Whoa!
Brand new, hot off the presses (okay, not quite, I’ve been working on it for a while), and delivered from me straight to you.
And you.
Also you in the back.
Enjoy.
How Jerry and Betty Became the Least Entertaining Couple in the Neighborhood (Section 9)
The Thorines didn’t know if they were the first chosen Merchant-Ghosts. A race infinitely older than theirs came to them while they still webbed on spindly legs in the broadleafed, red fruited trees covering their planet, their webs billowing in the Thorine winds and thrumming songs echoed throughout the cosmos.
The Ancients said, “Your home sings. We have heard its echo. Teach us how it sings to the stars?”
The Thorines didn’t know they were being tested. Evaluated. Decided upon.
Millennia later they wondered what would have happened if they answered, “No, such wonders are ours and ours alone. Go.”
Instead they gave freely, joyously, learning The Ancients ways even as they taught The Ancients theirs.
And so they were selected, asked if they would watch and wander, monitor the younger races for signs of trouble, avert problems before they occurred, to join The Ancients, to become Merchant-Ghosts.
The Thorines took what they knew and applied it to their new roles. They webbed the universe with space-time tunnels, higher and lower dimensional pathways earth science could not imagine, and listened for echoes in civilizations’ songs.
Thus Earth and humans came to their attention, and knowing their role, the Thorines chose to act and in a truly Thorine way; they listened and after listening long enough they invited one and only one of the dominant species to their world to determine suitability.
Contact made, the Thorines molded their technologies into something humans could use to travel from Earth to the Thorine world and back.
They did not tell the humans their plans. Such would cause global panic, and a panicking world would not serve the Thorines at all.
There would be time enough for panic, once the Thorines revealed their purpose, but not yet, not until they were sure everything was ready.
Commander Fortin had been home for over an earth-year now, almost two, and the Thorines agreed.
Yes, it was time to act.
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