DATE: Year 487-A, Sol 4

  LOCATION: Jupiter Sagan City 1, Quarantine Strut 4 Docking Bay

  The guards at the quarantine strut, of course, thought they were looking for an errant human, as did the team returning with him from Europa.

  The table chiefs had prepared a small special squad that had been briefed on the aliens. They were due to depart for Europa in less than an hour when the alien arrived. The table chiefs had not prepared for the aliens arriving on Jupiter.

  Andes Market was the first of the table chiefs who knew anything about the aliens to arrive at the quarantine strut.

  Even the few Saganites who did know something about the aliens mostly didn’t know all that much. They’d started digging through the archives when the dragons appeared, but they hadn’t been able to wrap their heads around it all, or how unprepared they were for any kind of substantive second contact.

  The table chiefs were still insisting on strict secrecy over the aliens, but Market considered that a serious mistake, and used the confusion of the lockdown at the quarantine strut to correct it.

  He gathered the senior guards, the only guards who were actually Saganites and not contracted from the JLF, and explained that they were to look for any kind of foreign substance on the exterior of the ship that had just arrived.

  Market wasn’t sure if they would find the alien the Saganite team had unwittingly brought back or a different one that might have hitched a ride.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

  As far as Market understood it, the aliens could survive in space over short periods of time, and their psychic projections could easily pass through the metal of a ship’s hull. The Saganites were totally unprepared for an arrival.

  -What kind of a foreign substance? Some kind of explosive?

  -No, Market answered. Maybe some kind of organic matter. Maybe it’s moving.

  Market stopped short of explaining to the senior guards there was a sentient alien somewhere on the quarantine strut, but they could tell from the urgency of his voice something was seriously wrong.

  The entire Sagan City had been on high alert since the bombing at the Hotel Florida. Engineers had been over every inch of the exterior and interior of the dome looking for explosives.

  A lot of the Saganite general population believed the MTC story about the dragons, having no reason not to. The few who knew about the aliens were of course more concerned about the dragons.

  Market wondered whether a dragon would show up here on Jupiter now. He’d argued as much with the other tribal chiefs.

  Obviously, to him, the Europa aliens were ready to communicate again.

  Maybe they were upset about the intrusion on Europa, even though they lived on the other side of the moon and the hotel had been build there almost two hundred years ago.

  The alien that arrived on Jupiter did not project itself as a dragon.

  Instead, it appeared as Kitchen Lister. The trader, not the warship.

  Andes gave the guards a signal to stay back as it turned to him.

  -Andes!, the Kitchen Lister apparition yelled out, raising his hands as if in a greeting.

  -I don’t have the pleasure of your acquaintance, Market responded, being mindful to treat the apparition as a human for now, if that’s what the alien had decided on. You are?

  -Gehnetop.

  The bizarre name tripped Market.

  -Sorry, again? he whispered.

  -Geh-neh-topp, the Kitchen Lister apparition said syllable by syllable as he approached Market.

  The guards looked at Market apprehensively, but he nodded that everything was fine.

  -You are with the Europa Archives, Market said, loud enough for the guards to hear.

  -Precisely, the alien said, making a wide grin on the apparition of Kitchen Lister before dropping his voice. We need to talk.