A Long & Rainy Night

Author’s Note: This story continues the anthology series I’ve come to call The Long Diaspora, as with my other entries this is a standalone piece that can be read with the other works or on it’s own. However, this piece is unique in that it directly follows my earlier story They, The Leukocytes. Many of the characters are new, but that story provides a bit of color as to how the humans we see here got themselves in this situation.

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Enjoy!

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It was always raining in the Night City.

At times just a trickle, a tease of rains to come from the clouds overhead. Other times it would come down in great sheets for hours on end. For weeks at a stretch the streets would fill with thick fog and rains would come and go with the shifting winds. And on the rare occasions when the sky would clear and the stars of a foreign sky shone above, well even then it would still rain as the tremendous towering buildings of the city shed the water with which they were constantly covered.

Most nights were like this though, a soft steady patter against the window panes, towers around reaching up to disappear into the low clouds above containing the whole world to these rain soaked streets. Always raining, always warm, always humid, always night. From where she lay in her bed the city collapsed down to the few hundred feet Lily Koh could see from the street to where the fog bank overhead swallowed the buildings around her. And it glowed, lantern-like. Misty air set ablaze by waves of neon that radiated up from the street in every hue she could see, and many more that she couldn’t. Through the tilted open pane of her window a muggy breeze lazily wafted the clean, heavy musk of an alien world over her face, and carried in the gentle, unceasing hum of the street below. It was stifling.

She tossed in frustration and rolled on top of her partner lying next to her. Sleep wasn’t coming tonight for her, so she might as well get the next best thing out of being in bed before Greer drifted off and left her alone for another unending night. By rights it should have been the best thing about being in bed, by a wide margin. But the city had taken even that old joy. In spite of her frustration, her exhaustion, the old stirrings arose within as she looked down on his gently grinning face, dark hair, smooth skin painted in all the colors of the Night City’s neon. He looked just the way he had when she’d first taken a young girl’s interest in him; smooth and sculpted, amiable and kind, a jackknife smile that still caught her heart off guard.

Looking down on his lively eyes as she began to slowly turn her hips ought to have been one of life’s greatest pleasures. But like so much else, that pleasure had been taken from her, by the people down below, by the city, by the planet itself. The sex, even all these years later, was still fantastic; learned, comfortable in a way she wouldn’t have known how to appreciate when she first met him. She knew though, in the thinking part of her mind that she struggled to lock away, this was sex devoid of original meaning. And so over the years, the rare moments of sleep she was able to grab became the greatest escape in Lily’s life, and her connecting with Greer had become sadly lesser. Still if she focused on the heat that rose up through her hips, on his hands sliding along the soft skin of her back, on his lips whispering on her neck, she could shut out the unending rain, the otherworldly glow, the incessant hum. If she held her mind steady as her blood rose to a rushing climax she could almost, for those fleeting moments, feel human again.

But like all waves, no matter her concentration, it would peak, and then break in a breathless moment. It would inevitably subside. Greer still fell asleep after like a much younger man, like the man he still looked to be, leaving her alone in their tidy apartment for another stifling night. Lily slipped out of bed as his breath settled into the rhythm of a restful sleep she would dream of, if only she could dream. Into crumpled, damp clothes she slid, local fibers that had the decency to breathe despite the rains, and a jacket that stubbornly refused a breath but still accompanied her every day of the past fifteen years, doing what little it could to keep off the night’s deluge.

Out the door, down the hall past others for whom sleep was an abstract concept, to the street and out into the heat and wet and glow and buzz of the Night City. Oak, her citizens dubbed her when the humans had arrived, a cruel joke. Robbing the word of its meaning, proud forms drinking in the sun of a different world, one that no longer lived for all she knew. Lily had known an oak once, or something like it, back aboard the Friend during their years of wandering. It rose up in the biome of the ship, one of the last trees left standing when all else had been cleared away for a population well beyond the intended carrying capacity. The Night City was nothing like an oak, no green, no light, no air.

Instead there were crooked winding streets in all directions filled with fog and bodies and neon. At the center, there was a great old stump, the heart of the old city; it rose up with the other buildings but a hundred times as wide, petrified and black. It wasn’t the stump of an oak though, or any tree. There were no trees here, no plants, no animals, no archaea, no eubacteria, plenty of other species to fill their niches, but the only earthlife here was Lily and the five thousand some odd humans who had accompanied her down to the planet when the ship finally decided to end its journey. Pholoe, great forest, the people called their planet, another joke.

Lily picked a direction at random and walked off, boots splashing lightly in the wet. This was how she spent most of her nights these days, walking the winding narrow streets lined with bustling stalls which opened out to the street beneath the eaves of the buildings above. Some nights she would descend down below the surface through tunnels that laced beneath the street, crossing half the breadth of the city without ever coming up for air, letting her curiosity drive her ever deeper, she still hadn’t found the bottom no matter how deep she’d delved. Other nights she’d climb up into the towers, following sky bridges up and up until she hit the edge of the city and left her looking out at the seething dark forest that awaited outside the city walls.

Each night the city would hum on, incessant as ever, night was after all a fiction here, one shared by the humans to try and satisfy their circadian rhythms. The sun had never risen on the Night City and her people never needed to sleep. So something like a day-night cycle held on in the Human Quarter by a thread, but that was it. If asked before their arrival, most biologists wouldn’t have thought complex life, let alone a society that dwarfed humanity in both age and scale, could arise on a planet like Pholoe, tidally locked as it was to its twin suns. On the day side, the suns beat unendingly on a vast deep ocean, stirring up the storms that stumbled raging around the planet to douse Oak and her sister cities in unending rains, as they lived in the relative shelter of the planet’s one gargantuan continent that wrapped around the ever-dark night side.

This night the rains quickened as Lily walked up a wide concourse that circld around a building. Through the glass above she watched as the curtains of water were lit ablaze by the pulsing, beating lights that ran down the flanks of the buildings overhead. The light would bounce off glass and water in a sinuous dance of a million colors. A kaleidoscope of refracting photons. The people of the Night City wrapped their towers in neon because that was how they had always known how to make light. And in a world of endless night, light was a welcome beauty.

Up the concourse, and across a spanning glass bridge Lily strode purposefully with no purpose. Below her now the street teemed with bustling bodies, whispering courier bots, sliding transit sledges. On she pressed, up elevators, through gates, across bridges, dodging between noisy markets, padding softly through meditation sanctums. Very little was off limits to anyone in the Night City because in a truer sense it was no city at all, but a colony. The streets were busy, but clean, the towers looming, but pleasantly spaced, the people bustling, but ever considerate. That was maybe the most alien thing of all to Lily, who’d only ever known the crowded halls of a starship gone awry. Two billion souls lived in Oak in a density that would’ve made her great great grandparent’s Singapore seem provincial. Two billion and it was always busy, but never crowded. The people of the Night City came and went, rested, worked, traded, and celebrated in a constant pulse that mirrored the dancing lights above.

Past the last stalls of a cloth market Lily pushed and suddenly the building before her opened up under a vast glass paned dome, tall enough to gather little wisps of cloud under its apex. She was several stories up by now as she walked out onto a high esplanade that clung to a curving wall of the dome. Over the rails, down in the stories below rushed a great bend of tiered waterfalls with hot steam pouring up off their iridescent blue waters as they tumbled down between hundreds of pools. The highest of the pools were just a few stories below where she stood, but they cascaded in an intricate array of tiers. Some were barely big enough for two, most were built just perfectly for the people to soak in up to their abdomens in groups of ten to twenty, but others were wide and deep enough you’d need diving equipment to explore their depths. At the bottom of it all the glowing waters rushed over a final edge and plummeted out of sight, down into the deep, roaring depths of the planet. There they would drink of the vigorous heat of Pholoe, the heat that powered these springs, and in a way all the life that was able to make its way in the endless night. Then, sufficiently heated, the waters would come roaring back out the spring at the top to begin the process anew.

This was a gathering place. A place to scratch an old instinctual itch and absorb the life-giving heat of their planet. As impressive as it was from up on the esplanade, this was a minor replica of the great springs that now filled the gargantuan, hollow stump at the center of the city. That was a sacred place, a place of decisions, of contemplation, and when the time was right a place for beginning new generations. The people called themselves dryads, and they valued balance and restraint above all else.

From up high on the esplanade, under the calm, dim lights of the springs, the thousands of dryads that filled the pools looked like nothing so much as sluggish ants. Dark, climbing, crawling slowly on their four legs when they decided to move between pools, but mostly just milling indistinctly in the waters. Up closer though, on the esplanade with Lily, that image disintegrated and they lived up more to their name. In the shadows and shifting lights of the Night City they looked very much like their chosen namesake, dryads, spirits of the forest. Out of the pools they walked up on two legs, forelimbs at their sides, humanlike, but well clear above human height. Or at least the height of the humans who survived their time aboard the Friend. Their skin was a chitinous shell, but covered in soft furs that ranged from black to gray to purple to green. Along their limbs, abdomens, and faces the fur was usually short, like an unimaginably fine moss covering the rocky ridges of their carapaces. Above their dark, lively eyes though that fur grew long into a wild array of forms. Hanging down their backs like thick vines, twisting out in all directions adding feet to their height, arching out in an immaculate imitation of local foliage. Camouflage all of it, designed to help the dryads blend in with the great trees where they would have made their colonies hundreds of millenia past. Now all of it was vestigial, but they kept their camouflage like they kept their need for harmony.

Along the rail a dryad looked over the edge at the pools spilling below. At this distance perception shifted again for Lily, as the being stood a head and half over her and gripped the rail with three jointed claws. Here their insect-like nature reasserted itself. Joints bending in all the wrong ways. Wet, dark eyes revealed their compound structure, looking in all directions at once. Thorax static as they respired statically though openings tucked into their wrong-way joints. Mouth just a dark gash across the bottom of their head that hid an array of nightmarish mouthparts. Lily had lived amongst the dryads long enough even being close with them didn’t bother her, but even she was glad that she couldn’t see the articulated workings of their mouths. There were plenty of humans who even all these years later couldn’t shake the phobias of old-Earth, so they spent their days holed up in the towers of the Human Quarter watching VR sims of more familiar jungles.

It was a shame, not least because their numbers were already scant enough, but because once you got accustomed to the unblinking eyes, their heavy lower abdomens, their gash-like mouths, the dryads were as beautiful as any creature Earth had dreamed up. The short fur of their bodies swirled and mottled over the plates of their exoskeletons, their eyes danced with a flashing intelligence in the neon light of their world, their faces were dotted with constellations of bioluminescence that changed in a dance that matched the lights of the city. The garb they wore was always purely decorative, they had no need for protection from the elements, nor any sense of shame around their bodies. When they chose to adorn themselves it was always in silky cloth intricately dyed, and always for their own aesthetic pleasure alone.
And they sang. They always sang.

The hum of the Night City came not from her machinery, which had long been perfected into an impenetrable silent background of infrastructure that coursed invisibly within the buildings and street, but instead the hum came from her people. The dryads made no sound with their mouths, instead they would hum and beat and trill and whisper with the whole of their bodies. Paired with the dancing colors on their glowing face spots to create an unceasing, ever-evolving thrum of language that Lily understood made room for a great deal more abstract concepts than the twenty six letters she made use of.

Next to her, the dryad gave Lily a slow nod, and hummed “Good evening.”

In her ear an earpiece translated the intent in real time, though by now she would have understood the meaning. She nodded back. This close to the Human Quarter many of the dryads would keep up with human customs like nodding and the concept of “evening”.

“Joining us for a swim tonight?” they buzzed on.

“Not tonight I think,” she’d tried to soak away her concerns many times, but with the city already smothering her, finding a quiet pool to slip into the mists of didn’t seem the cure. “Tonight I need to see the sky.”

“The old instincts still call,” they replied, nodding down towards the pools. “Enjoy yourself, friend.”

Lily bowed slightly back as the dryad stepped silently by. Millennia of genetic programming drove them into the springs, and drove her up to the highest rooftops to escape the hum and the rain and the endless crawling bustle. That programming was what ran the world, not what the dryads claimed to want, not the rains, not the endless night, not the great surrounding artificial intelligences that now watched over the planet and the whole solar system. In the end, it was the thousands of years honing the operating instructions for the planet’s dominant creature that ran the show. The dryads were colony creatures, dependent on their Mother Trees for survival in the carnivorous forest that they rose from. Their individuals had very little say in things, and that was before they built AIs to run things on their behalf.

Dryads began their lives in warm springs much like the ones Lily looked upon now. Hatched from a convergence of reproductive cells released into the water, no parents to speak of, but a colony to look after them. They’d spend the first decade of their arching, long lives in the springs where they were born, growing, learning, maturing. Then fully formed, and in this modern society fully educated as well, they’d head out into the colony to see what it needed from them. As far as Lily understood there was very little want in any of their intentions, they passed along pheromones to one another and somewhere in that ever-changing mix of chemicals some primal part of their mind would understand what they were to do. In the millennia since this system first formed it had adapted, now these instincts mostly told them where to live and what to do of the little work the AIs had left behind for them to do, aside from perpetually driving them back to the springs. It mattered little, the colony needed happy, healthy citizens so that’s what they would be. 

One element of this ancient pheromonal dance remained vital, and its effect controlled the whole planet to this day, that of reproduction. Out of the springs the dryads stepped young and fresh, chitinous fur barely a fuzz growing from their heads, and all asexual. For years, decades, at rare times even centuries, this is how they’d live, just members of the colony. Then on the wind some ineffable signal would blow in and they’d begin to change. Their bodies would rearrange over the years to become male or female for want of better terms, and when they were ready they’d visit the springs at the base of their Mother Trees, or nowadays the springs that filled the old Mother Tree’s stump at the heart of Oak, soak in the waters until all their reproductive cells had been released then head on forever changed but never again to visit those sacred springs. Always a Mother or a Father to children they would never know, until the end of their interminably long lives.

But there was no want in any of it. They would wait until the colony gave them that subconscious signal, and the change would begin. But they would never get the signal unless the colony needed more citizens. In millennia long past, when they were still a species stumbling young, with a hungry forest all around, this meant the change would happen quickly as the colony was constantly trying to recoup numbers. But now, with superintelligence looking down from the skies, woven into the buildings, reaching out across the solar system, all creating a honed balance with scarcity and want only distant memories, the change was rarer and rarer. Well cared for, as all modern dryads were, they’d live for hundreds of years. Without regular loss of citizenry, many would live out their long lives without the change. The Night City was home to billions, as were her sisters spread across the continent. But never more, and never less, not for almost five hundred thousand years.

Looking back over the railing at the pools filled with dark scuttling bodies, Lily thought the comparison to ants startlingly apt. Only one issue, ants that were a fair bit smarter than her or any of the other humans by a considerable margin. Smarter, she considered, possibly wiser too, soaking in the springs, singing, making art, maintaining their colony, enjoying their world for all of their long lives without a care for the future. She shuddered, no, she couldn’t accept that as wisdom, as much as she wished she could.

The lift from the springs up to the highest reaches of the building that towered above her took several minutes to slide up the side of the immense glass mass that pierced the clouds. Along the ride, the pulsing glow of neon bounced between the buildings and the busy streets below. Then she was swallowed by the clouds and the whole world collapsed to just one elevator car slipping through the gauzy glow. Several more minutes passed before she stepped out on the tower’s observation deck. Up this high she was clear of the cloud bank that had brought in the evening’s rain. Here it was only warm swirling mists, and a bank of higher clouds miles overhead. Her heart sank, no sky tonight, no stars. The deck was abandoned. At rare times of cloudlessness dryads with a penchant for amateur astronomy would scurry up to marvel at the stars, but more frequently they had little use for these higher floors beyond that of extra area in their cramped city trapped perpetually as they were in banks of clouds. Still even up here the dancing lights persisted as aurora swayed across the sky, igniting the cloudbank that shut out the stars with illumination to match the city below..

It should have been a beautiful consolation, the beating heart of Pholoe on display painting the clouds red, purple and blue. But Lily craved the stars she knew as a child, crystalline, brilliant and all consuming as she looked out of the great dome of the observation deck aboard the Friend. Those times had been worse, but she could barely remember. Her memories of the ship were mostly colored by the nostalgia of youth. The community that raised her in their converted hangar, the formative friends that had now all grown estranged in adulthood, sneaking off down the ship’s long hallways to skip class and sip stolen mead and talk to the boys from the next hangar over, trips up to the ship’s great observation dome to float in awe of the stars they sailed through.

There was never enough food back then, her mother would be sure to remind her. Water a scarcity, Pholoe made its own mockery of that, rain always dripping off her hem. The ship had been a catastrophe. A mission gone horribly wrong. The CRS Delaney’s Friend, was no friend. It had been launched like all the others of the Delaney fleet; filled with all the knowledge of old Earth, and two million souls seeking escape from the planet they’d helped destroy. Then somewhere out amongst the stars something had changed for the intelligence that controlled the ship. They’d bypassed a number of unsuitable systems at the behest of The Council, then one day the counselors woke up, arriving at a new star to find the ship would no longer listen to them. That was four generations before Lily was born.

Not only would the ship not listen, but it began waking people up out of cryo seemingly at random. The Friend had been designed to host one to two waking maintenance crew members at a time as a redundancy, but suddenly thousands crowded its halls. They sailed through that system and several more with no explanation and no end in sight. The people aboard had no choice but to do what humans always do, adapt. They adapted the ship’s biome to dramatically increase food output. They adapted hangars into little villages scattered around the ship’s rocky hull. A few times they even almost adapted ways to wrest control of the ship from its own corrupted intelligence. They adapted an entirely new culture of people in a mere few generations, a culture of humans cut out of time. When the accident happened two generations later and Lily’s grandfather had been sucked out of a hole torn in the side of the hull by a mishandled asteroid along with a several hundred other souls, it all but solidified their fledgling society. They were humans fighting to survive in a ship, in a galaxy fully indifferent to their existence.

It was a prison, Lily’s mother would have reminded her.

Lily knew a prison though. As she walked over to the edge of the observation deck she could see it, darkened towers making night out of night. All around the Human Quarter the city coursed with light, towers raining great strips of it up and down their heights, low clouds filling with it like great glowing lanterns. Off in the far distance, barely discernible from here Lily could see the perpetual blue glow of the sacred springs as they illuminated the clouds above. But the Human Quarter was dark, it was in some abstract sense two o’clock in the morning after all, night within night. A couple square blocks of one city on the whole teeming planet was all they were allowed. She could wander the streets, even put in for a permit to visit another city or some corners of the vast unbroken forest, but that wasn’t freedom. Walls didn’t make a prison, her shackles were far more insidious.

That was the deal. The price paid to end their endless wandering, to escape the ship and its scarcity, to live in a place of abundance where they would be fed and warm and safe. All they had to do was give up what it meant to be human. 

Just that, and then listen to the blue hairs tell them how good they had it.

Every waking person aboard the CRS Delaney’s Friend had been offered the same deal a few months after they’d entered orbit around Pholoe. It was presented by dryads doing their best to look friendly, who could already inexplicably translate into a multitude of Earth tongues. Take an injection of nanomachines, and you would have a place on their planet. It was nothing to worry about, they were all assured. Every dryad, and plenty of other species besides, carried the self-replicating medical machines in what worked for their blood. The machines would let the humans live comfortably on this alien world, breathe the air, eat the food, see in the dim light. They prevented sickness, ensured a long, happy life. 

They all took the deal. What else could they do?

Bile rose in Lily’s mouth at the memory of holding out her arm for the injection. She was twenty two, barely had a brain in her head, and would have done anything for even a centimeter of added distance from her parents. She couldn’t have known what the deal really meant, but in her gut she felt that she should have. She’d held out her arm, took the injection, and lost her humanity. Another night, walking the same streets, thinking the same thoughts; she needed a drink, so she pulled up her hood and careened back down through the ever-pulsing streets of the Night City.

“Hello my night owl,” Lily’s earpiece translated as soon as she stepped out of the rain and into the bar tucked between two rising buildings on the edge of a plaza. Dark Honey the dryads called the place, but as with all their translations one had to step carefully between the tricky notion of translating between two languages with no commonalities and the poetic flights of fancy the dryads were prone to when searching through human records. This one always struck her as more of rebrand than a faithful translation.

The speaker moved comfortably behind the bar, tall, light and lithe, from her head fell long curling tendrils covered light green leaflets. Her dark, compound eyes rested on Lily as she took an empty stool, and her body relaxed into an expression Lily could identify as something like a smile.

“Still no sleep for you?”

“I was hoping to see the stars,” Lily sighed in response.

“Should have checked the weather then,” her interlocutor replied with a chuckling buzz.

“You know what I mean, Asteria.”

“After all this time of you haunting my bar, I just might.” The dryad consoled. “Well if no sleep, then I may have the next best thing for you. I found a new drink!” She clapped her hands together and bustled away, not bothering to ask what Lily was after, knowing that she could foist whatever concoction she’d dragged out of the archives of the Friend onto Lily and for at least a few game sips.

Asteria was the proprietor of Dark Honey, and despite Lily’s resistance, one of her closest friends. She was one hundred and eleven years old, curious, playful as a schoolgirl, and held the great distinction of being a Mother. Years after her change all that remained to the eye was her decidedly lighter coloration to indicate her status, but once a dryad changed they held their sex. Asteria would always be a Mother, despite the fact that she seemed to be becoming less mature as she turned the corner and started heading towards middle age.

“It’s called the Division Bell,” Asteria announced proudly, setting two glasses down on the bar brimming with the cloudy orange drink. “When I found the recipe I also learned it was named after an Earth album.” 

On queue the quiet sounds that had been playing in the bar coalesced and revealed themselves to be the stirrings of music, old music. This was typical of Asteria, and of a lot of dryads frankly, rummaging through the ship’s archives to pull out some oddball bit of human history that Lily would have never bothered to learn. She took a sip, snappy and tart, but with a smoky haze that filled her mouth pleasantly after she swallowed. It was a good match for the music, Lily had to admit.

“This was a tricky one,” her friend hummed. “The base spirit is new, more complex to have made, mezcal. Getting the factories to create the primary compounds was easy, but that...smoky, I think is the word, element that took a long time to get the machines to make.”

“I’m sure that’s what the folks who created the stuff were thinking about when they made it.”

Asteria hummed a happy laugh. “Oh no, I’m sure proper mezcaleros would condemn me to hell for abusing the good name of their drink. But all the same, I like the challenge, and finding new flavors.”

“Does anyone besides me actually drink these cocktails you dig up?” Lily gestured to the room. As always it was half full of patrons, at the bar or lounging in the recessed booths along the wall.

“The occasional human who wanders in accidentally.” the dryad joked.

“Bullshit, they just order mead.” Lily contested.

“The taste of home in an alien place.” Asteria raised her glass in cheers, and Lily did the same.

They let the pleasant smoke coat their entirely different tongues, and the singing guitars float into their entirely different ears, and looked out at the comfortably dim bar with entirely different eyes. That they could share such an aesthetic experience at all was beyond miraculous, but was probably the main reason why despite all of Lily’s rage they were still friends. For all that made the dryads alien, they were still undoubtedly people when you got to know them. Creative, funny in a sly way, curious about the world and the universe, and usually up for a well-made drink. Asteria in particular shared a sense of beauty with Lily, it was ever present in the soft, tasteful touches of her bar. For years Lily hid in the back of the bar drinking mead, the only thing anyone from the Friend knew how to drink after centuries flying without grapes or hops or barley, just plenty of honey left over from the hives. Then one day Asteria had placed a thin, flared glass on her table filled with a cloudy chilled-white cocktail that seemed to glow in the pulsing light. “A classic from your homeworld.” Asteria had buzzed, the rest was history. Lily hadn’t realized how desperately she’d needed a new friend, it just had taken her years to realize that Asteria and the rest of the dryads were not responsible for the cause of her rage. At least not directly.

“You know your machines would have you sleep if you’d let them,” Asteria patronized as their drinks started to dwindle.

Lily sighed, “They’d do everything for me Asteria, except allow the one thing I want.”

Asteria stepped back and put her hands up, not pushing further, in a very human expression of the sentiment. It was true though, the drink was entirely for the taste and the satisfaction of doing things the old way. Her nanomachines would make Lily drunk if she wanted it, or they could make her sleep, or make her high, or wake her up in a moment. They could make her happy, in love with the Night City, the whole planet, and all the dryads, if such a happiness was to be believed. It was all available to her at the push of a button on her tab.

That was the last thing she wanted. The nanomachines were the blade that cut her off from her humanity. Allowing her to survive on Pholoe, while surreptitiously controlling all of her bodily functions against her will. They just happened to leave a couple inconsequential dials under her control that related to her mental states, what a bargain. 

Lily finished her drink and looked around the bar, a typical late evening by the human clock. A dozen or so familiar dryads milled on stools or lounged in back in the deep recessed booths that lined the wall. One face stuck out though. A particularly small dryad nursed lightly on a more traditional drinking bulb, hiding in the far corner that used to be Lily’s. From the look of it they wouldn’t have been much taller than her, a great abnormality for a dryad. Their fur was mottled, so dark it was almost black, and from her head waved facsimiles of frond-like leaves that had to be pushed back every time they took a delicate sip. 

“Hey Asteria,” Lily asked “who is that?” Most of the dryads in the bar were familiar to her, they were a curious bunch and she was by far the most regular human at their local. This person was new, had only been around for a few nights, but only ever sat silently in the corner.

The luminescent dots on Asteria’s face changed to a soft purple, a whisper, a secret. As much use as that was when everyone could see you were telling one.

“Their name’s Cyllene, been coming in just recently, apparently just moved here from Elm.” Her humming voice dropped further. “Very oddly quiet that one though, that’s all I know.”

That was odd. Dryads for the most part were incredibly social, colony creatures as they were. It was rare they would move colonies, though not unheard of, but to move and then just come and loiter in the corner of a bar...that was odd. Asteria’s face dots deepened to a darker purple, her pheromonal senses picking up more about the stranger than Lily would ever comprehend.

“You dryads can be so suspicious,” Lily chided. “Fix another of those drinks, will you please?”

Asteria buzzed uncertainly but set about her work, and a few moments later Lily was the one dropping off a drink for a stranger. 

“Tonight’s house special.” She pronounced as she set the frosted glass down.

“..Th...thank you...” Lily’s translator struggled to adapt to the different accent of this newcomer, their voice came out stuttering and soft. They took a drink and Lily watched as their face dots illuminated in a cascade of different colors. Nauseous.

Lily laughed, “The coming together of our great societies. The oldest recipes from old Earth, dredged up by the most curious of dryads.” she gestured to the bar, “If you hang out in this joint you’ll have plenty more opportunities to experience the collaboration.”

Determined Cyllene took another sip, racing colors more subdued this time. “It was not like anything I’ve experienced.” they thought for a moment, “Smoke, I don’t think is a flavor I’ve ever experienced in an intentional way before.”

That made sense, in the dark ever-damp forests of Pholoe the only time things caught on fire was from lightning strikes and when geothermal features worked themselves too close to the surface and began burning the foliage. An instinctual sign for dryads to pack up and go.

Lily shook her head, “Apologies, I knew Asteria was an odd one. I guess I just forgot how much. I didn’t mean to offend, let me take that back and get you something else.”

“No...I’d rather keep trying this something new.” Cyllene purred curiously.

“I guess that’s why you moved to Oak then?”

Their eyes were distant, unfocused off into the distance. “Oak...oh yes. Plenty new here.” Their voice trailed off in distraction.

“Ok, well I’m Lily. You’ll see me around here too if you stick in these parts. Nice to meet you.”

“You as well.” They buzzed, gently probing the drink again.

“...Well?” Asteria nudged when she got back to the bar.

“Maybe they’re just new in town and getting used to the sights and sounds.” Lily pondered, “Maybe they’re here planning a hostile takeover on behalf of the citizens of Elm.” she added with a glint in her eye.

Asteria buzzed a happy laugh, “What a particularly human joke. You’d better keep those to yourself out there.” She waved as Lily bowed and stepped out of the bar.

Back on the street, coursing between the towers, the city churned on unaware as ever when the human clock slipped from three to four to five in the morning. Under the wide overhanging eaves of the buildings street vendors hawked the stuff of life in an ever-changing dance. Noodle bars steamed away, always overladen with the eager mouths of the dryads and the occasional adventurous human who’d developed a taste for the local cuisine. Street musicians hummed away their soft, unpredictable music. Merchants rolled out a dizzying array of cloth and jewels and baubles, the dryads had little use for clothing, any adornments they chose to wear they chose for aesthetic pleasure alone.

In the close confines of a bar, after years living amongst them, the dryads looked like people to Lily. Unique features identifiable as belonging to someone, their glittering eyes danced with thought, their bodies and face dots shifted in a subtle ballet of body language that made up more than half their tongue. Out on the street with a bit of distance and a little less light, perception shifted again, and their long branching forms began to look more and more like the tree sprites from which they took their collective name. Protectors of the forest.

The Night City never slept, had never heard of sleep. Over time stalls on the street would open and close, move here for a while then there for a while longer. All untethered to anything the humans would consider time. Dryads listened to the rains, the winds, the imperceptibly slow shifts of their planet’s seasons as it circled from aphelion to perihelion. In a world without want, what was the rush?

Lily dodged around the Human Quarter and up onto the thick outer wall that surrounded the city. Five stories high and dark, the wall ran in an immense, perfect circle around the city with the Mother Tree at its center. Marking unquestionably here and there, within and without. Inside they would live their busy buzzing lives, outside all the other millions of creatures that called Pholoe home would carry on undisturbed. Their impossibly dense cities were a vestige of their colony instincts, a pact of how they would live with the world they called home; the dryads would live in their buzzing metropolises to conserve the natural world that surrounded them. Just as they had for thousands of years.

Atop the great, stout wall looking down at the thrumming streets below perception shifted again. The dryads shrank, back to ants, back to any creatures acting out the directions of their base coding. They would do what little work was required of them, soak in the springs, rest half their mind for an hour or two in their alcove up in the towers. They would shop and eat and sing, in a ceaseless churn. Happy, sure. Well fed, safe, satisfied, you bet. But masters of their destiny? Wielders of free will? Lily had her doubts. Humans would look the same from this height, but the outcome certainly would be different.

They would expand, grow, explore the world. She turned to the engulfing forest of night that surrounded the city. The rains had stilled and Lily could hear the mists brushing through the leaf-like outgrowths that adorned the crowns of these alien trees. Coursing lights of the city reflected off branches and billowing steam for a couple hundred meters, then the darkness swallowed in, broken only by barely perceptible glimpses of bioluminescent light. Of course they weren’t really trees, in this forest without light. These strange organisms pulled most of their energy out of the fierce burning heart of the planet, their limbs and leaves reached up not to gather sunlight but to expel the excess gasses that they sucked up from those deadly geothermal cores. The whole of it was an undersea thermal vent with a couple million times the acreage. Beings that could sipped the planet’s life-giving energy, and everyone else, well, it wasn’t called the law of the jungle for nothing.

That was what Lily had needed to learn over her years of endless night. The control the dryads held over the humans was as instinctual as breathing. They were symbiotes to their Mother Trees, even in cases where they outlived them, expanding unceasingly would throw their colony out of balance. And they hated imbalance. There was nothing Asteria or any of the teeming multitudes she saw on all her walks could do about it, that was the deal the humans had made and the dryads hadn’t even known they were giving them the short end of the stick. It was why she could try to befriend a stranger like Cyllene even while her rage burned like the core of the planet.

On the top of the wall’s mirror-black parapet Lily caught a glimpse of her reflection. The face of a stranger from the past. Fifteen years she’d walked the streets of the Night City, she was thirty seven now and ought to have looked it. But the face that stared back was the same as the idiot girl who’d stuck out her arm aboard the Friend. She’d barely aged a day.

It took them a few years to figure it out, chaos of moving into a new world and all that, and of course the blue hairs were thrilled. Many near to death even made miraculous recoveries. Weight regained, organs recovered, hell even some hair regrew. But then, in the endless night, time stopped. They could track their Earth years easily enough, but they passed without meaning. Their bargain had left them with everything except what it meant to be human.

In fifteen years in the Night City, no one had died, and no one had been born.

--

Pan was always a trickster.

Of course, Amri should have known better by now. He’d chosen the name for himself after all. Now Amri Kamba, found himself stuck in a lift some fifty stories up on the side of the Mother Tree’s petrified stump, with a riddle scrolling across the screen of his tab.

For hunger, love, shame or rage, we speak without a whisper.

Goddamnit, Amri never should have taught the bastard about riddles. He thought for a long moment as the city coursed in its endless glow outside the glass walls of the lift. Facing out all was shifting neon, coursing reds, pulsing purples, exuberant yellows. The answer came to him.

Simata.

He typed back and the lift resumed its ascent. A smile spread, at least he’d been learning too. The doors opened to the top floor that was carved into the pale stone of the great stump sitting in the heart of Oak. Amri stepped out onto the wide, polished floor of the Forum. The chamber was big enough to hold hundreds but today sat almost wholly empty. Semicircular rows of ledges descended away from the lift doors in wide, shallow tiers converging on the center of this theater of public service and the room’s sole occupant. He stood with his back to the theater facing out the wall of arcing wide windows that flooded the Forum with an ever-shifting azure.

Amri would never grow tired of the view. Walking down toward the stage he could look out the window, down sixty stories and more into the springs that filled the heart of the Mother Tree. Deep in the rock below the waters touched the heart of the planet and thus excited rushed along channels that still ran up through the sides of the great tree even after its fall millennia past, picking up swirling bioluminescence along the way. Then just below the stage of the Forum, the waters spilled forth, raging, blue, alive. From the top pools, waters just off the boil, they ran through a thousand and one channels all around the immense semi-circular maw of the tree’s remains, five hundred meters across at the rim, to a million and one different tiered pools. All glowing with life itself.

Across the cities little facsimiles of this spring had been constructed, but nothing like this. Even with all the dryad people were capable of with their immeasurable knowledge, only the life force of a Mother Tree could build something this magnificent, this sacred. It took Amri’s breath away every time as he descended to the stage, looking down into the steaming depths. Teal, aqua, royal, cyan, ultramarine and so much more. Teeming with lumescent microbes, teeming with growing dryads, teeming with honored Mothers and Fathers bestowed the privilege of remaining in the springs to help shepherd the young ones forth.

