5
Janine buckled her five-point as the hover hummed to life, excited and terrified at the same time.
All through her youth, moving from planet to planet about once a year, Janine had made friends each place, but never lasting friendships, knowing that in another year, she'd have to move to another planet.
So instead of friends, she'd acquired specimens.
Alien specimens.
Large, small, flora, fauna, viral, microbial, marine, terran, orthopteran. Cryogenic tubes by the thousands painstakingly sealed, labeled, categorized, and organized. And always in the back of her mind, the hope that one day she would stumble across the alien life form that would remake human civilization and launch humanity toward its next evolutionary phase.
On more than one occasion, her diplomat father would grima
