There was no hot chocolate this time.

The outdoor lights came on when the Toyota rolled into the driveway, and Freya saw movement from the house. Someone at the side window of the front door peered out at them. The face was shadowed, but the movement was distinctly Lassa. It had the tense energy she always carried.

Through the narrow slice of light, Freya saw an arm extended to something in the corner, then Lassa moved back towards the kitchen. It was weird. Freya expected her mother to come charging out at them. They hadn’t seen each other in days.

Freya clenched her jaw, there was no running away now. She could tell Dan would rather stay, but she asked him to go, regretting her decision before his car even left the driveway. She was certain there would be a fight.

Freya trudged towards the door with her shoulders squared, ready to come under enemy fire the moment she entered the house. Her phone was still in her pocket, stone dead. Lassa was bound to be furious. When Freya walked in the door, she was surprised to smell garlic and shallots.

“Where have you been?” Lassa and Freya demanded in unison and, in the moment of confusion that followed, Freya realized she was the angry one, not her mother. Lassa’s eyes were deeply shadowed. Her skin was too pale, and she looked like she hadn’t slept or eaten in days. Freya felt an immediate pang of guilt.

“I’m sorry,” they said almost at the same time. Freya blinked. It felt weirdly similar to the way she and Dan spoke. Her hand clutched the Starball through her jeans, and Lassa’s eyes followed it.

“Where were you?” Freya asked again before Lassa could ask her what was in her pocket.

“In Winslow,” Lassa replied.

“With Paul?” Freya squinted in confusion. “Are you two back together?”

“Pft, no. He just owed me a favor. I needed to use the lab at NorDx.”

“Have you talked with Lynn? The police are looking for you. We had to go to Hiidenkirnu and talk with Oliver Karhu. Everything’s messed up.”

Lassa nodded. “They know I’m home. I’ve already gotten in touch with Hiidenkirnu and explained. I’m going to speak with them tomorrow. It’s complicated, but I think this will all even out. No one should be kicking in our doors. I’ve been calling and calling you. Did you lose your phone?”

“The battery’s dead. I was in Vermont with Dan.”

As exhausted as she looked, Lassa’s eyebrows still shot up. Freya gave her a slow nod of confirmation.

“Are you okay?” Lassa asked.

“I’m fine,” Freya assured her. “Are you okay?”

“Not really, no.” Lassa shrugged. “I must look like hell. I’ll try to explain, but this is all so complicated. Have you eaten?”

The burner was on beneath the fifteen-quart graniteware stock pot. Freya sniffed the air. Her mouth watered at the smell of garlic, broth bubbling over the hiss of the burners. On the counter, she saw cut potatoes drying on paper towels, and there was an empty bottle of pinot grigio.

“Not yet. What are you making?” Freya asked, suddenly ravenous.

“Moules-frites,” Lassa said.

Now, it was Freya’s turn to raise her eyebrows.

“Come help me cut up some more potatoes, I didn’t know if you would show up. There’s a lot to explain,” Lassa said.

“What is this?” Freya asked.

A military weapon was casually leaned against the wall. Freya realized that was what Lassa was reaching for when they pulled into the driveway. It was black, with a folding stock and a curved thirty round magazine.

“That’s my Sako,” Lassa said. “Very good rifle. Sadly, few were made. You won’t find many others here in America.”

“I mean, why is it in our foyer?

“The idiot. If he comes to our home with a gun, he will leave here in a bag,” Lassa promised.

Freya was silent a moment while she considered it.

“Can you show me how to shoot it?” she asked. Lassa nodded with approval.

“Bring it here. It’s loaded, but the safety is on,” Lassa said.

The rifle was heavy, almost ten pounds. It was strange to see it sitting on the dinner table with a dishtowel beneath so it didn’t scratch up the glass.

Lassa showed her each piece of the gun, explaining how each part functioned, warning her about the safety which could be tricky. She showed Freya how to unload the magazine and clear the chamber, then how to reload and change magazines.

“This is the fire mode selector but leave it on single shot. That’s a thirty-round magazine. Automatic will fire the whole thing in about three seconds.”

“Aren’t automatics illegal?” Freya asked.

“No, you just have to jump through a lot of hoops to get a stamp for one. It took me almost two years of dealing with the ATF. They wouldn’t issue me a permit for the grenade launcher, sadly.” Lassa shrugged. Freya couldn’t tell if she was kidding or not. She wasn’t smiling.

Lassa paused, waiting until she had Freya’s full attention.