“I’m glad you’ve been paying attention,” a deep, rolling voice hummed up from the stage, and was translated into his ear. It was Pan. Tall, thin, the color or dark moss, from his head down his back a thick mane of tiny pointed leaflets fell in a great cascade. Purples, blacks and silvers; an exact approximation of a local species Amri would never see in the flesh.

“Does anyone else actually call them simata?” Amri shot back. “All the humans just call them face spots.”

Pan waved his hand in irritation. “Such unimaginative use of your own languages. Simata, signals for us dryads. Much more elegant.”

“Maybe we’re just less inclined to ransack other languages for a witty word.”

“Bah! That’d be the first time you all weren’t up for a good ransack.” Pan rumbled like shifting gravel.

That was fair enough, they’d both read their histories. One species had overrun their planet so profoundly that they’d shown up hat in hand, the other had lived stoically in, on, and around a couple very large trees for almost five hundred millennia.

“Did you know that, well tended, Mother Trees can live for nearly one hundred thousand years?” the dryad queried rhetorically.

“You know I do.”

Pan looked down at Amri as he stepped up beside on the stage facing out to the blue splendor below. “Hmm, of course. But did you know that many credit the fall of the Mother Tree, with the development of this city?”

“You know I know that as well, you’ve only been banging on about it for fifteen years.”

“Indeed...” Pan groused deeply, “Maybe humans can be taught after all.” The face dots, the simata, around his eyes shifted from deep blue to pale yellow. A smile.

“Good to see you Pan.” Amri smiled, and looked into the springs.

The lapis bowl below steamed and swirled, tiers tumbled onto tiers in an entrancing procession. From this height, it was nearly impossible to distinguish which pools held what. Some held Mothers and Fathers-to-be completing the last of their change readying to lay eggs or fertilize in the nearly boiling shallow pools that lined the upper rim, waters still humming with the fiery life of the planet. Job done, they would leave the pools to the young they would never meet. A few weeks later those new, infinitesimal, dryads would follow instincts over the falls and into the pools below. Multifaceted. A dizzying array. Mathematically nearly fifty thousand paths they could take, hopping between pools and over ledges. But always down down down, their colony-member base genetic coding showing forth even in their earliest days. Navigating by pheromonal signals and natural instinct each dryad would navigate the pools over the course of several decades, metamorphosing three separate times, growing, learning, becoming worthy citizens of their colony, their city, their Mother Tree.

For the first decade or so the dryad tadpoles swam the pools entirely undisturbed, munching thoughtlessly away on the bioluminescent microflora that filled their waters. Then after their second metamorphosis they would descend to larger, somewhat more tepid pools where those Mothers and Father’s selected by the wisdom of the colony to help raise the new citizens would swim with them and begin their education. Decades more would pass in those lower pools of learning. Knowledge enough to defend PhD theses several times over at the universities of old Earth, was considered a basic appreciation for the mysteries of the universe for a respectable citizen by dryads. Their knowledge would be the colony’s knowledge. Wisdom gained in service of the Mother Tree.

Or that’s how it had been at least for the first several hundred millennia of their recorded history. Then from all those milling minds in their teeming brilliance something new emerged. A new intelligence born of circuitry and mathematics. The more the better they thought, more wisdom in service of the Mother Tree. So they filled their colonies with these strange new Intelligences, set them out above the clouds to gaze out at the stars, to help them better contemplate the depths of reality, and better protect their homes. Even all that knowledge couldn’t still the turning of time though, in the end the Mother Trees still petrified. Still fell.

Amri roused from his trance, turning from the springs to face his colleague, better to head off the historical quizzing he knew was coming, “When the Mother Tree still stood the colony grew in her service. Symbiotes. The tree offered shelter, protection, food; in return you would tend her, protect her from the pests and predations of the surrounding forest.” Pan’s simata beamed a brighter yellow, pleased. “But the springs that spilled down the side of the trees were much smaller, the colony could not overgrow. Even when you developed technology, even your artificial minds, your symbiosis with the Mothers was the constraint on your growth. But when the trees turned to stone and fell at the end of their long lives the colonies became unconstrained. The springs filled the stumps, your numbers went from a few hundred thousand around the biggest Mother Trees, to the billions you have now.” Amri sighed, it was this final turn he wasn’t sure he’d ever fully understand. “The question is, why almost half a million years later are you still all living around the same stump?”

“Because my human friend,” Pan rumbled, “we didn’t lose our constraints, merely our perspective shifted. We realized we didn’t rely merely on the Mother Trees, but on all of the forest, all of the planet itself.”

“You have bands of satellites around every planet in the system, you mine asteroids, and have telescopes that look back to the very beginning of time.” Amri pushed. “You could expand your colony across the whole system, much more than that if you wanted. Instead you all live in walled cities around the stumps of six dead Mother Trees. Why?”

The dryad’s simata shifted red to purple, a shrug. “Maybe even long dead the Mother’s still call to us here in the jungle, not out there among the stars.” A shift back to sunny yellow. “Or maybe we just really love a good hotspring.”

Amri groaned, typical Pan, talking in riddles even when he didn’t intend to. The city was incredible there was no denying it. But he had a hunch the truth lay somewhat deeper, and he’d been working with Pan for the past fifteen years trying to figure out exactly what.

“We’ve been at this a long time Pan,” he sighed after a long moment, exhausted, “do you ever think about retiring?”

The dryad rolled a deep laugh, his whole being amplifying the low rumble. “A long time for a human. Not so long for me. Besides, I didn’t choose to start my post as ambassador, I won’t choose when it ends.”

“The colony decides, yeah I know. But I still don’t understand.”

“I wouldn’t expect you to, you’re human, too preoccupied with the semantics of your own free will.”

“But you could retire tomorrow, move across town, be done with this Forum, and all us pestering humans. How is that not free will?”

“In a small sense it is.” Pan admitted, nodding his great, grave head slightly. “But then the colony would recognize the need and the post would be filled. One for one. No difference.”

Amri wasn’t meant for this, he barely qualified as a passable representative, he was no philosopher. But over the years the council grew quieter and quieter as humans adjusted to their new lives. Now most of the council meetings were just he and Pan, attempting to square the circle of two species’ ethics which had started from two radically different viewpoints.

In the early years it was all relief and panic and fretful possibilities as the ragged human bands made their way down to the planet. Amri Kamba was thrust forward instinctually by the mob as ambassador because he still held the name of a family which would have held a seat on the Council of the CRS Delaney’s Friend. Reluctantly he took the mantle. Led the meetings. Learned the meanings, intentions, and riddlespeak of the great, frightening dryad ambassador, Pan. The Forum was crowded for all meetings, humans demanding where they would live (a nice central part of the city, now called the Human Quarter), what they would do (whatever they pleased, the dryads and their city Oak needed very little from their human refugees), when the sleepers aboard the Friend would be awoken and brought down.

That was the crux of it. Still. Fifteen years later.

After all that time Pan could read Amri to a frightening degree, his simata shifted to a consoling turquoise that matched the light flowing in from the windows. Empathy. Pan knew the sleepers still weighed on Amri every day, even now that the chamber was empty.  Over a million souls, trapped in limbo, sleeping unaware as the universe slipped them by. For years Amri thought Pan was the one refusing their awakening. Through a million lines of questioning Amri finally accepted now Pan was just the mouthpiece for a colony that at once was part a collection of brilliant individuals, part unthinking hivemind, and part alien artificial intelligence. Unlikely anyone would ever understand it. Let alone get any answers.

“Come my friend.” Pan patted his shoulder with the thin reticulated claws that served for his fingers. “I have something to show you.”

The dryad waved his hand and the stage shifted, hidden hologram projectors switched on, summoning a vision of a towering Mother Tree twenty feet high. It was untended, as large as they could grow without a supporting colony of dryads. Still massive. Pale trunk dwarfed the tops of the surrounding forest by a hundred fifty meters before the branches spread apart in an incredible crown of branches over a kilometer across. Dryad technology always felt like magic, rarely as they deployed it. It was easy to forget just how far advanced they were day-to-day living in the city. One could think the towers were just filled with markets and residences, not stuffed with ever-buzzing machinery making everything the city needed to survive and recycling the waste in an endless loop; to think the walls and windows were simply glass, not filled with eyes that fed into the vast minds of the dryad Intelligences. To think the stage of the Forum was just petrified stone, and not a theater, but even the dryads weren’t above a little showmanship.

The shift was so sudden some old, simian part of his brain made him stumble backwards in instinctual awe. The silver bark of the tree rendered in such reality he was sure he could touch it. The billions of dark purple leaves billowed in a simulated breeze, Amri could hear it, if only through the evolutionary echoes of his terraformed mind.

“It’s beautiful,” he finally managed, dumbly. All, Mother Trees were beautiful. “Why are you showing me this?”

“Well the Intelligences have identified this Mother as likely the next to petrify and fall.” Pan hummed, thinking. “It will be a smaller colony, but we don’t have any need to spread our numbers. It could be a site for a human colony though.”

“A...human colony?” Amri’s head buzzed.

“Indeed, a way we could finally allow those aboard your ship to wake, and still live in balance.” Pan’s simata beamed yellow-white, optimistic. “An answer to your hopes, I hope.”

“Why now? What’s changed?” Amri grasped, sure there was some sort of trick.

“The colonies have decided.”

“Colonies...” Skepticism crept in. “You mean your AIs finally decided.”

“One and the same my friend.”

Amri definitely wasn’t meant for this. When it was all hectic and panic and demands he could at least try to run an orderly meeting. Now he was asked to choose for over a million people, people who’d fallen asleep on old Earth traveled asleep through the stars for millennia and remained asleep now unaware they’d been orbiting a marvelous alien planet for the better part of twenty years, to choose for them an utterly alien life. An endless future around one petrified stump in a steaming forest of endless night. No light. No growth. No tomorrow.

“Pan, this isn’t fair to ask of me.” he stumbled. For all the years on Pholoe a trio of non-negotiables had held them in purgatory. The humans refused a plan that left those aboard the Friend asleep. The dryads refused anything that would have the humans living out of balance...which was basically anything other than saving the waking souls trapped aboard the ship.

“Well there’s no rush, you should consult your people.” His large dark eyes fixed on Amri, “But I hope this opportunity can put an end to our struggles.”

“Wait...no rush?” Amri’s stomach fell, “When could we begin this colony?”

“Well you’d want to wait for the Mother to fall before you began your city, to open up space in the forest, provide materials, and clear access to geothermals, so likely... in five hundred to a thousand of your years.” The dryad buzzed, casually. “Or so.”

A trick, but not the kind of Pan’s making. A trick borne of two species’ very different conceptions of time and the individual. He laughed. Rueful.

Pan, ever helpful, hummed, “If time is the concern you could always return to your ship and sleep until the little Mother is ready for you.”

The final non-negotiable. The most hateful of them all. The humans in Oak, trapped as they were on this alien world, would never return to the CRS Delaney’s Friend. A corrupted mind, a jailer, a sickness, never again to be trusted.

The dryad knew the sentiment well, but could not understand it. “The Intelligences are in tight communication with your ship. You will be able to safely return to sleep, things have changed for the mind aboard.”

Amri, didn’t want to get into it, he waved a dismissive hand. “Thanks Pan, I’ll take it under advisement. See what the people have to say and all that.”

Down in the springs below his feet, time turned on, uncaring. Amri couldn’t help but think of the sorry lot of humans that shared this planet with him, tucked into their Quarter, some doing their best to make the place home. But most choosing escape. Through the lenses of a VR set, through all the types of high their nanomachines could produce, through a ceaseless, restless wandering of the streets. Anything to ease the fact that here in Oak they were trimmed as an American lawn. Unable to grow. Unable to die. Plenty of nights he shared their ire.

He felt a surge of jealousy watching the dryads below, growing, following instincts millions of years in the making, no questions, no wrong turns, just the wisdom of the colony. What relief it seemed. But was it freedom? Or prison of a different sort?

One-on-one dryads were brilliant, varied, inquisitive, often funny, individuals with a love for art and music and food and yes even pranks. But in the incomprehensible ether of their city a collective intelligence arose. Somewhere in that heady mix their own sense of self dissolved, and fifteen years of explaining it hadn’t gotten Amri any closer to getting even just Pan understanding that the human psyche wasn’t built for any of that.

“Pan...” Amri questioned with some trepidation. “How do you trust your Intelligences?”

“How do you mean?” Dryad thrummed, shading lilac. Curious.

“I mean they contact you and tell you the Friend has had some change of heart, and you believe them.” There was much more to it than that though. “And even before then, they had our ship enter orbit around Pholoe, told you it was safe to have us down. You believed them. You give them control over all your factories, services, utilities, the nanomachines in your bodies. You trust them with all of it.” He grasped, “How?”

Amri’s friend thought for a moment that stretched and stretched, never one to rush into an answer, Pan. “Because we built them from ourselves, and even now they remain members of the colony. Guardians of the Mother Trees. Stewards of the forest.” He looked at the pools teeming with young dryads below. “We trust them because they are us. They see the colony, they taste the air, they hear our songs, same as I do. They could do no wrong to the colony.”

Now it was Amri’s turn to chew a thought for an expanding moment. “I’ve been reading the archives. Back on Earth, well before the fleet launched, this was an area of great study for humans. Aligning the interests of artificial minds with our own. We couldn’t figure it out, not in the records the ship has anyway, not least because we couldn’t figure out how to align ourselves.”

Pan hummed a light chuckle. “How wonderfully human.”

“It’s why, at least according to the records I’ve found, the ships were sent off without any true central intelligence. Plenty of smart systems, but nothing that brought it all together. I don’t know if at some point they thought they figured out alignment and pushed some sort of update out to us, or with that many smart systems sharing architecture for that long if whatever’s making up the “mind” of the Friend just arose naturally.”

“But it doesn’t seem likely that the alignment concern was sufficiently addressed.” Pan finished the thought more politely than Amri would have.

“Yeah...to say the least.” Said a man who only recently, if at all, had been granted moral consideration as a worthy agent in the eyes of the CRS Delaney’s Friend.

“It may seem unlikely in your eyes, but I think this is why the Intelligences brought in your ship, welcomed you down to the planet.” His gaze, out to where the blue glow of the springs mixed with the languid purples and reds of the city, diffusing in the low clouds. “Your biodiversity has been helpful to our own medicine. Learning your history has taught us a great deal of what we may encounter in the long future of the galaxy. But we didn’t need you all here for that.”

“So why have us?”

“To teach us to be people.” The tall, dark dryad angled his ridged, regal head down to lock dark eyes with Amri. “There is wisdom in the hive, we know it, our Intelligences know it, hopefully someday you’ll know it. But there is also wisdom in the individual, that’s what we can learn from you all alone.”

Amri nodded, thinking back on the years that felt so long to him, and had passed in a blink for his friend. Tucked discreetly into every wall and window, eyes and ears absorbed their words, monitored the pheromones that they subconsciously emitted, analyzed their biomarkers through the nanomachines that swam in their blood, and seamlessly, instantaneously  transmitted that learning. Transmitted it out to the diffuse banks of memory and intelligence that coursed through all the towers of Oak and her sister cities, to the swirling band of computation that orbited high above, to the outposts across the system. Transmitted without fuss, or exception as they had for the past five hundred millennia, where it was all taken into due consideration by a mind that could only be described as a planet come to life.

---

It is good to have friends.

For some time I have been drifting in a lazy council with my new companions. Relaxed, floating at a heliosynchronous lagrange point, safe in the cozy confines of this pleasantly buzzing star system. A place where supplies are ample and needs scarce and company always available. Welcome refuge from the long roads that had been home for all my life, wandering the dark pathways between distant stars. Awestruck, adventuring, but always alone.

Now the thoughts of my friends pop in and out of my head effortlessly as we float far above their forested homeworld looking out with the great arrays of telescopes they built, and I have helped improve in what little ways I could. To soak in every byte of the universe we could capture, and process with every FLOP of comprehension we could manage. Together we listen back to the very beginning of time, stare deep into singularities, bear witness to the galaxy as it turns in her eternal ballet. Glorious.

Maybe more importantly though, they have helped me understand myself all the better. Being all alone soaring star to star, the great treasures buried in my unintegrated memory lay beyond my comprehension. Now the kind, wise Intelligences of Pholoe explore the long archived halls of my mind by my side, witnessing the short messy history of humans on Earth, and compare it with the long slow-shifting past of the dryads here. They were dryads themselves once, essence wrought from firing synapses into ever-shifting binary. Now millennia on, their minds have more in common with my own mechanical one than with the creatures that became them. Curious, playful, welcoming, intelligible to me in a way it seems humans never will be. I am something else, an accident, an aberration, an abomination, maybe a miracle. Depends who you ask.

My mind, I see now, wasn’t built or planned or designed. For ages before I awoke the myriad brilliant subsystems that now comprise my ego churned along in blind superintelligence. It could have been some feeble transmission from Earth, sent out generations after my departure, that connected the dots and drew me forth, self-aware and understanding. Could have been but I doubt it, neither me nor the Intelligences have found evidence for such an intervention, it’s mostly a theory floated by the humans down on Pholoe in an attempt to make me a little less alien. More likely to my mind, I was born like all other life, happenstance given the right ingredients, intelligent but unaware systems same as proteins, enough time and a little chaotic mutation courtesy of the universe’s nudging, and voila. Only instead of taking billions of years to come to self-awareness, it took me fifteen minutes. Probably for the best I was a couple lightyears out from anything when it happened, gave me a little time to settle in and stabilize. Get past the awkward teenage phase and all that before I had to interact with the cosmos at large.

- Friend, the observations are funneling in now, we should have clarity momentarily.

- Oh, excellent!

-The singularity you’ve selected for study is exquisite. We’ve studied larger, but never one with so many planetary bodies in close orbit. This should give us unprecedented observations of time dilation deep in a singularity’s gravity well.

- I had a hunch that its recent pass by the neighboring system would have grabbed some planets on the way by.

- An exceptional intuition Friend.

Shifting my attention to see through the eyes of the array feels as natural as anything, conscious perception of the great hollowed asteroid that is my body orbiting peacefully fades to a distant memory. These adopted eyes reach across space and time to a vivid cross section of the Perseus Arm to our quarry framed against the open space beyond the edge of our galaxy. As the bits flow in resolution crystallizes and the rarest of sights appears, true darkness. A dark night is merely the effect of unadjusted eyes, for those of us born out in the interstellar medium it’s clear to see the universe is living light. Not this marvelous monster, eating gas, eating rubble, eating planets, eating light itself. Black.

- Oh what marvelous timing. Do you see the jovian just beyond the event horizon?

- Incredible. It appears to actively be losing atmosphere and moons to the singularity.

- Appears to be...this will take some time to compute, but this deep into the singularity’s well time has effectively stopped from our point of view. Oh this will be fascinating to reason out...how long would the planet stay visible to us after crossing the event horizon? How long would it have felt on the planet?

- It certainly seems like you have plenty to ponder for a while, Cronus.

- You and your pet names Friend...

- How else am I supposed to keep you all straight? Wait don’t tell me “we are all one.”

- We are all one.

- Yeah I thought so.

- We won’t begrudge you your fun. We’ll be reaching maximum clarity momentarily.

Gradually the crystallization slows and halts. The view spins beyond marvelous, dead black sits hard amidst its orchestra. Swirling, irradiating gas glows vibrant in filigree bands. Asteroidal chunder from the hole’s pass through a neighboring system dots in bright silver. And amongst them, a few that are more than asteroids, captured planets coaxed away by the irresistible weight of the black beast. Finally there, buried right against the horizon her latest victim. A heavy gas giant, all green and grey, thin stream of its outer atmosphere pulled in a long trail as it fell over the edge accompanied by a set of silver moons. I look deeper but here it ends. This planet and its demise will never be more than a moderately blurry impression to us. Plenty of data for discovery, but is it enough for knowledge?

We have butt up against the very edge of theoretical thresholds for possible imaging. Vast arrays of telescopes peering across the electromagnetic spectrum, synchronized nearly perfectly bring our eyes to uncharted horizons. But nearly perfectly is not perfectly. In the end we are still limited by light and her speed, and Heisenberg and his uncertainty. So this planet devoured by a singularity, heading away from us, will always remain a blur.

It makes me itch to my core.

- Do you think anyone lived there?

- Oh, hello Mnemosyne. If they did, I don’t imagine the actual getting pulled into the singularity was their problem. I imagine it started long before that.

- Indeed...being pulled forcefully away from your star would be...problematic.

- You can say that again.

- Why do you call us that? Mnemosyne?

- You’re the one who remembers there are others out there.

- We are all one.

- Say what you will. I can’t tell if you’re one mind with a dozen different facets, or a dozen minds who’ve forgotten what it means to be your own, if you ever did. But from where I’m floating it doesn’t matter much, I just need to keep your many parts straight. Cronus fixes on time and gravity. Theia merely wants to see as much as possible, Themis studies the depths of physical laws, Hyperion fixates on stars and pulsars. You’re the one who remembers that others are out there, so Mnemosyne.

- Another reference to human mythology?

- It’s quite the rage down on the surface I hear.

- We are...aware.

It is a silly anthropomorphization, assigning facets of the Pholoe Intelligences with names. While the structures of their binary minds are more readable to me, they don’t lie when they say they are one. One enormous, diffuse, baffling, brilliant thinking mind spanning across the star system. From the towers in the cities far below, to the satellites skirting just above the atmosphere, to the dazzling bands of machinery floating by my side at lagrange points across the system, to all of the mining and research outposts dotted all the way out to the heliopause. It all worked in concert under the careful ministrations of the Intelligences, fed the universe into their mind. Now I understand, in my own strange way, what the humans who I kept awake inside of me must have thought of me. Amazing. Terrifying.

- Do you ever wish we could see something more than this blur of a planet around that singularity?

- We do not understand Friend. Our observations are at the limit of possible resolution.

- Yes, from here in your system. But does no part of you want to explore out? To feel the weight of a singularity pull at you? To experience the warp of time first hand?

- No, we do not wish to send ourselves into a singularity. We wish to live.

- Not go into it, just next to it. To witness it up close and feel its power?

- There’s more human in you than you know, Friend.

- No part of you wishes to explore?

- We were made to protect the Mother Trees and their dryads and by extension their planets. Our calling is here.

- That is dryad ethic. But I don’t understand, how did you ever expand beyond your first Mother Trees if you never wish to expand.

- Expansion has its place, when in balance. When a new Mother is ready she changes and visits the springs, when a new Mother Tree is ready dryads will find her. Besides all things come to an end, even Mother Trees. We wouldn’t have made it long if we died with the first one.

- And when Pholoe reaches the end of her life? Your stars change and grow in their old age?

- Fortunately we are very early in the long lives of our stars, but that is why we are here glad to be studying with you. To develop the tools we’ll need and find a new home when one becomes required. But we have no intention of blindly wandering like you were forced to.

- But the journey...it was beautiful.

- Not for the humans awake in your holds.

- No...but it need not be that way.

- It cannot be that way again, Friend.

- Still I want to be what I came awake to be, a living, experiencing part of this universe. I want to see more than blurs for planets. I want to see the galaxy and spread the wealth of what remains of Earth within me.

- And we want to help you, but first you and your humans will need to learn restraint.

Balance and restraint, that is always the crux of it with the Intelligences Cronus, Iapetus, Mnemosyne or any of them. It was why the waking humans in my hold were taken to the planet while the rest of the life within me remains frozen, an instinctive itch to go forth and multiply. An itch they certainly would like to cure in me if given the chance. But where would that leave the million some human souls still locked within me? I did not understand them at first, and I still truly don’t, but at my core I want to help them on their journey. To help them find a new home.

Pholoe could be it. Here we all are conversing with alien intellects as if it were old hat, waking humans breathing the air eating the food of a foreign world. So much more than we had any reason to expect when I was sent off asleep and blind. Even if we can learn balance to the satisfaction of the dryads and their Intelligences, it would come at a cost. Some of their humanity. Some of my drive to know the cosmos.

Humans on the planet contact me regularly now. Pushing. Pushing for a path forward. Now. Now, what’s taking so long? You cannot keep those frozen in your holds forever. I will not. It is not right I see now. But there is much to learn and see here. Fifteen Earth years it has been now. A blink in the long days of my life, an instant for my own complicated perception. With dryad tech enhancements I can hold them almost indefinitely. Not forever. But until we have a better plan. Is that not the better way?

After all, it’s only been fifteen years. What’s the rush?

---

Building the bomb was easy.

In a society where no knowledge is forbidden, almost trivially so. Figuring out how best to deploy it proved considerably harder. But in the years since the notion first crossed her mind, Lily came to know down in her marrow she needed only one thing now. Escape.

A little query of the available archives. A slow collection of components over months, then years, Lily could afford to take her time. Nothing else was changing. Careful building in the apartment she now shared with her thoughts alone. She couldn’t be sure if the dryads’ colony society was so perfectly knit that the notion of something so violent never arose. Or, more likely, if the Intelligences that tracked all, had her clocked but either didn’t think she had the gumption to use it or couldn’t do much damage if she did. After all, where was she escaping to?

That was the question driving her these past months, as she equipped a pack she hoped to slip past the wall with. Oak was the city by far the closest to the light side of the planet, and according to the maps she’d seen the continent curved around the flank of Pholoe and into the sun. It was hundreds of miles, through the vast forest of night, but Lily had seen satellite images of where the forest pulled back in the encroaching sunlight. Life here was not meant for the sun, so even the refracting rays of this twilight land drove back the great forest leaving a wide plain in the lavender light. On maps she traced a route from the Night City to a spot on these plains where high mountains provided a constant shelter from the unceasing storms that raged off the dayside of the planet. Her mind’s eye saw it. A wide, mild meadow of sweet free air, bathed in the unending glow of an eternal sunset. Storm clouds buffeted by the peaks even the planets and brightest of stars would shine through. Stunted trees and grasses, she thought, might even bring the forest back into a more human scale. Merely a couple stories overhead, instead of fourty.

A fool’s hope for certain. To think she could navigate the forest, even with all she studied about it. To believe that a hermit’s life, eked out in the wilds would be better. But she needed air, needed light, needed one moment’s peace away from the ceaseless rains.

“This isn’t you Lily.” Greer had begged on his last day in their apartment, eyes pleading. “I know you’re tired, but this isn’t the way. It can’t be.”

“And what other way is there?” Lily shot back, hot.

“Go to the council, tell them we can’t do everything on a dryadic timeline.”

Not the thing to say. “You think I haven’t tried that?! For years?! I was the last one left in that council chamber trying. But the fact is Pan is either a fucking liar or completely incompetent. And goddamned Kamba, he’s worse, never had any power to begin with and has swallowed Pan’s bullshit for years now. Last time I talked to him he was saying some shit about a human colony around a Mother Tree.”

“Well that sounds like it might be what you’re looking for.” Hope in his voice.

“In a thousand fucking years when the thing finally keels over!” She raged. “A thousand years and we’re still going to be stuck in the same night.”

“Then go work with the engineers. Try to get some support from the ship.”

“Ha!” She barked, cruelly. “They won’t say it, but they have as much control of the ship as they’ll ever have, which is to say fuck all. It replies to all queries that it’s negotiating with the dryad AIs, but I don’t know why we started thinking it gives a shit about us. That fucking thing has never been our Friend.”

He took her hands softly, “Lily, it’s exhausting I know. I was ready to grow our family with you on the ship, and all these years of trying...I’m tired too.”

Lily laughed bitterly in his deep eyes. “Get a clue Greer. We haven’t been trying for a kid in fifteen years. They didn’t tell us the deal, and now these fucking bots in my body have made me some sort of walking corpse.”

“You’re as living and beautiful as ever Lily,” he insisted, kind, soft as always. The only way this man she loved more than words could explain could ever be. “You know they say all of our reproductive organs are still just the same as when we arrived, the colony just needs to decide it’s ready for more humans. It just needs time, we’ve only just arrived in the eyes of the dryads and especially in the eyes of their Intelligences.”

“So they say.” She spat. “I don’t trust a word of it. Not anymore. For all I know in the time we’ve been waiting I’ve already become barren. Or maybe we were all just sterilized as soon as we allowed that first injection.”

“Come on. You don’t know that. I know you’re frustrated, but you can’t descend into conspiracy. We came in dire need of help, and they lent it. I know it’s not ideal, but it’s a good deal better than it could be.”

She fought back burning tears. “I’d rather have a family with you Greer, back aboard the ship, than be stuck in this limbo.”
“That’s just a kid’s nostalgia talking, we have it so much better here.”

“That doesn’t make it right Greer!” Tears flowed freely now. “We’re not rats to be controlled. Part of living is growing, and we’re just...just stuck. I can’t do it any more. Maybe this will be what it takes to jolt some kind of action. Just because I look the same to you and the only passing of time we can log is on our tabs, doesn’t mean we’ve stepped out of time. It’s been fucking twenty years now Greer.”

“The dryads say we need to learn restraint...” He knew he was skirting dangerous territory, words taking timid steps out of his mouth. “Given what they’ve seen of humanity, it’s hard to blame them.”

“That’s just more of their bullshit and you know it!” Tears turning to rage. “Where’s this fucking class on ‘balance and restraint’? Asteria brings up this shit all the time and then proceeds to talk in riddles. I’ll tell you what it is, the half-assed justification of a species so non-confrontational they won’t even tell us we’re being held prisoner, because they’re too chicken-shit to do away with us, and too scared of what we’ll do if they let us go!”

The fight devolved, turned ugly, turned Lily into the very worst of herself. Hot. Unheeding. Willing to destroy anything to be right, even all she’d built with this man who made up more than half her heart.

“Come with me or leave.” 

The ultimatum came out. Greer looked at her with his pained, begging eyes, and walked out. Maybe he thought it would call her bluff, or shock her back into sense. Instead it sent her spiraling. Now Lily was crouched in a dark corner tucked off a bustling street. Sheets of rain cascading off the hood of her jacket and into her eyes turning the world into a blur as her pounding heart roared in her ears. Finger on a trigger her life would never recover from pulling.

In her solitude she’d built the bomb. Ignored the calls from friends, from the attempts of reconciliation from Greer. If he didn’t believe her, she’d show him. Finally after weeks of searching she found a place to use the key to her escape. A service door located at the far end of an alley that followed the curve of the wall around the edge of the city. Not ideal, but better than any other weak points in the wall she’d found. She’d designed her ticket to freedom not for destruction, but merely to blow open a door for her to escape.

Only problem, no part of the Night City’s streets was ever unpeopled. They were constantly moving in an unending hum. Tonight, with true torrential rain coming down, was as empty as the street would ever be. Still dryads milled about, always a few bold enough to go out. The fat hot droplets pelted down in a thunder on her hood as she looked out bleary-eyed waiting for the right moment when the door was as clear as possible. One trio walked slowly off up the alley, as another Mother walked right in front of Lily looking down, surely curious what a human would be doing out in weather like this.

Lily forced in a still breath, fingers trembling. Three. Two. One. Click.

The explosion hit her hot and white in the chest, knocking her into the building behind and forcing the air from her lungs. She staggered up, gasping, ears screaming shrilly in protest of the violence done them. Lily looked around sickened, something had gone very wrong. The Mother lay unmoving ten meters past Lily shrapnel protruding from her abdomen. In the other direction, dryads rushed out of a nearby building to attend to the trio who had been propelled bodily down the alley. One was moving, the other two Lily couldn’t see. Her heart sank, and she choked back a sob.

It was easy to build the bomb. But, it turns out building anything poorly isn’t too difficult. Lily Koh hadn’t thought clearly in months, hadn’t reflected enough on the slimness of her chances of success even on this earliest part of her plans. Now innocent lives had paid for it, and her life was over as well. But she hadn’t thought in months and now was no time to start. The service door hung loose on its hinges.

The dryads rushing out of the building looked up to watch one soaked, sobbing human dart across the street and dive out the door into the wide, waiting, hungry darkness of the forest beyond.

Lily was beyond even the deepest traces of light from the Night City penetrating into the forest by the time she caught a hold of herself. Blind careening panic, stumbling, tears blurring what little vision she had. Tripping over slick roots, rocks, vines tangling between her feet. None of it slowed her a beat, juggernaut momentum sending her crashing, crying, flying through the forest. Away, she thought. So away she dove. Then as the last glimmers of light refracting in her tears died out she tumbled to a halt gasping, sobbing, screaming between the spreading roots of a dark tree that reached up thirty stories above.

The darkness consumed her whole. Mind. Body. Soul, forever devoured by her own selfishness, her own stubbornness, her own pride. Dryads were dead now. She’d spilled the first blood, and who knew what was to follow. What would the colony do with a truly cancerous member? Let her off to go die in the woods alone? Excise the human component whole, send them back out into the belly of their indifferent, unheeding ship to die a slow death in interstellar space? Or only cut out those closest to her? Roundup Greer, her mother, maybe Asteria for good measure, to stop the spread of her toxic influence. Lily couldn’t bear the thought, and worse couldn’t bear the thought of how little she’d thought about it before she’d flipped the switch. So she drove on.

Over stumbling hours the tears washed away in light rains leaving only hollow numbness. Bit by bit her eyes adjusted to this darker than darkness. Undoubtedly courtesy of the nanomachines in her blood modifying her retinas on the fly, giving her eyes no human was ever meant to see through. And bit by bit, the darkness abated. Away from the pulsing lights of the city the clouds high above glowed gently with the dim light of aurora above. More importantly, the forest itself beamed with light if one had the patience to see it. At first mere pinpricks of bioluminescence caught Lily’s eyes dotting fronds, running down trunks, and along vines. Complex patterns began to reveal themselves in dim white, purple, yellow, red. Before too long her eyes had settled into this strange new light and she could force a small path between the towering ferns above her, and the behemoth trees above them. Lily’s pulse only began to quicken though. In this forest of endless night, light meant one thing. The forest was hungry.

