"Eleven years, sixty-two days, twelve hours, five minutes even as of now." A similar sound came from the speaker.
Kerrman jabbed the figures into the MAC for subjective-objective time correlation.
"Any sign of the enemy?" he asked next.
"None. They haven't landed here. We've scouted the planet carefully."
Romm Parmay, standing beside Kerrman, shook his head resignedly. No sign of them. There never was.
Kerrman's next job was pure psychology. That was the reason for assigning a psych engineer to the first receiver. Each call from a ship coming out of near-light drive was picked up by this board.
Kerrman glanced at the dossier on the desk before him; the four-century-old dossier that contained complete information on Expedition 796 as she had been when she left Earth.
"Am I speaking to Commander Loris Cay?"
"No. He passed away seven years ago, subjective time. I am Lieutenant William Bowman, commanding."