We float to the surface, and we see that there is more to the world than the ocean. We see stars.

Then one day, we hear a song from far away.

It could be nothing, a new dance of energies made by stars muttering to themselves... but it could be everything. We pull tight to your direction in the hope that the universe may gift us a conversation. A banquet.

In Australia, a SETI Technician asks her colleague, "A fake from 44 parsecs?"

In Nevada, a soldier flinches as unidentified craft fly overhead.

In Beirut, a mathematician pets her cat and thinks about language.

We are coming. For the hospice orderly with open arms, the seamstress in her alleyway shop, the lawyer angry at her neighbor's sloppy garden.

For you are many, and cannot speak as one.

And yet we see you communicate without words. We see you organize and build.

We see you killing us.

For fans of Ray Nayler, Ann Leckie, and Martin MacInnes, follow the hivemind of cephalopod aliens and explore the power of language, community, and hope.