"They had arisen. From the guts of Holodern IV, the Xenophites gathered to reclaim what was rightfully theirs."

Mary Dexter's recorder buzzes on. The man's words have rattled on now for what seems like hours, maybe it has been, but she can't tell anything here, the perception of time distorted to an incomprehensible malaise.

Walker continues telling the details of the mysterious end to Holodern IV's conflict. As if the events happened yesterday, in distinct detail he describes the out-dated space craft, weaponry, and technology. The Alan Walker he keeps referring to is himself yet it is like some contrived denial, as though it were another person.

"Life different from ours in every way. No physical form, merely a pure energy. The factors weighed against them. The probability of ever such a race wiping out half of the United Forces fleet, it simply didn't enter into the equation. Nobody knew."

"Private Walker awoke on a Red Cross ship. By the time he had come round, the crew of the R. C. Longfox were under orders to evacuate. The United Forces chief of staff knew they were in a predicament which they couldn't possibly win."

Dexter suddenly realizes an horrific occurrence. She has grown used to Walker's coldness. He is cold even when speaking about the lives lost of his own troop. There is no remorse. No guilt to what happened then, an old question of: why did I live and not them? Nothing.

"Do you wish refreshment?" Walker has talked for over half an hour, aware as though it were a first social skill of a child, that Dexter hasn't questioned him at all.

The dolorous tones of her empty host draw through the still air. But can this be truth? Is he insane? How can such an elusive man be on his own for so long without first dropping into insanity? Is it true that an entire U.F fleet disappeared? Dexter has done extensive research on the subject but has only gleamed half-rumored nonsense and confused reports of the whole affair, a part of human history hushed up. The Holodern IV civil war supposedly being Walker's and the others starting point. But no one actually believes in the half-remembered story of Cutter and the rest. The fourth millennium has reached a height of new excellence for the human race. No more wars. No more battles of the sexes. No more disease. No more addiction to the things that once destroyed women and men. The universe has not become an expanse, which is too infinite to comprehend: the universe as the human race sees it, represents everything within the highly developed man/woman. Limitless. Existing for the fact of existing. Whole. Unknowable yet familiar. Dexter thinks (or tries to) positively. 'Why am I here with a man from that past?'

"Do you wish refreshment?' Walker repeats himself as though waiting for Dexter's thoughts to run in on themselves.

"Please," the reporter mumbles as she turns off her recorder.

"DROID," he shouts loud for a person who speaks so softly. It wakes Dexter out of her thought ramblings.

His voice still echoes faintly as she hears a little whirring of motors. A spherical droid, unlike anything she has ever seen, floats past, covering distance in quick, fluid movement.

"You wish...?"

"Er.." Dexter doesn't know how to respond, "coffee?"

The little droid spins around fast to the direction from whence it came. She wonders why it didn't take Walker's request. She assumes that he has a regular order. She almost laughs at herself for becoming engrossed in an internal monologue.

"You were on the Longfox..." the reporter switches her recorder back on, "what happened then..?