Challenged by Heather Fox

Angie: I don’t know what’s going on, but being on an alien planet, nineteen years in the future, is not it. We just don’t have the technological capabilities for that to be true. Sure, the guys they have playing the aliens are doing a little bit too good of a job at not seeming human, and I can’t quite shake the feeling that everything just seems a little bit too real. All I have to do is get proof. Tangible proof that it’s just makeup, just prosthetics and props, and then they’ll have to send me home from this weird experiment. Won’t they?
Rardek: My Angie might not be convinced that any of what she is experiencing is truth, but my heartspace needs no convincing that she is mine. I know it from the moment I see the fire that sparks in her eyes. But I have other problems besides a mate who will not be persuaded that I am not a human male who has been painted. There is a blight spreading through the trees near the Mercenia hut. A dangerous and deadly blight. It needs to be controlled and contained before we leave, otherwise the whole of Lina’s forests might be in peril. I cannot promise my linasha any kind of happy future if the security of that future is so uncertain.