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Na’khul’s efforts here on Earth was a logical first step toward preventing any future conflicts between humans and the Certoss.
    Fate, it seemed, had other ideas.
    Waiting until the waitress took her order and moved on to assist diners at another table, Gejalik asked in a low voice, “Has there been any new contact from Jaecz?”
    “No,” Adlar replied, “not since his letter.” He retrieved an envelope from his jacket’s interior pocket. Inside were two sheets of folded paper filled with handwritten script in Jaecz’s home language. Though he understood most of the passages, a few words or phrases still required additional scrutiny. Adlar, like Gejalik, had grown up speaking, reading, and writing a different language, only later learning his friend’s native tongue. “I’ve found nothing in any of the avenues we established for exchanging communication. Jaecz has not attempted contact in more than three months.”
    “I wonder if he found anything at that base in New Mexico.”
    “Whatever was there,” Adlar said, pausing to verify that no eavesdroppers might be lurking within hearing range, “the Air Force has since taken to denying everything.”
    In his own capacity, using one of his human personas in order to pose as an intelligence officer in the United States Army, Adlar had determined that an unidentified craft had crashed three months earlier in the desert near Roswell, New Mexico. The events that had transpired in the immediate aftermath were the focus of much speculation, given themilitary’s initial reporting of the crash and the subsequent retraction of their statements to that effect. Rumors abounded about the recovery of an extraterrestrial vessel along with other artifacts of technology and even the bodies of the ship’s dead occupants. As to the craft’s present location, Adlar’s surreptitious investigation had determined that if it did exist, it no longer was at Roswell but instead had been transported to some other, undisclosed location.
    “Perhaps Jaecz was captured or killed,” Gejalik said. The waitress had deposited a cup of coffee for her, but it sat untouched. Unlike Adlar, she was far more discerning with respect to human cuisine, instead preferring organic foods eaten without much in the way of preparation.
    Adlar nodded. “I considered that possibility and even attempted to investigate it. I found nothing to indicate he’s been taken into human custody.” Such a report, like the Roswell Incident, would without doubt attract all manner of attention throughout the ranks of the American government’s intelligence community. “Wherever he is, it’s more probable that he’s simply gone into hiding. Maybe he’s even trying to make his way to us. I’ve left messages, letting him know we’ll be staying here, at least for now.”
    Eyeing the coffee before pushing it away from her, Gejalik released a small sigh. “It’s a pity we couldn’t confirm the existence of the spacecraft. Accessing its communications systems alone could have proven worthwhile.”
    “Indeed,” Adlar replied, nodding in agreement.
    It had been his hope that such a vessel might provide them with a means of contacting their homeworld. There had been no interaction with their superiors or any other member of their race since arriving on Earth three years earlier and after having traveled across time more than five hundredyears. The communications equipment they had brought with them for that purpose, modified to interface with the temporal displacement apparatus that had transported them here, had failed to make contact across the centuries. No malfunction or other fault had been found in the device itself, leading Adlar and the others to believe something must be amiss either with the other apparatus, or else some other, larger, and as yet unknown issue had manifested itself. Adlar’s main concern with any situation on Certoss Ajahlan was similar to what he and the others faced here, as the mission