“The law says you have to tell someone to leave, and they need to refuse before you can kill them. I say, if you see him, shoot him. When the police come, say nothing. Let Lynn construct the narrative. If things go reasonably well during the interview, I will take you to the range tomorrow night. If the Sako is too much for you, we can buy you something of your own. Dan is eighteen, right? He might want to carry something, too.”

“He’s eighteen, but I don’t think he could shoot someone.”

“Everyone can. It’s in here deep,” Lassa said, tapping the side of her head. “Why are you laughing?”

“It’s nothing,” Freya said. “Just trust me, I know him pretty well.”

* * *

When dinner was ready, Freya returned the rifle to its place beside the door, and then set the table. They ate with gusto. There wasn’t so much as a drop of broth, or a single fry left when Freya and Lassa were through.

Conversation only resumed once they’d devoured everything. Neither of them could remember the last time Lassa had made mussels. Freya was sure it had been at least a year ago, and she’d probably cut the potatoes that time, too.

As they were trying to recall, Lassa wondered aloud if it was the time she’d run a little wild with the chili oil, and then stopped herself mid-sentence, but it was too late. They both knew where she was going. That was the time Randall was sweating and red in the face as if he’d just run a marathon but kept eating anyway as they laughed at him. He’d been such a wimp about spicy food.

“Sorry,” Lassa said. There was kind of an unspoken agreement between them not to dig at the wound.

“It’s okay. I’m happy you made these. Last week, I was craving mussels for no reason.”

“I got the idea out of the blue as I was driving home. Perhaps we’re deficient in selenium or manganese. Mussels are a good source of both. Speaking of nutrients, I wanted to talk about the fight we had, over the Ensure. I must apologize. It was me. I was the one who was sleepwalking. That’s been happening to me more and more. I’m very sorry I didn’t believe you.”

“What?” Freya asked, genuinely surprised. It was the last thing she’d expected.

“There’s a chance I’ve had a stroke. I underwent some CT scans at NorDx. There’s a tiny speck showing up. Maybe a tumor, maybe a clot, it’s too small to tell. We could barely resolve it.”

“Oh, my God,” Freya gasped. She had the feeling everything was receding. She tried to take a breath and couldn’t.

Lassa reached out a hand and put it over Freya’s.

“It isn’t anything certain yet. If it was a stroke, it wasn’t severe. Frequently, these things go away on their own. Just if I seemed a bit crazy the last few weeks, that’s one possible explanation.”

Lassa tried to sound like it wasn’t a big deal, but Freya felt like she was underwater and couldn’t get air. Lassa watched her with a deepening look of concern.

Freya pulled her hand from under Lassa’s. She felt a sharp dip in her stomach, and she fought to keep from vomiting. Before it could stop her, she pulled the Starball out of her pocket and held it out in front of Lassa.

“Did you touch this?” Freya asked, forcing the words out through her teeth. A cold feeling bloomed in her head, her veins full of ice. Lassa drew her head back, looking at Freya like she was crazy, but there was something in her eyes when she looked at the Starball. Freya was sure she’d seen it before.

“It was on your nightstand when I took the Lunesta away.” A troubled look passed over Lassa’s face. “I had meant to ask you about it, but it must have slipped my mind.”

“Did it jab you?” Freya asked. Lassa’s mouth was an O of surprise. She turned her hand over to stare at her palm.

“Yes! And I looked at it and couldn’t see how. I thought it must have been a tiny shard of glass. I had forgotten until now.” As she said it, they shared a look of unease. Lassa didn’t forget things like that.

“What’s happening?” Lassa asked. Freya didn’t know how to respond. She wasn’t usually the one with the answers.

“This isn’t a marble. I found it in the core of a meteorite that crashed into the Sillas River. It’s either an alien or a piece of alien technology. It stuck me, too.”

Lassa’s incredulous look dipped into anger, as if she wondered why Freya thought she was stupid enough to believe something so crazy. But Freya was adamant. Her resolve hardened under scrutiny. She felt the Starball getting warm.

“I can prove it. If you look at this in a microscope it’s definitely artificial. It doesn’t look like anything man-made I can find. Did you feel something cool in your head when you started to get angry just now? Or feel nauseous when we started to talk about it?”

“Yes.” Lassa’s lips made a tight line after the admission.

“That’s the Starball trying to pacify you, trying to stay hidden. Feel how warm it is? It has to expend energy to do that.”

Lassa touched the Starball as she might a live hornet, certain she would be stung. Freya saw her fighting with the idea. There was no denying it was too warm to for body heat alone.

“Why didn’t you tell me about this?” Lassa asked.