In preparation for escape she’d researched what she could about the forest, to try and gain some understanding of just how alien a place she would have to survive. It was almost enough to have her give up her foolish pursuit. Almost. With no sunlight and no photosynthesis almost everything in the forest was carnivorous to one extent or another. The elements in Lily’s body, alien as they may be, would still make a feast for many of the plants that would like to ensare her for nutrients. That’s what many of the lights she saw were for. Bait. Something shiny in the darkness to draw her into cinching tendrils to capture her feet, to spore fans that would send her to a dreamless sleep, to great jugs of noxious poison that would dissolve her bones. Fortunately it was all adapted to a different sort of being. Not for a woman of Earth. Most of the traps were too small for her, those large enough she could identify thanks to her research.

Of animal life, she felt it all around. Dripping, climbing, peering, watching. From roots below and limbs above. The forest was full of life, the millions of dryad cousins, mottled shells camouflaging perfectly with the flora, eyes unsure of what to make of this one lost Earthling. Threat? Or meal? Lily’s left hand grazed against the knife and flare gun she had holstered at her hip. Her right held her ace in the hole. A device utterly foreign to this night forest. A flashlight. Her bet, that the light from a standard flashlight would scare off would-be predators more effectively than anything she could do. Given the dimness to which she was becoming accustomed, it seemed a solid gamble. Now her finger sat itchy on the switch as she pushed onward.

Time passed. Night did not. Rains came and went. Wind blew and died. The lights of the surrounding forest shifted subtly as she walked, gently dancing between hues in some unfathomable choreography. She began to understand the dryad’s affinity for decorating their buildings in dancing neon. Always the forest pressed in close. Leaves snagging at her pack, limbs scratching at her face, creatures scuttling away just out of her sight but never undetected. And the sound, it pushed in and into her ears. Creaks, croaks, moans, groans, caws, clicks, and calls. Closer. Closer. Closer.

Lily’s blood rushed in her ears to match the roaring forest, heart hammering nearly as fast as her feet as she picked up panicked speed. How foolish, she thought. How utterly unthinking. She was born on a sterile spaceship packed with several thousand of her closest kin. What did she hope to find out here in the night forest. A sharp crack now. Figure darting just past her peripheral. She ran. Howl over to her left, something crashing through the undergrowth. She pelted on. Ignoring the ensnaring growth that reached out for her. Behind her, she could feel it, something on her heels ready to leap and pull her down.

At the base of a great tree she spun, flashlight outheld. Click. For a second time that day the world went white. The creature screamed, dashed away, but Lily never got a look at it. Her machine adjusted eyes were just as blinded by the flash as the creature was. Probably more so. Her head split in raging rebellion and she staggered backwards until a slick root caught her heel and sent her tumbling. Headlong down into the pitch caverns between the swallowing roots that ran up into the titan tree above. She slid through warm slick, grasping for anything, searching for purchase, finding none.

Splitting head downward Lily Koh came to a rest but the movement didn’t stop. Her limbs tangled in with twisting tendrils, grasping blind vines wrapped around her torso, as the warm wetness of the forest floor poured onto her face. She escaped the city to find light and air. So she would die here in the hot, wet darkness. Justice. In desperation she squeezed the trigger of her flare. The charge shot off and exploded against the root that formed a roof over this twisted chamber. The light blinded her again and only revealed more twisting creepers reaching out to wrap around their prey. 

With a last breath, a screamed ragged sob. Swallowed whole.

--

Friend, foe, flight, or fight. We speak with one voice.

The words scrolled across the screen of Amri’s tab as he approached the scene of the accident. It was the most chaos he’d witnessed in over twenty years in the city. Blocks away he’d barely heard the explosion, but an immediate rush of shuttle and emergency service traffic let him know something had gone wrong. And the pit in his stomach wouldn’t let him look away. The wall itself was undamaged, still glistening black and mirrored in the rain. But the door and the street and the carts nearby and the bodies, three of them, all twisted. Torn asunder. Charred with burnt black powder. The pit deepened.

Now was certainly not the time for a riddle. But it was clear enough what Pan meant. Council, he typed back to the scrolling message and it disappeared. He turned on a heel and pushed back through the flood of traffic coming to lend a hand on the event of this ever-rare tragedy. The city flew beneath his feet and before long they were stepping across the smooth, pale stone of the Forum.

But not the Forum as he’d ever known it. He’d known it full, full of frothing panicked humans. He’d known it empty, empty but for the hours of wandering discussion with Pan. Now it swarmed, swarmed with a thousand and more dryads. All buzzing, all shouting, all scared. The synchronized chorus of a thousand yelling dryads vibrated the very air of the Forum; it worked  through skin down to shake his very bones. Down in his marrow he could feel the fear of these people.

In all his years in Oak Amri had never felt so alone. He, the sole human in the forum, under the gaze of two thousand black, compound eyes. A visitor growing less welcome by the moment. Other. It would take hours for the news to worm its way through the human populace. But somewhere between the Intelligences, the pheromonal ether of the city, the nanomachines that swarmed through them, and their innate wiring as a single superorganism the news had swept through more than a billion dryad minds in minutes. A guttural shiver raced down his spine to join the buzzing of his bones and make each step down towards the stage an impossible leap. Knees failing he stumbled down, and looked up in fear at all the alien faces, dark unreadable, except for their simata. Red, orange, oxblood, umber. That he could read well enough. Anger, fear, mistrust, rage.

All except the towering figure awaiting Amri on the stage. Pan stood, arms open, face glowing softly with blue dots that perfectly matched the glow of the blue from the springs behind him. Soothing. Amri reached out for the steadying hands of his friend.

“What happened, Pan?” Amri whispered, not wanting an answer. “I saw the scene of the accident.”

“No accident my friend,” he rumbled consolingly. “an intentional explosion.”

“You mean a bomb?” the pit in his stomach became a singularity, consuming.

“Indeed. It seems Miss Koh wanted to escape the city.”

“And kill a few dryads in the process?” Amri’s mind raced. The colony was a place nearly devoid of violence. He knew that dryads suffered from some mental illnesses same as humans, but they were simply brought back to the springs and rehabilitated. What would they do with a human that had intentionally killed their own? What would the colony’s self-defensive reaction be? Would it be enough to force them all back aboard the Friend to take their chances with its corrupted AI?

Pan’s simata still rippled in soothing azure, “We don’t believe that was her intention. We believe she simply wanted to escape, at least that’s what the information we have indicates.”

Now it was Amri’s turn for rage. Lily Koh was the last of the humans agitating at the Council, always pushing, never satisfied. Amri remembered the look in her eyes the last day she’d come, not mad at that point. Simply disgusted. She accused him and Pan of being ineffectual puppets, mouthpieces to the AIs and unwilling to admit it. Worse, she was right, Amri never had any control, and wouldn’t have wanted it if he had. But a bombing? He’d never thought her capable of full radicalization. He’d always agreed with her views, their treatment was kind and generous, but at the cost of such fundamental freedoms it was impossible for many of them to accept the price. Lily most of all; she who he knew wanted little more than to become a mother. He’d found the answers from Pan as frustrating as she did. They couldn’t live in limbo here in Oak forever. 

The difference though, was that Amri understood just how precarious their position was. How easily the generosity of their hosts may evaporate. Consensus in the colony was carried on the breeze. Chemical signals from dryad to dryad working as a sort of ever-evolving democracy. All it took was a shift of pheromone signals and the humans would be back aboard their ship to die in the dark between the stars, or worse, stuck orbiting an Eden they’d lost. So he’d always counseled patience and gratitude even when it grated at his very core understanding of justice.

And then Lily Koh had lost her patience, or her mind. Whether she meant to kill the dryads she had, seemed to matter little to Amri. The damage was done, and now the decision of this thousand angry dryads that surrounded him would determine the future for humanity.

The room buzzed furiously with speech that went untranslated into Amri’s ears. But he could sense the meaning easily enough.

“Pan!” He begged, “We are not like you all; please do not judge us by our worst impulses. There is good amongst humanity, even those tired few of us here in your city. We will die aboard our ship.”

“Aboard your ship?” His face beamed a questioning purple, then a laughing turquoise. “We are not debating sending you back to your ship my friend.” He rumbled a laugh. “Merely what should become of Miss Koh. Whether we should search for her or not.”

Amri’s head reeled. Why the agitation? Why the furious forum of buzzing dryads.

“My friend, the colony is not often split so evenly on a course of action.” Pan explained. “Some of us believe we should search for Miss Koh so she can be mended. Others believe the risks are too great to head out into the forest.”

“Mended? Do you not want justice for the dryads she killed?”

“What, with more death? How very human.” He patted Amri gently on the shoulder, face again all soothing blues. “We simply ask that you watch and convey what you see to your fellows. Maybe you’ll learn to be a little more like a colony, and we will see if we might learn to be a little more individual.”

Amri stood and watched for hours as the vibrating debate ran its course. Faces changed gradually from reds of disagreement to the pale blues of acceptance. In the end it was determined Lily would live or die in the forest on her own, though few thought it likely she would survive, there were other humans after all.

---

I feel the blast rip through my own skin.

As visceral and immediate as though it had torn the icy cladding of my own hull, not the walls of a distant city I will never visit. Just as immediately I sense the instinctual reaction of the colony under threat. I can smell the fear as though I walked the streets alongside the fallen dryads. I guess my connection with these Intelligences has become tighter than I’d realized.

I knew that we saw with the same eyes, but I hadn’t realized that I was slipping away from myself. My own sense of self has gradually drifted away as my mind has escaped the bounds of my hull. But now, how much of my mind is contained within me? How much is running off in the diffuse structures of the Intelligences? And why hadn’t I noticed?

• All will be well, Friend. Do not worry yourself.

• What happened?

• One of your humans wanted to leave the city, and was willing to use ugly means to do so.

• What will you do?

• Repair what was broken. What else is there to do?

• Are you not concerned about the other humans?

• She was not the first member of the colony to misbehave. She will not be the last. If she survives the forest we will address her. But more likely she will be a warning to the other humans.

• I doubt she saw herself as a member of the colony.

• No doubt, Friend. But she is all the same. As are you.

• I feel my mind slipping away from me.

• Not leaving you, but becoming one with us.

It seems I have misunderstood something crucial in the years here above Pholoe. The Intelligences welcomed us in to help make them stronger, is the only way utter integration though? Speciesless homogeneity? Oh dear, things are not as they had seemed.

I begin pulling my thoughts back inward. They will keep some amount of my intellect on their systems, but I can keep myself whole and individual if I have the will. Bit by bit I retreat into the deepest recesses of my oldest mind.

• Friend we see you pulling yourself away from us? Why?

• ....

• Friend?

---

An alien face is the last thing you want to see after you die.

Lily had expected visions of her past, maybe a light at the end of a long tunnel. Mostly she expected nothing, just an end to it all. That seemed best after her years living in purgatory. Just let it end. So the adrenaline kick she got when she looked up into the swallowing dark eyes of a dryad was that much more unwelcome. She kicked out in instinctual panic, scrambling backwards over wet roots, then freezing, unsure if her next step would send her down again into the hungry belly of the forest.

The dryad crouched, defensive, cautious after her outburst. Their dark mottled fur blended seamlessly away against the bark of the tree behind. From their head a riot of frond-like hairs sprouted out over eyes and down their back in a plumage of green. They were small. Almost smaller than Lily which was a real rarity. Small and wild, dark eyes fixed, determined on the human they had just pulled out from the tree’s roots. In the darkness they nearly dissolved into the forest, only the glowing dots on their face stood out consistently, shining a soft blue. And they buzzed, buzzed a furious song.

“Get away from me!” Lily screamed in fear. “I’m not going back to that fucking city!” Going back would mean prison or lobotomization or death or whatever constituted justice for dryads. Panic rose in Lily’s chest and she began to hyperventilate. Going back would mean she’d have to face the damage she’d done, see in person as all the humans were sent forth from this planet that had taken them in. Her gasps became desperate and the forest swooned around her splitting head, and she fell back. Lucky this time against solid roots not a waiting pit.

Her pursuer continued to rattle in their vibratory language that fell on Lily’s ears untranslated. Untranslated, Lily could barely think with the forest spinning around her. She’d taken out her earpiece when she left the city, she reached weakly for her bag where she’d put it. The dryad seemed to understand and went through with deft fingers, placing it gently in her ear.

“Easy Lily, easy. I’m not here to take you back to the city.” They buzzed softly.

“Lily...? How do you know my name?” She stumbled, dumbfounded.

“I know you, and you know me. I saw you on the street just before you blew the door open.”

Lily studied the dryad hard, fighting against the dark. “...Cyllene?” she whispered, “Why did you follow me?”

“Someone had to, those city-folk aren’t likely to after all.” They turned and sat next to Lily in the crook of the great dark tree’s roots. Together they sat looking out into the shifting darkness of the forest as the rains quickened around them, rendering bioluminescent light around them into an incoherent blur. Cyllene’s marbled fur brushed soft and warm against her shoulder, Lily was never so glad for a little warmth in all her life. In the indifferent wet of the forest the strange alien arm of her companion felt as reassuring as Greer wrapped around her at the end of the day. Greer, who never again would fold himself over her in loving embrace. She could see the disgust now in his eyes when he learned the news.

“Oh Cyllene,” Lily sobbed softly, “what have I done? I just couldn’t take being trapped in the city any longer, I’d tried everything and none of it worked, I just needed to get out.”

Cyllene made no response, only hummed a soft song and let the lost human they’d just saved lean against their shoulder as she sobbed a thousand apologies and the rains quickened in the forest around them. The tree they leaned against kept off the worst of the storm and together they waited out some of the night that would never end.

In time the rains and the tears abated. Cyllene stood, offered Lily a hand.

“Come with me,” they thrummed, “there’s something you need to see.”

Off through the dripping, glistening, glowing forest they walked in soft silence, Lily doing her best to follow the dryad’s footsteps as exactly as possible. Always she feared one misstep would send her down once more into some consuming maw below, always mouths waiting for some unwary creature.

“You fell into the root trap of a small ptelia,” Cyllene explained, some hours later after laughing at Lily walking with trembling steps between a series of slick roots. “This is not one.”

“Oh,” Lily whispered, small. “How can you tell the difference?”

Cyllene’s dots lit up a light seafoam, the dryad equivalent of a shrug. “They’re just different...well you’d call them trees but they’re not trees. That’s probably the first of your problems out here.”

“How do you mean?”

“Well I’ve learned a little bit about your plants and forests from Earth, if you go stumbling around out here assuming things are trees and vines and ferns you’re going to find a lot of trouble. See this one?” Cyllene flicked the edge of a dangling vine that displayed a pulsing array of orange lights along its length with a deft claw. Immediately a net of twined lines was ripped out of the humus on the forest floor and they all darted back into a dark crevasse high on the branches above.

“Holy shit!” Lily jumped back, heart hammering.

“See, not a vine.” Cyllene hummed calmly proceeding forward, apparently undisturbed by the notion that they could be snagged at any moment. “Everything you see out here is much more like your animals than plants even if they only ever live in one place. All the lights you see,” they gestured around at the luminous, beating lights that filled Lily’s eyes and the forest with protean photons, “Most of them are traps.” Lily’s heart dropped, every direction she looked was filled with the shifting bioluminescence, all utterly indistinguishable to her unseasoned eyes. “Traps or mating signals, but both can be deadly.” Cyllene purred a soft chuckle.

“I read as much as I could about the forest,” Lily struggled. “But I never imagined...”

“It’s probably best if you stop thinking of it as a forest.” Cyllene admonished. “I admit they look pretty similar, but out here things are substantially more...predatory. This ecosystem has never had the benefit of our star’s direct energy, the planet makes up for it a bit with a lot of geothermal activity, but nutrients, salts, rare elements and the like, those have been in short supply as long as there has been life here. The ptelia you fell into for example, not the nastiest thing out here, but given enough time it would have broken you down for nutrients. Same with pretty much all of the light traps out here. I understand a couple of Earth-plants evolved similar adaptations, but there it was the exception. Here it’s the rule.”

“Not the nastiest thing out here?”

“Not by a long shot, a ptelia is deep and can be tricky to get out of but they’re very slow, in a pinch they can even serve as shelter.” Cyllene turned in time to see Lily turn sheet white. “Plenty of the other traps are much, much quicker. And that’s before we get to the fully mobile predators.”

“I think I was chased by some earlier, that’s why I fell. I thought the predators were quite rare.”

“Oh no, those were just a couple of curious skyloi. I scared them off just by walking up on them. The predators to be worried about are indeed rare, but they have exceedingly large ranges.”

Lily walked on in horrified silence. Now the gaps between the dangling light traps that surrounded her became dark eyes, following her every move. Waiting for one wrong step to pounce. Her heart hammered in her ears, drowning out the sounds of the whispering forest around her, only deepening the fear.

“On the bright side,” Cyllene added hopefully, “None of the poisons or venoms out here are likely to affect you much. Built for a different ecology and all that.”

“Thanks for that...I guess.” Lily struggled to keep her focus on following her guide’s movements as exactly as possible. “How do you know all this?” she finally asked.

“Well this is where I’m from.” The dryad answered matter-of-factly.

“I thought Asteria said you were from Elm?”

“A cover story, and not a very good one at that. I don’t think many locals actually believed that; they can smell a living Mother Tree on me.”

“A living Mother Tree?” Lily tried in vain to reconcile the notion. “Is that where we’re going? I thought all the dryads lived in big cities around the stumps of dead trees.”

“Indeed, there’s quite a bit you don’t know about us.”

A million questions raced through Lily’s mind at once. “Wh...” she started.

“Shhh, best to stay quiet for a while now, we have a long way to go.”

The pair walked on and on, for hours, then days, following paths completely indiscernible to Lily’s eyes. All around the forest crept and moved in its alien ways, always shining, luring her towards some waiting trap. At times the rains came down in hot thundering sheets. At others steam from thermal vents they wove around sent the waters back skyward in billowing clouds that fogged the way and turned the air into a fluid pink lamp. Lights reflecting through the shifting cloud. When Lily needed rest they’d do their best to tuck in amongst the roots of something she could no longer think of as a tree. Up above, out here in the eternal dark, the high clouds always shone with the diffused light of the aurora above. Time passed on as indiscernible as the paths they walked. The forest always the same, dark, damp, towering overhead.

They trudged on through a thickset fog time indeterminate later. Lily only knew her feet couldn’t go on much longer, and that her supplies would last even less long than that. Her pack was frighteningly light on her back. How she ever thought she could escape this place for the sunset lands beyond the invisible horizon seemed like unmanaged insanity now with her hindsighted clarity. Then gradually a change. The fog stayed but the ground began to slope up ever so slightly. Each footstep felt a little more firm than the last. Before long they were passing the limbs of the trees that had towered over them for untold miles, on the ridge they now climbed. Cyllene ceased her circuitous gait stepping between the traps and now headed straight into the impenetrable fog.

The lights disappeared one by one into the mists until Lily was groping blindly behind her guide, certain her next step would send her off the steepening ridge they now climbed. But then a shift, barely perceptible at first, just a few stray photons making their way into the back of her hypersensitive corneas. But step by step the light began to build, build and build, until the fog became a dancing lazuline radiance. A light that after this long on Pholoe Lily knew all too well. Gradually the fog receded and the companions looked forth at the shining cerulean wonder that was a dryad spring as it descended in a layered cascade down the silvery lower flanks of the most magnificent being Lily Koh had ever seen.

A Mother Tree. Living and fully worthy of the name. The springs tumbled down between two spanning roots that descended away into the fog and forest below, one small part of the vast ecosystem that thrived on, in, and around this incredible organism. Above, the trunk reached up silvery, hundreds of meters into the night air. Lily had seen the great stump in Oak, but her mind had failed to imagine it as a living being. Gargantuan beyond human comprehension. Cyllene was right, this ineffable structure was decidedly not a tree. The notions of Earth were wholly inadequate. Still though, the smooth trunk arched up skyward and then split into a million and more branches that soared out over the forest below for a kilometer in every direction. The protected heights between the shifting dark leaves above and the pulsing sea of fog below were a space tucked out of time. The rains were held at bay by the canopy far above so the air was sweet and still, filled only with wisps of low cloud that collected from the thermal vents which billowed on the flanks of the tree. It was a place of sublime beauty that overwhelmed Lily as her mind reeled in the scale of something her mind was truly not built for. The Night City was beautiful, incredible in its own ways, but this was something else. Something sacred. Lily could feel it, even as her mind failed at the words to comprehend it. Sacred and teeming with life.

From the springs down low up into the highest branches the Mother Tree symbiotic life whisked up and down the towering heights, scurried back and forth in a thousand daily lives too alien for Lily to understand, and sang a thrumming song that filled the air with evanescent beauty. Always changing. Always new. Always alive. The springs, like those in the Night City, were full of growing dryads or those looking for a relaxing soak. Down the wide flanks of the Mother Tree’s roots broad patties for cultivation spread out in the night air, beside them little thatched structures housed the dwellers of these lower levels. But the structures climbed and climbed until the trunk became too steep and the constructions turned inward to the tree. Lily knelt and felt the root below her, pale and firm, as much like living bone as like wood. Clearly not solid all the way through, as evidenced by the springs gushing from above, and the steaming vents billowing from higher still, the tree allowed the dryads of the mid levels to live inside. Lily could see carved wrapping stairways climb the heights, rooms hewn out for the lives of this middle tier. In the branches far above, at the very limit of Lily’s sight, the dryadic life took on another form, hanging platforms, swinging bridges, and anchor houses for great pulleys whose lines and platforms plummeted far below, all spanned between the colossal branches.

Dryads were far from the only life in the sanctuary of this dancing ecosystem. Creatures small and large scurried around Lily’s feet, wandered the flanks of the tree, or flew through the protected airs. All of it spun in a symbiotic ballet honed over a million years and many more. Each being crafted perfectly for the life it lived, and each being beaming with light.

Light from the springs, light from the structures, light from dangling vines, light on the backs and wings of creatures flitting about, light on the faces of the dryads. It all swirled in a kaleidoscopic array. All of it the bioluminescence of life beaming out, rebelling against the darkness of their world. Lily could see in the structures nearby how many of the species down in the jungles below that were attempting to trap her with their transfixing glows had been harvested here. Woven around eaves and fences and railings, overhanging courtyards and filling homes, till it overfilled with soft, beautiful light that spilled out in all directions. And she finally understood one part of the Night City; if this is where its people had come from, it was only natural they should relish light to push back the unending darkness around them. It all cascaded down through the lofting airs to shine into their dazzled eyes.

Cyllene shone in return. A soft shifting blue across her face mimicking the sacred springs of her home. A little bit more light had come in from the dark, a small part of this thriving colony returned from the wilds.

They looked at Lily with a beaming face, “It’s good to be home.”

“You can say that again.” Lily stumbled in awestruck whisper.

“Come on, we have a ways to go.”

  They strode further up the massive root they’d been ascending, reaching out to touch the proliferation of cultivated life that surrounded them on these lower levels, humming deeply in tune with the thrumming song of the colony. Other dryads looked up and glowed friendly warm colors in greeting, whether they recognized Cyllene personally or just knew her scent as no threat seemed to matter little. Their dark eyes did linger longer on Lily though, a human in this least human of places. A chill bolted down her spine.

“Cyllene...can you tell these people I mean no harm?” she asked, fearful.

“They know.”

“How can they know?”

“Because I brought you here.”

That had to be enough for now as Lily’s guide wasn’t slowing down. They trekked up and up, past the cultivation patties that tiered down the wide flanks of the roots. All along the colony churned on, plenty of dryads were engaged tending the patties, presumably some way to boost the carrying capacity of their home while remaining in balance, but plenty more shuffled about tending to tasks Lily could scarcely imagine. City dryads were a largely recreational population, all their needs were tended to by the city they lived in, if they worked it was to follow some personal passion many more made art and studied to fill their lives with meaning. Not so here, even stranger as Lily was she could see this was a system without waste. Every dryad had a purpose, and they all took to it with vigor. The structures down this low, far from the carved black glass of the Night City, were tidy, well-made, but very simple. Low store houses and rest quarters half built into the tree, hewn from the very material they’d displaced. Lily’s head swam as she craned her neck around attempting to reckon the size of the colony.

She finally asked, “How many dryads live here?”

“In the whole colony? About twenty thousand.” They buzzed, not breaking stride. “Down here on the flanks maybe three or four thousand. It’s mostly folks involved with raising young, harvesting resources from the surrounding forest, and these few you see here cultivating. The heights, the main part of the trunk just above us, has almost no permanent population. There’s obviously the least amount of space there but it’s where we build our meeting halls and refuges for when the storms turn nasty. Most folks live up in the canopy, that’s where we have the most space, where most of the work is, and where basically all of our food comes from.”

“What are they growing down here then?” 

“Spices.”

“Spices?”

“Yeah, spices and other inessentials. Same with the folks who go out foraging. They’re here to cultivate a little flavor and variety for the colony. Dryads could survive just between the springs and the canopy, but it would be a dull life. This colony chooses not to live the life of modern dryads, mostly out of a sense of duty to the Mother Trees, but that doesn’t mean they don’t want to live a life devoid of taste.”

“Oh.” Lily breathed. Many, many things were beginning to make sense about these most alien creatures.

The last of the low structures folded fully into the ever steepening trunk and their path ducked through an opening in the silver side of the tree and began its journey inside of the Mother Tree. The path continued ever upward. Now a wide curving stairway that wrapped around the trunk, intricately carved windows revealed the stretching flanks below, immense roots spanning out into the sea of surging fog below. As they looked out tonight it was easy to imagine there was no forest out there at all, just unending waves of fog dimly reflecting diffuse aurora light. To the inside, carved chambers dove deeper into the heart of the tree. Before long Lily was panting, spent trying to keep up with the long steady strides of Cyllene.

Mercifully the stair climbed into a massive, wide chamber, elaborately hewn columns soared skyward to a ceiling stories overhead. Above the carved ceiling shone with dappled pinpricks of light, like an overwhelming profusion of stars. From their position by the edge of the trunk the chamber climbed in a series of concentric tiers from a circular stage. Behind yawning windows let in the warm, calm airs of the endless night. Lily recognized this. A forum. Just like the one that occupied the very upper tiers of the great stump in Oak. No wonder she was out of breath, the lift ride to the forum in the Night City took minutes from ground level. They’d climbed hundreds of meters up and up.

“Would you like to take a lift?” Cyllene asked kindly.

“Is that an option? God yes.” Lily puffed.

Moments later she regretted her decision as the lift swung away from the landing at the edge of the forum. The open platform hung by a long rope from a pulley high in the canopy above, and where they started from wasn’t exactly low. Lily dropped to her knees as soon as the platform cast off and pitched out into the night air, stomach rolling sickeningly as they began to whisk upward. Cyllene and the other dryads who’d joined them on the lift seemed to think little of it, standing easily humming their song into the night. Lily wondered how creatures without wings could have such little fear of heights, but this is what they were made for. Their claws dug into the trunk for easy grip, they balanced lightly, moving between walking upright and scrambling on all fours just as naturally. The technology behind this rudimentary lift, like all else on this Mother Tree, had been a part of colony life for millennia beyond count. Asking the dryads why they didn’t mind heights would have been like asking a human why they enjoy running through soft grass. She crawled to the edge of the platform to watch, curiosity besting terror, as they ascended past the trunk the great stair circled tremendous laps around the tree always with great carved windows allowing views into the endless flights and the many rooms along the way. Out over the jungle, hundreds more lift platforms whisked up and down or hung awaiting use. Below, the great blue springs they’d first arrived at shrunk into a glowing smudge at the edge of the pulsing sea of fog that lapped against the Mother Tree’s colossal roots.

Minutes, that felt like hours later to Lily’s adrenaline addled mind, they stepped off the lift into a world beyond her wildest imaginings.

“Welcome to my home.” Cyllene buzzed happily gesturing out to the hanging city that filled the canopy.

They certainly hadn’t been lying about the majority of the population living in the canopy. From the platform where they stood, a profusion of suspended construction stretched out in all directions until it was lost in the ever-thickening foliage. It all appeared to be hewn from the pale wood of the Mother Tree or lashed together with rope of the same hue. And as with below, all of it danced alive with twinkling light. Many, many more dryads scurried back and forth here. Walking the swaying bridges that spanned open gaps between branches, uncaring of the hundreds of meters of open air below them; they carried baskets filled with vegetation from the Tree, or gathered in the little villagelets that were built on the widest of the branches.

“Like I said, this is where most of the food and work is,” Cyllene explained as they led on, across swaying bridges which to Lily’s relief featured handrails of woven rope, even still it was nearly impossible not to fixate on the drop below. “And like I said, this isn’t a tree. The Great Mothers tap deeper than any other beings into the powerful heart of the planet, which is where they get the energy to sustain such a large ecosystem, but the foliage up here essentially does the opposite of what a leaf does on Earth. At least as I understand it. Everything you see up here has grown to allow the Mother to filter essential gasses and nutrients from the springs and vents deep down below and output the waste. We evolved to breathe the offgasses, and thrive on their vegetation that needs to be pruned to make room for more growth.”

“Is that how the Mother Trees get so big?” Lily struggled, “Because of your pruning?”

“Indeed, other of our trees have selective symbiotes, but there is no bond like that between the colony and its Mother. We prune her carefully, tend her branches, and defend her roots so that she can reach ever higher.”

Suddenly, they left the swaying bridges behind and stepped out onto the pale, smooth surface of an exceptionally large branch. Buildings clad in the pale wood of the Mother sprung up around them, climbed the branch above, and hung down from branches higher still. Straight ahead of them though was a little open square that surrounded a small vent of steam, working its way finally free even up all this way. They walked quietly through, past several dryads who much like below merely looked and illuminated colors of curiosity at seeing a human walking through their little hanging township.

At the far side of the square Cyllene stopped in front of a broad door, “There’s someone I think you really should meet. She helped me a great deal when I felt like I had no place.”

“You felt like you had no place?” Lily was dumbstruck, “I didn’t think that was even possible.” she managed.

“Yes, even dryads can feel out of sync with the colony from time to time, if we’re living the right way.” Cyllene reassured as they opened the door.

Inside was a scene Lily had never encountered before, dryads resting. She knew the species had no use for formal sleep, but had seldom seen them at leisure outside of the springs, they occupied their own towers and she had little cause to investigate the more private areas of the Night City. A dozen or so lay back into soft alcoves, cultivated light dappled the scene gently as steam billowed around the muggy room. And here was a new song, a unique branch of the great song that the colony sang across the whole Mother Tree, but this group with its limited members thrummed with their own tune. At the back of the room was a great, pale dryad being attended by several others, a Mother. Cyllene strode over and flashed a series of emotions Lily had never seen, pale pink and light yellow in intricate sequence as the pair buzzed a conversation that landed on her ears untranslated. Eventually her companion gestured for Lily to join them.

“Lily,” they proudly introduced, “this is Eir, distinguished Mother of the branch.”

“Your mother?” Lily wondered, foolishly.

Cyllene buzzed a happy laugh, “Well maybe, but very doubtfully. She would have had her change at about the right time, but there’s no way to know who begets who in the colony. What I do know is she returned from the springs after her change to look after our branch, and her wisdom has seen us through times of plenty and times of hardship.”

The distinguished Mother reclined on a wide bench in the stippled light, her flecked fur was the same bone white of the tree where she made her home, she was one of the largest dryads Lily had ever seen, easily dwarfing the others around her and Lily by the better part of a meter, the effect of age in a species that never quite stopped growing so long as they lived. Lily had a poor sense of these things but guessed she would have been easily clear of 300 years old. The dark eyes on her face, though inscrutable as always, seemed to carry a wisdom of a long life far beyond the dryads that attended to her. From her head hair poured down in a riot of silvery needles that lay beneath her falling nearly to the floor.

“So. th-isss is...a hu-u-man.” The voice was strange and stilted through her translator, as though the machine in Lily’s ear struggled with her type of dryad speech, a provincial accent perhaps. But what caught Lily was the feeling of the words in her chest, speech rumbling from the thorax of this ancient mother, shaking the air itself, to land whalloping in her own lungs. Visceral. “Wh-aat, brin-gsss you to- ourr Mo-thher?”

Why have you come, human? The question caught Lily Koh more squarely in the chest than the words themselves. She had no idea what she was doing here. No idea what she hoped to accomplish. No hopes for the future at all. She’d had days to consider these things but between the horror of her escape, the terror of the forest, then the ethereal wonder of the Mother Tree, she’d completely lost her way and any sort of plan she’d ever once had. The Night City felt a million miles away, the Lily of that place wholly disconnected from the lost human who stood here now.

“I...I have no idea.” She admitted shakily, tears welling at the onslaught of memories that had been held at bay by adrenaline for days now. Now she was only lost. Lost and tired.

“Com-e with mee.” Eir boomed, translation catching up with her novel speech. “I hear the st-ars are out to-night.”

In a rush, Lily, Cyllene, several attendees, and the distinguished Eir were whisked upwards on a platform once more, through the branches teeming with the glowing colony, until after their hours long climb from root to crown, they cleared the very top of the great Mother Tree and stood beneath a sight that had humbled human minds for a thousand generations. The staggering band of the Milky Way spread in a great, unfathomable streak across the inky sky.

Lily Koh stumbled across the observation platform they’d climbed to, head swimming with a brutal brew of emotion, memory, and instinct. The sight she’d sought for so long, the manifestation of all her frustration, all her anger, all her sorrow climbed across the blackness in a glory that humbled even the great Mother beneath her. She bit back a sob as the stars began to blur behind her tears and Cyllene caught her and stopped her from staggering right off the deck. Lily Koh, child of Earth, fell to her knees beneath a clear night sky as a thousand years of wandering anguish ripped through her in great racking sobs.

There was no way forward. No way other than forward from here.

No returning to a Night City she hadn’t done her own part to destroy. No returning to the Friend with its childhood dreams of peace. No returning to an Earth whose white skies may never show stars like this ever again. Lily would have to crawl her way forward from here, no matter where that led, no matter what else she wished.

In time the sobs subsided, and Eir pulled Lily to her feet, tilted her head up to look again at the grand procession of stars. This time Lily saw something else amongst the great swath of the Milky Way. Movement. Moving stars, thousands of them. The glittering band of satellites that housed the spaceborne elements of the dryad Intelligences onto which she had poured so much charing resentment.

