Page 70 of Guardian's Heart

Silla and Nock returned, both of them conspiring about a stream he was going to do for her and the misplaced humans as soon as he was done with this segment. Silla hugged me and made me promise to come back again soon.

Once we were back in space, we met on the bridge, where Nock was basically bursting at the seams to share with us what he found.

"That kid is a genius! Absolute genius," he praised.

"What did you find?" Zaarek asked.

"What are you guys talking about?" I wanted to know.

"Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't tell you last night." Zaarek looked sheepish.

"Told me what?"

"Kevin," Nock stated.

I nodded. "Yes, Silla told me about him. She and Garth nearly adopted him when, by some miracle, Ashley found his parents."

"Yes, so he's doing a school project on quarantined planets," Zaarek filled me in.

I still didn't understand. "What does that have to do—"

"It's a wild shot," Nock agreed, "but if the Ohrurs were so decimated by a disease, there have to be more records of it. It has to have come from somewhere." Nock turned to Zaarek. "Ohrur was never quarantined."

"I didn't think it would have been."

"Hold on." I nearly screamed, making the famous time-out hand gesture. "What did Kevin say?"

"Oh, he gave Nock a list with names of quarantined planets."

I nearly fumed from irritation. "He could have gotten that from any database."

"The point is that his words made Nock and me think that there could be a connection between a quarantined planet and the Ohrur disease since no other species fell ill."

"Why didn't you tell me last night?" I demanded.

He wiggled his eyebrows. "We were kind of busy?"

The tips of my ears burned. He was right about that. I also remember falling asleep right after because Silla, Garth, Nock, and I had sat together until nearly the early morning hours and talked.

"Alright, I forgive you," I said quickly before Nock picked up on this part of the conversation.

Fat chance.

"Too much information, you two."

"Anyway, what did you find out?" I prompted him.

"Since we don't have a specific date other than about twenty thousand years ago," Nock began.

"Yeah, why is that?" I interrupted. "Weren't you guys all flying around during that time? I mean, keeping history should be a large priority."

"It was, and it is, and we were," Zaarek answered. "But don't forget how vast the universe is. If the Cryons hadn't offered Silla as a gift to the Lord Protector, years could have gone by before anybody would have found out about you and your planet. Afterward, it would have been nearly impossible to pinpoint the exact time of the Cryon invasion unlesstheykept records of it."

"Oh," I got it. "So unless the Ohrur came forward, nobody would have known about the disease."

"Exactly," Nock hurried to stop this little side conversation. "I found three planets that were put under quarantine during that time frame. Xynthac, Darlam and My'rranow. Xynthac'squarantine was recalled about twelve hundred standard galactic years ago, Xynthac and Darlam are still active."

"Let's see what we can find out about them. I will let you two handle that."

---