Requires color. Requires color! Requires color! Strain 2: To strain is to apply tension or pressure. At the breaking·point of a material, the strains upon it come to an end. At the breaking·point of a society, they first begin in earnest. Every·one will remember 1st·contact – knew that going in. Likewise no·one will ever remember 2nd·contact, unless of·course some·thing goes terribly wrong. Th'experience of receiving that 1st·contact should allow us to more easily receive 2nd·contact, except that it likely inspired in us some dangerous misconceptions, due to th'often·weirdly variegated nature of societies on Terra – so many different groups down there. No worry, we've not grown cocky or complacent, nor do we even expect to necessarily survive, just hope we can. Not until arrival will we begin to discover all the very weird differences between our 1st·contacted habitat and this next one. So it's good that this time we arrive a few days early, although we may in·fact be a decade too late. This is an experimental hybrid sci·fi novel, the 2nd in a series of 4, the sequel to Above the Sun. The texts and backgrounds come in different colors, partly in lieu of punctuation, so it's largely unintelligible in black·and·white. Th'action obeys the laws of Kepler and Newton – other laws, not so much. The languages are not quite what we're used to, nor should they be, so many centuries on. The cultural differences are naturally – as·well·as un·naturally – out of this world.