Chapter 1 - The Observer V2.1
In the year 1928, on a stationary asteroid ten AUs south of the ecliptic of the Sol system, Chotm^ was slowly awakened from cryosleep. [^ = a sound like two guttural clicks] The nano-machines repaired the damage caused by the freezing as well as that caused by the radiation of deep space. Even in hisher chamber deep in the nickel-iron asteroid, some highly energetic particles inevitably got through the shielding. Hisher amphibian physiology was naturally slow to revive, but within a few sub-cycles, heshe was fully operational. The first thing Chotm^ did was access the stored message files from the Web. Communications to Chotm^'s station were primarily done with 0.6c drones. EM communications were not used so as to not alert the civilization being observed. Heshe had a powerful tight beam laser which could be beamed to a similar station in deep space away from the glow of its star back home in the Web of Worlds.
Heshe was a member of an amphibian race and was currently in hisher male cycle and thus had no family responsibilities. In the same way, the race had lived for millennia, those in their female cycle raised the young, governed and taught. Those individuals in their male cycle did the other things that were necessary. Hisher species was very naturally long-lived and with nanotechnology, many of hisher Kinclan were still alive and well back on the homeworld. In addition to traditional greetings from kin were all of the automated logs of the station. Chotm^'s task was solitary, yet important to the Web of Worlds. As heshe began the routine task of reviewing 100 cycles of surveillance of the bright blue world with its oversize moon; an anomaly in the readings occurred. The sensors were reading electromagnetic transmissions in the long wavelengths, short and very short electromagnetic spectrum. This was highly unusual. This culture had barely discovered steam power when Chotm^ finished hisher last observation cycle and entered cryosleep. There could however be another explanation: the Almand could have returned to this system. Some on their world had rejected the Web's conservative philosophy of First Contact. They had visited the blue water world before and had been sanctioned.
As Chotm^ continued hisher evaluation, heshe determined that it was not the Almand. The planet was alive with radio. How is this possible? No civilization ofthe Web had gone from steam to radio in so little time. Chotm^ spent several micro-cycles listing hisher findings and sent a priority report via tight beam laser messageto the Web and waited. [micro-cycle = 23 standard hours] A reply would takeover 100 cycles. Heshe would set a shorter sleep cycle in the future while observing this intriguing race.