I wasn't really the one who first saw the alien ship. It was instead the namesake of this school, a fellow known to my family as Sander. No doubt you know of him by a different and ill-regarded name, but I wish to shine a kinder light on this troubled man’s soul.I was twelve years old when my family first hired Sander. My dad had been using the net to search for a hired hand for a couple of months and there hadn't been a flicker of interest to that point.By then my folks had been working a 1013 kilogram nickel iron 'roid for about ten years. Course nickel and iron wasn't worth much out in the asteroid belt but this 'roid had a surprisingly high content of rhenium. Rhenium, you'll remember, was in high demand at that time for the production of high-strength, high-temperature ReTiCuO superconductors. We were pretty isolated out there. Living inside that small mountain of ore as it slowly roamed the hard black void of space, we kept in touch with other belters by laser or radio, but seldom breathed the same air as other human beings.
