Book 5: Chapter 48: Gunther’s World
Icarus
January 2329
Centaurvania
It was eight light-years from Gunther’s world to the system where he’d found the wormhole. That would be an average kind of distance back in the area of Sol, but this was a more crowded section of the galaxy. Gunther’s race could have easily targeted any of several systems that were closer. But none of those systems had an anomalous microwave source. It’s what humans would have done.
The sky view here in Gunther’s home system was spectacular, though. Even from the bottom of an atmosphere, the stars would be far more crowded than Earth’s had ever been. The strip of the Milky Way would be far more visible as well. And the dwarf galaxy that we couldn’t see from Earth’s side of the galaxy dominated the sky on this side. Primitive cosmology would have been a lot more complicated with that apparition to explain.
We came into the system, following Gunther at a respectful distance and waiting for cues. We certainly didn’t want this to look like a chase to any planetary defenses that might be watching. Gunther, ahead of us, was continuously broadcasting on every standard band in use by the centaurs.
I swiped through several monitor windows, then turned to Dae. “There’s no response that I can see.”
“I know, Icky. If Gunther’s civilization has also disappeared, that puts an even weirder spin on things, since they weren’t part of the empire.”
“Yeah, so it wouldn’t have been because of something that spread through the wormholes.”