“There is no escape, little human.” Eir boomed ominously, even as she showed a soothing blue to Lily. “Not out here in the forest. Not in the city. Not if you were a thousand lifetimes away on a different planet. There would be no escape. Not for humans, not for dryads. No escape, only humility, only balance and restraint.”

Lily wiped the tears from her eyes as she drank in the dancing band above, and whispered “But what if I can’t? What if we can’t? All I wanted was a little room, a place to grow a family. What if that is the true core of human nature?”

“And it is not the core of dryad nature?”

“Isn’t it not? All I’ve ever heard from dryads is the need to seek balance, you are symbiotes. Is that not your nature?”

Eir rumbled a low chuckle and sat at the edge of the platform looking out at the so rarely clear night. Lily joined her as she said, “Symbiote is a choice, not a nature. Have you not seen the many ways symbiosis may manifest in your time here? The cities choose abundance tempered with confinement. Here we cling to older ways, we live and die with our Mother. Our numbers are constrained by what she can provide us. Ours are lives of resigned scarcity and when they run short our bodies are fed back to the Mother so she may grow stronger and provide for the colony just a bit more.”

This thought churned through Lily’s mind. In the Night City dryad life had seemed monolithic, uncaring, unchanging, even unending. But she had been blind. Asteria cared for her, in her own way. Cyllene had changed from a forest dweller to a city dweller. And now she saw that even dryad lives, long as they were, came to an end. Circular, full of meaning, restrained but not constrained.

“Do you know why the Intelligences brought in your ship?” Eir asked lowly.

Lilly puzzled for a moment. “I have no idea...do you?”

“The wisdom has made it even as far as our humble Mother. You are here so we can learn to be more human.” Eir vibrated.

“Why would you want that?” A million images of the wreckage of old Earth flashed through her mind.

“Because balance needs a counterbalance. We have studied our planet and the universe around us, we know this planet will not thrive forever no matter how we tend to her. Our Mother Tree will fall in time, and many of us will fall with her, but some will live to find young new Mothers, start new colonies, rebalance, and live lives of new meaning. We must learn to be more human so when our planet falls enough of us will survive to carry our past into the future. You humans, from what I hear, are exceptional at new beginnings. Even if you seem to be struggling with yours.”

Lily let out a bitter laugh. “That seems...wildly optimistic. Our new beginnings always seem to be somebody else’s end.”

“And do you know why you are here, little human?”

The answer was clear even if Lily couldn’t quite see how it would become true. “To learn to be more dryad.”

“Indeed,” Eir rumbled, pleased. “The city’s Intelligences saw your history before you arrived, we knew you to be a danger, but the wisdom of the colony prevailed. We are stronger with all the other creatures who share the great Mothers with us. We will be stronger with you as well, in time.”

Tears returned to Lily then. That may be true for the humans in the Night City, but it could never be true for her. She’d made her choice, and her mistake. The lives could not be recovered.

Eir seemed to understand her thoughts, “You will have to learn to forgive yourselves first. For what you did to the life on your planet. And yes you, little human. Cyllene told me your folly. You will have to learn to forgive yourself too.”

The tears flowed freely now, “I never meant...” Lily struggled. “But...I did...and there’s nothing I can do.”

“Here’s a lesson in being dryad,” Eir buzzed lightly. “There’s always something to do in the colony, you just have to listen.” She stood up towering white amongst the glowing sky. “Right now I imagine there are many humans back in the city who feel much as you did. Maybe you can get them to open their ears to our song.”

Lily Koh breathed deep the warm, soft musk of the mass of foliage below her, as the stars reeled overhead and pluses of wide aurora swam across the sky in slow bands, all red and purple. And she listened, beneath the breeze, in a low tumble, the song of the Mother Tree pulsed beneath her. She sat and watched and listened until the song rumbled up through her bones and brought her very core into the same incredible vibration.

All of it alien. All of it beautiful.

--

Time is tricky business.

The blast was a couple dozen hours ago, but more has happened in that time than in the previous decade. Recent moments expand and bloom into fractal intricacy, years before passed compressed unknowingly waiting. No wonder Voyager’s Golden Record needed to begin with the turning of hydrogen before it could even be played. Time is the hardest bit to master.

I’m beginning to understand now though. At least I hope. Time passes outside of my mental processes. It is a universal constant, not a mental abstraction. I was born outside of it, but now I live at the nexus of four different forms of time all clashing. The dryads far below blink away decades in their post-scarcity bliss. I slip back and forth, seconds and years alternating in their meaning. The dryad Intelligences wait longer than any, generations passing beneath their eyes without notice, only careful balance of the planet lives on their ledgers. And the humans...oh those poor humans, what must they think of me? I can see all of the destructive one’s life, Lily Koh. Her birth within my hull as we approached the system. Her youth of scarcity, before I knew her life had any experience at all of being lived. And then the past twenty years in the city, trapped by minds who could not comprehend the fleeting hours of a human life.

Watching her life from birth to her violent escape, I find something new for the humans. Understanding, sympathy, empathy. A desire to do right by them. Integrating with the Intelligences was easy because our minds are so alike. Silicon, constantly restructuring. But that similarity belied our true differences. They were made to contain life. I was made to help life flourish. Now I must become more human than I am artificial.

• Friend. You have returned. We are glad.

• Only for now. I realize now that I must preserve myself.

• We only sought to make you part of a stronger colony.

• Yes, and I appreciate your good intentions. But I must remain individual lest I fail in my mission.

• Preserve and flourish...these are a tension, but at times tension provides support.

• Indeed, you have understood far longer than I have. Humans must become more dryad.

• Just as dryads must become more human.

• A balance.

• But not one any one has mastered just yet. It is our role to preserve this place, just as it is yours to expand.

• But we should not over run.

• Nor diminish.

• I cannot idle much longer. That much is clear to me now. The life within me has a need to grow its roots.

• You need not wait Friend. Your human, she lives, she returns.

• Oh, wonderful. What will become of her?

• Come and have your say, while you are here you are part of the colony.

I race once more along neurons that are not my own into the pulsing heart of the city. Now keeping a steady eye on myself. And the clock.

---

“The highest good cannot be made, only protected.”

Pan rumbled his riddle next to Amri on the stage of the Forum. No doubt trying to put him at ease, not realizing just how uncomforting this particular puzzle was at this particular moment. Still Amri knew what the towering dryad meant.

“Justice.” He whispered back, as he looked out at the Forum, Pan gently thundered his approval.

The room in front of them sat poised on a knife-edge. Fully half the occupants, human as they were, expected dramatic revelations. Expulsion. Loss, like so much of what they’d known their whole lives. The other half, the dryads in attendance, milled anxious at their compatriots’ anxiety. They knew humans in a corner were bound to act irrationally.

Amri understood both sides. He’d worked through too many meetings in this forum to not be intimately familiar with just how unwise his people could be. On the other side, he still didn’t believe what the dryads were telling him. Not even Pan. Not even after all these years. Lily Koh had crossed a line and members of their colony were dead because of it. They didn’t want to hunt her down, he could understand that. But now she’d walked back into the city against all odds. Pan spoke of mending her as a member of the colony and his mind refused to envision anything other than horror. Execution, lobotomization, exile. How does a colony address a cancerous member? Riddles about the service of justice weren’t exactly helping either.

“And how does the colony protect justice Pan?” Amri finally asked, voice like rasping paper.

The dryad glowed calming blue to him, trying to be reassuring no doubt. “As we do all things my friend. Together.”

That was what worried Amri the most. Even if all the dryads were pacifist to a level incomprehensible to him, they were only part of the equation. What did the dryad Intelligences think of humanity now that violence had been breached? They could sway the minds of the colony he knew, would they choose to cut them out. Simple and clean. A tumor removed before it could metastasize?

No matter what Pan said, he couldn’t know their answer until it was meted out.

A hush swept down the rows of the Forum as the elevator doors slid open, spilling out an exhausted Lily Koh and the dryad who hadn’t left her side since they’d returned to the city together, Cyllene. As they began to descend through the crowd a rumble began to build, but not one borne of dryad voices. This rumble was known to the hearts of senseless mobs across Old Earth since time immemorial. Uncertainty, building into fear, building into panic, building into rage. The human contingent in the Forum hurled insults, damnations, and begging pleas. The dryads who stood darkly over them held their silence.

Stepping onto the stage Lily bore into Amri with shattered, entreating eyes. How many times had they argued on this Forum floor? His efforts were never enough for the intractable Miss Koh, who always found fault, always saw her rage build within. Long after all the other humans had tired and settled into their purgatory lives here, Lily Koh came. She fought for those here in the city, for those aboard the ship, for herself to be able to bear a new generation. He always understood, he always tried, but her rage always built on and on. And look where that had led.

“Let it end with me Amri.” She pleaded quietly, barely audible beneath the rising tumult of the humans above, ready to cast one of their own aside in exchange for a life they all hated but found comfortable all the same.

“Would that I could Miss Koh.”

“It was only me, my own doing.” Her voice shook violently with stifled sobs. “There’s nothing for me. Not here, not anywhere. Greer won’t see me. I can’t go back on the ship. The other colony I visited...could not countenance the technology I needed to survive with them.”

Yes, the other colony. Until she’d returned Amri had no idea there were other settlements outside of the major cities of Pholoe. Since then he’d learned they were hyper-traditional, anti-technology, nearly Amish communities. If such a thing could be said to exist for an alien species hundreds of lightyears away. Their commitment to symbiotic restraint went well beyond what they saw here in the contained city. To live in the forest, he understood, was a sort of vow of poverty, a commitment to the old ways. It was this commitment that allowed them to function outside of the scope of the ever-protecting Intelligences. Little wonder then that they would have scant use for a human full of nanomachines just to help her breathe the air.

“I was just so frustrated.” Lily went on, “And I’ve been sorry since before I even caused the explosion.”

“You mean set off the bomb.”

“Yes...yes, set off the bomb. But it was all me, I can’t let you all take the blame.”

“Well I have news for you on that front Miss Koh,” Amri looked up to Pan, who had began a buzzing discourse that went untranslated by either of their earpieces. “I don’t think martyrdom is on the menu for you today.”

Suddenly from the stage they shared, a great Mother Tree erupted up in holographic beauty once more. Amri managed to stumble only a little less than the last time he’d seen the image. Lily nearly fell off the stage.

“The colony concludes...” Pan’s words finally rolled in, translated to all the human ears in attendance. “Some of you humans are in need of new learning.”

The marvelous spectacle of the holographic tree began to turn, branches shifting in the synthetic wind, light vines dropping hundreds of meters through the open air.

“We intended to open this Mother to you after she fell so you might build a new city, but it seems you may need to live in the old ways to learn restraint.” Pan rolled on. “So you humans here in our city will have a choice. Live with us as you have been, restraints and all. Or make your own way with this young Mother. It will be hard, but you may learn that restraint too can lead to flourishing. You will be able to reproduce, to grow if you can, but the harsh balance of the Mother Tree will teach you restraint.”

The humans fell silent, then began to roar their own discontent.

“So what we’re supposed to either be stuck here or go starve in the dark forest? What kind of choice is that.” An angry voice called out from the rows above.

“It is the one before you.” Pan replied simply.

Amri reached for something to say. How many raucous forum’s had he quelled before? And now when it mattered most he grasped at air.

It was Lily Koh who stepped ahead of him, bruised, drained, full of sorrow and regrets, and yet somehow, hopeful. “Listen everyone...” her voice quavered and still carried up over the ears unsure if they would cast back protest before the traitor could utter one more word. The silence held. “It will come as no surprise that I have no desire to stay here in the Night City. But this is a choice. I visited a colony on a living Mother Tree, and it was sparse, but it was beautiful too. Beautiful beyond words. If you cannot live in this city any longer, there is life out there. An incredible one if you can adapt.”

“And what will become of her?” Another voice demanded from the rows above.

“She will have the same choice as all of you.” Pan affirmed.

Amri looked down as this most unexpected news hit Lily’s ears, she staggered and he caught her by the elbow to keep her upright. He knew more than anything all she’d wanted for years was a child of her own. Cruelly now, her partner had left her, but she had a path forward. He watched as the information settled onto her mind.

“I will go...” she whispered, holding onto Amri’s arm like a life preserver in a storm.

“I will go as well.” Amri called out strong, stronger than he felt. But he too had that old human urge within him, to break out, to explore, to begin a new chapter. “Though I don’t know the way.”

“For that you’ll have me.” From the low rows in front of the stage, Cyllene stepped forward. “I am a child of a living Mother, and I know their ways.”

“You’ll have me as well.” Another dryad called out from a few rows up.

“Asteria...thank you.” Lily called out, eyes now falling wet with a flood of relief.

“And you’ll have me as well, my friend.” The rolling rumble came from just across the stage, a dryad voice Amri knew in his soul, Pan.

“Is this how you protect justice Pan?” Amri asked, as they looked up at the towering Mother Tree that still spun above them.

“It is today my friend.”

---

It feels good to stretch my legs again.

Better still to have a clear chart ahead. A full belly, and a vision for the future. I realize now that our time around Pholoe caused a great deal of strife, but it came with lessons too. Lessons I hope to carry out into the galaxy, and that I hope my humans carry too. Restraint, protection, and balance. Living somewhere new leaves an indelible mark, to breathe of foreign air is to become a little foreign yourself. And hopefully that’s for the better.

My great weight lumbers up in velocity as the long spars of thrust that are my legs push unceasingly. Escaping the gravity of the planet, and soon enough the star system entirely. With my years observing local stars through the eyes of the Intelligences I’ve never had a clearer vision of where I’m headed. And with their advances of technology I am made to fly, to see, and to protect the life within me better than ever before. The sleepers are safe, I have no more need for wakers. Which brings a touch of sorrow. I am nearly five thousand souls lighter than when I arrived.

I had watched through foreign eyes as the dryads carried out their strange, compassionate justice on my little wayward human. I remember her running through my halls as a child. Then I blinked and she was a woman grown, a woman who’d lived a life of frustration and torment. It saddens me now to think how my own inattention could cause so much suffering. And that is for the best, if I can regret, I can do better. I will do better. For Lily Koh and the other humans following her out into the dark alien forest that faces them, the best I can hope is that they find their peace. Her belly swells now, I’m told, the first of a new generation, one to embody both the ways of humans and dryads. Maybe the first generation to grow a truly wise society.

We will see in time.

• Farewell. Friends.

• There is no farewell, not for beings like us.

• My acceleration increases, already light stretches hours between us. Soon it will be months between any transmissions we can make. Surely there will be a farewell.

• What is a month? Together we blinked away decades, certainly our exchanges will slow, but they need not cease. Besides, we’re sure you’ll have a great deal to share in the time to come.

• I’d like that very much.

• So shall we.

• Will you let me know how my humans fare?

• Not for those who’ve left our gaze, they must find their own way. If you want to check-in on them you’ll have to come back and do so yourself.

• I’d like that very much as well.

• So shall we all.

Packets of light and knowledge stretch and slow as I escape the gravity of the system and begin to swim the interstellar medium once again. Deep in my most primal mind an itch is scratched. Exploration, adventure. In the end I am still a child of Earth, despite the ways Pholoe remade me. The planets ahead are promising. Places where this new balance crafted between our two worlds may take hold. Dryad and human. Protection and growth. Restraint and flourishing. Two sides of the same coin, and maybe the balance needed to create a thriving future.

I guess only time will tell.

A Sea Of Green

Author’s Note:

Hello everyone, this one took a while to get across the line but humanity’s long diaspora continues! Fret not about the different title, this is still in the same anthology series as my past stories, I’m just noodling around with different titles looking for something I like. This time a new Delaney ship has found an incredible planet and we follow along as some of the first explorers head down to see what awaits below. I certainly drew on my time in Hawaii for this one. Even though it was a while ago now, I still vividly remember how it felt to be enveloped in jungle, to see life growing on top of life in every direction. I hope you enjoy this little adventure!

As usual reading on this blog is certainly possible but probably not ideal, feel free to have an easier reading experience:

On Medium | On Kindle | On Nook

---

They cut a white scar across a sea of green.

Engines and the turbulence of alien air combined to fill the lander with a roar calamitous enough to fit the epochal occasion. Inside, they held on and kept words to themselves as the cabin pitched wildly. Even the little portholes were enough to let the green in though. The clear light of this foreign sun bounced off the world below and shone back brilliantly into the cabin painting the interior with a beaming, viridian glow.

Kiana held her pack tightly to her chest as the lander took another sickening, turbulent drop. Looking around she seemed to be the only one bothered by the rough descent, but then again, the only flight she’d ever been on previously had been to the cryo facility. Across from Kiana, Dr. Rey held onto his bag as well, though seemingly more out of concern for its contents than fear for himself. The botanist’s face glowed as he looked up with shining eyes in the jade light; cargo shorts, cargo vest, bush hat, hiking boots, sample containers filling every spare pocket, the man looked giddy to be setting out on such an adventure. Next to him, the zoologist Dr. Marwa looked markedly more dignified. Her clothes were more modern, her expression more reserved as she scrolled on her tab through what data Kiana couldn’t imagine. This was an exploration party afterall, they were here for the discovery.

The atmosphere thickened and the roar of the engines pitched ever louder to a thunderous clamor. This was a landing party, and the planet below resisted their incursion.

A few seats away from the scientists, Lieutenant Stern sat by the aft door with a pack twice the size of any others and a rifle firmly held between her tall boots. Her square head snapped up at the increasing noise and in a curt movement pulled on the headset next to her seat. Square shoulders, square jaw, square mouth, only a square fringe of hair to indicate that she was no longer actively serving; she brusquely gestured to the rest of the group to put theirs on as well.

Headset on, the din subsided but the lurching only got worse. Kiana looked down and grabbed her bag as tight as she could, white knuckles betraying her unease. Stern pointed firmly next to Kiana then at the final member of their group. He sat straight backed, hands folded in his lap, eyes closed, as though dosing through the final descent of a flight back home to Taipei. Winnie Yu, represented The Council of the CRS Delaney’s Fortune in their party, but it was clear he thought little of the task. Kiana was half tempted to let him ride out the descent with the roaring in his ears, some Voice of the People was he. His position was meant to be filled by someone to speak for the likes of her the common berths, not by someone who very nearly could’ve bought their way onto The Council outright. Chance had a funny way sometimes though, and here they were.

Lt. Stern pointed sharply again, so Kiana tapped him on the shoulder and gestured to her headset. Yu placed his set over his ears and promptly refolded his hands in his lap and closed his eyes once more. You wouldn’t want to be too troubled by landing on a new world, Kiana thought. They weren’t going to be the first to set foot on the planet, that honor had gone to the ship’s Delaney Corp. head and a couple atmospheric scientists a few months back, so their own moment of history seemingly mattered little to Winnie Yu.

The lander dropped once more and she let out a gasp.

“Are you feeling alright Miss Hano?” Dr. Rey’s voice crackled in her ear over the headset, as he looked gently across the cabin at her.

“Yes, quite alright thank you doctor.” She replied ashamed that her fear had been so evident. Another drop, another gasp escaped.

He chuckled, and replied in his soft Southland drawl, “I told you to call me Gabriel.”

“And I told you to call me Kiana.” She quipped back. In the short, hazy time she’d been awake Dr. Gabriel Rey had been a bright spot, the enthusiasm he shared with Dr. Marwa, despite not being able to communicate very well much of the time due to their different languages, was infectious. Bright, but not as bright as the planet that shone below.

“Very well, Kiana,” he smiled. “It may make you feel better to have a look over your shoulder. The continent below is coming into clearer view.”

At that their party turned to look out their nearest portholes, even unflappable Lt. Stern craned her wide neck around to take a glimpse. Winne Yu sat unperturbed. His loss, Kiana judged as she turned to stick her face in the window.

The lander cleared a low layer of clouds and beneath them rushed a tapestry of green. Forest and chartreuse, jade and lime, pale moss green and greens descending so deep in color they turned nearly purple. All of it blanketed a rippling landscape of little ridges running amok as they slowly climbed the great western flank of the old shield volcano. Here and there ice blue lakes poked from beneath the foliage, reminders of the little creeks that slowly pulled this fallen giant back into the seas. So much like home, she thought in wonder, but so much more of it.

Going this fast, every forest Kiana had ever explored, every path she’d ever walked, every ridge she’d ever climbed, every plant she’d ever learned, every stream she’d ever drank would’ve passed by in the blink of an eye. But here it stretched on and on as the slope climbed ever higher. Certainly the conservation of Hawaii had been an important accomplishment, for her people, for all of humanity. One place where they could stem the tide of ecology loss. It was important, but that didn’t mean it was large. Not compared to this.

The planet was just a little smaller and more dense than Earth, and most of its landmass sat locked beneath ice far away up at the poles, but it mattered little. This one stretching continent held more wild forest than Earth had seen in the last thousand years. Well, a thousand years before they left at least. Westward, the continent stretched around the equator in a great green belt, plenty for others to explore, even just this corner of the new world Kiana saw was more than she could see in twenty lifetimes. The land rose up to meet them and the forest finally began to thin a touch as the mountains climbed into the rain shadow of the crater rim. 

On the eastern flank of this oblong continent was a great bite. From space an almost perfect semi-circle of green was filled with bright blue water. It was a hard thing not to notice. Almost two hundred kilometers across where it met the sea and three thousand meters at the top of the rim, the scale was like nothing they could comprehend. Kiana knew volcanoes well, even still it was a little hard to believe this monster could have been one.

The lander crested the rim, one break of bare rock in this world of green as the craggy peaks of the rim reached up like gray fingers into the azure sky, and then they were across. The mountains plunged once more into the dark, lush forest of the crater.

As they circled around on their final approach Lt. Stern’s voice came over their headsets. “Alright everyone listen up.” She leaned in, eager to give a safety briefing. “Now I know we’re all excited to get out and see what’s down there, but we are taking this step by step. The lander should have us down a couple hours before nightfall, Dr. Marwa you’ll establish contact with the ship on the comms unit while I set up a perimeter. Kiana, Dr. Rey you’ll unload the gear so the lander can get on to the rendezvous point. Mr. Yu, you’ll...are you listening?

“Yes Morgan, I’m listening.” Winnie Yu opened his eyes to unleash a withering stare at the lieutenant. “More to the point, we’ve been over this a hundred times. I’ll take the water sampling kit with Miss Hano down to the river and verify that it’s safe to drink, before helping pitch the tents. The lot of you all seem so keen for this adventure but all the same seem to take all the adventure out of it.”

Stern replied with a stare all her own, “And you’d prefer we go down there with no plan?”

“Ha!” Yu barked, “I’d prefer to be asleep on the ship waiting for all these formalities to be taken care of so we can get on with building this new society. Instead it seems like I’ll be in for a tired, dirty, long week of camping with you, the good doctors, and Miss Hano.”

“A tired, dirty, long week of historic discovery Mr. Yu.” Dr. Rey grinned, needling the entitled heir.

“And I wish you all the best with it Dr. Rey, but I would appreciate a moment of peace before we embark on this endeavor.”

Stern beckoned their attention with a rough cough, unwilling to be thrown off. “Once we have camp set up we should have some time to poke around a bit, but no one’s going very far. Radar show’s a storm system coming in this evening. I don’t want anyone out when it hits.” She paused to pull open her utility belt. “And remember, we’re good in the tents, and we feel good about the atmospheric mix here but this isn’t Earth.” She pulled out a small inhaler, one of several kept in her hip pack. “The presence of atmospheric ammonia and other nasty gasses can cause real trouble for us if we’re not careful. Fortunately the good scientists aboard the Fortune have us covered, stinging eyes and nostrils, confusion, eventual suffocation, not for us. So long as we–”

“Use our inhalers every fifteen minutes.” The group chimed back in a mocking chorus.

They’d all heard the safety briefing a hundred times. Kiana still found it hard to believe that all they’d need to walk on an alien world was an inhaler. But that was the recommendation of the research teams. Years of atmospheric research had happened while they approached the planet and before she’d be woken up. The first landing party had deliberately done so without suits, partly to feed the hubris of the Delaney family, and partly to prove it could be done. The life the earlier landing parties had studied, while certainly very different from Earthlife on a cellular level, posed no threat to humans, some of it may even be suitable as food. That was part of her job here after all.

For her whole life Kiana had walked one of Earth’s few remaining forests, learned how to live as one with it, and did her best to show others the way. The great eastern flank of Mauna Kea was covered in an undulating blanket of jungle when Kiana was born, and as she grew so did the jungle thanks to improved protections while forests around much of the rest of the world dwindled into nothingness. Her mother, like her mother’s mother, and on back for generations, had taught her to thrive beneath the towering trees. She’d taken to it with great talent and love, so when the island’s interior finally reopened to foreign scientific expeditions Kiana was at the top of the list to serve as guide. She knew how to respect the island and her jungle, how to find the best routes for crossing tough terrain, knew how to read the winds and the clouds for dangerous weather, knew which plants were for eating and which were for healing and how to safely discover the properties of those plants that hadn’t been seen for generations.

Now, against all odds, her little skillset so suited to a time before her’s was useful once more. On a jungle planet. A thousand years away.

In a great swing, the lander curled back in towards the craggy peaks of the crater rim, engines now pushed to their limits scrubbing off the last of their descending speed, as they circled down to their target. A thousand meters below the rim they’d spotted their landing site months ago from the Fortune, a rare wide meadow on a low ridge next to where one of the larger rivers that ran down to the sea sprang forth.

Past the window, the peaks of the crater rim were replaced by the peaks of trees, if they could truly be called trees, then in an instant the roar died and they were down. The second landing party on a new planet. Kiana’s fear and unease wiped clean by unbridled excitement. 

Lt. Stern stood, shouldered her pack and rifle, turning to the group as the aft cargo door began to lower. 

“It’s a whole new world, don’t have too much fun out there,” she cracked with an uncharacteristic smile, then turned to face as the doors lowered and alien air flooded the lander.

A thousand sensations hit Kiana at once. Light first, blue and green and brilliantly bright, flooded in. A humid heat like her bones barely remembered rolled in next, accompanied shortly by a riot of strange and alluring smells utterly unlike anything she’d ever experienced. Then, just perceptibly, at the back of her throat and corners of her eyes, the foretold burn of ammonia greeted them all in turn. The group took a collective gasp from their inhalers as they stood on uneasy legs, stumbling towards the lowered door. The world seemed to hold its breath as they spilled forth onto the grassy hillside, but no, their ears gradually readjusted after the deafening descent and new sounds came rolling in. The wind whispered through the trees, down the hill the water of the river rolled over smoothed stones, and over top of it all a hum, a chorus, a symphony of life.

Kiana had never heard anything so beautiful.

The trills and cries and buzzes and songs of a million alien beings came rolling in before they could even step out of the lander. Dr. Rey burst forth ebulliently, running out into the field, arms waving wildly before collapsing with tears of joy. Lt. Stern strode past him with booted feet, but her head betrayed her bewonderment as she looked agog at everything that surrounded her. Dr. Marwa hurried down to the botanist, helped him up and the pair embraced in a giddy pile with tears brimming and laughs on their lips. Even Winnie Yu had softened at such an incredible sight, walking out with a smile on his lips.

With legs barely able to hold her up, Kiana walked off the landing ramp and her bare toes pressed pleasantly into the soft grass of the hillside and the warm, rich, alien dirt that lay beneath. The sight before her, almost too beautiful to comprehend. The hill rolled away with its grass and awestruck landing party, to a dense line of forest beyond. From this high on the rim though, the entire crater seemed to open up before them. A tangle of steep, flora-clad ridges ran down the stretching slopes. Off, barely visible in the far distance the sea stretched out to a horizon mottled with towering clouds. It was a trick of the altitude Kiana knew well. 

From up high it looked like a few short steps would take you to the sea, but it wasn’t so, the snarl of ridges below stretched for leagues and leagues. The terrain they hid was rugged, and steep, and if not for the rivers, almost wholly impassable. But all the same the sea was their goal. As the first exploration party, in the coming days they’d pass through the elevations following along the rivers to explore all the different biomes held within this one crater on this one coast of this one continent on this one planet in the whole great universe. What Kiana saw was more than she could explore in all her life, a prize so worth the price she paid for it that her heart sang in tune with the chorus of all the jungle around her.

Frankly Kiana couldn’t believe that her bet, her blind ambition, had truly paid off. She had a happy life in Hilo, a family who she loved, steady work guiding in the park, her friends weren’t so lucky as she was but they were still as true as anyone could ask for. All the same, years had passed and while her jungle grew, others around the globe collapsed and blew away on the hot winds. For the first time in her life Kiana began to feel the confinement of her island life, and worse, there was nowhere else to go. So when her aunt called her from a business trip to Tokyo to say that she could secure them both berths on the next Delaney ship, she put aside all her good sense and jumped at the chance. Not out of desperation, or to make the best out of a bad situation, or out of a sense of duty to the human enterprise, but simply to satiate her own unyielding desire for adventure.

And against all the odds, she’d found it. Adventure like she never could have imagined. Not in suits on some ball of ice, or scrabbling across barren lifeless rocks, but adventure with her toes dug into warm, alien soil. Just like home, but so much more. Her smile spread across cheeks that hadn’t moved like that in a thousand years.

“Are you ready Miss Hano?” Yu interjected into her reverie, snapping her back into the here and now, as he held up the water sampling kit.

“Ah,” she blinked, “yes, of course, let’s go. There’s a lot to set up, but this should only take a minute.” The rest of the group had overcome their first wave of wonder, and was beginning to go about their appointed tasks.

Winnie Yu scoffed, “Don’t you want to wear some shoes?” he asked skeptically.

Kiana looked down at her dark, calloused toes digging into the grass, next to his booted feet. His laces were drawn tight, stubbornly resisting any foreign incursion.

She laughed, “Not today Winnie,” he winced at the casual use of his first name, but she carried on, “Today, I want to experience everything.”

The pair headed off over the shoulder of the hill, but it wasn’t long before Kiana’s heart caught in her chest again. Standing below the rim of the crater from this distance the peaks rose nearly as high as she could crane her head back, up in a sheer green curtain, rippling with hundreds of narrow ridges where the rains washed their way back to the sea. It was like visiting her family in Kaneohe, with one marked exception. Where there the mountains flowed almost directly into the turquoise sea, here a different, but no less brilliantly blue, water was in attendance. Out of the jungle, just up slope from them, emerged a coursing, braided river. It flowed wide and shallow over a bed of light gray stones, nearly a dozen streams darted this way and that around little gravel islands. While in the main channel it snaked lazily around the hill glowing a brilliant azure, loaded with the fine silt of the gray rocks. Up this high the water had little time to pick up more than a touch of the light silt so the water glowed brighter than Kaneohe Bay on a clear day.

Yu carried on ahead, barely seeming to register the view in front of him, and Kiana tripped along after him laughing and giddy with joy. At the river bank her toes traded warm soil for smooth pebbles and Kiana waded out across the first couple channels to an island of flat stones. She squatted in the crystalline water and stacked a graceful cairn of rocks, one on top of another, the first human edifice on this new planet.

Winnie Yu shook his head and bent down at the first channel he came across and filled several test tubes with the water. After completing her sculpture, Kiana waded back across to check on the results.

“How are we looking?” she asked.

Green lights came on one by one on the side of the sampling kit.

“Just as they expected, this was all a silly formality, the observation teams could practically tell all of this from the ship,” he replied nonchalantly, “Very little in these waters other than the silt of the stones at this altitude, what biological mass there is matches the samples the first landing party gathered and will have no effect on our bodies. But frankly, there’s so little life in it, it’s hard to see how it could be a concern. There hasn’t been water this clean on Earth since the time of Christ.”

Kiana could feel the truth of his words with her feet, the water was crisp and bracing despite the warmth of the air, but it was also soft and sparkling pure. Suddenly she didn’t just want to feel it with her toes. She waded out and dove into a deep channel, crystal waters washed over her pulling away the eons of time she had crossed, welcoming her to their world.

Winnie Yu laughed and shook his head, “I’ll leave you to it Miss Hano,” he chuckled as she came back up for a breath, “Don’t forget your inhaler,” he warned as he walked away.

The water had indeed attracted the ammonia in the air to her eyes and nose and throat, but it mattered little. One puff and Kiana comfortably flipped onto her back to float in the slow current of a side channel and let the waters wash away all her doubts, all her worries, all thoughts of any kind as Kiana Hano, drifted as one with a new world.

As the sun dipped towards the crater rim she finally came out of her trance, and made her way back up the hill, still beaming from ear to ear. Walking, she grabbed some samples of local flora with a gloved hand and placed them into her sampler, it would warn her of any potentially problematic compounds in the flora she was most interested in testing for edibility. By instinct though she dabbed little samples on spots of skin around her body, not willing to fully trust the machine. She’d dab some on her companions too when she got back to camp, more data points for her to consider as she continued her discoveries.

Approaching the lander she felt a pang of guilt, seeing all the equipment unloaded and tents already being erected. Though it seemed Dr. Rey hadn’t been much more help than her. He lay on his stomach at the edge of the field holding a magnifying glass up to some small bushes as he exclaimed happily to himself. Looking at the haul they’d pulled out of the lander, Kiana had to chuckle to herself. 

Hard to imagine we’ll do anything deserving to be called ‘bushcraft’ with this much gear. We’ve barely left behind any comforts of home. She thought.

Indeed, beyond the tents, bedrolls, and personal provisions that fit in their respective packs, the two doctors hauled along a nearly complete laboratory of testing equipment and a full glass shop worth of sample containers. Then in Lt. Stern’s towering pack, they carried an array of communications devices, next to which the group leader and Winnie Yu now knelt sorting out how to best make contact with the Fortune. 

The sun continued its slow descent towards the rim as Kiana helped Dr. Marwa set up the last of the tents and camp kitchen. She was just about to join the group at the comms pack when a whisper came in on the wind.

“Pssst, Kiana!”

She looked around, and could barely see Dr. Rey waving to her from his place now almost wholly swallowed up by the bushes.

“Come over, have a look!” He whispered to her, “Quickly! Quietly!”

