Tangle in the Dark - Kassidor

seen from the ship. He sometimes rendered some quarters ofhis own, with walls and windows and views of hisgrandfather's plantation in Nigeria. Right across from thefront door in the homestead was what he called his office. Itwas actually two rooms, the outer one a bit smaller, the innerone with a bay window behind him overlooking a scene ofBantu laborers toiling in the fields. They were simpleprojections, not cherubs. The house itself was long andsprawling, but at this point he was on the second floor.Few had seen his private universe, Arthur, Glayet,Heymon, a few women who'd shared his quarters. There wasnone now, not even a cherub, and he was actually glad. Truehe got no chance to partake in fleshly pleasures, but his medpanel was capable of dialing that need out of his life.Most of his life now was the war, and he was going overtranscripts of broadcasts that had been intercepted. He wasselecting a lot of the jargon and having it translated, eventhough it made the text longer. He was hoping for somethingthat would give him a clue to the enemy's vulnerability, oreven some clue as to what it really is. Yes, all the brains of thecrew had theories, but he could tell none of them were veryconfident of theirs but Thom, and his was too preposterous totake seriously, an alien intelligence lurking in the dark matter.He’d rather believe his mother and hope God was out here.Even though he couldn’t take it seriously, he tried toimagine what it would be like to be in the heaven hismother’s letter hinted at. Everything as it was, everything341