Now, with Appendix J gone, anyone could be infected. Including, Croft realizes as he looks across the table at Lena Vesper’s suddenly too-calm smile, the people who hired him.
Here’s a solid, self-contained story based on that subject: The Thirteenth Transcript Blue Planet Project An Inquiry Into Alien Life Forms
The breakthrough comes on page 892: a hand-drawn phylogeny tree of non-human intelligence. One branch is circled in faded red ink. The marginal note, in a handwriting Croft recognizes from declassified NSA files as belonging to a long-dead CIA officer named Holland K. Trench, reads: “Not traveler. Resident. Pre-dates Homo sapiens by 400k yrs. Manages perception, not technology. Do not attempt extraction. See Appendix J: ‘The Symbiont Hypothesis.’” Now, with Appendix J gone, anyone could be infected
Then he sets it on fire.