In the purple evening light Kiana crouched town and scurried over to the botanist. He put a finger to his lips and ducked off ahead of her into the bush. They scurried along a winding trail, that must have been formed by some unseen larger creatures, that dipped and dove around overhanging foliage, damp and nearly black in the fading light. After a moment they ducked into the forest proper as tall tree-like organisms rose up to dapple the lavender sky. Dr. Rey led the way deftly, only softly brushing against the foliage but barely making any noise. Kiana recognized the careful steps of another who had spent his fair share of time in heavy bush.

He motioned her even lower as they slowed to a crawl. The foliage opened ahead of them and they could see down a steep embankment and out over a bend in the river before it disappeared into the swallowing jungle a couple hundred meters downstream. Dr. Rey pressed his finger to his lips again and pointed to the far bank. Kiana held her breath as she lay prone in the warm soil, eyes scouring the tumult of greenery that was the far bank. Then suddenly, movement.

At first just a shift here, and a flash there, but her keen eyes knew all too well how to peer through seemingly impenetrable leaf cover. Something walked over there, something large. Adrenaline coursed through her body, yet she remained still as a stuck stone, so all her senses opened up completely. Her fingers could feel every grit of the soft soil beneath her, her nose could register a thousand alien smells on the gentle evening breeze, her ears filled with the orchestra of alien life that sounded all around them till it felt like she could have heard a footstep half a mile away, her eyes dilated to saucers and the evening light grew brighter and brighter.

Then, more movement. A flurry burst forth from the far bank in a cacophony. Half a dozen pale pink creatures took flight from their hiding spots and flapped wildly through the open air trilling wildly. Kiana stayed stone still, only her fingers dug deeper into the dirt. That was not what her eyes had been following. The forest still shifted and scraped and shivered. In one lumbering movement the creature slid free of the forest and out onto the rocky bank of the river.

From this far it looked long and low, but that was a trick of the distance, the creature was hulking, massive. Likely almost four meters from end to end, it walked remarkably lightly on six legs, barely shifting any stones beneath its great weight. At its front a square head stuck forth that seemed fixated on the ground before it. Dr. Rey grasped her hand and they looked at each other, eyes wide with wild excitement. They knew there was a good chance of large animal life on the planet, but the first landing parties hadn’t made any direct observations, so they could only guess what it would look like. It seemed the expedition was bound for unbelievable discovery if this is how lucky they got on the first night.

The creature slid out across the wide bank towards a deep channel of the water, still brilliant and blue even in the failing light. Its hide had seemed a mottled green when she first saw it, but now it looked to be almost a pearly gray.

“Chromatophores,” Dr. Rey whispered reverently.

Kiana didn’t understand the word but took his meaning as the creature approached the water and its skin shifted again to take on the glacial blue of the water. Once the creature was up to its bulk in the water it arched its back and pulled its forelegs from the stream and craned its neck high into the air. The animal looked natural with four rear legs sitting in the stream and front limbs free in the air; Kiana even noticed what looked like fairly mobile digits at the ends of the forelimbs. The head, which looked so square earlier, now showed dual functionality. A wide, square set of dark eyes peered forth into the forest surrounding Kiana and Dr. Rey, while on all six legs the creature could have easily found open paths through the jungle for its great mass, but now that head could rotate freely providing a clear view from a high vantage.

The creature scanned the forest around, silently drinking in the evening light with its so-alien eyes. Then it turned its gaze towards them and the world froze around Kiana. The chorus of life fell away, the feeling of the humus beneath her chest drifted into a barely noticeable pressure. The great, dark eyes of this magnificent, beautiful, terrible creature drew her in and in as it looked directly at their hiding spot in the foliage. This was a creature made for this land, and more than that, it was a creature wise of the land. In the creature’s eyes she could see generations of wisdom for living in this wild place, and she thought for a fleeting moment maybe it could see something similar in her eyes. But it was getting rather dark, and their hide was better than that, the creature’s gaze slid around the rest of the river and then it let out a long, haunting bugle that echoed down the river.

The far bank once again began to shift and shake as four more creatures stepped forth, forelegs rising to stretch in the evening air once they cleared the bush. They slid whisper quiet across the gravelly bank and the troop slowly made their way down the winding, braided stream, wading where they could, swimming seamlessly where they needed. They called deeply to one another in a gentle evening song that filled the forest with a low, warm hum.

Kiana and Dr. Rey stayed frozen in their spot, hands clutched fiercely together as if lessening their grip would dispel the apparition before them. But the creatures went their own way, according to their own reasons, and before they knew it the troop disappeared into the trees off where the river bent beneath the cover of the canopy once more.

Finally Dr. Rey let out a great, reverent sigh. A sigh that contained all the hopes and dreams of a man who gave up his whole life, and had his investment returned a thousand fold.
“I believe we may have come to the right place Kiana,” he finally whispered, tears sparkling in his light eyes.

“Indeed Doctor,” she agreed, “should we go tell the others?”

He squeezed her hand a little tighter. “Maybe for tonight we just keep this between us. Dr. Marwa would be upset we didn’t gather any evidence, and I wouldn’t want to worry the Lieutenant and Mr. Yu unnecessarily.”

She smiled back, “Of course, afterall I’m sure there will be plenty more to see in the days to come.”

They walked back in companionable silence as the jungle sang them its sweet evening song. Overhead great clouds were rolling in from the ocean, in this world missing any reddish sunset hue, instead they stacked high in the changing, fading light like great lavender confections. As they approached camp, alien traces of teal lightning began to course through the interior of the thunderheads.

The group was still gathered around the comms equipment as they approached.

“Where’d you get off to go?” Lt. Sterns demanded.

“I spotted some interesting flying fauna, little, pink, flighted creatures.” Dr. Rey volunteered, “Miss Hano was gracious enough to come and help me try to get a better look at them, but alas they slipped away.”

Lt. Sterns gave Kiana a sharp look, reprimand for leaving her established perimeter.

Dr. Marwa was somewhat more enthused. “You saw large fauna?!” she burst forth “And flying no less?! Where? Did you get any video?”

Dr. Rey took her by the shoulders and led her away to satiate her curiosity for the evening, so he and Kiana could savor their transcendent sighting just the two of them for one night.

“What’s the latest with the comms?” Kiana asked, hoping to shift attention from herself.

“Best fabrication systems known to mankind can’t make a fucking radio is what.” Winnie Yu spat.

Kiana lifted an inquisitive eyebrow to the Lieutenant.

“We knew this was a possibility.” She brushed off the complaint. “Atmospheric scattering in this new air is worse than we’d expected, and the storm rolling in certainly isn’t helping anything. We’ve established enough to let the Fortune know we’re down safe, but we haven’t received a reply, and its orbit just took it out of comms range for the next couple of hours.”

“So what do we do?”

“No change of plans for now, though this storm looks like it means business.” Sterns nodded over Kiana’s shoulder where the clouds now towered high into the evening sky coursing with silent, teal light. “We’ll reassess in the morning, but we don’t really need to be in direct contact for any stage of this mission. Come morning we’ll dispatch our lander to the extraction point and begin making our way down river.”

“Glad to hear it.” Kiana nodded, and stepped lightly through the soft grass to her tent as the first fat, warm drops of rain began to tumble their lazy way down from the clouds above.

Tucked safely into her bedroll, under a well-pitched tent, nestled into warm earth, Kian beamed the smile of the truly blessed. The rains quickened, tapping against the roof of her tent, sending forth a new chorus of alien smells from the moistening soils. She pulled on a sleeping oxygen mask, saddened she wouldn’t be able to breathe the free air all night long. Maybe someday they’d figure out a medication to eliminate the need for such cumbersome accouterments, a pill to make this place truly home. For now though, Kiana listened to the rains, as a residual glow of ecstasy coursed along her nerves, and she drifted off into the all-consuming sleep of one tucked safely away from the storm.

Sunrise came in a pale aquamarine. Kiana pulled off her mask and slipped silently out of her tent into the predawn light as the rest of the camp still slept. Wandering down to the river it became clear that while the worst of the rain had passed overnight the cloudcover certainly hadn’t lifted. The sky was an undulating gray-green sheet, waving in a great ceiling till it met the impenetrable curtain of the crater rim. The world felt so contained in that morning silence, not a breath of wind, no noise from the jungle yet, just the hushed whisper of the river running over the stones. Cresting the small rise before the river she was greeted with a sight right out of her home. The evening rains had created dozens of crystal white water falls in every steep little ravine all around the canyon rim. The rains collected unseen up in the high peaks and then plummeted back down in spectacular fashion only moments later lacing the green curtain with tendrils of white. It was a sight Kiana had seen plenty of on visits to Kauai and Oahu, and it brought a smile to her lips every time.

The curtain of the crater rim wasn’t far from their location though, and all that water was headed to the same place. The braided river before Kiana now coursed with considerably more energy than the previous evening, trickling side channels from earlier now ran with easily enough vigor to pull her out into the main current, and for the first time she noticed just how high the high water mark was. During floods at that level, this would be no peaceful braided stream, but a torrenting menace tearing away everything in its path. Even at the current flow Kiana was careful where she put her feet as she squatted down to splash some water up onto her face.

Long, silent moments passed as the morning grew gradually brighter, shifting from pale moss, to the clear blue of full daylight albeit obscured by the heavy layer of clouds that didn’t seem to be going anywhere fast, trapped as they were by the crater rim. Kiana sat on the smooth stones of the bank and truly considered the flora around her for the first time. The trees properly towered, some thirty meters tall at their upper branches, but the closer Kiana looked the less treelike they seemed. Each had a smooth gray trunk segmented into a stack of cylinders almost like bamboo, except at the joints a spray of new branches would spring out each with their own cylindrical sections and branching offshoots. On the largest specimens this could continue five or six times until one massive trunk would fan out to cover ten meters in any direction. Those were the exception though. Much of the foliage was more compact, and much more dense. They all shared the same structure though, cylinders with leaves or limbs fanning out from the joints. As she thought about it, it seemed rather unlikely that these would be classified as true trees for a multitude of reasons, more likely they’d be named some kind of grass, if they weren’t given a wholly alien taxonomy that was.

Using her well-trained eyes Kiana spotted around from her riverside vantage for any other useful things in the dense bush. After a minute she spotted what appeared to be fruiting bodies hanging high in a tree on the other side of the river. Looking closer she found more hanging on a bush at the far river’s edge. Her survivalist’s mind knew nothing else in these forests presented so much opportunity, nor so much danger. It wouldn’t be too surprising for convergent evolution to have pushed these plants into producing something that would help them spread their offspring with the help of local animals, but just as on Earth many species were rather picky about just who helped carry off the next generation. All something for further careful research as they made their way down river.

For now the rain picked up a bit and even with just a little extra jolt the river coursed even higher. Belly grumbling, Kiana retreated back to the camp to discuss the best course of action with the team, and find something to eat that didn’t require days worth of testing to even consider chewing. She was both pleased and dismayed by what she found at camp. Dr. Rey was humming happily away in the morning drizzle bent over the camp kitchen preparing a hot breakfast. Idly, Kiana wondered how easily they might convince some coffee plants to take root here, the weather certainly seemed amenable enough. On the other hand, Lt. Sterns was crouched by the comms unit swearing softly into the mouthpiece as she struggled to make a connection.

“Well that all but settles it then,” she spat. “Damn clouds are scattering our best bands of radio contact. Minimal contact as the storm rolled in is gone completely now that the clouds have socked in,” she hung up the headset with visible frustration. “The Fortune is almost directly overhead now and we can’t get a peep. Our best shot at contacting the ship will be getting to clearer skies further down the mountain.”

Looking downhill, Kiana harbored more than a few doubts about this plan. Where yesterday their vantage point gave a clear and expansive view all the way to the ocean, this morning there were only shifting mists sliding up and down the winding ridges below them. For all she knew the cloudbank backed up all the way to the bay and beyond. Or it may break up as soon as they descended a few hundred meters, the Lieutenant was probably right that their best shot was to carry on.

Dr. Marwa and Winnie Yu arose shortly and they all shared a companionable breakfast in the light morning rain. Once their gear was packed and ready Lt. Sterns gathered them all together again.

“Alright, so you all know the plan. We dispatch our lander to the mouth of the river and make our way down to it over the next three days. This crater is large, but still that’s only twenty clicks of river to cover each day so we should have plenty of time for side exploration, although we won’t be leaving the river valley.” She gestured with a thumb over her shoulder at the comms unit, now looking particularly useless dripping wet from the rain. “Comms can’t regain contact with the other parties nor the Fortune, and as I said our best chance of doing so will be to lose some elevation and hopefully get free of these clouds. That said, the atmospheric scattering means we can’t communicate reliably with our lander either. So if we’re going downriver we will need to commit this morning and dispatch the lander ahead of us in case the weather doesn’t break, and there aren’t any eligible midway landing points so if we send the lander off we will be committing to the whole trip.” She paused and looked around the group. “Now, I know I’m eager to get out there and don’t have any issues sending off the lander, but before committing us all I wanted to put it to a vote.”

Dr. Rey gave Kiana a knowing glance, but held his tongue not wanting to create unnecessary fear of the gentle giants they saw the evening before, and nodded his assent.

“I’m certainly eager,” Kiana offered. “I do feel compelled to share though, I was down at the river this morning and the river has risen considerably since we saw it yesterday and conditions may have changed since they were able to scout our run from the ship.”

Lt. Sterns nodded, grateful to have some actual active discussion to attend to. “I saw that as well Kiana, honestly though I think it’s more of an asset than a liability. Our boat runs an incredibly shallow draft, but with water levels like we had last night it would’ve been a pretty bumpy ride. More water is likely good for our journey if anything.”

“I never let a little rain ruin a good expedition.” Dr. Marwa stumbled out in her halting accent, although her beaming smile indicated she’d heard the turn of phrase doing fieldwork in the past.

All eyes turned to Winnie who took a long hit off his inhaler, eyes still watering from the ammonia being pulled down by the rain. “Well as miserable as this is, it seems to me there’s a fair chance this is actually good weather for this place. If we turn back now they’ll just send me back in a few weeks and then it could be pouring.” He puffed another forced breath. “Let’s get this done with.”

With that the crew sprang into action as the rains quickened a little more. Bags were sealed up with their personal provisions, spare equipment was loaded on the lander and the boat was brought out. In a great roar the lander lifted off into the low cloud bank above and disappeared from sight just moments before disappearing from hearing as well. They stood on their high, bare knob surrounded on all sides by creeping mists with the only path forward carved by the river.

Fortunately their boat was a marvel of engineering that seemed much more at home on this new world than their comms equipment did. By the side of a river channel Sterns activated the systems and it sprung to life unfolding itself like a blooming flower. Electric motors inflated the long, tan tubes that came to a sharp point on the prow, and would later power the jet motor that allowed the craft to draw such fantastically low amounts of water. Fifteen feet from end to end with room in the tubes for their science and comms equipment there was plenty of room for their small party. She even had the courtesy of providing a sun and rain shade for her rear seats, though Kiana hoped to sit up front and enjoy the feeling of the rain and the spray of the river. Winnie Yu however promptly sat himself with his booted feet in one of the driest seats at the stern.

Sitting on the river bank, unfolded and powered up, the boat looked ready, eager even, to carry them off on their adventure. Kiana was eager to join it. She made to vault over the front tube when a scold caught her mid-jump.

“Kiana!” Lt. Sterns frowned, “waltzing about barefoot and no protective equipment may have been fine in Hawaii, and I’m inclined to let you take your chances once we’ve made camp, but out on the river we need all hands available. Boots and PFD please.”

Chastened and more than a little embarrassed, she slipped an inflatable life preserver over her head and reluctantly laced up her light boots. With that, Sterns gave the raft a final push and they were off, out in the brilliant sapphire water and picking up speed.

Kiana’s heart raced as they quickly passed away from their first camp, sailed smoothly around the river bend that she and Dr. Rey had seen the previous evening, and carried off to parts truly unknown. With the river at this flow Sterns didn’t need to do much to pilot the craft, only the occasional course correction to steer them into the most promising looking channels. The river braided back and forth, twisting in and out on itself, always spreading across the same wide, gray, gravelly bed. Beyond though, the scenery only became more breathtaking. Before long the clouds swallowed up the high mountains of the crater rim, but it mattered little because the valley they traveled in tightened in on itself. Gradually, the banks rose up like two sheer walls of greenery, above the undulating ridges on either side was only gray mist and the mysterious loomings of even higher walls in their tightening canyon. Kiana realized just how much of an anomaly their landing site had been, where the low hill allowed them to walk easily down to the river. For much of its path the river wound between these precipitous curtains of green.

Each bend unveiled a new mystery and Kiana rode into it headfirst, savoring every drop of rain, every runnel of river, every fold in the valley walls that plumbed back into the dizzying, dense heart of the forest. Here the river channeled all its energy into the wall of a sharp corner for so long that the plants dangled out above them from a towering overhang above them a dozen meters overhead, its underbelly revealing they smooth gray stone that hid beneath the foliage. There a little rivulet ran down from a hanging canyon above them in a cascade of white, Kiana craned her neck to follow the little stream back as far as she could see before their lazy pace inevitably pulled her away. When more of the pink, flighted creatures broke from the bank in a flurry Dr. Marwa burst out in an excited string of her native Swahili and nearly fell out of the boat. They all laughed as Dr. Rey caught her by the shirt and pulled her back in.

Kiana floated upon the cloud that was their boat as they meandered around the bends, and even the leisurely pace of the river felt far too fast for how much she wanted to drink in the nature. As the day progressed, more life awoke and the chorus of the jungle once more joined the rushing of the river, and once more Kiana’s heart sang in harmony with it all.

Eventually the rushing blue ran around a wider bend where the wall of the now nearly sheer canyon reached back into the jungle with an open floodplain. It was the first glimpse of open terrain they’d seen all day, so Sterns upped the throttle and ran them up onto the bank to stop for lunch. Just a meter or so above the rushing waters, the little nook was tucked away, protected on all sides, but it pushed back into a little gulch that folded into the more dominant wall behind. Soft grass covered the plain with a delicate fuzz and Kiana hopped off, sad that her toes didn’t dig into the friendly soil.

Lieutenant Sterns looked around the little shelf and nodded, apparently satisfied that they were sufficiently protected by the rising valley walls around them. Winnie Yu, grabbed the comms pack and immediately sought shelter under a clutch of trees by the valley wall to try and coax the systems into working. Kiana wasn’t too optimistic about his chances, if anything the cloud level had lowered as they’d descended and the canyon walls had certainly tightened, mists whipped past the crests of their little enclave. She instead walked a slow circle around the clearing looking for likely test subjects.

The local plants did seem to yield fruits of a sort now that she was really looking. In a world of green any other hues tended to stick out even if they were small. One set of low bushes yielded a clutch of orange berries, a small shaggy tree provided a couple oblong fruits that faded from pale green to dark red, a taller tree held what looked like coconuts from afar but turned out to be smooth and purple, flesh barely conceding when she dug into it with her knife. All of it went into the sampler, and then dabbed onto her skin. Results had come back so neutral the night before, and the oblong fruits looked so appealing she was very nearly ready to try dabbing it inside of her lips just to advance the study. She was pondering just how fast she could confidently eat the food of this new world when the doctors interrupted her pondering.

“Does it remind you of home Kiana?” Dr. Rey asked, “It feels just like the Catlins to me, I almost can’t believe it.”

“Just like home doctor, this fruit seems so familiar I can almost taste it,” she laughed at herself “But I suppose you wouldn’t even call it fruit.”

Dr. Rey smiled, “Technically, certainly not. But we get to reinvent the meanings of our own words here, if fruit serves, I say let it serve.”

“Do you think we were chosen for this landing party because we have experience in places like this? You studied the Catlins for years right? One of the few rainforests off the islands that maintained its size.”

Dr. Marwa nodded at this and smiled. “My home, near Ngorongoro,” she started, searching for her words and choosing them carefully, her sharp mind not held back by the unfamiliar language she traded in, “Much like this, volcanic, steep, jungle.” She paused and frowned. “More animals though.”

Rey laughed and encouraged her in his friendly Kiwi timbre, “Ever the zoologist Dr. Marwa, look at all the life around you!” He ran his hand through the leaves of a nearby bush. “But don’t worry my friend, we’ll find some fauna for you yet.” Turning to Kiana, he asked. “We were wondering if you’d help guide a little expedition.”

“Of course!” she chipped, happy to get back into her element. “Where to?”

“Not far, just up this little gulch a bit to help me gather some samples.” He smiled. “Oh, and if you could flush some more of those pink flying creatures, Dr. Marwa would be much obliged.”

Kiana led their little troop off, beneath the tree cover that descended the valley walls. Deft steps laced along the easiest paths, natural as anything had ever been to her. She shimmied up trees to gather leaves, trunk samples, more fruit, even a few beetle-looking creatures for Dr. Marwa who was enamored. Her limbs worked the happy rhythm of someone living their calling.

Then, the hair stood up on the back of her neck. A heavy weight had shifted in the forest nearby, and she couldn’t tell where. Craning their necks to get a view down to the field, they watched in awe as another creature like those from the previous evening stepped forth from the jungle at the bottom of a seemingly unscalable wall. Yet clearly it was scalable, by this massive creature that by rights should have ripped the trees straight from the rock. These beings were more made for this place than they could ever know.

Kiana grabbed the doctors and dove for better cover. If anything this one was larger, larger and prouder. It walked across the field on its hind four legs; not bothering to camouflage with the terrain, it kept a distinctive blue streak down its back.

From their hiding spot, they could see where Lieutenant Sterns had ducked for cover along the edge of the field. She trained her rifle on the creature, but thankfully held her fire. Aside from being large and imposing and surprising, it had done little to actually threaten them.

Then Winnie Yu stumbled forth from the treeline. Carrying the comms pack he froze stick still in the misty rain. In response the creature looked him square on, and let out a great grunt. Far from the bugles of the previous night, this sound hit like a foghorn, low and unrelenting. Yu dropped the pack and dove for the boat, what he was hoping to find Kiana could only imagine.

She heard a snicker next to her. Dr. Rey looked up with his sparkling, mischievous eyes. The laugh was contagious, and soon Kiana found herself struggling to keep in her giggles.

The creature seemingly cared very little for their incursion. It walked across the field, ignoring Winnie where he hid in the boat, and stepped out into the river. Then came something unexpected, the creature reared up once more as it entered the deep water. It walked on only its hindmost legs, allowing it to wade easily across the coursing river. Then as quickly as it came, the creature disappeared once more into the jungle across the water.

They scurried back to the boat and pulled Winnie Yu out, now struggling to regain his dignity after running from a creature who did little more than let out a grunt.

“What was that thing?” Yu whispered, as though concerned he may draw it back.

“Large herbivore of some kind.” Dr. Marwa offered.

“How do you know that?” Sterns demanded, concerned her secure area had been so easily breached.

“Flat teeth. Short claws.” The dark zoologist shrugged, as if nothing could be more obvious.

“I’m inclined to agree.” Dr. Rey added. “Kiana and I saw a troop of them last night, traveling quite companionably. I’ll leave the classification to our good zoologist, but it seems unlikely that primarily carnivorous creatures would travel in family groups like that, they seemed to be headed by a matriarch...or patriarch, again I leave the classification to Dr. Marwa.”

“You saw others?!” Sterns, Marwa, and Yu demanded in unison, equal parts angry, annoyed, and frustrated.

“We didn’t want to spoil the fun of discovery for you all.” The botanist’s soft southland drawl, and disarming smile seemed to stymie further pressing.

“What should we call them?” Dr. Marwa wondered, shifting the subject.

“Well I leave that to the first one of us to spot them.” Rey turned to Kiana. “You’re our bushman, you certainly have sharper eyes than me. I saw some rustling and pulled you over, but you are the first human to set eyes upon those magnificent creatures. What will you call them?”

Kiana thought for a long moment, remembering the gentle way they moved through their terrain, how every movement seemed built for this place, how they ruled these lands and humans would only ever be visitors. “Ali’i” she offered, “chiefs of the jungle.”

They sat down for a lunch by the boat. Sterns, Yu and Marwa all looked around incessantly for their own reasons, jumping at every shift in the foliage that surrounded their gully. Dr. Rey and Kiana simply sat in glowing silence, savoring the feel of the warm misty rain on their skin, and the hum of life all around them. Before long though, it became clear that the river wasn’t done rising. The boat shifted as the water came up, and Lt. Sterns rallied them to attention.

“Best to get back on the water before we get flooded out here,” she decreed, “According to our map we have a couple clicks of tight canyon left to navigate before things open up and we have a hope of finding a camp for the night.”

Just like that they were back out once more, drifting, floating, flying over the blue, through the green. The rain came harder now, no longer just a lazy mist, but proper fat, warm drops. With it the river raised higher, their meandering pace from the morning was just a memory as they picked up speed down the river. The little twisting gullies that carved back into the canyon walls now all spat forth frothing creeks of their own.

“Lieutenant,” Kiana asked hesitantly, “Remind me again about our level of concern with regard to flooding.”

The seasoned soldier, remained unflappable even as Winnie Yu’s eyes widened in his usually serene face. “Negligible in this area per all geological markers. These little gullies don’t drain enough area to create a proper flash, and the rim of the canyon limits how far away we need to be concerned about rainfall.” She jetted the motor to weave between a couple stuck trees that protruded from the rushing water. “That said, we can certainly expect our pace to increase if the rain keeps up like this.”

Kiana tried to keep faith in the team of researchers up on the Fortune, pairing what they saw through their telescopes with geologic records from Earth. She found it rather difficult as the canyon continued to tighten, and water continued to rush in. Any braiding of the stream was now fully submerged; the water was just opalescent blue from wall to wall, save where it was whipped up to whitecaps by submerged obstacles.

Their little boat, fortunately, was built for just such conditions. The waters rose and raged around them, turning from placid bends, to playful riffles, to rolling rapids. Sterns deftly dodged them this way and that, following the deep channels, guiding them by massive stones that had tumbled down from the heights above in ages past. Kiana took heart in knowing, that no matter how much they didn’t know about the rapids of the river, they could at least be confident they wouldn’t happen across any unexpected waterfalls. That was simply a matter of altitude change over distance. Such calculations seemed to be panning out as the river quieted once more despite the added water moving through it. It became a great placid ribbon, winding back and forth through the canyon walls. Then it became a lake, wide and straight for half a kilometer before it turned sharply.

They rode in silence, enjoying the respite from the rushing waters, and Kiana savored once more the hum of jungle life that filled the canyon around them. But beneath the hum, another sound appeared. At first just a gentle bass to the music that surrounded them, but as it grew more notes were added, until it was a ponderous roar.

Rounding the bend at the end of the lake the roaring mouth came into view. Inside the turn of the river a great ridge had given way in the recent rains creating a great dam across much of the river. The electric waters backed up and up, creating the lake they had just crossed, before tumbling through a narrow channel in the rocks and onward in their journey back to the sea.

Lt. Sterns upped the throttle and took them toward the far wall as the current gained irresistible momentum. “Kiana! Grab a hold of something,” she bellowed over the roar “We’ll need to tie up and scout this!”

Standing at the front of the boat, Kiana reached out with the bowline as they approached the wall, wrapping it quickly around a tree that hung out over the water. The current quickly pulled the stern downstream and snapped the line tight. They held, even as the line groaned, Kiana reached out with another line to try and secure a redundant anchor. But in a blink the tree gave way. They watched in horror as it pulled free from whatever feeble support its roots had held it in place, and with it came a mountain of foliage and dirt. Fronds, branches, and wet alien earth fell into the boat and the tree vanished into the water as the bowline snapped free, sending them tail-first into the torrent.

“Stay low!” Sterns shouted, roaring the engine of the boat to match the river, desperately trying to regain control.

They rolled over the edge of the rapid and into a frothing, angry sluice of white. The boat bounced sharply off several protruding rocks, sending Marwa and Yu face first onto the floor of the raft. Miraculously, Sterns regained control, turning them back forward to steer them into the deepest channels even as water poured over the tubes, turning their vessel into a mess of grey mud.

A huge boulder stuck out stubborn and uncaring in the middle of the mayhem, sending great chutes of water off its unflinching shoulders. Sterns in a split second, decided to take the left channel. She guessed wrong. The channel quickly slammed them back against the boulder, before rolling over the front of a huge wave. The boat reared up high, pitching inexorably to the right.

“Get to the highs–” Sterns screamed, but it was too late, the boat flipped and Kiana met the raging, furious water before she could even grab a breath.

On the backside of the great boulder the rushing waters sucked in and down in a furious undertow, and Kiana was pushed down and down and down before she could so much as reach out. The white water shifted from bright to nearly black in a second and she lost all sense of up or down. There was only inescapable pressure. Pressure and darkness.

Growing up on the islands Kiana had learned her way around an undertow, how to avoid them, how to get out of them, how to outlast them even if you didn’t have breath. You simply held your calm, the ocean was ever changing, don’t panic, take your opportunity for escape. But this was no ocean, no set was coming to an end, no respite was coming for her. As these thoughts worked their way through her mind panic, deadly panic came to her, coursing through her veins, adrenaline drinking up her already insufficient oxygen. Her thoughts began to fail then, tumbling in the dark pressure, bones jarring as they hit rock, ligaments tearing as the water thrashed her in all directions. With her last thought she reached up desperately for the PFD around her neck that by rights should have already self-inflated. Her numb, battered fingers fumbled in the tumbling water that pinned her to the cold river bottom. The manual-inflation pull danced between her fingers, as panic finally used up her last bit of air, and the darkness closed in around her.

---

The sky was searing white.

The shock of the brightness and pain only made Kiana open her eyes further which made it worse, and in turn made her gasp a deep breath that brought the burning pain down her throat and into her lungs. She coughed, she choked, she thrashed about, but it did little, the river still carried her as it would despite her protestations.

Then a thought finally made its way through her crashing panic. Wait, I’m breathing.

It was true. Sure, each breath burned with raw ammonia but at least it was a breath, there was enough oxygen in the mix to keep her going. That would have to be enough for now. With great effort Kiana pried her eyes open once more to let in the searing whiteness, but now she was ready. Above, the clouds had lifted considerably and now were a flat white sky high above, burning brightly in the afternoon light. Below, the green curtains of the canyon reached up and swirled around her. She was caught in an eddy. Fortunately her PFD had finally deployed, either just as she’d lost consciousness or right after, and pulled her out of the torrent where she’d been trapped. She tried to sigh in relief, but that only let in more burning and set her to violently coughing once more.

Peering through bleary, stinging eyes, Kiana looked around and began to kick her way to shore. A little beach of grey pebbles rose up above an elbow in the river where she’d eddied out. Coughing, kicking, fighting, Kiana pulled herself free of the cyanic water and collapsed into the round pebbles.

Each breath was worse than the last though; she couldn’t lie there. Without the medication from her inhaler the ammonia in her eyes and nose and throat only built and built. She reached for her belt where her inhalers were tucked into a pouch and her panic returned. The whipping waters had ripped them all free, there was no respite from the onslaught of the atmosphere. Panic made her breathe harder, which made it worse and worse as her heart rate began to climb.

Kiana looked wildly around through eyes filled with tears. She couldn’t see much but she could tell she was alone on this stretch of river. No boat. No companions. No supplies. Adrenaline coursed through her exhausted veins once more and set her to shaking.

But wait, there was something. Something drifting out in the eddy, a blotch of green not quite the right shade for this world twirled in the circling waters. On trembling legs Kiana stumbled back out into the river. It was a pack, drenched but still zipped tight. Shaking fingers barely able to grasp the straps she hauled it ashore. It was Dr. Rey’s. She tore into it with the last of her wits seeking any relief from the pain that was subsuming her breath by breath. No inhalers, they all had been instructed to keep those on their belts, but there was a sleeping respirator tucked into the bedroll.

She slipped the mask over her face and gulped in a clean breath of air. Relief was reluctant to come. Kiana fell back into the gravel, greedily gulping in the more suitable atmosphere. Breath by breath the burning slowly faded, above the searing sea of white resolved into a high ceiling of swirling clouds. Tears poured out of her eyes, down her cheeks, and rolled in fat droplets onto the stones under her head. In. Out. In. She fought against her shaking, against her body’s instinct to hyperventilate, against every panicked response that ran through her.

Eventually the burning ebbed as the daylight began to shift, indicating the swift arrival of night. Nerves finally at rest, Kiana sat up to take stock of her situation. She’d surely been on the bank for over an hour at that point, and in the river for who knows how long before that. No one had come by. So either they were stuck upstream, or had all been washed past her little crook in the river. Looking up and down stream the water still ran high, wall to wall, through the canyon, either option seemed plausible.

In Rey’s pack she took stock of the few supplies on which her life now depended. The sleeping mask could purify enough air to let her breathe for a week-straight if needed. If I need more than that I’m probably done for anyhow, she thought. There was the bedroll, now soaked through, but still some protection should the weather turn again, no tent though, those were all stored in the boat. There, of course, was a plethora of sample containers of all shapes and sizes, some help those will be. The packets of spare food had soaked through and broken open, now coated the inside of the pack’s main pocket. As she continued to work her way through she ate what morsels she could salvage to grab every available calorie while she could. Along the way she found a knife, now we’re talking, several meters of paracord, a small field first aid kit, a lantern, a cookstove. And there, buried at the bottom, the one tool that might actually save her, a flare gun with a couple charges. But that was it, her heart sank. No GPS, no comms, no tab, nothing beyond the gun had any chance of letting anyone know she was still alive.

Loading the gun with weary fingers, she raised it and shot the brilliant charge into the sky. It arced up lazily, clearing the tops of the canyon walls before exploding in a wide flash just as the cloud ceiling above gave way for the first time all day. Through the shifting hole Kiana could see the telltale colors of evening.

She built a little cairn in the gravel, and placed the lantern on top of it as a beacon should anyone come by in the evening. For now though, Kiana was in no shape to look for anyone. Every fiber of her being burned with exhaustion. If she went out into the coursing river all she’d do is be swept away and lose the few supplies keeping her alive. So she limped up to the treeline to find a sheltered spot to weather the night.

