more natural intelligence than an earthly squid, and just served as hosts for the eveloi, who are almost invisible nervous-system parasites—nomads that travel from world to world, borrowing appropriate bodies when necessary.

They had been spying on Earth for centuries, ever since the first radio wave announced civilization. They did steer humanity toward Epsilon, by invading the minds of the planners, because every other inhabitable world within Newhome’s range was already taken.

Their manipulation of spacetime still represents a challenge, or an affront, to the Grand Unification Theory. The eveloi are no help with that, claiming to be millennia beyond interest in mere physics. They also lie.

Every species that travels away from its home star encounters them, sooner rather than later. They claim to have destroyed four such species, for the protection of all others, and have taken individuals to view the blasted ruins of their home planets—always conveniently far away, so the worlds can’t be visited except on the eveloi’s terms.

What keeps everybody politely on their toes, or tentacles, is that the eveloi are vague about what criteria protect a race from their wrath, or make them call down doom. This is not an inability to communicate abstractions; they can be clear and specific when they want to be. Sometimes it seems almost a ghastly playfulness, or, as O’Hara said, coyness. “Just keep cooperating with one another,” they say, then “Maintain a healthy competitive relationship.”

They never discussed O’Hara’s inquisition while she was still alive. Centuries later, though, I was in communication with one of them on an unrelated matter, and it recognized who I was.