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card.”
    The man standing next to him was dubious. “How is it possible? To accomplish so much, so quickly, and so completely? When no one even sees them coming?”
    The concerns of his fellow citizens were no less troubling to Imam. As a delegate, it was his responsibility to assuage such worries. Yet how could he do so? He needed facts, hard truths. But when these showed up, a vast silence weighed in. It was more than disturbing. It was frightening. Despite what he had said earlier that evening, and had been saying for days, he had to admit that deep down, he too was frightened. It was not the implied threat of utter and complete destruction that scared him. It was not knowing anything, anything at all, about the possible source.
    He was about to move on when something on one of the screens caught his eye. The briefest of updates from a minor broadcast, it showed close-up vid of a single pilot making an illegal entry into Helion Prime atmosphere. A customs craft engaged in forcing the visitor down had been damaged in the attempt. Before backup could arrive on the scene, the interloper had vanished. As no trace of the intruding ship had been found on land despite an extensive follow-up search, speculation was that the intruder too had been damaged by collision and had plunged into the sea. As to the identity of the illegal, there was as yet no firm determination. Authorities were working through records to try and identify the craft and possibly its pilot. Before being forced to break away, the pilot of the customs interceptor had obtained images of the intruder that had been effectively enhanced.
    Moving closer to the screen, Imam intently studied the picture of the single human. People in the crowd, disturbed and agitated, jostled around him as each sought a different vantage point.
    “‘Coming’?” one of them was saying forebodingly. “They may already be here.”
    I mam could have taken a personal or public transport, but when possible he preferred to walk. It allowed him time to think, away from yammering politicians and self-righteous clerics. It also allowed him to hear the talk on the street, and to participate in it as well. A surprising number of citizens had no idea what the majority of their delegates in government looked like, and were more than willing to unburden themselves to a sympathetic, attentive stranger of their opinions on everything from energy costs to public morals.
    Wending his way through side streets, occasionally pausing to chat with those he met, it took Imam longer than he planned to get home. While Helion Prime’s streets were reasonably safe, no society was perfect. These rumors and whispers that currently fogged the streets were exactly the kind inclined to fuel antisocial behavior. Better even for a known and respected delegate to be home before dark.
    As he came within sight of his destination, the nearest wall glowed to life, bathing the approach to his home in soft white illumination. The automated reaction to his presence calmed him almost as much as the light itself. Out there, beyond the reach of Helion’s sun, something inimical and unknown might be stalking, but here, for now, all was as it should be.
    Reading and responding to his biometrics, the doorway opened to admit him. Once inside, he had begun to relax when a sound informed him that he had been wrong: all was
not
as it should be. That he recognized the sound did not trouble him a tenth as much as the fact that he recognized the voice that spoke to him over the steady scrape, scrape of blade against synthetic stone.
    “It was the worst place I could find. The worst place where I could survive by myself, without the burden of having to lug around special gear. See, I wanted to be free, but I also wanted to be ignored.”
    Imam turned toward the voice. He knew that if its owner had wanted him dead, he would already be lying on the floor, a test-drive for decomposing bacteria. Or perhaps, he thought fearfully, his