Chapter Three
On the quarantine station in its low Earth orbit, Dr. Sparks was bored. He’d pondered the question at length, but he hadn’t been able to understand exactly why Polestar insisted it had to be him who performed assessments on the Paths. It was true that he’d been the physician aboard the Galathea when it crash-landed on K.67092d, but he hadn’t even seen the things before they’d been taken to quarantine.
But Polestar in its infinite wisdom had somehow connected the Paths with the only scientist on board who was well versed in the complexities of the human body, and it had ordered him to conduct tests on this new species. He could have refused, but then he would have been out of a job and without a good reference to show a new employer.
He regarded the Paths on the other side
