“How did you detect these? You can’t have sent probes . . .” The answer sounded like the sort of riddle the Merlin Tree might give young Cid Arthur. Distance is no object to things higher. Unruffled, Valka said, “You mean things that can see and operate in higher dimensions?” She made a face. “I’ve been to several of these worlds . . . there’s nothing there.” Yet. That made the xenologist twitch. “But there are ruins.” They were not ruins in the future. “Were not . . .” I muttered, making sure I’d heard the tenses right. “You mean the sites we’ve found on these planets are running backward
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