Book Two: Lachlan Descent
The container is not alone.
A gravity survey of the hills above the Murdoch property reveals a second anomaly — larger, deeper, 748 metres below the surface of the Gundhang ridge. Phil Coenraads and his team begin a borehole programme that will take years and require resources beyond anything the original project anticipated. What the drill reaches, at depth, is the hull of a vessel that arrived on this planet in the Devonian and has not moved since.
Communication begins. Slowly, painstakingly, through a channel built from first principles, the team establishes a vocabulary with whatever is inside the craft. Soo-Lin Park works the molecular biology channel. Marcus Webb works the mathematics. Between them they build something that has never existed before: a language shared by two intelligences from different worlds.
What they learn changes the shape of everything they thought they understood. The craft is not empty. What is inside is not alone. And the power source that has kept it alive for 419 million years is running out.
On the day the stasis field fails, the team understands for the first time what has been lost, what remains, and what must now be done before it is too late.