“I didn’t want to,” Freya said, suddenly realizing she might have made a terrible mistake. If Lassa wanted to take the Starball from her, she could physically do it, and Freya couldn’t stop her. She felt a shrinking moment of fear, and her eyes fell on the closest weapon, a fork. She forced the idiot thought out of her head. Lassa’s eyes bored into her, demanding answers.

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“I didn’t know what this was. I thought it was just a weird rock. That aversion it generates kept me from investigating for a long time. When I took it to the lab, I thought I was going to throw up. It doesn’t want to be examined.”

“Doesn’t want? Is it sentient? Does it talk?”

“It’s definitely observing its surroundings and reacting to them, but I don’t know if it’s sentient. The only communication I have with the Starball is when it tries to calm me down if I’m getting too upset, and the nausea thing. I’ve tried every method I can think of. It doesn’t answer.”

Lassa stared at the Starball. Her hands were clenched into pale fists. “You might have the same thing in your head. Has it been affecting you?”

“Yes, absolutely. I was the one who drank the Ensure. I felt awful the next day. Maybe it needs some nutrient to power itself.”

Lassa gestured at the empty bowl of mussel shells. “It makes sense. So, this must be the culprit with the network issue at Hiidenkirnu? And here, the trouble with the internet?”

“The network at Grayson was acting up, too.”

“And you didn’t tell anyone?”

“What would I tell them? A rock from space is slowing down the internet?”

“I would have listened to you,” Lassa insisted.

“You weren’t around, and when you were, we were fighting. Then you ran off,” Freya said, her voice harder than she meant it to be. Lassa took it like a punch. It was a second before she could continue.

“I don’t want anyone to take it away from me. I need it,” Freya said, hearing an echo of the way she’d protested when Lassa took the Lunesta away. She clenched the orb in her fist. She wouldn’t let the Starball go without a fight.

“What do you mean?” Lassa asked.

“It does other things. I think it’s benevolent. When I found it—”

Freya’s eyes were suddenly hot with tears. She hadn’t meant to ever tell Lassa, but the words poured out.

“—I couldn’t take it anymore. I was at the rapids to drown myself. When the meteorite struck, I fell in the river. I barely made it out. Then a bunch of times afterward. I was almost there, but it keeps pulling me back. I’d be dead without it.”

There was silence as the words sunk in. It was the instant before a car crash, time protracting but still too late to swerve. The thin strands holding Lassa up were snapping one by one.

Freya watched her expression collapse. The bridge could not bear the load. Her mother buried her face in her hands and bawled. The table shook with her sobs, the dishes rattling in protest.

Freya couldn’t think of what to do. She sat dumb while her mother wailed. She was impaled by guilt. This was the worst thing she’d ever done, and nothing could ever make this better. Lassa cried for a long time.

When Freya could find her voice, it was only to plead she was sorry again and again. The words rolled away without impact, rain against glass. She had the sense to shut up, and Lassa raised her head, her eyes shut tight with suffering, wet lines running down her face. When she opened her eyes, Freya could not take her stare.

“I’m sorry,” Lassa pleaded, her voice raw and ravaged. “I’m so sorry, Freya.”

“It’s my fault,” Freya protested, but Lassa only shook her head from side to side. She didn’t ask Freya why she’d done it. No explanation was needed.

“Does Garbuglio know?” Lassa asked, her posture suddenly straightening. Her hands clenched. Freya saw she wanted something outside of them to be angry at.

“I didn’t tell him. He doesn’t know about any of this really. He has seen the Starball, he caught me fiddling with it in my pocket. He thinks it’s just my lucky marble.”

“Are you okay now?”

“Yes,” Freya said. “I think I’m okay now, as long as I have this.” She looked at Lassa intently, weighing what she wanted to say next with great care.

“The first time you disappeared, you took Randall’s gun with you. Were you going to kill yourself?”

Lassa looked like she’d been slapped, and her mouth fell open. She tried to shake her head no, but they both knew the truth.

“Yes,” she admitted, turning her face away. “I didn’t do it— I mean, that’s obvious. Something stopped me.” Her eyes focused on the Starball. “Oh. Fuck.”

For a long moment, they both stared at the orb.

“Did it save me?”

“It might have. I’ve felt it get hot with activity when it wasn’t affecting me. That might have been when it was working on you.”

“Working on,” Lassa caught the phrase, weighing it in her mouth. “Okay. I believe you, Freya. We don’t have to tell anyone, at least not until we know more about this. What have you learned about it so far?”

Freya related everything she’d learned at the Grayson lab, promising to show Lassa her notes when her phone was charged. She took it to her nightstand and plugged it in, hoping there would be a text from Dan when it came back to life. As she explained what she’d tried so far, Lassa seemed impressed with her investigative approach.

