But was this that?
He touched the data sheet tucked in his jacket’s inside pocket.
Two signals. He’d identified two signals. He’d confirmed two signals.
One planet based.
And one space based.
He wasn’t wrong.
He wanted to be wrong.
Only he wasn’t.
It wasn’t as if signals of this type could be faked.
He was almost one hundred percent sure they couldn’t be faked.
He knew one person who would know if Pollin had stumbled into something governmental, something that would be illegal to know about.
Drun would know. But if he knew, why hadn’t he said something or at least hinted at it?
Was it because one of the signals was space based? Had the government finally turned their attention to the stars?
There were so few of them who looked up, even in their group. From the time they learned to walk, his people looked down. It was the only way to keep from falling when a tremor hit.
If one was star gazing, one would soon be face planting.
“Any new business?” Drun asked.
Pollin realized he’d missed all the old business while lost in his thoughts. He took a steadying breath. It was now or never.
He lifted his hand, glad the light was too bad for anyone to see the tremble. Then he rose.
“I have,” he hesitated, not sure what to call it, “information.”
4
Tim wished he could miss the meeting. Gathering? Consultation? But he was, he’d been informed, co-team leader with Riina.
It was as if they’d set out to torture him.
She’d avoided him since he became human again.
And now that he was human, he could see, could even sense when other males were interested in Riina on a more personal level.
These moments of knowing were distracting, painful even. He’d taken to staring at himself in the mirror, trying to get his expression under control before interacting with humans. With Riina.
He probably didn’t need to, since she wouldn’t look at him. Was she so disgusted by his human body?
He’d known when he decided to use his own DNA, to become himself again, that there was risk. For one thing, he’d forgotten what he’d looked like before. And for another, his human form could have been unappealing to humans not of his race. Or of his race, if he ever found any of them.
He could have picked a Garradian clone. They all seemed to be attractive. But he’d wanted to be himself again. It was going to be hard enough to be human without the extra difficulty of an unfamiliar body.
So, what had seemed like a good reason to become himself again had turned out to be less so. For instance, his consciousness appeared to have forgotten all about who and what he’d been. First thing he’d done was fall on his face.
He and his body were doing better, well enough for the mission. But the fit still felt awkward and unfamiliar.
