A strange elongated asteroid approaches Earth. It is not an asteroid. Is it a comet? It doesn’t circle the sun, but goes back the way it came. Oumuamua continues to puzzle us. Sometime later Earth is narrowly missed by an asteroid, undetected until it was nearly upon us. Then a pandemic selectively starts killing the aged and other vulnerable humans. Whatever the powers are, they do not want to destroy Earth, but to save her.