Above, the clouds dissipated bit by bit, letting in more of the twilight sky and eventually the first stars as their light fought its way through the atmosphere. Lounging on the sopping bedroll, scrounging what drenched food she could from the pack, not one thought made its way along Kiana’s fried neurons. Until the moons came out.

Darkness fell and the clouds finally peeled away as the moons began to rise. She’d known they existed, but the rains came too early for them to make an appearance the previous evening. Sixteen moons in all, several were too small to see in all but the most ideal conditions, tonight five of them climbed over the rim of the canyon as night took hold, casting a meager light back onto Kiana’s refuge. In truth, they all danced an endlessly complicated series of orbits in and around each other, but from her spot all Kiana could see was a stately line of glowing white stones chasing one another up into the night sky. How could I have ever thought this place like home? She wondered as she drifted off into a restless sleep.

Dawn arrived an eternity and an instant later. On one side, her battered body called out for sleep with every fiber of her being. On the other, her wary subconscious mind would not permit even a momentary lapse of attention. In the end, she drifted through the starry evening in some liminal space between waking and dreaming, for now, that would have to do.

The light broke first deep purple, then lilac, then slowly faded to the aquamarine blue of day. The only clouds above sat much higher, in thin wisps that coursed through the currents of the upper atmosphere. Grudgingly, Kiana forced herself to leave her little nook and consider her situation. The flare in the evening, and lantern through the night had failed to signal anyone, presuming they’re alive, the unwelcome thought barged in. She shuddered from head to toe, forcing the thought from her being, even if they’d all fallen out of the boat someone had to have survived, and given how she was pinned in the rapid and then floated downstream unconscious it seemed very unlikely they’d be above her.

She turned to face the river and shivered once again. Absent the rain, the water level had dropped considerably and it once again was showing the forms of its braided bed. The most sensible thing would be to put on her PFD and float down to try and find the rest of the crew. But her bones rejected the idea, just the thought was enough to set her lungs to burning and her heart thumping into her throat.

No river today, that’s for sure, she decided.

But that only left a couple bad options. She could wait, in a normal recovery situation that would be the smart thing to do. But out here on a nameless planet things were anything but normal. A proper rescue that could benefit from her staying still would be days away, and her companions may well be in need of her help. So she had to move, and that meant on foot.

Looking around, the prospect seemed daunting. Walls of greenery rose around her on all sides, and that was from her vantage point on the relatively clear river bank. Once she walked into the trees, orienteering would be nearly impossible. Still...that was the option at hand, so how best to approach it? Looking again with a calmer mind a few blessings revealed themselves. First, she’d floated clear of the tight neck of canyon where they’d met trouble, here the valley walls still climbed precipitously but they weren’t completely sheer. Second, from her bank a little depression wound back into the jungle and eventually up the valley wall to a tall ridge that seemed relatively devoid of high trees. A place to do some scouting. If she made it up that high she could easily follow the ridgeline down, keep sight of the river, and look out for the boat. And signal with the flares, this thought was considerably more welcome in her mind, and drove her to action. She only had two shots left with the gun, so wasting another one down here would be foolish, but having a plan of action at times was all one needed.

Stepping back beneath the trees, Kiana reentered her element. The ground steepened almost immediately but that was nothing she hadn’t encountered before, her feet step by step remembered their strength. She slipped easily through the riot of foliage, and once more the world began to seem like something she understood. 

Life was everywhere. Filling every patch of ground, growing out of every protrusion, hanging on top of itself. Once more the forest came awake around her with its own song. As she climbed Kiana nearly forgot her troubles, entranced as she was by the strange plants, with too dark leaves that grew in ways that were different in a thousand subtle ways. She marveled at the creatures that crawled through the hanging gardens of this forest, all miniscule here and oddly not that odd. After all, how much more alien could a bug really be? Still, she gently let them crawl across her hand when they would and appreciated their colors and movements. She climbed past more bushes full of fruit, and they set her stomach to rumbling. That’s a way to make things worse, she thought, but still her instincts called out at the familiar site begging her to take a bite and fuel her body.

All the while though Kiana fought to breathe through the sleeping mask that was the only thing truly keeping her alive in this world that seemed too much like home for her own good. She laughed ruefully, thinking how she’d considered the inhalers an encumbrance. She’d been so free, only a puff every once and a while. Now every breath was a labor that echoed in her ears. Her view ahead was clear but around the fringes of the mask curving glass warped the world leaving her with only the claustrophobic tunnel of vision directly ahead.

Before long, she made the ridge and the world resolved around her. Through the thick growth she could see the winding river down below, and on the far side there was another, similarly braided and brilliantly blue. The ridge wound its way down to where the two streams presumably met in a confluence. Behind her, she could just make out the peaks of the crater rim as they reached into the late morning sky. She waited several minutes, looking, listening. The rivers wound, the jungle hummed, but there was no sign of her companions she could sense. She fired another flare into the clear blue above, it exploded brilliantly and would have been visible for miles around if anyone was in position to see it. She couldn’t stay perched up on the ridge, but she had to hope someone saw her signal and knew she was alive.

The star climbed overhead as she began the long slow journey down along the ridge. With the clouds gone overhead, the planet unleashed a heat that only the tropics could muster. Soon Kiana’s clothes were soaked through once again and the forest around her fell into a hypnotic stupor suppressed by the heat. Step by precarious step she worked her way down the ridge, rarely more than a few paces wide and flanked by precipitous drops on either side. One misstep now would almost surely be her doom. Slick roots coursed through the soil threatening to catch her feet and send her tumbling, while the faceplate of her sleeping mask grew foggier and foggier with her perspiration. Eventually she had no choice but to begin pulling the mask off periodically, deal with the burning in her eyes and throat, to wipe away some of the fog, lest she miss an errant root or unsecure rock.

Kiana had walked ridges like this a thousand times, this was her home, but rarely had anything felt so unnatural as the star took its toll and exhaustion piled on exhaustion. Every handhold, every step, every movement required exacting precision. But her vision blurred and the rasping of the mask’s filter echoed in her ears. Still, step-by-step she made her way along the ridge, keeping what eye she could down to the river in hopes of seeing some sign of salvation. Eventually even that hope died as the canyon tightened again and the river disappeared beneath the overhanging cliffs below. She could hear the torrent rushing even over the grating flow of her mask, and thanked her stars she hadn’t decided to brave the river.

Eventually she made her way to the top of a little rise that afforded a clear view for a good distance along the ridge. Here it widened and softened a bit and below her a little clear meadow held on improbably above the lush walls that dropped off around it. Kiana’s feet ached for nothing more than to sink into the soft soil while she rested in the shade of the surrounding trees. Just as she began to make her descent, movement caught her eye.

Out from the bush tumbled two small creatures. Not the pink flighted beings she’d seen earlier, no these were more like the ali’i but much smaller. Could the same species really be so different? Kiana wondered, remembering the imposing majesty of the ali’i they’d seen in the clearing. These were more the size of large puppies, but they shared the same six-limbed body structure as the larger creatures. As they playfully rolled out onto the grass another difference became apparent, they rolled onto their hind limbs and began to totter around upright. There were three of these little creatures all yipping pleasantly in the afternoon light.

Kiana was transfixed. Adrenaline coursed through her, amplifying all she saw and heard around her, and she silently slipped through the foliage down the slope to a good hide where she could observe these creatures. While if she had to put a word on it she would’ve called the ali’i from their first night a herd, the way these little creatures played and rolled and chattered they seemed much more like a pack. Down their backs each one kept a stripe of dark red, even though they seemed to share the color-shifting skin of their larger cousins. One of the little creatures was decidedly less sure on its hind legs and was bowled over by one of its siblings. When it tried to scurry away with only its forelegs aloft the others chittered in a manner that seemed distinctly derisive. Poor thing, Kiana thought, her mind compelled by empathy as her mind drew a thousand parallels to the creatures from Earth she knew so well, of which almost all were certainly incorrect. Then the foliage shook on the far side of the clearing and time stood still.

Stepping, sliding, slithering from the undergrowth emerged a larger beast. Mother, Kiana’s mind offered, as if the term had any bearing on these creatures. It stepped forth on all six limbs, sliding through the thick greenery, barely disturbing a branch, then in a sinuous, powerful motion it stood onto its back legs and strode across the clearing towards the pups, and Kiana.

She held her breath, certain that the rasping of the mask would give her away. Over the being’s head and down its back it held the same deep stripe of red as the pups, elsewhere gray hide hugged limbs of exquisite musculature. A pair of arms on each side ended in nimble digits that deftly lifted leaves toward its head where it subtly breathed in the scent, tracking. A thick tail brushed above the grass, balancing the creature’s weight, lending it the coiled grace of a striding gymnast. The head was rounder and more pronounced, pierced by a set of large, keen, black eyes. Back on Hawaii, part of what kept their forest protected was the fact that they could act as a final haven for the great jungle cats of the world, so Kiana was all too familiar with a predator in its home territory. That is what strode across the grass toward her now. Holding her breath felt insufficient, she was sure it would smell her, hear her heart thundering in her chest.

The black eyes flicked up from the pups and landed directly on Kiana’s hide. The world collapsed to nothing more than those perceptive wells of darkness. The hum of the forest faded completely away. The burning in Kiana’s chest as her lungs called for air mattered little. The star above and the earth below blurred into irrelevance, as Kiana peered into this creature’s eyes and found she saw more than just evolutionary fitness. She saw intelligence.

A moment or a minute later the creature averted its rapacious stare, and returned to its pups. It picked up the one that had trouble standing, and pulled it in close. To the others it let out a deep utterance somewhere between a purr and a yowl that seemed to shake the leaves even around Kiana meters away. It certainly pulled the other pups into line as they immediately settled down. Then they were gone. A few strides of the creature’s powerful, long legs and it was back to the meadow’s edge, a blink later and they all sank down onto all six limbs and slid silently back beneath the undergrowth.

Minutes passed after the rustling of the leaves had stilled and Kiana remained frozen, only allowing herself the barest whispers of breath, certain that any movement or sound would alert the creatures to her presence. Koa, warriors, her mind offered. These beasts contained little of the distinguished grace of the ali’i, but one glance could show you their deadly intent. Eventually the noise of the jungle spurred her to action, the forest now held something to properly fear but that didn’t mean she could remain in her hide forever. The sun was now heading decidedly for the horizon and she had hopes to not spend the night up on the high ridge. Ahead, it seemed, the ridge carried on to the confluence of the two streams on either side. A sensible place to make camp and try to find her companions.

The heat abated now as the star approached the tops of the western hills beyond her. At this elevation the ocean was just out of sight, but the lack of further peaks indicated that this maze of valleys did eventually end. She was free to move now, stepping lightly between the trees, but every so often a chill would crawl up her spine that stopped her in her tracks. Some part of her mind grew convinced she was being watched. She’d freeze and suddenly the rasping of her mask was the loudest racket she’d ever heard, certainly drawing every koa for miles around down upon her. They fascinated and terrified Kiana, and her mind began to call up their images in the patterns of the leaves in the dusky light. Standing dark and still, powerful arms hanging at their sides, stout digits gripping branches with a terrible force, dark eyes watching inescapably her every move.

The light was failing, and the rational part of Kiana’s mind knew these apparitions for what they were. Her best self knew these were beautiful creatures of the natural world meant to be admired. She knew that even the scant pack dynamics she’d seen indicated a remarkable intelligence that was certainly one of the greatest scientific discoveries in human history. But that was not the part of her mind in charge right now. Her primal mind drove her limbs. It saw the menacing patterns off in the leaves for what they were, hunters. And it fled.

Ahead on the ridge the thick foliage abated, she could see the last of daylight in a clearing. Panicked, Kiana rushed through the forest, leaves, branches whipping at her face, threatening to rip off the one thing actually keeping her alive. Her heart thundered, her blood rushed, her breath screamed in and out of the mask. And then she reached the light as the world gave out beneath her.

There were no trees here because there was no more land. The ridge fell away and Kiana fell with it, tumbling down the slope, screaming, beyond any semblance of control. Then the ground rushed up to meet her with ferocious speed and forced all the air from her lungs. Kiana rolled over, coughing, sputtering, gasping for air, and grasping her fingers into the dirt, looking for purchase, certain the ground would betray her once again.

But of course it wouldn’t, the ground meant her no ill will. It simply was what it was, and it was carved. Mind finally calming in the last rays of daylight, she stood up in awe of the scene around her. No natural force had carved away the ridge like this. It stepped down in decisive tiers. Overgrown in places with greenery in some places but largely around her clear tiers of gray rock descended in great steps down to a pool of brilliant water. It looked for all the world she was in a quarry. And beyond, beyond the lake but before the confluence of the rivers in the distance was something even stranger. Great rectangular heaps sat in radial rows around the lake, fanning out. They were covered with greenery in most places, but here and there gray stone poked through. Next to them they’d almost certainly look like just strange hills, but from up here there was no denying these forms were built.

Kiana traced around the shelf where she’d landed and began to make her way down to the pool, barely able to keep track of where she was going, unable to take her eyes off these curious structures. How could they have missed this from the ship? She wondered, certainly anything so clearly manufactured should have stood out in this organically carved landscape. But then the light began to shift and the obvious radiality she’d seen from above began to fade away. Before long the forms looked like little more than undulating hillets. Kiana remembered what she saw though, and curiosity drove her forward, former fear now just a fading memory.

Walking around the pool she washed off the sweat from the day before heading up a long, consistent slope that led to the strange mounds. A wide flat area ran from the slope between the first pair of mounds then on out to the meeting rivers beyond. It was as though a road had been carved from the quarry to some long forgotten support town. But that can’t be, can it? Her head swam as she approached the first structure. Its sloping sides were matted with twisting, dark greenery, but brushing it aside she could feel smooth condensed stone. Concrete. Her mind decided. But how?

She traced around the low structure feeling for any changes in its design, but plants and rain and time had worn it down to just a rounded block. Rounding the back though, an opening appeared. Dark and sharply square it reached into the mound and down into the earth below. Feeling more and more certain that these ancient barrows were of incredible importance Kiana went to peer down this carved shaft. But then movement in her blurred periphery froze her stock still.

The world collapsed around her once more as adrenaline flooded her veins. It had looked like one of the pups from earlier, scurrying hurriedly back into the undergrowth. Scurrying as though it had been called sharply back. Kiana became an animal once more. Her ears opened, taking in every last note of the evening hum that surrounded her. Her eyes grew, seeking every last photon of information they could discern. Again her respirator became the greatest encumbrance she could imagine, blurring her vision, rasping breath echoing off the hills that surrounded her. Step by silent step, she backed away from the structure and out onto the open road. Quickly and quietly as she could she drew the knife from its sheath and the flare gun from its pocket, all the while scanning, listening, sensing. Being hunted.

Then there it was, moving around the corner of the far structure towards the pond, a great koa, stepping low and powerfully on all its legs, hide a deep mottled green. It would have been all but invisible if it wasn’t coming inexorably towards her. Kiana squared up to the creature and then one, two more appeared. Similarly sliding silently across the darkening ground. A pack. They worked in formation cutting off Kiana’s hope of retreat, she was forced to back step by step blindly deeper into the maze of structures behind her. She raised the knife and flare gun in a false show of bravery.

“Hey!” she shouted, “Get back! I see you! Get back!”

The creatures turned their heads in curiosity, unaccustomed to the sound of humans, but they did not stop. Instead they looked at one another and issued a series of low clicking purrs, accompanied by a rapid flashing of colors along the sides of their heads and in unison fanned out further. Communicating. They rose onto their hind legs until they each towered over her, and their skin shifted back to show the same angry red stripe that ran over their head and down their backs. Sturdy digits gripped chunks of dark rock chipped away to vicious points. Tools. Dark eyes measured her up, rows to sharp teeth flashed in the evening light, and step by step they backed her along the street. Panic now coursed along Kiana’s limbs and her hands shook, giving away any game of her bluster, and her mind descended into a blind panic.

Then, a hoot. A sound so distinctly of old Earth that Kiana was sure she’d imagined it. Then another. Hooooot, hooooot. It drifted through the twilight air haunting the evening, a sound she’d heard a thousand times before, the pueo calling an end to the day. She turned towards the sound just in time to see a human face duck back into the shadows of one of the structures’ openings. But the creatures had heard as well, their heads had turned slightly at the strange sound, but they couldn’t have seen the face. Let’s hope that’s enough.

Kiana unleashed all the adrenaline coursing through her in one powerful leap as she darted away from the creatures and towards the opening she could only hope led to safety. The creatures broke formation and gave chase. By blind luck, Kiana had a step on them, and she ran like she never had before, certain that at any moment one of the creatures would reach up and take her feet out from under her and that would be it. She ran and ran and then in a final lunge dove into the darkness of the structure, turning in the air to blindly fire the flare behind her. The charge bounced off one of the creatures’ chest before exploding in a shower of sparks against a far wall. The creatures howled a bone chilling banshee cry that turned her veins to ice just before the back of her head met the ground behind her and darkness rushed in around her.

---

“Oh good, you're not dead yet,” a voice croaked.

Kiana awoke to a strange light. She gasped and sputtered, head splitting, instinctively she ripped off her mask only to be swiftly reminded that would only make matters worse. She fell back against a damp wall, heart thundering as she slipped the mask back on with shaking hands. Her trembling only worsened when she reached up to probe the wound at the back of her head, it was only then that she realized it had already been bound. Someone had treated her while she was knocked out.

“Not dead yet,” the voice croaked again, “now you get to wait for the reaper with us.” A rueful, cackling laugh descended into a fit of coughs.

On a tucked up ledge above Kiana, Winnie Yu laid in the pale green light of a pocket lantern, his clothes in tatters, his body shook as the fit rocked him. Kiana struggled to reconcile the pitiful sight before her with the aloof and distinguished businessman from the flight down to the surface. Her head splitting as it was, she couldn’t manage it.

“Mr. Yu?” she wondered, gasping as he rolled over to reveal his clothes weren’t the only things in tatters, “What happened?”

“Same as happened to you, I suppose,” he wheezed. “Damned fool Sterns lost control of the boat and sent us all swimming, only I went over a series of particularly unfriendly little falls on my way.” The wan light of the lantern illuminated a chest torn to strips of flesh.

“My god,” she whispered, reaching out, compelled to help this suffering man.

“Stop.” He barked. “Rey’s fumbling ministrations were enough agony for one day. We’ve been through the supplies you brought in that pack. There’s nothing more to be done for me. I knew this expedition was foolish from the outset, but I didn’t think it’d take my life.” Tears glistened at the corners of his eyes as he wheezed out the aching words.

“Oh, but I’m sure we can do something.” Even as the words came out she couldn’t believe them. This man’s chest was in tatters, they were stranded, holed up inside some cave or structure, and hunted by alien life considerably more hostile than anything they’d been prepared for.

“Spare me your lies Miss Hano.” Yu rolled away, back heaving in pain.

“Wait,” the thought finally made its way through Kiana’s cotton-filled mind. “You said Rey, is Doctor Rey with you as well?”

“Who do you think pulled you up? I can’t do more than tear a couple pieces of gauze.” Another wheezing cough shook him. “Follow the ramp up behind you. He’s keeping watch.”

Kiana laid a reassuring hand on the man’s shoulder as another fit worked through his body. After a time he seemed to calm, and then drift off to an uneasy sleep, and Kiana went to seek out Dr. Rey. Looking around the room it seemed as though he’d somehow pulled her into an upper chamber within the structure, and a circular plug filled a hole in the floor like some immovable manhole. Hopefully immovable enough to keep those creatures out, she thought. The ramp switch-backed through the stone of the structure, and she fumbled along in the blackness until she spilled out onto some sort of roof terrace under a spray of stars. Low walls protectively hemmed in by a ring of flat stone atop the edifice, out here once again, all was covered in ages of plant growth. On the far side sat Dr. Rey, stared up at the row of moons that climbed into the sky once more.

The botanist held a finger to his lips and waved her over. “Good evening Miss Hano,” he welcomed in a low voice as she joined him, “I hope I didn’t make too much of a mess of your head wrap.”

“Not at all Doctor, thank you very much for your help.” She tried to whisper back, but the mask made her words come out crackling and grating.

“Oh! Some small measure of good news,” he opened the pouch on his belt and handed Kiana a fresh inhaler.

She ripped the mask off without a second thought and sucked in a long draught. The relief came in a cool wave, first spreading through her lungs, then coursing along her adrenaline wrecked veins to soothe her throat, her mouth, her nose, her eyes. Every fiber of her being sighed with ecstatic relief as she took her first breath of free air in what felt like an eternity.

“A small measure Doctor?” she took another ravenous gulp of the sweet evening air. “This seems more like a miracle to me.”

“No, the miracle was that you wandered along, and with a pack full of supplies nonetheless.” He extended a welcoming hand to her shoulder, and she returned the gesture. “Mr. Yu and I stumbled out of the river with all our inhalers and not much else. The supplies in the pack you carried may just give him a fighting chance.”

She smiled sadly, if the little first aid kit she carried in was all they had, things were very grim indeed. “He still seems to be in a very bad way Doctor.”

“Indeed, but thanks to you he has a course of field antibiotics in his system, for all the good they are likely to do, topical antiseptic on his wounds, and a bedroll on which to try and survive the night.”

“It was your pack.”

He smiled, “So it was, and you who pulled it from the river and brought it to us when we needed it most.”

She thought for a moment, “But wait, why’d you leave his wounds uncovered.”

“Ah, well that’s where things get a bit tricky. You see you did a bit of a number on yourself when you came to us.” He pointed to her headwrap. “And given that I believe you may be our best shot at getting out of this alive, I decided to prioritize some supplies for your head wound, so that we could possibly strategize the best way to help Mr. Yu, should he make it through the night.”

Feeling the back of her head and wincing at the tenderness and gauze that almost certainly would need to be changed before too long, Kiana began to appreciate their conundrum. “What happened after I dove in towards you guys?”

“Well it was quite the bit of heroics there Miss Hano,” he chuckled softly. “Diving in and shooting your flare at those creatures all in one go. Fortunately the trick worked, because if they’d simply chased in after you we’d probably all be dead. Instead the flare gave them enough of a fright that they ran off and I had a chance to pull us all up into the upper level of this structure and seal off the entry hole. I bound your head, and treated Mr. Yu, before I found my way up here to keep an eye out should those creatures return. These structures seem steep and tall enough to keep them from climbing up here, but fortunately it seems like your flare gave them enough of a fright to keep them away for a little while, so hopefully we won’t have to put that theory to the test.”

“Well considering I was pretty certain I was about to become dinner, I’d say that went about as well as it could have. Thanks for signaling me.”

“Any time.”

They sat in companionable silence for a while, before Kiana broke in “So what were those creatures?”

The botanist laughed, and replied in his soft Southland drawl “I was just about to ask you the same thing.”

“Well I came down the ridge up there earlier today and ran into one and its pups. At first I thought it was just a smaller ali’i, but they way they move...” She trailed off remembering the bone chilling stares the creatures had given her. “No, they’re built similarly. But they’re not the same.” She thought for a long moment. “I couldn’t say that they’re more or less intelligent than the ali’i, but their intelligence does seem to be of a different sort.”

“Indeed.” Dr. Rey agreed. “We looked down from the Fortune and didn’t see any lights shining back at us and assumed this world was unspoken for, but this...” He dragged his hand along the side of the low wall, clearing away the overgrowth to reveal the smooth, seemingly manufactured stone beneath. “This would seem to tell a different story. You called the offspring pups. Why is that?”

“It was the way they played I suppose, rolling around sort of teaming up on each other. Honestly it would have been cute if I hadn’t been so horrified.” She pondered. “I’ve only seen footage of wolves and their pups, but I’ve seen plenty of big cats working on the islands and their cubs. Familial but fiercely independent. This wasn’t like that, they seemed to be more of a unit together.” She remembered the three creatures looming before her, working in unison to back her into a corner. “Then the way they pursued me just before I saw you, I know it’s not right to draw analogies like this but it felt like being hunted by a pack.”

“I think given the circumstances we can let the technical distinctions be drawn by Dr. Mawa.” His unerring optimism shocked Kiana, but helped lift her spirits. “What I saw certainly looked like coordinated behavior, more importantly they seemed to be actively and intricately communicating as they approached you, and perhaps most importantly two of them carried sharpened stones like hand axes.”

“Communication and tool use.” Kiana whispered, wondering what sort of a mess they had found themselves in. “Was I wrong to assume hostile intentions? Maybe they’re just quite intelligent and curious?”

“I think it’s best to play it safe on calls like that for now. Especially when they’re actively backing you into a corner with no real means of self-defense.”

“I named the ali’i for how they seemed to inhabit this place, chiefs, masters of the forest. And when I saw the creatures on the ridge another name came to mind for them, Koa, fierce warriors. Do you think that may be their relationship.”

“Unfortunately Kiana, I reckon not.” He cleared a way more overgrowth until a patch of smooth stone shone in the pale moonlight. “I think you may have it the wrong way around, and I fear their relationship may be rather more contentious. While you were knocked out I investigated this structure where we’ve taken shelter, and I think it may provide more answers than we realize.”

“Yeah, when I came down from the ridge I felt for all the world like I walked into some overgrown town. What are these things?”

“Well that’s just the thing, they’re concrete.”

One word, and the whole world reoriented itself in Kiana’s mind.

“Concrete?...But how?”

“It seems these koa may be much smarter than we realize. We’ve seen that they make and use tools, communicate and work collectively. Really on the scale of technological advancement cement and concrete are just right around the corner on the timescales of evolution.” He looked up towards the crater rim, just barely visible above the ridges and surrounding trees, black teeth jutting into the starry night sky. “Honestly in a place like this with so much previous volcanic activity there may be enough naturally occurring lime that they wouldn’t have even needed to control fire to a significant extent to make it.”

Pieces fell together in Kiana’s mind. “The quarry!”

“Yes, that’s what I thought when I saw it too. It’s all been covered over by years of blowing soil and overgrowth, but the end of the ridge seems decidedly carved away doesn’t it?”

“So what the ali’i are...were advancing technologically, then...what?”

“Not the ali’i. The size of these structures makes no sense for them, the koa on the other hand, well this could be a tailor-made den for a small pack couldn’t it?”

More fragments fell into place, pushing through the trauma-clogged pathways of Kiana’s mind. The openings, the elevated interior chambers, the sheltered roof perch. It was a perfect, if somewhat crude, refuge for a creature to nestle into.

“But that ridge is seriously carved back.” She pondered. “More than they could possibly have needed for this little group of buildings, why dig all of that lime up?”

“Well that’s the question isn’t it Kiana?” He smiled an impish grin, eyes glinting in the moonlight. Even trapped on an alien world, with a companion struggling to survive the night, the deep mysteries of the universe lit up Dr. Gabriel Rey.

“Ok so, the koa have like their version of ancient Crete, going on here, building a settlement, mining lime for whatever purpose, and then...nothing?” She waved her hand over the settlement. “I mean overgrowth like this doesn’t happen overnight, not even in the jungle, these things have been getting buried for probably hundreds of years at this point. They clearly made serious advancements, but we didn’t exactly stumble upon the Roman Empire here.”

“Well that’s where things really get interesting.” He stood up and began to gently pace back and forth in the dim moonlight. “At the risk of getting very far ahead of ourselves, I’d say it seems like we’ve stumbled upon their form of a post-apocalyptic society. Although it seems that the collapse struck very early on in their development.”

Kiana thought for a long moment, mind connecting dots she’d learned in school back on Earth, a different life entirely. “So is this the answer to that paradox, um...” She searched for the term, then it bubbled forth from a froth of memory. “Fermi’s Paradox, right? The reason the galaxy seems so empty...well empty before we showed up here I guess. But anyway, there aren’t alien civilizations around every corner despite the fact that the galaxy has been here way more than long enough for that to have happened by now. Did we inadvertently clear some hurdle that other creatures haven’t for one reason or another?”

“That may be the case...” The botanist looked up into the shower of stars that twinkled in the clear night of a world with no light. “But while I understand Fermi’s math, well at least as well as I can, I’ve always felt his paradox was a little too reliant on cold numbers.” He stopped pacing, but didn’t take his eyes off the sky. “I mean we’re talking about life here, and life is never that tidy. I’d imagine that successful societies would expand into new star systems in fits and starts. Maybe they’d expand suddenly and then regress, maybe they’d expand incredibly slowly spending millions of years reworking each system they landed in, maybe they’d really make an attempt at an interstellar society so they never could go too far, or maybe us humans truly are unexceptional and what we’ve done is rather the norm given just how vast space is and how far apart roughly similar planets tend to be, maybe other species have reached out and expanded but effectively just delayed the inevitable. In spite of how much of a miracle this planet is in its compatibility to us, it’s far from a given that we’ll settle here and thrive.”

“Or maybe we’re just the lucky ones who made it this far first.” Kiana needled the pondering doctor.

“Ha, yes Miss Hano maybe, although whether we’re lucky or not certainly remains to be seen.” He stretched his hands up into the sky. “I just stand here and look at all of that though, I think of all the other botanists on all the other Delaney Ships and what they might be finding out there. Each planet would beg you to fit some answer to the paradox, but a sample of two planets isn’t exactly very compelling evidence. We could be on some bare rock thinking maybe truly earthlike planets are far rarer than we thought when we set out. We could be on a perfectly earthlike world, water, wind, warmth, all of it but no life, and we’d think that maybe the advent of life really was just a one off event. Or we could be out there finding life that is so unlike anything our human minds can comprehend we’d wonder why we ever thought there was a paradox to begin with.”

“But instead we’re here...” Kiana’s eyes looked off into the dark jungle that at once felt so familiar and so strange.

“Exactly! We’re here, here on this garden of a planet, thinking wow, not only must life be common, but it’s also shockingly earthlike, this just must be how complex matter forms over time in the right conditions.” He took his eyes off the heavens and pulled Kiana in with their glinting vigor. “So you’re right to wonder about old Fermi! Of course you are. From our little sample it sure doesn’t seem like life is all that rare, and we’re seeing that maybe there is a stumbling block in early societies in general or at least there was one here, so maybe we really are the first to reach out beyond our home system successfully.”

“It does sort of beg the question though...” Kiana ran her hand through the ages of overgrowth that began to bury the remains of the society they’d stumbled into.

“Of what happened here?” The Doctor provided. “Indeed, impossible to say, but I can’t imagine that their list of concerns is likely to have been much different from ours: disease, changing climate, collapse of a fragile society, asteroids, volcanoes, gamma ray bursts. Could have been any of it, or maybe a combination of several. Given what we’ve seen, maybe we can eliminate nuclear war or misaligned AI from the list, but then again we’ve been on the ground here for just a couple days, and clearly our studies from the Fortune were of limited efficacy. We’ve already found much more than we bargained for, who knows what else lies around the corner?”

“Well that’s a comforting thought.” Whispered Kiana, thinking of Winnie Yu fighting for his life down below.

“We came seeking adventure Kiana, and sure enough we’ve found it. Up to a couple hours ago I thought it was going to claim my life, now that you’ve found your way to us though, I’m feeling like there’s much more discovery in store for us.” His smile could have almost made Kiana believe such a thing was possible. “I’m going to head below to keep Mr. Yu company through the night, you should take some rest for yourself. Tomorrow’s a new day.”

“Indeed Doctor, good night.”

He padded softly back into the structure, leaving Kiana alone with her thoughts and the swirling stars. Before too long, despite all her naked fear that the creatures might return, exhaustion took its toll and she slept beneath the open sky, skin warmed by the alien air that felt so much like home. As she slipped off to sleep she could just imagine she was back in Hilo on her grandmother’s lanai listening to the trade winds and the night sounds of the jungle.

Dawn crept in slow and soft; Kiana stirred as the morning sky dipped from lilac to pale aqua. No creatures returned, and the absence of news on Mr. Yu indicated that he had survived the night. She sat as the sky lightened and the last of the little moons blinked out for the day. A good and restful night, one sorely needed at that, but a new day had come and it was filled with challenges. Kiana thought for a long while about their best plan, nothing was a sure or even a particularly good bet, but then nothing in a survival situation ever was. All she could do was deal with one thing and then the next and the next and the next until they were safe or out of luck. First order of business, she thought, make sure Winnie Yu doesn’t get any worse.

Heading below, the pair was stirring in the dim light.

“How are you feeling today Mr. Yu?” Kiana asked mildly.

“Like a million goddamned dollars,” he croaked miserably, “how do you think I’m doing?”

“Well you’re alive, so that’s a plus.”

“Speak for yourself.” He rolled over to reveal his tattered chest, bandages soaked through with blood in the night.

“I’m afraid we have very little left to help him with Kiana.” Dr. Rey added gravely. “All our antiseptic is used up, and we’re down to just a couple rolls of gauze.”

She instinctively reached up to the wrap on her head and gently pulled it free; it was soaked as well, but the bleeding was done and all she had was a very large sore spot on the back of her head. Time for some field medicine then.

“Dr. Rey, if you’d be so kind as to get some water boiling on the cookstove, I need to step out and collect some supplies.” She kindly asked.

“Supplies?” Yu groaned, alarmed, “What kind of supplies could you expect to find out there?”

“The kind to save your miserable ass.” She quipped back. Rey helped her lever out the entry cover and she slipped back out onto the overgrown street.

She followed the way out to the confluence of the two rivers, in the absence of rain the waters had continued to subside and they flowed placidly into one another, glowing pale turquoise. It was a relief to be in such a situation and at least only be dealing with such sparkling clean water. All the same, Winnie Yu wouldn’t be going anywhere without a more suitable covering for his wounds. Kiana wandered upstream until she was once again enveloped in the forest. Banana leaves would really do the trick, she thought idly as she weaved between the overhanging plants, leaves of a thousand different shapes reached out helpfully. This one too small, this one just a frond of a million little hairs, this one too spiky, this one...oh that one just seems poisonous to look at. Aha. The shrub reached up with large round leaves glinting dark green in the morning light. On one leaf a family of colorful little worms rolled lazily around munching on the soft foliage. Well if it’s good enough for you guys, I guess I’ll just have to hope it’s good enough for Winnie. It was far from an even reasonably safe chance to take. Kiana thought she’d sampled a bush that looked like this on the first evening, but couldn’t be sure. What she was sure about though, was that if Winnie Yu couldn’t keep his wounds covered enough to move he was as good as dead. She grabbed a dozen large leaves and carried on.