“Are you having strange dreams, too?” Lassa asked.

“Constantly.”

“So,” Lassa leaned back in her seat, “this explains a few things. For the last few weeks, I’ve been getting strange ideas for tests to run. They come to me at all hours of the day, sometimes in my dreams. I feel…not compelled but strongly inclined to run them. Like I could stop if I wanted, but the curiosity is irresistible. Does that make sense?”

Freya nodded.

“I used to feel this way during research when I was younger. I thought maybe I was getting back some of my old zeal. It seems like, instead, I’m being led somewhere.”

“Karhu said they couldn’t understand what you’d been doing or the data you’d been accessing. What were you working on?”

“Nothing concrete, just hunches. But I feel all these ideas are pointing to something enormous on the horizon, some great understanding. That thing is trying to bring me to some conclusion.” Lassa pointed at the Starball.

“Would I understand any of it?”

“Not much of it. I don’t understand it all myself. I’ve run several tests on casomorphin. That’s a peptide derived from milk. The tests are on its interaction with endothilial cells. Not strictly unusual, but a little outside the scope of my department. What’s probably raising eyebrows is I’ve been working with pandoravirus and CMV.”

“What’s are those?”

“Cytomegalovirus is mostly associated with mono and pneumonia. That’s not as weird as it sounds as it’s a common vector for gene expression—” Lassa halted mid-sentence. Her face was drawn with turmoil. She grew perceptibly paler as Freya watched her.

“What is it?”

“Freya, this could be a weapon. It could be trying to build a pandemic to wipe us out.”

“Why would it bother?”

Lassa tilted her head and narrowed her eyes at Freya.

“What do you mean?”

“It can just wait. We’ll be long gone before any alien force could reach us. I’d be surprised if humanity survived to 2100.”

“That’s ridiculously pessimistic. They might they seed a target world with these while their invasion force is on the way then, when they arrive, the planet is depopulated and ripe for conquest.”

Freya shook her head.

“Interstellar conquest doesn’t work at sub-light speeds. It’s too expensive, it takes too long. Outside of the organic life, there isn’t anything here they can’t get far closer to wherever they are.”

“That makes so many assumptions on things you can’t possibly know. What if they have FTL?”

“If they can travel faster than light, this is already over. It’s more likely they don’t have FTL, and this was the largest mass it made sense to send. It showed up encased in a shell of nickel, by the way. It crashed into the mud of the riverbed. No propulsion, no guidance. I don’t think it can move under its own power at all.

“If I hadn’t dug it up, it might have stayed there for centuries. I think it’s much more likely to be a probe than anything else. Maybe it contains instructions to get in touch with them.”

Lassa nodded, taking in the new information. Freya was braced for an immediate counterargument, but none came. It was strange to be involved in a conversation about something serious with her mother that hadn’t turned into an argument.

Lassa was so badly wounded she couldn’t talk like herself, couldn’t hide it. Their eyes met, and Lassa looked away. There was silence as they both searched for something to say. Lassa was first.

“Okay, here’s an angle. It could be pest control by a race that doesn’t want to deal with other intelligent life emerging. Maybe if it detects a certain degree of industrialization, it wipes them out before they can develop into a problem. If it hits a world without sentient life, it might just stay dormant.”

“That would explain the Fermi paradox. It’s an interesting idea.” Freya thought she was only indulging Lassa, but she told herself she didn’t believe that. Perhaps the Starball wouldn’t let her.

Freya held the orb up to the light, looking at the halo of violet translucence surrounding it. Could this be the poison bead that wiped out the whole cockroach nest? It would all be on her. She was the one who’d dug it out of the river and concealed it. Whatever happened because of all this, she would be ultimately responsible.

“You saved the meteorite shell, right?”

“Of course,” Freya said. “I have measurements on it, too.” She was about to explain how she’d measured it, but Lassa had drifted off, her eyes unfocused.

Freya was annoyed. She’d been so proud of figuring that out. She wanted to keep talking about this. More than that, she didn’t want to be left alone with the weight of what she’d done, with the sound of her mother wailing in her ears. But Lassa was finished. She held her hand over her mouth and tried to stifle a yawn.

“I’m sorry, I’m falling out. We can start thinking about other tests to run tomorrow. We’ll get some better idea of what this Starball is, and if it’s dangerous.”

“I don’t think it’s a weapon," Freya said, trying to think of a way to substantiate her argument without having to explain Unity. Neither of them was ready for that.

Again, Freya felt the allure of forbidden knowledge whispering at the back of her thoughts while her conscious mind screamed it would destroy them both.

