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She shook her head even as her gaze was fixed upon the words of the email.

“This cannot be true,” she murmured in Hausa. “It is madness.”

“She’s going to click away!” His mother cried, looking anxious.

“No, no, she’s intrigued,” General Intoshkin said as he flicked his fingers along his clean shaven chin.

“All she has to do is reply with a yes?” his father asked.

“That’s right,” Jace said.

“At least she won’t worry about getting a virus,” his mother said, eyes wide.

“She’ll do it. She thinks it crazy, but she’ll do it,” Thammah said as she leaned forward against the table, her food forgotten.

“Madness,” she whispered again, but she hit Reply and wrote, “Yes.”

There was an immediate reply. She blinked as she saw it. Another unread email from him in her inbox. Frowning slightly, she clicked on the second email.

The subject was: Welcome to the Crew.

Dr. Isa, he’d written, You’ve made the right choice to join us. You need not pack a bag. Not even a toothbrush or toothpaste is required. All will be provided for you on board the Osiris.

Her eyebrows arched up and she let out a huff of laughter as she said, “No requests for my bank account? My government identification number? Could this be real? No, it cannot be.”

“Do we want to talk to her? She’s the first one to hit reply,” Jace said.

“Hell, yes!” Thammah pumped her fist in the air.

“Yes, yes, yes!” Gehenna enthused.

“You should welcome her personally,” Khoth stated with a smile.

“All right, here we go,” Jace said.

He didn’t even have to instruct the Osiris to do anything. They were connected. Dr. Isa jerked back in her chair as her screen changed to show video images of each of them. Jace smiled broadly.

“Dr. Isa? I know that you speak English as well as Hausa and about seven other languages? But for the sake of everyone here, I hope you don’t mind if we talk in English,” Jace said to her.

She blinked rapidly. “Who--who are you?”

“Jace Parker. Pilot of the Osiris,” he said and gestured around the room. “And these are some of the people involved in the adventure you will soon be joining.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Is this some kind of joke? Like a show where people don’t know they are on television and you make them do foolish things before revealing that everyone has been laughing at them?”

“No, not at all, but I understand why you feel that way,” Jace said as he held up his hands almost as if in surrender. “I can honestly tell you that you probably won’t believe what I’m telling you until you get here.”

“Get where?” she demanded.

“Aboard the Osiris.” Jace gestured around them and another window opened on her computer to show her a view of the Osiris from the outside.

She leaned in closer and her lips parted. “This--this could be special effects. Just CGI. A program. Not real.”

“Indeed it could, which is why I said you won’t believe any of this until you get here,” he told her.

That was when she noticed Khoth, Thammah and Gehenna. Her eyes grew very large then.

“Who are the blue beings?” she asked. “And is that a--a Terminator?”