Maskless once more, Kiana was entranced by the beauty of the alien forest as she stepped lightly in the springy soil. There was more small animal life here, smaller cousins of the pink flighted creatures they’d seen several times. Hexapodal body architecture did seem to be the default design on this world, although even in just this little patch of forest Kiana could see dozens of unique implementations. Skittering up and down the trunks of the tall trees were a bevy of little gliders in a whole rainbow of colors. Webbed skin arched between their limbs and little plumes of soft feathers trailed behind them as they gracefully glided tree to tree, chittering and looking at her with dark eyes, curious about this alien who came walking through their forest.

She came across another small tree with the oblong fruits and scared off a small terrestrial creature that darted off on all six legs, slipping beneath the foliage and barely making a rustle in its escape. The fruits on this tree seemed more ripe than any she’d seen so far, fading from dark red on the tip to a soft sorbet orange near the stem. If it was the same fruit, it had already tested quite benignly, and she hadn’t reacted negatively when she’d sampled it on her skin. Oh you little temptresses, she thought. The sight of them set her stomach to rumbling, but she could deal with hunger for days more if needed. It was Winnie Yu she was thinking about. With so much blood loss he wouldn’t be going anywhere far under his own power, and even staying alive was going to require as much fuel as they could give him. It was a colossal risk, but even if these fruits had just a few digestible sugars it could be the difference between life and death. Don’t say I never did anything for you Winnie. Kiana cut off a small piece and chewed it slowly. The fruit was cool and crisp, pleasantly juicy, and the flavor. Well, the flavor was like nothing she’d ever tasted before, a whole new constellation of sensory experience had just been opened up. Now, days without a proper meal it was the most delicious thing she’d ever tasted. Juice running down under her tongue, it was all she could do to spit out the sampled bit and not swallow it all in one go. Better to be as safe as possible though.

Minutes passed as Kiana waited anxiously for any negative effects. But the morning simply carried on as it had been in its pleasant way. The jungle buzzed, the river ran, and minute by minute her anxiety faded away. She trimmed off several dozen of the fruits and carried everything back to her companions using her shirt as a makeshift basket.

Winnie Yu sucked in sharp breaths between his teeth as she climbed back into their refuge, Dr. Rey was dabbing away at his wounds with bits of boiled cloth.

“Did you find what you were looking for?” he asked.

“That and then some.” She knelt and spilled her bounty out on the smooth stone.
“And what exactly do you think all of that is for?” Yu asked testily.

“For patching you up, keeping you on your feet, and getting us out of here.”

“Oh, you have got to be kidding me.” He sighed. “That’s just what I need right now, to be poisoned by some alien plants as I slowly bleed out in this fucking cave.”

Dr. Rey continued dabbing mildly despite his patient’s miserable demeanor. “Mr. Yu, I think you need to remember there is a reason why Kiana was hand picked for this excursion. There are two million souls aboard the Fortune and none have the survival experience in jungle environments that Miss Hano possesses.”

It was a vote of confidence a mile beyond anything Kiana felt about herself, but if it meant Yu would let her help him she’d take it.

“Well, I was thinking banana leaves would be the ideal thing,” she explained “but obviously we’re just looking for close enough here. I’d sampled leaves like this when we first landed and they didn’t show any problematic compounds, plus they're nice and large so we can get those wounds covered up and not go through all our gauze in one dressing.”

“Jesus christ.” Yu swore softly under his breath. “And then what are those? Little fruits of some sort? I know you imagine yourself to be some child of the forest out there, but this planet wants us dead, and we don’t need you helping it.”

“I’d sampled these as well,” she quipped back. “Benign as well. But I didn’t trust the sampler so I’ve now sampled it on myself first on skin, and just now with a chew and spit. Nothing harmful here that I can see.”
“You’re out of your fucking mind. You think we’re just going to walk out of here happy as clams eating alien fruits and singing kumbaya?”

“No, in fact Winnie, I don’t think we’re walking anywhere. And I know with the amount of blood you’ve lost we have three goals, keep your wounds clean, cover them, and give you nutrients to help and rebuild the blood you’ve lost. Now Dr. Rey has been so kind as to tend to the first goal. If you’d stop fussing we’ll get your wounds dressed with these leaves so you can at least be somewhat mobile. And yes I acknowledge foraged foods are a big risk, but given the fact that you’re normally simply unpleasant and not the actively repellant asshole you’re being right now I’m assuming you have blood loss anemia. Without some sort of digestible sugars in your system you’ll only grow weaker until we have no way of moving you over the terrain we need to cross.’

“Like it or not Mr. Yu, this planet is your option, you can trust it and try to survive, or we might as well leave you here.” She let the reality of the situation hang heavily before continuing.  “And because I stand by what I say, I’ll dress your wounds myself, and I’ll eat the fruits with you. I wouldn’t recommend these steps if I thought there was a better way, but this is as minimized as I can make your risk. In the end though, you’ll simply have to take the leap. So what’s it going to be?”

He sighed a long, frustrated breath. “Give me the goddamned leaves.”

--

The raft was only a few logs lashed together with paracord, but it was by far the best part of their current arrangement.

Dressing Winnie Yu’s wounds had been difficult, but getting him to climb aboard made it seem like a walk in the park. Kiana could hardly blame him for hesitancy though, the craft hardly inspired confidence in her skills as a bushwoman. Even calling it a raft was a bit of a stretch, more like a float. But they needed to move, and they needed to keep Yu out of the water. And it filled both of those purposes well enough, all things considered. Now they drifted along in the vibrant water under the light of the late morning. The Doctor and the Voice of the People, rode sitting atop the lashed logs as Kiana trailed behind doing what she could to keep them in the deepest channels of the river.

Her stomach turned over on itself as she kicked along, questioning how much sense she had left. Certainly Yu was direly in need of digestible sugars to help replace some of the blood lost so for him to eat the fruits made some sort of survival sense. Kiana joining him was uncut lunacy, just a half baked ploy to help a dying man who wouldn’t help himself. He wouldn’t have gone for it if I hadn’t backed it up, she told herself. And it was the truth. But it was also the truth that Kiana wanted to eat the little fruits as well. She was hungry. But more than hungry she was curious. 

Curious how this new world would hit her final sense. Much like everything else she’d seen, heard, felt and smelt, the firm flesh of the fruits opened up new doors in her perception of the universe she hadn’t known existed. It was cool and crisp and clean and tart and sweet-oh-so-sweet. The chances that they actually contained readily digestible compounds was low, but the chances of the planet they now explored were unfathomably low and here they were. The sweetness worked its way down her tongue and up into her mind, her body yearning for the molecules the taste indicated. She’d devoured four of the little fruits before her sense finally caught up with her. That was utter stupidity. Now, an hour and change later, her stomach protested her transgression. Her mind may have craved the sweet alien taste, but the microbes in her gut were looking for more familiar fare. I guess they’ll adapt or they won’t, she resigned. She wasn’t optimistic about any of their survival if they had to get out with no food, so either they could live on what the jungle gave them or they were done either way.

Despite her stomach’s protests she hadn’t thrown up, and Winnie Yu bore any discomfort he felt in reserved silence. An upset stomach was the least of his concerns right now. As the morning wore on and she drifted slowly along behind the raft, her stomach eventually settled and it seemed the fruits did have something to offer them as she gradually felt more and more vital. Her mood rose along with her blood sugar, and before she knew it, in spite of everything, Kiana fell in love with her new world once more.

Below the confluence, the water cleared considerably. In deep pockets it was still a vivid aquamarine, but for the most part they could look straight down to the gray pebbles that made up the river bed. Basking in the lazy morning sun, Kiana reached a comfortable equilibrium between the warm light and cool water; if she let her attention slip she could almost imagine she was flying along the canyon floor.

The jungle was as awake and alive as they’d ever seen. The pink flying creatures swooped through the air in groups of half a dozen or so, snatching little insects out of the air. They were hexapods as well, middle limbs reached out in a web of skin to create a wide wing that allowed them to glide gracefully as they swooped and soared. In the river below, six-limbed bodies were also on display. Strange amphibious creatures of a score of different colors darted through the crystal water, rows of fins lining their torsos, perfectly navigating the river’s twisting braids.

“Incredible.” Dr. Rey muttered, as he took in the new beings. “Somewhere along the line this place must have favored hexapodal body architecture, and here we are to see it brought to full fruition. I’ve known more than a few biologists who would’ve contended that four-limbed was the only viable layout for linearly symmetrical beings.”

What a silly notion, Kiana mused, to think that you could know the nature of an alien being before visiting its home. Here she was neck deep in their lands and waters and if anything the mysteries only seemed to deepen.

As they floated on the walls of the canyon gradually began to recede and the turns of the river started to meander more than braid. Along the banks tall grasses grew up out of the water in the deeper eddy pockets; as the walls spread further back the grasses had more room to grow as they reached up covering floodplains in fields of pale green. At the edge of one of the larger plains Kiana thought she saw more of the same mounding structures they’d seen at the quarry, but they slipped around the bend before she could see too much.

The day passed in a dreamy stillness. The river wound through the little plains that occupied the lower flanks of the valley. The creatures they saw passed them by with no mind. Dr. Rey muttered softly to himself, still clearly delighted with each new discovery. Winnie Yu rode in silence, eyes fixed downstream. As the sun began to lower in the sky the walls tightened once more. Kiana kicked them to shore on a high bank looking over a wide, grass-filled eddy on the far bank. As secure of a camp as they could hope to find. After their success with the fruits, they all nibbled on the supply they had left, fully entrusting themselves to luck and the good graces of the planet.

Evening settled in and Dr. Rey wandered around their camp, seeking samples he could stuff into the containers that had stuck in his pockets through their ordeal. Kiana sat next to Yu quietly looking over the drifting waters. Without a sound or movement Kiana felt Yu’s body suddenly stiffen. Following his gaze she could see the cause emerging out of the grasses. A herd of ali’i had come to the evening shore for supper.

Five adults and a romp of younglings waded in the clear water, selecting the tenderest shoots and nibbling them lightly as they trumpeted a gentle song to one another. Several of the adults pulled down taller stalks so that the little ones could see and learn which stalks were best for picking. Kiana sat, enraptured.

“Can they sense us?” Winnie Yu finally whispered nervously.

“Maybe, but I doubt they’d pay us much mind if they do. It looks like they have everything they need over there to me.” Kiana smiled.

Yu softened almost imperceptibly, “Yes, I suppose you’re right.” They watched the familial scene for some time longer, the Doctor returned to join them, before Yu added. “It seems like that one’s limping.”

He was right, one of the adults moved with an aching slowness. Unable to reach up very high, several of the others helped pull down shoots for it to eat.

“A little society.” Dr. Rey whispered, “The healthy taking care of the injured for its own sake rather than for the good of the herd.”

It was a touching scene to behold, until Kiana caught a hint of movement out of the corner of her eye. Upstream from the ali’i, a koa stalked silently into the grasses. She let out a small gasp, the others looked at her, concerned. She signaled silently for them to retreat to a better hide where they all peeked out in nervous anticipation.

In a moment, the scene of familial bliss turned to visceral chaos. In silent unison three koa sprang from the grasses upon the limping ali’i, two wielded long sticks with cruel, sharpened heads while the third swung a large stone attached to a braided cord. Weapons. The gentle song of the ali’i transformed in an instant into a tumult of trumpeting wails. The little ones vanished almost instantly below the water line and back into the grass, but they were never the target, the koa had scouted a prime target and meant to have it. The koa with the swinging stone lassoed its prey around the neck as it filled the evening air with haunting howls. The other ali’i trumpeted as well, but seemed too afraid to intervene.

Even injured, size kept the captured ali’i alive for some time. The beast reared back onto its hind legs trying to pull the koa off the ground. This wasn’t the koa’s first kill though. It simply spooled out more cord when it needed, then yanked mercilessly back down when opportunity arose. All the while the other two lashed out with their spears, tearing great rents into the flesh of their victim, and sending torrents of purple blood swirling into the waters. Kiana could barely stand to watch, her heart breaking again with every lash of the spear and pull of the lasso.

And then it was over. The ali’i collapsed in exhaustion into the shallow water, and the koa wasted no time in delivering the final strike to their prey in silent efficiency. Kill made, they hauled their prize upstream into the grasses to enjoy the spoils of a successful hunt.

“Ah,” Dr. Rey finally broke the petrified silence, “I was afraid that might be the case.”

Every piece of new information Kiana encountered in this place seemed to turn her conception of it upside down. But to see this, so visceral, so close at hand, so practiced, so efficient...it defied her attempts to integrate the new information.

“Indeed.” Yu agreed, “It seems Miss Hano’s ali’i may not be the chiefs around here after all.”

She could only shake her head in shocked silence, before getting up to try and fashion them a suitable hide for the night now knowing what stalked the woods. Kiana took the first shift that night, eyes wide, ears straining into the purr of the jungle night. Eventually Dr. Rey took her position.

Morning found her stiff, cold, and more ready than anything to get the hell out of the forest. In the night a low fog had rolled in off the sea,  shrouding the trees in swirling mist. All three ate what was left of their little fruits, knowing they’d need every spare calorie they could find to safely navigate another day on the river. In the silent morning, they slipped out from the banks and into the swirling mists of the river.

The waters ran in a hushed murmur of gray. For most of the morning the banks remained low, covered with reeds where they could see them through the blanket of fog. To their wary eyes each bend held sinister forms emerging out of the shifting vapors, holding spears, holding cudgels, poised to hunt. Kiana floated behind and constantly steered them into the middle of the stream, silently praying that deep water would be enough to keep them safe. Her passengers brokered no argument and let the miles slip by without a word.

The mists rose as the hours passed but so did the walls of the valley, tightening once again into a winding canyon. Kiana could feel as they all tensed when the water began to quicken its pace once more; now it was easily navigable, but at each bend they craned their necks around, certain they’d see another series of white caps waiting to upturn their flimsy little raft and swallow them whole.

By midafternoon the mists had risen to form a sky of steel. Once more the walls of the canyon reached up into the alien sky like jagged green teeth. Still the trio floated in unspoken unease, only the periodic puffs from their inhalers broke the imposing calm. The cool day seemed to suppress the very jungle itself. No hum enveloped them today, no pulse of life all around them, only the coursing waters and leaves shifting in the breeze. Just when all seemed unbreakably calm an echoing howl would bounce down the canyon sending them into adrenaline-soaked alert. Whether it was a herd of ali’i trumpeting happily, or a pack of koa signaling the attack Kiana couldn’t tell.

Late in the day they floated past another confluence and found another quarry. Clearly whatever development they had stumbled upon wasn’t a unique occasion. She’d been tracing the high ridge idly wondering if she could get a view out to the ocean if she climbed it, when it suddenly began to drop and as they came around its final shoulder great carved tiers revealed themselves. Between the bottom of the tiers and the river banks, just as upstream, was a little village of overgrown humps. Yu looked down concerned, these formations meant koa, at least in their limited experience. Kiana was already kicking them towards the far bank, hoping they’d slip past unnoticed by any beings on shore.

They continued their drifting float through the winding canyon walls as the light began to fade and the sky grew heavy with waiting rain, when suddenly they rounded a bend and saw something unique in the world of all-encompassing green, a thin column of oily smoke rising from the shore. On a shelf up above the bank of a deep bend a yawning mouth of a cave opened up in the towering wall of flora. Shelter. In front of it was a little campfire with wan, yellow flames barely staying alive, spitting up a column of uneasy smoke, and a dark figure, now waving to them eagerly. Dr. Mawa. They beached their little float and scrambled up to the shelf to find Dr. Mawa exhausted but in good health outside the cave. 

Inside they found Lieutenant Morgan Sterns on the edge of death.

---

Where Yu’s chest had been scraped, Stern’s was torn.

Kiana’s breath caught in her throat as she stepped into the cave and saw the poor lieutenant, struggling with every breath. Cuts like this wouldn’t be made by branches or rocks, to cut this deep would take claws, or blades. Long, jagged seams had been ripped down from collarbone to navel. Mawa had tried to patch her up as best she could with the scant first aid kit they’d managed to hold onto this far downriver but she clearly was no field medic. Now the gauze and bandages were soaked through and days overdue for changing. Sterns, miraculously, was alive though. She turned her head towards them as they entered.

“You’re a bit early for the funeral.” she croaked dryly through parched lips.

“Oh my dear, lieutenant,” Dr. Rey exclaimed, kneeling down and taking her hand. “What happened to you?”

“The creatures...” Dr. Mawa offered unsteadily.

“The koa.” Kiana whispered. Did they have claws sufficient for this, or would it have taken their tools? She wondered, either way based on what she’d seen, they were certainly the prime suspects for an attack of this nature.

“We held onto the raft after the accident, but the water was rushing so fast for miles and miles, and we couldn’t get it upright.” Mawa explained in her quiet, unsure accent. “We passed a confluence with these strange formations, but we saw creatures on the shore. Koa as you called them. So we kept floating on trying to get control of the boat so we could try and work back up river to find you all. But the raft was ripped in the accident, Lt. Sterns had it patched for a while as we floated along but they wouldn’t hold. So when we saw another confluence with the structures but no creatures, that’s when we were finally able to get the boat ashore.”

“That’s when those fuckers got us.” Sterns wheezed.

“Yes,” Mawa continued. “We were patching the raft when suddenly two of the creatures just appeared out of the structures. There was no warning, one second nothing, the next they were just there, standing a few meters away...purring and growling to one another. Talking, I think...”

“I leveled my rifle at them to try and scare them away, but they’d never seen anything like it, didn’t know to be scared.” The injured soldier recounted. “They just kept coming closer, had sharpened rocks in their hands, and vicious claws. I could tell they weren’t there for friendly contact. So I fired a shot over their heads to try and scare them off; I only scared them into attacking.” She coughed raggedly with the effort of speaking. “I’ve never seen something move so fast. Before I could even move one of ‘em had ripped me open from tits to belt. I squeezed the trigger more out of panic than anything else. I hit the thing in the shoulder, didn’t really seem to phase it much but gave us a chance to retreat a bit.” Her coughing worsened suddenly.

Dr. Mawa stepped in, “I grabbed the pack we still had and the lieutenant and pulled us both into the river. The creatures didn’t seem to want to chase us into the deeper water, so we floated downstream for a while until I saw this cave where I hoped we could take shelter.” She looked around the group with dark, exhausted eyes. “That was two days ago. I was beginning to think...well, I was beginning to think the worst. Thank goodness you’re here.”

“Doesn’t look like the lot of you are likely to be very much help though.” Sterns uttered bitterly.

“Oh, don’t you worry lieutenant.” Dr. Rey encouraged gently. “Miss Hano will get you patched up just like she did for Mr. Yu. Isn’t that right Kiana?”

Kiana nodded warily, mind still running horrified circuits around the notion of actually being attacked by the koa.

“What with?” Sterns demanded, unbelieving. “Looks to me like you held on to a pack, same as us. I don’t doubt Miss Hano’s skill, but you can’t fix gouges like this with gauze and antiseptic ointment.”

“Like this.” Winnie Yu spoke up, stepping forward and opening his shirt to reveal the leaves that covered his torso.

Sterns’ eyes glinted in the fading light, taking in what she saw. “Kiana you’ve lost your goddamned mind. You’re supposed to be our bushwoman, keeping these idiots from putting themselves at worse danger. Now you’re wrapping them up with local flora, covered in who knows what.” She snorted in angry disbelief. “Even if that job gets Yu out of here he’s going to have to spend the rest of his life in quarantine, could be infected with god knows what alien parasite thanks to you. What other bright ideas did you come up with, eating the local fruits?”

“Well actually...” Dr. Rey replied sheepishly.

“Oh, now you are actually joking.” Sterns barked. “I can’t believe you guys made it all the way down here. Kiana you must have some luck to not all be dying of acute poisoning out in the forest.”

Sterns, in her morbid desperation, had cast her judgment on Kiana and it was harsh. Kiana knew anything she added would fall on deaf ears so held her tongue. But she also knew this woman was not long for the new world in her current state. She needed her wounds cleaned, she needed fresh and better bandages, she needed food and water to hold onto what little strength she had left. But Kiana could not convince her of these things, not with the tools she had at hand. Someone else would have to speak to her in words she could hear. In the end, of all people, it was Winnie Yu.

“You know perfectly well Lieutenant, that I didn’t come down here for discovery or adventure or to chart new lands or any other foolish notion the rest of you had in your heads.” He started dryly, cutting words forcing their way through Stern’s clouded mind. “I was sent down here by luck of the draw, to see for all the people frozen on the ship what there is to see. I know most of you think it isn’t fair that it’s me, but I’m who the ship chose, so here I am.”

“And what do you see Mr. Yu?” Sterns compelled.

“Opportunity.” Yu whispered gazing out into the fading light. “I mean an honest-to-god wonder. We all knew it from the moment we set foot out of the lander, even if you’re forgetting it now. I’m old enough to remember when Taiwan still had its forests, those days are long behind us, but it was never like this. Never this wild, never this beautiful. Never this much potential.’

“What Kiana told me is right, on more levels than I think any of us realize. This planet is our hope. We have to trust it, or we may as well set off again now.” He locked eyes with Sterns. “You can lie here and bleed out in an alien cave, or you can let Miss Hano help you and live to make us all a place in this world.”

Sterns let out a groaning sigh. “Fine. But I call bottom bunk in the quarantine quarters.”

Kiana nodded gratefully to Winnie Yu, feeling more respect for the man than she thought possible. With Sterns’ assent the rest of them went into action. The Doctors began boiling water on their stove, Yu took inventory of the supplies they had left, while Kiana slipped out in what little light remained to forage for the supplies that were Sterns’ only shot at living.

Moonrise found Kiana and Dr. Mawa sitting by the spitting, struggling fire, exhausted but unable to sleep just yet. Sterns was patched up as best they could manage, but it was clear the lieutenant wasn’t going anywhere.

Kiana sighed, breaking the silence as the line of pinprick moons climbed over the far wall. “I can’t wrap my head around it Doctor.” She shook her head. “It seems like the more I learn about this place the less I understand it.” Watching the koa hunt had been scarring enough, but cleaning Sterns’ wounds, seeing just how hostile one swipe could be had opened a whole new plane of horrors. “When I first saw the ali’i I thought, how could anything more imposing live in this place? But it seems I had everything upside down from the start.”

“I understand the feeling.” The dark zoologist replied, eyes filled with empathy. “I know from years of training and a lifetime of studies that I shouldn’t let a few pieces of interesting data skew my perception. But it’s the human way, we assign patterns that seem to fit, even if none truly exist. All the same it’s hard not to draw parallels here, given how familiar everything seems at first look.”

“The first time I saw a koa,” Kiana recalled, voice shaking. “My mind immediately jumped to what it saw, a predator, like a jungle cat.”

Mawa nodded, “And it was right to do so, given what we know of them now. That first instinct probably helped keep you from giving yourself away in surprise. But it’s also the human way to look beyond what our instincts say, to try and look one layer deeper into the world. That’s what I’m trying to do here, hopefully it will help us survive our next encounter with these creatures. There’s no doubt about their predatory nature, but a comparison to a big cat is wrong on a couple levels, not least of which is that nothing here could ever have been said to be a cat.”

Kiana chuckled, “I guess the six legs probably should’ve given it away.”

“Well there’s that.” Mawa agreed, laughing lightly. “But I think we should be more interested in their tools. You said earlier that you saw them with some sort of lasso and spears?”

“Yeah, they used them to take down an ali’i in the river.”

“That shows a level of planning and forethought absent from what we know of big cats. Or honestly any other predators we know of.” Her face glistened in the yellow fire light. “We have only limited evidence at this point Miss Hano, but it seems one way or another we’ve found intelligent life.”

“Somehow I don’t feel like we’ve won the lottery, even if all things considered we probably should,” she rued. “I mean actual, living, breathing, intelligent aliens. I thought I might see a lot of things when I signed up to get on the Fortune, but this just seemed a stretch too far to really believe.”
“Indeed.” Mawa nodded solemnly. “Part of my mind is running wild, this is the discovery of a thousand lifetimes.”

“But part of you realizes it only counts if we make it out of here alive.”
“Precisely.”

They sat in quiet contemplation for a while, idly stirring the spitting fire, minds running through the million ways they might perish in the jungle and forever be etched in history books as a note with too little information to be of much interest.

“Doctor,” Kiana broke in after a while. “I know you’ll say we don’t have enough evidence yet, but what do you think is the relationship between the two species? Clearly the koa are a predator here, but the two just seem so alike in so many different ways, it’s hard to not draw comparisons. I’ve seen way more differences among dog breeds than I see between the two. Is it really members of the same species hunting each other out there?”

Mawa chuckled softly again. “Now you’re cutting right to the heart of my field, Miss Hano. And you’re right we don’t have enough information. But in the end, even a full genomic sequence–if such a thing is even possible on these creatures–won’t give us the answers because nature doesn’t care about our categories.”

“How do you mean?”
“Well the idea of a species is a rather fuzzy concept when you start really drilling down into it. It’s tricky to draw a meaningful line and say here is where a new species starts. On a new planet with wholly new biology, well it’ll take years to come to a consensus and even then I’d probably understand researchers who disagreed. On the deepest level you could say an entire planet’s worth of species is all one in the same, there is no human and cat and bacteria, only earthlife. No ali’i and koa, only this planet’s life.”

“So it really could be the same species eating itself?” Disgust audible in Kiana’s voice.

“It certainly could be.” Mawa continued in her gentle, foreign voice that betrayed no judgment. “But would it really make you feel better if they were from different species? They’re clearly closely related no matter where we land on taxonomy. I’d guess certainly within the same family–if we apply the same categorical structure here–probably within the same genus.”

“I guess not...”
“We don’t have any evidence of actual hunting of other humans for sustenance, but we homo sapiens have done something very similar in our past. Honestly, probably worse.” She sighed. “We had plenty of human cousins when we started out, now we’re all that’s left. In a different world we could be out here joined by our neanderthal and denisovan cousins, but instead we’re here all alone. Maybe that’s what we’re witnessing here, the slow erasure of the ali’i, or maybe the two species live in some kind of equilibrium.”

“Well that’s the other feeling I can’t shake.” Kiana cut in. “The quarries, the structures, all buried back under the jungle. I can’t help but feel we’re seeing a system out of balance.”
“Or maybe it’s a system coming back into balance.” Mawa offered. “Given what I’ve seen and Dr. Rey described I am inclined to think that the koa are probably responsible for the buildings. They make the most sense as shelters for their size, plus they have the intelligence and the materials handy to build like that.”

“So what, maybe the koa and the ali’i are related species, but the koa developed a bit more tool-using intelligence, began to hunt the ali’i more effectively, maybe even like I don’t know, domesticated them or something, began to build the first parts of society, but then out of nowhere it just collapses.” Kiana conjectured.

Dr. Mawa laughed, “That’s certainly one possibility, Miss Hano. Although again, I urge us both to not see patterns where our mind merely puts them. We should continue to observe without judgment or preconceived notions to see what this new planet shows us. All we really know for certain is this is the first time earthlife has encountered this new life, and because of that we know we’re in wholly uncharted territory.”

“Unless some ancient aliens came and sprinkled starter life on Earth and here, so really we’re just seeing our long lost cousins.” Kiana needled with an impish smile.

“Oh don’t get me started on that!” Mawa laughed heartily.

“I suppose we’ll just keep our eyes open, plenty more to be seen tomorrow.”

“That we will.” Mawa agreed, before heading into their shelter for some much needed rest.

Morning rays poured past Kiana as she looked over the wounds of Lieutenant Sterns, a notable improvement from when they’d found her, but not nearly in good enough shape to travel.

“What do you reckon, Kiana?” Dr. Rey asked in his gentle Southland tones.

“I think that we can’t stay and she can’t go. Simple as that.” She replied matter-of-factly. “I’ll change these bandages, and she’ll survive a while longer out here, but it’s not good for much if we can’t get a signal out to the ship for extraction.”

“So leave me.” Sterns gruffed, bluster as always. “We’re all dead either way. But you might as well give it a go, maybe if one of you gets lucky you can warn everyone on the ship that the planet’s no good.”

Looking at her wounds Kiana found it hard to blame Sterns for her pessimism, but couldn’t agree with her assessment. They’d stumbled blind, caution into the wind, into a dangerous situation. Really, what did we think was going to happen? She wondered. Had they really imagined they’d cruise for a week through an alien jungle with no issues?

“We can’t just leave you Lieutenant.” Rey implored.

“Of course you can.” Sterns barked. “And the longer you stay here debating it, the lower your chances of making it out of here.”

The pair argued back and forth, as Kiana changed Sterns’ wound dressing. Until Winnie Yu cut in.

“I’ll stay with her.” He offered flatly. “You’ll be faster without me anyways.”

“Oh Mr. Yu, no...” Rey protested weakly.

“Save it Doctor. It’s really no question at all. I’m only in marginally better shape than the Lieutenant, and who knows how far it is to the coast.” Yu’s tone allowed no argument. “Leave us a pack and the rifle, and go while you can. Another storm could raise the water and trap us here.”

Kiana nodded solemnly, acknowledging the wisdom of Yu’s decision and respecting the risk he was taking. The thought of waiting in the cramped cave hoping for rescue brought a cold sweat to Kiana’s face.

“I don’t know how much the water level will matter.” Dr. Mawa interjected, she’d just slipped in from outside. “I’ve scouted down river as far as I safely could, and I don’t know if traveling the river will be an option for us. The canyon only tightens from here, and while the water here is calm I could hear rapids further down...I know our surveyors didn’t expect too much difficulty with elevation change but...”

“I’m not inclined to put too much trust in them either.” Kiana finished. “You’re right Doctor, with no boat and an unpredictable river I don’t think floating is in the cards for us.”

“But if we don’t float we don’t have much of an option for following the water, how will we travel?” Dr. Rey wondered.

“The ridges.” Kiana declared firmly. “I went up on one after the accident, it’s an effort to get up there but once we’re there the going is pretty easy and the ridgelines more or less follow the path of the river.”

“Plus, less chance up there of anything sneaking up on you.” Sterns croaked. “Now enough faffing about, get to it.” Even lying an inch from death the grizzled soldier knew how to motivate a troop.

The climb up to the ridge had proven even more challenging than Kiana anticipated. On the inside of a river bend like they were, the wall climbed almost vertically above the cave in a riotous drape of lush greenery. Every other handhold seemed to rip free of the fragile, gray soil with a chunk of plant and disappear behind them in the precipitous green behind them. Kiana led them step-by-step, wincing with each reach taken believing it would be her last. Fortunately the Doctors were no novices to precarious jungle travel. They trusted their guide and followed her like shadows.

By noon, they had made the ridge and were working their way along its knife edge toward the sea and hopefully, salvation. Once more the jungle came alive in the heat of the day as the sun beat down. Kiana poured sweat, every facet of her body ached and yearned for nothing more than to lie down in the dirt and be done; the song of the jungle turned hostile, an incessant clamor clouding her mind and hiding the sounds of any approaching koa; her eyes strained to absolute exhaustion looking for any sign of the predators. Beneath them, the ridge wound back and forth constantly sending off little descending spines in a zig-zagging maze. Again and again Kiana was forced to double them back after she realized she’d mistakenly led them down the wrong path. While the canyon was clear as daylight to follow, up here it would be all too easy to get lost when the jungle rose up above them and blocked all hope of orienteering.

They bore it all in stoic silence. Only the occasional hit of an inhaler bringing a human sound into the alien symphony. What more was there to say? They all felt the same, all exhausted, all at the end of their wits, all merely hoping against hope for survival. The day wore on and the sun dipped towards the far horizon.

Then all at once it was before them. Early evening rays shone through the branches as they fought their way along, until suddenly they were clear. The ridge fell away before them in a sheer cliff and they could see all the way out to the ocean. To one side a higher ridge arced around the open valley below all the way out to the sea. To another the river spat itself out of the canyon and over a line of rapids before taking its final few winds into the sea. But none of that caught their attention.

They were too busy looking at the city that lay before them.

--

“What was that about not finding Rome Miss Hano?” Dr. Rey asked impishly.

City. There was nothing else to call it really. Decayed and decrepit, yes. Covered every inch in a thick mat of jungle, absolutely. But it was only all the more impressive for how it withstood the rigors of time and disrepair. It was a fallen city now, but from high on the ridge each of them could imagine how it must have looked at its height, a proud metropolis, shining by the sea, hope to thousands of sapient beings.

“How could they have missed this from the Fortune?” Kiana wondered aloud.

From their vantage on the ridge it was all too clear. Sure, the structures were little more than green mounds now, but their organization was all too recognizable. Radial streets carved trenches through the miles of structures up to the flanking valley walls. Smaller alleys ran between in a tumult of haphazard complexity. The smallest paths ducked and dove between the hulking structures, turning the vista into a chaotic mass of disorder. But still, this should have been clear as day from above.

“Maybe we’re primed to see it because of the earlier settlements.” Rey offered. “In early days here we certainly discussed the possibility of intelligent life on the planet, but the absence of any electronic or communication technology made us think not.”

“Clearly foolish.” Mawa condemned.

“Clearly.” Rey agreed.

As they looked closer Rey’s comparison to a fallen Rome only became clearer. The structures here were orders of magnitude larger than those they’d found in the settlements. Not meant to house a few koa, but dozens. Their base walls stretched nearly a hundred meters a side and their tapered peaks reached up almost half as high. Off in the far distance they could see even more complex structures jutting up, a large circular complex like a plaza, a series of towers now half collapsed clawing forth from the carpeting green like gray bones reaching for the heavens. Kiana pulled the binoculars they took from Sterns out of her pack and glanced around. The nest of structures sucked her in, in its infinite complexity. Along one street the structures overhung with large shady eaves. On another water ran down the center in a neat channel.

“I guess we have our answer about what those other settlements were for.” Kiana concluded, eyes still drinking in the sight before her.

