But Aris thought of the pack’s songs. The way the juveniles mimicked the adults. The spirals in the ice.
Then it sang back.
A meteorite impact crater. A geyser of liquid ammonia. The frozen corpse of a rival alpha. the voyager lut pack
The long-range probe Voyager Lut was never meant to find a pack. It was designed to catalog atmospheric eddies on the methane moon of a dying giant star. But six hundred cycles into its silent drift, its spectrometers hiccupped: a biosignature so faint it looked like noise.
Aris removed her glove. The cold bit instantly, numbing her fingers. But she held out her bare hand. But Aris thought of the pack’s songs
She chose the latter.
The alpha—a scarred, six-legged matriarch with frost-white fur—stepped forward. Its eyes were dark and vast, like the space between stars. It tilted its head, listening. Then it sang back
“Divert to where?” Aris asked.