Colony World

Instruments detected a regular pulse 37 km underground: once every 72 seconds, exact to the instant. No geological activity is that precise. And the interval is quietly shortening.

The surface forest is unnaturally quiet—no insects, no birds. Worse, the plants sway in too-perfect synchrony, as if directed by a single thing.

The colony mission's target star, 41 light-years away. Every long-range reading points to 'habitable.' Seen from orbit, it is all but another Earth.