Eater

Chapter One

Burster

February

It began quietly.

Amy Major came into Benjamin's office and with studied care placed a sheet in front of his tired eyes. "Got a funny one for you."

Benjamin stared at the graph. In the middle of the page, a sharp peak poked up to a high level, then fell slowly to his right. He glanced at the bottom axis, showing time, and said, "So it died away in a few seconds. What's so odd?"

Amy gave him an angular grin that he knew she thought made her look tough-minded and skeptical. He had always read that expression as stubborn, but then, she so often disagreed with him. "Here's the second."

"Second?" Maybe her grin was deserved.

With a suppressed smile, she handed him another sheet. Same sort of peak, subsiding into the background noise in four seconds. "Ho hum." He raised his eyebrows in question, a look he had trained the staff to interpret as Why are you wasting my time?

"Could be any ordinary burster, right?"

"Yes." Amy liked to play the elephantine game out in full.

"Only it's a repeater."

"Ah. How close?"

"In space, de ... read full excerpt from Eater ebook