“Does NorDx have an electron microscope?” Freya asked, trying to distract herself from the perilous chain of thought.

“Yes, but we’d have to figure out first if that thing needs air. An electron microscope requires vacuum.”

“It came from space.”

“Perhaps it was hibernating or somehow dormant, then it came to life here.”

“That’s a good point. I didn’t think of that,” Freya agreed. Lassa tapped on the side of her head. She was, after all, a scientist. Freya felt stupid for not coming to her sooner. The thought of accidentally killing the Starball made her stomach plunge.

“We can measure that first. Because we suspect this is some kind of a machine, I’d be leery of hitting it with an electron beam.”

“Why? Doesn’t the beam just bounce off?”

“No. It penetrates the sample based on beam intensity. X-rays are generated throughout the interaction volume. I would assume the Starball is somehow hardened against radiation since it traveled through space and is still active. But there’s no way to know.”

“I was going to ask about using an X-ray next,” Freya said.

“Assuming it understands what’s going on around it and has a good idea of what can destroy it, the Starball might try generating aversion again if we’re about to run a test that could harm it. But we can’t rely on that. There’s a lot of non-invasive testing we can do before we get into anything like that. I have a lot of ideas already.”

Even on the verge of passing out, there was excitement in Lassa’s voice. If she were physically able, Freya was certain she would be driving them to the lab this very moment. The challenge the Starball presented spoke to Lassa’s core, the thing that had made her a researcher, a scientist, an interrogator. She had a fundamental need to know.

As she considered it, Freya decided there was no danger Lassa would tell anyone about the Starball. She would never relinquish the chance to find out for herself, no matter what threat it posed. It was a useful bit of insanity.

“I’ll take care of the dishes,” Freya said. “Thank you for making dinner.”

“Thank you,” Lassa said.

In the other room, Freya’s phone dinged as it came to life. She walked over and got it, a little afraid of what she might find. There were missed calls climbing up the screen, so many her phone was almost unresponsive when she tried to scroll up.

“Any more threats?” Lassa called from the table. Freya brought the phone back to the living room and showed her the screen.

“It’s struggling. You called so many times.”

“I was worried. You could have left me a note or something.”

Freya turned and cast a sideways glance back at Lassa, who’d realized mid-sentence what she said and covered her mouth.

“What a stupid thing for me to say,” Lassa admitted.

Freya shrugged and turned back to her phone.

“Nothing else,” she said, a dispirited there was nothing from Dan.

“There’s still a lot more I need to explain about all this,” Freya said, realizing she would have to tell Lassa about Unity. Maybe now was the best time while Lassa was vulnerable. But Lassa was yawning and waving the thought away. She’d hit her limit.

“I am finished. We’ll talk more tomorrow,” Lassa promised, rising slowly, and moving towards her bedroom with heavy steps.

She’s getting older, Freya thought.

Lassa stopped and turned around, and Freya was afraid they’d United, and her thoughts had been overheard. But Lassa stood there, looking at her with red-rimmed eyes that had no tears left to give.

“Freya…I’m so sorry. I’ll never forgive myself,” Lassa said. Her voice croaked, and her head hung low. She was in ruins.

Her mind could find no words, but her body covered the distance between them, sweeping Lassa up in an embrace. Quickly, it became Freya holding her mother upright. Lassa could barely stand. Freya held on tight, helping Lassa towards her room. She was struck by the feeling she acted more like Dan than herself. It felt like a piece of him inside of her.

“I’ve got it, thank you. I’m sorry.” Lassa waved her away, moving under her own power again. Freya felt relieved. She was worried she’d have to help Lassa undress.

“It’s not your fault. It was just a bad year,” Freya said.

Lassa could only nod, her eyes red and empty as she shut the door.

After the dishes, Freya walked over to the front door. She picked up the rifle, trying to picture what it would feel like to fire it She aimed the rifle at the door, and ran her finger over the safety, leaving it on. The smell of mineral oil was in her nose.

Freya felt a strange eagerness, as if she almost wished something would happen so she’d have an excuse. She pushed the thought away; she didn’t like it. She must look like an idiot pointing a gun at their front door.

She set the Sako back in the corner, then she peered out into the driveway, scanning the darkness for anything that didn’t belong. If anything happened tonight, she was on her own.

Her phone dinged in her pocket. She was startled, almost leaping with the unwelcome jolt. Immediately, she could envision the text, a single line from Malcolm that read:

I CAN SEE YOU

Freya flattened her back against the front door where she couldn’t be seen from the outside. There was no one out there. She was scaring herself for nothing. Still, she had to take a deep breath before she could pull out her phone.

The text was from Dan. It was a single purple heart.

💜