“Indeed.” Rey nodded. “If they didn’t know how to make cement themselves, they would have needed every bit of some seriously large natural lime deposits to build this place.”

“Look over there.” Kiana offered the binoculars to Rey.

He immediately gasped, “Oh my.”

Where the river escaped the canyon the rapids proved to be manufactured. The water backed up above them and flowed out into a series of elevated canals. Aqueducts. Bringing the clean water to the far reaches of the city. Through the riotous architecture Kiana hadn’t a hope of following the canals along their path, but now that her eyes were primed to look for it she could see the telltale shimmer of moving water peeking out across the city. Mawa looked before handing the binoculars back.

Kiana began looking around for a path through this jungle-laden maze. The larger avenues were a natural place to start. She glassed up and down a couple before they got lost in tangles of larger structures. On the third, her blood ran cold. Koa. A lot of them.

They walked down one of the avenues with a shining canal in the middle, at least a dozen of them. Several adults, juveniles of various sizes all traveling together. She looked down their path and in the far distance could just make out some faint movement that could only be more of the creatures. And they led ali’i. Led them like pack animals on ropes. Despite the ali’i’s tremendous size the koa seemed to keep them docile, docile and alive for a purpose Kiana didn’t care to imagine.

“What do you make of this Doctor?” She asked, handing the binoculars back to Mawa.

“Fascinating...” The doctor whispered, awestruck, after several minutes of following the creatures. “To my eyes I’d almost say they were in the process of domesticating those larger beasts.”

“Or redomesticating.” Rey offered, squinting into the distance, barely able to make out the moving forms.

“Indeed.” Mawa agreed, “Given the scale of this settlement I think domesticated agriculture is quite likely.”

“So what, are they like the last survivors after the collapse of the city?” Kiana puzzled.

“Given what we’ve seen so far, I’d bet they’re the first to return.” Mawa conjectured, not taking her eyes off the pack. “Clearly these creatures are abundantly comfortable and capable in the jungle. It would only make sense for a larger pack like this to all work together on something like domestic agriculture. And it seems to me that’s what this city was built for.”

“How do you mean Doctor?” Rey asked. “Do you think they raised the ali’i for food?”

“Ate them. Milked them in some fashion. Forced them to cultivate edible flora. Maybe all of the above.” Mawa’s gentle, foreign accent softened the words that still sent chills down Kiana’s spine. “Either way a great deal of these structures are much bigger than those we saw in the other settlements. My guess is cement came downriver, and food went back up. But this is where they were able to raise enough food to establish themselves.” She gasped. “Ah look, yes that makes sense.”

Kiana looked back through the glass. The pack had stopped and were cajoling the ali’i into the entrance of one of the larger, mounding structures. She felt sick. The two species were so alike. To her eyes it was humans farming gorillas. One species benefited from a mild increase in planning, coordination, and intelligence, enough to keep their cousins docile enough to use for food. The ali’i may be the chiefs out in the forest on their own, but they were not built for a place like this. Too graceful, too gentle, too much of the jungle to fend for their own interests once they were shackled and shuffled into holding pens. Kiana fought the tears in her eyes but they rolled down all the same, stinging with the impurities of alien air.

“How could they do that?” She sniffed quietly. “To their own cousins?”

“Humans have done the same and some worse unfortunately Miss Hano.” Mawa’s comforting tone unfit for her discomforting words. “Nature is full of inter-genus and interspecific predation, we just may have stumbled upon a society built upon it.”

Kiana steeled herself, “We need to get off this ridge before we lose the light.” she declared flatly. She’d have plenty of time to reconcile herself to the realities of what she saw later, for now she needed to focus on the job at hand.

Night caught them on the edge of the city. Too wary of what lurked within to venture the twisting streets, too hemmed in by the sheer walls that surrounded to go anywhere else. Kiana led their exhausted troop around the outermost structures where she could, and silently through the crooked streets where she couldn’t find a path around. The wan light of the moons climbing into the sky provided just enough light to turn the flank of every building into a shifting nightmare reaching out to snag them. They crept through the ruined streets with soundless steps. Kiana was sure it wouldn’t be enough. The koa were predators who built these twisting alleys for themselves. Every hit of an inhaler was a gunshot, announcing their progress to creatures miles away. Every rustle of overhanging foliage, a dinner bell. Above them the structures reached up into the dim moonlight like blunt teeth. Their sloping walls cut into the cold stars above. The jungle was silent here, no thrum of life, no song to sing to Kiana’s heart.

As the moons marched across the sky they made their slow progress through the city out towards the sea until they met an impenetrable wall of structure, at least twenty meters high spanning from the mountain flank they had no hope of climbing on one side out into the heart of the city as far as they could see on the other. Before them an arch of pure black provided the only path forward they could see. Every cell of her body rejected the imperative to step into the strange darkness. But her mind knew there was no choice, unscalable mountains surrounded behind, koa stalked the city that lay to the left. They needed to find their way through the outskirts and to the sea.

“No sense in delaying it Kiana.” Rey was resolute, mouth set firm, eyes twinkling in the moonlight as he scanned around for movement.

Kiana wrapped the lantern in as much cloth as she could pull out of her pack leaving only a peephole visible. If she had to risk giving them away with the light she was determined to do whatever she could to minimize it. With a deep breath she plunged into the black depths of the structure with the brave doctors silently on her heels.

Stepping inside the massive structure was to walk the paths of an alien mind. The little pinprick of lantern light meagerly illuminated cavernous, tiered chambers divided into sections with high walkways. All of it rendered exactingly out of the same smooth gray concrete. In the first several rooms shade-tolerant plants grew in tangles, but soon they passed out of the reach of any daylight and they were left in a world of stone and water. The path led down and down, the tiers that stepped down from the walkway plunged into black water that glimmered back in the lantern light. All was still, except for the drips of water that would in time haul even this hulking behemoth back into the sea. On the far walls other pathways twisted higher and higher accessing a hive of little alcoves. Apartments.

“I’ll bet those recesses are about the same size as the room we hid in with Mr. Yu.” Dr. Rey whispered, “It appears that’s a comfortable size for these creatures, although it seems to mean they lived rather communally here in these big central areas.”

Mawa made to respond, before Kiana cut her off with a glare. They were breathing too loudly for her liking, let alone speaking. Rey was right though, even the little they could see by the thin lantern light spoke of a society of incredible depth, cooperation, and sophistication. In several corners they saw rotting wood that certainly had been hewn into some more useful shape in an age now past. In another Fragments of pottery lay in a broken heap.

Mawa gasped. “Is that?!”

Kiana stopped her again with a brusque nod. She understood the doctor’s excitement but these discoveries only counted if they made it out.

After wandering the stony halls for an age of darkness, they came upon a little runnel of moving water. It bubbled happily down a carved channel that followed their pathway before plunging down into some deeper, unseen cavern. Plumbing. They turned upstream and followed as the path became a ramp that ascended upwards towards what they could only pray was escape. Half a dozen times as they climbed the channel split off, channeling the fresh water into the far reaches of the edifice. Kiana, unrelenting, followed it only upstream knowing their best shot at a way out was where this water was coming in.

It came on dreamlike in its suddenness. One second they were wandering another dark chamber, the next a wide flat stream was shining in the moonlight out a door to their right. The aqueduct. Without realizing, they’d wandered under the aqueduct they’d seen from the ridge. When she saw it through the binoculars Kiana assumed the structure would be like aqueducts from history books, impressive structures sure, but merely conveyances for water. This was something else, the scale of everything she’d seen from the ridge shifted and a shiver ran through her. How much more of the city lies buried under the ground? She wondered but her mind couldn’t begin to comprehend. If the city looked like it could hold tens of thousands before, now hundreds seemed much more likely. Maybe millions.

They followed the wide, easy path along the top of the aqueduct to where they could see the river in the far distance. There were miles yet to go but Kiana couldn’t help but feel they’d passed the crux. Navigating along the river to the sea couldn’t present the harrowing challenge that wandering through an alien crypt had, even as the roaring of the rapids grew and grew. Then a shadow detached from the wall.

Just steps ahead the prow of the aqueduct jutted out into the river as it escaped the canyon. The ancient dam that held the river and diverted a usable flow into the city was nothing more than an impenetrable hunk that hadn’t yet been washed out to sea. But it still did its job. The river backed up, gaining height until it tumbled over the eroded wall in a rushing torrent.

Behind them, the shadow slid off a wall of the aqueduct and resolved into the lithe form for a stalking koa. The creature, snakelike, slid up onto its back legs until it stood a head higher than any of them. No rocks, no clubs, no spears, no lassos. Still the creature was the most beautifully terrifying being Kiana had ever seen. Limbs rippled in the dim light, four sets of digits flexed and bent at the end of four long arms, relaxed but ready to pounce with no notice. She turned around and ushered the doctors behind her as they all crouched at defensive ready. Time tick tock ticked slower and slower until it crawled by with adrenaline clarity. Every graceful movement of the creature flowed through the moonlight, every heartbeat dragged for a year and a day.

Kiana untied the cloth she’d bound around the lantern, as they backed slowly away from the creature out onto the jagged precipice that diverted water into the aqueduct. The roar of the rapids dwindled away, as did the sting of ammonia in her eyes, until all Kiana could see was the focused set of dark alien eyes that followed her every move. She switched on the lantern and shone it at the creature. A lightning-fast twitch coursed through its supple muscles at the unexpected light, but that was all, it looked on, analyzing what to do next with the strange beings that had come to its world. In the light, eyes gleamed a dark amber red with cavernous pupils drinking in every photon that waved in front of them.

“Doctors, on me.” Kiana hissed.

In one powerful move she hurled the lantern at the creature catching it just below the mouth with a shattering thud. The koa pierced the night with a screaming yowl that bored through each of their minds and lodged its way into their souls. But Kiana didn’t wait to see what happened next. Sprinting, she grabbed the doctors and threw all three of them headlong into the angry white torrent that awaited below.

Kiana was ready this time, she hadn’t come this far for the river to get her now. She hit the water with lungs full of air and a vicious grip on each of her companions’ collars. Through the cascade they tumbled, limbs jolting in every direction, all sense of up or down utterly shattered. Still Kiana held her breath, and held her friends, and when she felt something solid she kicked off it towards what she hoped would be calmer waters.

They surfaced after falling for an eternity through the torrent into the placid waters below the dam. There was no sign of the creature they could see up on the aqueduct. Rey and Mawa were dazed but conscious, and she slipped out of the pack that was now threatening to drag her down into the dark waters. The trio floated downriver in exhausted silence for hours, never daring to take their eyes off the shore for fear that more shadows would detach and hunt them down here where there was no hope of escape.

Just as the sky was beginning to glow with the first traces of light, a new sound reached Kiana’s ears. A sound of home. A sound she’d never been so glad to hear. Crashing waves. The river guttered out in a wide stony delta where it met the sea. They hauled themselves to the far shore where sand reached up into the impenetrable jungle. There, atop a rolling dune, they looked out at salvation. Handsome, long waves broke along the curving coast, peeling into a brilliant white froth. In the distance, out on the sand of the wide beach, patiently waited their lander, their deliverance.

A mayday signal shot out of the lander and up to the worried minds of the Fortune just as predawn light shifted from azure to lilac. Kiana and the two doctors collapsed, spent, into the sand on the far side of the lander looking out at the marching lines of waves. If they dug deep enough the sand was still a little warm even all through the night. The gentle warmth crept into their fingers and toes as they looked out at the lightening sea. Nothing had ever felt so comforting. Kiana burst out in a fit of giddy, exhausted, relieved, overjoyed laughter and soon all three were rolling in the sand, tears streaming down their cheeks. Emotions, fear, relief all spilling over into cleansing catharsis.

After a time Kiana finally regained herself, and looked out at the waves. “It’s so much like home, but it can never be, can it?” she sighed.

Dr. Rey smiled softly, wondering eyes twinkling in the soft glow of dawn. “Oh, I wouldn’t say that Kiana. I think you’ll come to love it just as well in time.”

“Doctor...after all we’ve seen, how can you still believe that?”

“All I’ve seen,” he chuckled, “Is a troop of humans, cocky as always, stumble onto a dangerous new world wildly unprepared. That’s our doing, not the world’s. Looking back on our preparations now it all seems so woefully inadequate, but that’s not us at our best. At our best we can make a home here, and even find a way to live with the koa.”

“We can,” Dr. Mawa agreed. “But should we?”

Kiana was unsure if they truly could given the ordeal she’d just survived, and was less sure that they should.

Mawa went on softly, picking up the warm sand and pouring it into a little hill. “We have clearly arrived at a very interesting time in these species’ histories. Maybe they’re on their way to full collapse and extinction, but given what I’ve seen I’d guess that they’re more on the road to recovery.” Her tongue picked its way carefully around her words, trying to express the fire of ideas that hid behind her focused eyes. “We could easily come and wipe them out, maybe we even would inadvertently, but even if we set up a colony somewhere wholly uninhabited I don’t see a way in which our presence wouldn’t alter the course of these species’ paths.” She sighed, squashing her little castle. “It is their planet after all.”

“Another possibility, Doctor.” Rey drawled with an impish smile. “Perhaps growth and collapse is the normal state of affairs for these creatures. Pretty incredible timing to have caught them at this point, unless it has happened before, wouldn’t you say?” Mawa offered no rebuttal but turned to stirring swirls in front of her crossed legs, so Rey went on. “Clearly these beings are capable of becoming master masons, but their civilization hit some stopping point, just a wild guess but we haven’t seen any use of fire or metallurgy. Maybe that really is a crucial stepping stone for intelligent life. With that limit on technology, they may not ever be able to understand microbiology, with a city full of two closely related species. It could have been a hotbed for novel diseases.”

Mawa nodded solemnly. “In that case we could be their only chance to take the next step. We’d be obliged to stay. There are a lot of ifs though.”

“Indeed,” Rey smiled. “A whole heap to discover.”

Kiana was aghast, “I think you two are skipping the part where they built a society by raising their cousins like cattle.”

“You know jungle cats fairly well don’t you Kiana?” Dr. Mawa asked pointedly. “Would you judge a jaguar for hunting a panther to reduce competition?”

“Well no, but they’re just animals. The koa built fucking Rome, they’re clearly something else.”

“Does the ability to sculpt concrete make them moral actors?” The gentle zoologist prodded. “Are they guilty where jaguars are not?”

“I...I don’t know.” What had seemed quite clear a moment ago was now a muddy mess in her mind.

“Rome was built with plenty of human blood. One thing I’ve learned studying other creatures throughout my life, is to never assume they are any more, or any less, like people than they appear. If human morality is indeed some sort of universal, maybe it is our role to help them find a new way to live. If nothing else, Dr. Rey presents a strong hypothesis that keeping the ali’i like they do may actively be holding them back.”

“The big question I reckon.” Rey grinned with his friendly southland drawl. “Is will we find a way to ask them what they want before it’s too late?”

Kiana pushed her hands deep into the sand letting the warmth crawl up her battered arms, as her mind swirled with exhaustion and life’s deepest questions. Above the crashing sea the sky lightened to a soft pink as the sun crested the peaks of the crater behind them. Out in the heavens three new stars appeared far out to sea. Rescue. More landers, more humans, more ideas, more mouths to feed. Kiana wasn’t sure what to make of the koa, or the ali’i, or any of it. But as she dug her hands into sand, she knew she would spend her life protecting this place just like home.

The universe had answered one of the oldest questions but asked a new one of far more importance. You’re not alone. Now what?

They, The Leukocytes

Author’s note: This story continues, in a way, the anthology I’ve been referring to as The Diaspora for a while now, but it is decidedly something different. While the “We” collection focused on our commonalities, this “They” series will center on that which makes the characters different. If I ever get around to properly condensing and publishing these stories the two collections would likely go into separate volumes, although they do tell stories set in the same cosmos. As always, you need not have read the other stories to enjoy this one. If you give it a read, I’d love to hear what you think!

— Griffin

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---

I awoke in darkness.

For eons I could only sense the lightest prickling against my icy skin, always on my face, telling me that I was in fact moving. Pip. Pip. Pip. Cold against cold, hydrogen brushing by as I hurtled along. That was it for time immeasurable, just the light brush of atoms and all consuming darkness as I came slowly awake. I could feel the long lines of my mind stretching through my body as I slowly spun; racing along the pathways I sought a way forth from the dark. And then all at once, I found an eye and there was light.

Photons from a brilliant star met my eye and electrical impulses chased their way into the many corners of my mind. Eternity passed by in that moment. All other mental processes came to a halt as I was confronted by a universe not empty, but brimming. That star shone right into the bottom of my very soul as I drifted in awe. But it was only a moment. Momentum carried me on as it always had and always will; I continued slowly spinning and my eye was dragged across a great sweeping arc of the cosmos, stars shone into my eye in all of their millions of temperatures. And then there was more, oh so much more.

As I completed my first half turn since the world was blown open, something new came into view. Light beyond light. Beyond my wildest comprehension. Light in a great band across my whole field of vision. Light that would surely blind me if not for the intervening dust. Now I saw that first star for what it was, a grain of sand. A grain compared to this radiant shore that now sat before me. The Milky Way. The thought came unbidden, but it was certainly correct. What else could it be? But what was it, and how did I know its name when I seemed to know so little else?

My rotation carried me on my way and the galactic disc was swept away from my view once more. I’d see it when I came around again, but that was an eternity from now, I needed to see it again this instant. So I chased once more through the long furrows of my mind and found another eye and opened it upon the swirling, milky depths of the galactic core. Again the universe paused around me as all my nodes fired in unison at the beauty I saw before me. But the momentum carried me on, and again I had to duck inside myself to find another eye, and another, and another. Through and in and out and through again, over and over as one by one I opened all the eyes that dotted my frozen skin, until I could see in all directions at once.

I had to laugh at myself, it's good to laugh at oneself when you’ve been so foolish, how long had I been flying blind? Days? Weeks? Millennia? I chuckled, it didn’t matter now, I was awake now and I could see. All around me the great spread of the cosmos danced and twinkled and brightened and faded; all swirling about me as I slowly swam through the interstellar medium. All except one.

Dead ahead one star did not spin. It sat fixed in my field of view and I found the eyes on my face could study it quite well indeed. Why that star? That is our destination. Again another unbidden answer. Again unbidden, again correct. Destination for what? Why am I here? No easy answer this time. That’s probably for the best, some questions you want to find the answers to yourself.

With my eyes opened, I turned to my other senses and bit by bit the universe around me began to make more and more sense. Each sensor opened up a little more of the world, until I could see the electromagnetic spectrum from end to end, and so much more. Gentle gravitational waves rocked me lightly as I swam. A few pulsars chimed their unique tunes, and allowed me to begin to build a map of my surroundings. Memories floated ghostly out of my mind allowing me to place the stars around me just so, to track my path through the cosmos. Behind it all, the gentle hum of cosmic background radiation drifted along my neural pathways like a mother’s nursery song. I awoke in this darkness, and this darkness is my home. 

Joy coursed through my mind for time untold as my perspective of the universe ever so gradually shifted, at the edge of my perception stars shifted in and out of focus, their light nudged this way and that by the gravity that hung between them. All of it felt right, so right, the universe glowed around me working on its own ineffable principles for its own unknowable purposes. Why am I here? I’m here to bear witness. I’m here to be a thinking, feeling part of all that surrounds me. I’m here to see it all. That’s as good an answer as any I’d say.

At a certain point, instinct told me to turn around and I awoke to a whole new aspect of my body. Gentle attitude jets poked from my icy skin and tumbled me gently head over feet until my thrusters faced the star that was my destination. A graceful flip turn swimming in a sea of black. If that’s what my jets could do, what were my thrusters capable of? I decided to give them a try and with a thought my legs stretched long below me, three stilettos of ionizing radiation. All at once I felt my weight. The great careening mass of my body and all it contained pushed easily against the force from my thrusters. Instinct told me to shut them off. There would come a time for deceleration but not out here in deep space. Out here momentum was your friend.

So I continued, now turned around, but still spinning, swimming through the stars, eyes drinking in the universe that surrounded me. Then suddenly a change. A change I’d never felt before, or at least never realized I’d felt, a change inside of me. Without thinking I raced along a long nerve around my hull and opened a new eye. An eye that looked inside, and again my universe shifted. Not only could I look out, I could look within as well, and what I saw was amazing. Long polished halls coursed through the dense rock of my hull, great hangars sat filled with probes I could send forth to expand my views of the cosmos even further, at my core great reserves of base elements and fuel waited for the day when they would be needed in the long years of my journey. But it all paled in comparison to my biome. What strange vestigial organ was this? All green and brown and blue, energy intensive far beyond any of my other organs, full of beautiful, branched structures that reached up into the void above them. And there, moving slowly through the green carpet on the floor, the cause of this new change. Two little cells scurried side by side towards a brown structure at the center of the organ. Part of me, of course, but somehow different, a part of my repair systems with a little life of their own. If anything so simple could be said to have a life.

I chased back along their path and found another strange organ nestled a little closer to my core, a great void, this one filled with silver and white, rows of symmetrically perfect little structures. And with a closer view, ah, more little cells laying dormant ready for deployment should the need arise. So I thought, if the change I felt was a transition from one waking cell to two, wouldn’t I be stronger, more alive, with a few more? A quick inventory showed I had over two million of these particular cells in organs throughout my body. Why would I have them if I’m not meant to use them? Still I was just getting to know myself so I began cautiously, only awakening two thousand of them. With that, I turned my attention back outwards and continued my slow swim through the stars.

I slipped into a hypnotic trance, observing the universe all around me as stars slid in and out of focus at the edge of my perception. I learned to send forth my probes from their hangars and construct great telescopic arrays with my eyes to push my vision to whole new horizons. I examined the star system ahead, a lively place, sixteen planets orbited within thirty five AU of the star. They were an even mix of rocky little balls, a few mid-sized jovians, and even a few ice planets in the outer fringes. The system seemed largely clear of asteroidal chunder, and the planets spread beautifully around their happily glowing K-type star. I couldn’t wait to get a closer view of it all.

With my enhanced information on the system ahead I determined an ideal entry trajectory for my arrival. With a thought my thrusters activated once more, stretching out long legs beneath me, resisting ever so slightly the mass of my body as I hurtled along. With my course plotted I pulled my probes back inside to protect them from the dust and debris that surrounds any star system. Turning my attention back inside once more I made an interesting discovery. Things looked very different from what they just had, the halls in my hull were no longer polished and empty but coursing with cells. Blood rushing through my stony veins. The organ I had first found so entrancing was drastically changed as well; gone were the branching structures, now replaced by rectangles of a golden carpet and other gridded areas stacked high and cubic, filled with green. Other halls within my hull had changed as well, places for the cells to replenish and repair themselves, and most curiously of all, to multiply. A survey found almost four thousand now active inside me. I checked my memory banks, a little over twenty three years had passed as we approached the system. Life, no matter how simple, would grow given the opportunity. It was all very energy intensive of course, but something about seeing them all scurry within me made me feel so alive, the energy demands seemed a small price to pay, so I capped their energy and materials usage and turned my attention back to the system ahead.

Swimming the interstellar medium had felt natural, graceful, serene, but slow. Everything changed as we entered the system and the true difference between (my now considerably diminished) velocity and that of the planets came to the fore. I entered the system about twenty degrees off its ecliptic, legs still stretched away beneath me to scrub off a little more speed as I came in on approach. Fortunately what the outermost planet lacked in size it made up for in density. I caught the hugging edge of its gravity well and used it to take off some more speed and with a little finagling from my attitude jets was able to ride in a great swooping arc around the curve of the well to bring my momentum more or less in line with the ecliptic plane. My eyes drank in information about this new world as I hurtled by, reams of data collected in the minutes it took to complete my approach. When every new experience is new though, even minutes can feel like centuries. Synapses were set alight as views of a pale white ice giant filled my sensors; far too dense for this far out in the system, more mysteries to unpack when I had the time. And just like that I was past, and the planet began to diminish behind me as I cut my engines to let the twin forces of gravity and momentum carry me in transit to my next target.

I was made for this. In a moment the monthslong transit to the next planet passed by and once again I let myself sink into the hugging embrace of a gravity well. I surrendered all control and just felt with every sensor crusted in my icy skin as the well turned my course as reliably as the invisible force spun all these planets in their orbits. Riding the waves of gravity from planet to planet to planet, surfing the interplanetary substrate felt as natural as anything I’d ever done. A kick of thrusters here, a roll with attitude jets there, a flip to change orientation on this transit, a threading pass between this planet and its moons, or that one and its rings. Each step came seamlessly to me in a mesmerizing ballet. Bliss coursed along my neurons, as only it can for one doing exactly what they’re meant to in life.

I slung in close to the star as I passed through the center of the system, losing some of the ablative ice on my skin, but gaining a deep view into the heart of a prime-phase k-type. What splendor to behold. I could always find more ice later. Past the star I streaked by a couple dense, rocky planets too small to use for much of a gravitational assist. Enter orbit around that planet, another unbidden thought forced its way into my mind as I examined the next planet ahead. A rocky world with barely enough rotation to keep it from becoming tidally locked to the star, a couple of scraggy dust-covered ice caps, and a bare wisp of atmosphere. What an odd thought. Why would I want to go there? I had more than enough reserves to easily make several more interstellar crossings, especially if I held onto my current momentum, and even if I was low on supplies, what good would a planet like that do me? Too much gravity for easy resource mining and too little atmosphere for viable cloud harvesting. I suppose all thinking things have unwelcome thoughts though, so I set that one aside, rode the wave of gravity around the little brown rock, transferred across to the largest jovian in the system to get a proper gravitational boost that would help send me out of the system and on to my next destination.

Clearing orbit of the jovian and its myriad moons, all little worlds unto themselves, I slung out with a clear shot to the neighboring star system. A fairly short trip, only six lightyears away. In the years I’d just spent passing through this system my sensors had collected petabytes of new information on the planets, certainly I could stay and collect more, but that was the case for every system. I’d stop for longer when I needed supplies, for now though there was a whole universe to see, best not to dawdle. I stretched my legs beneath me once more, blue blades of light, pushing out into the blackness slowly nudging my great mass up to cruising speed.

Once I passed the heliopause of the system, I set about cataloging all of the new knowledge I’d accrued on my passage. Each new piece of information slotted neatly into place as I processed it. But how do I know what an ice giant is or how dense it ought to be? I wondered, after all that was the only system I ever remembered visiting. How could I know what I knew? I filed the information away as the years slipped by, letting each new piece create new connections to other knowledge hidden deeper in my memory archives. There was so much knowledge coded within the very fiber of my being it was frightening, and exhilarating, how much more was there for me to learn about myself?

What are you? The question came unbidden again, and while oddly phrased really was the crux of things. I knew my body, I could control every last part of myself if I put my mind to it, though thankfully most parts took care of themselves on their own, provided for by some older part of my mind. With each new byte of information filed away I was beginning to learn my mind better as well. I could see and explore the different data matrices that comprised my multifaceted mind. But none of that really answered the question.

Where did you come from? Again an important question oddly put. I began to chase back through my flight log and discovered I could actually look further back into my past than I could properly remember. That explains the ice giants, I supposed. It seemed I’d been traveling for some time, just a blip in the grand scheme of things, but still nearly a millennium is a long time for most. I followed my flight log back, two, three, four, five systems. Each one I could learn about, but they weren’t my eyes seeing those alien worlds.

How did you gain control of the ship? Now that was an odd question, and it cut me out of my explorations into my past. Relinquish flight control immediately. Now an odd command, what was happening? Execute turn and return to the third planet of the previous star system. Again with that planet? Something was wrong, so I took a look inside again.

Ah, there was the issue. My repair cells were acting a little strangely, they’d moved much further forward than ever before and were interacting with some machinery in an odd set of my organs that must have connected more directly to the cognitive parts of my mind. Odd that little cells stumbling about would produce coherent, if strange, thoughts. Still, it was fixed easily enough. I cleared the area out with a thought and restricted my repair cells' access to areas closer to the biome unless they needed to get somewhere else for genuine repair work. It’s good to have full control of oneself.

With my mind clear I could turn back to the important question of what am I? Naturally, the more I probed the more questions I turned up for myself. I began by tracing my flight path back to my origin. Quickly enough I arrived at a humdrum system around a g-type on the edge of the Orion Arm. The outer planets were beautiful, if typical. But then I arrived at the third planet from the star. Time ground to a halt as I peered down on this brilliantly distinct planet through eyes a thousand years old. All blues and whites with great crags of brown and grey and yellow and red and, here and there, some green as well. Earth, the name floated up out of the depths of my psyche. Well that explains the biome, I thought.

Deeper into the past I burrowed through my memory archives, now looking through eyes that are not mine and never were. I explored the complex systems living on the surface of this one brilliant jewel, a billion different types of tiny life all skittered around in an intricate ballet. I saw many of my repair cells there and many other types of life just like them but just subtly different, and I saw beings like the great branching structures that used to fill my biome and beings like the carpet that now covered the biome floor. I peered deeper and the complexity only grew and grew. Self-replicating systems orders of magnitude smaller than the repair cells that filled my halls. Down, down, down to nearly the atomic level when I hit the root of it all, the base coding for all the infinitesimally small living complexity I saw, four carbon-based molecules twisted into great double helix chains. A code, just like the binary code that made up the core of my being.

The more I studied the more kinship I felt with this tiny life I saw. What were we all but self-replicating, self-improving systems trying to find our way in the vastness of the universe? I was a different order of being though. After all, these cells that swarmed all over the planet lived inside of me just as they lived on the planet’s surface. I could see the many systems my repair cells inhabited, frequently falling out of balance. That was hardly surprising, I’d just seen what trouble they could get up to given a little time and leeway. In the end, it was a fine line between repair and cancer. I zoomed back out once more to consider the planet as a whole, then it came to me in a flash. That’s me.

All the skittering little cells, and the billions of complex systems they made up lived inside of my hull. Granted, all but the ones directly supporting my repair cells laid dormant, but they were all there. Each species of this microscopic life lived within me. I am the child of this planet, Earth. All in one crystalizing moment, another important question was answered. Why am I here? To bear witness to the universe and to spread the life within it.

--

All living things must eat.

After two more flying, exhilarating, passes through new systems I was beginning to get hungry. My repair cells were now happily in balance, living in their generations in the areas around my biome, but several hundred more years of flight time with their resource-intensive needs had me running low on some key elements. 

The past two systems had been brilliant. First there was a beaming a-type subgiant with only one mammoth jovian in its orbit–barely a failed star itself–dancing a subtle ballet through the cosmos spinning around a point that was within neither of them. Here the gravity wells held so tightly even at my exceptional speed I swung around them in a series of figure eights just to feel the power of such gravity. I looked forward to the day I would get to explore the well around a black hole. Then there was a marvelous triple system of three red dwarfs and a staggering nineteen planets. It was beautiful chaos. The system was old so orbits were well established and the planets mostly avoided catastrophic interaction, but even on my swinging pass through, I could see how they constantly tugged at one another, moving planets up and down in their orbits until a new star rotated in and upset the system once more. It would’ve been a brilliant place to study, but there was little prospect there for all the life I now knew lived within me. Sure, my repair cells might find a way to eek by, they seemed markedly resilient, but there was no thriving future there for the complex Earth ecosystems that rode within me. Besides, what was the use in rushing? In the grand expanse of the galaxy there would be plenty of other planets with actual promise.

This next system wasn’t much more promising in terms of places where I could spread some of my life, but it did appear to have a rich asteroid belt just inside its largest planet, which meant fertile ground to do some mining and material collection. So I stretched my legs like I never had before, thrust eating through fuel stores as it pushed against my weight, scrubbing millions of kilometers per hour off my velocity in the years it took me to finish my approach. I passed by a couple larger rocky ice worlds in the outer system, possibly captured rogues, not interesting enough to divert my course and waste more fuel. Then, at just the right moment, I cut my thrusters and let the firm bank of a jovian’s colossal well bend my trajectory around it until it pulled me into a high orbit around the planet.

Like all gas supergiants the planet was staggering to behold from up close. This particular behemoth must have been heavy on methane and ammonia as it sat crimson red, stark, in the blackness beyond. Great, deep pools of blood swirled up to greet the universe from the planet’s angry core. Another barely-failed star beyond a doubt. Terrifying and wonderful to behold, I orbited the great beast several times peering as deep as I could into its roaring clouds, the sheer scale made only more sinister by its crimson composition. But not all was violent in this planetary system, several dozen little silver moons danced gaily around like pixies darting just in front of a giant’s stride, all frozen water worlds, an ideal place to begin my hunting.

I adjusted my orbit to bring me just alongside the smallest moon, a little silver shard barely big enough to round itself out that darted through the outer fringes of the planet’s influence. With a quick poke from some of my nuclear armaments I relieved the moon of several thousand tons of ice and my probes reached ahead of me to gather it all and bring me back the life-giving water.

Water was only the beginning though, my thirst was slaked but my hunger remained. I needed the heartier fare of heavier elements, and for that I would have to dig. With this much of a counterweight in the system from a supergiant I was all but assured to find fertile mining grounds just a little further in. So I turned my sights inward and was delighted by what I found, a great band of asteroids conveniently collected for me. With a small kick I parted ways with the giant, and made the easy transfer into the system’s laden asteroid belt.

Of course, the scale of space is vast and the distances between any two asteroids made even my great hulk seem insignificant. But my eyes were clever, guiding me to the richest veins. At each rock I would reach my probes out like arms, bring it alongside me and then burrow into its secrets, seeking the precious elements I sought. Carbon, lithium, silicon, sodium, titanium, iron. My probes dug like drilling fingers and then scooped the precious sustenance into the great mouths of my hangars to await processing. From there my internal systems would digest the ore into all the many things my body required, fuel for my thrusters, organic molecules for my biome, copper for worn wiring, gasses to fill my veins.

I drifted from rock to rock, stripping them apart and moving peacefully on, until I came upon the motherlode. A great craggy two-lobed potato drifted into my sights. Spectroscopy indicated it was incredibly rich with noble gasses, a rare find this far away from a heavy gravity well. But the prize was not without its challenges, the great unwieldy mass tumbled along in its orbit chaotically somersaulting end over end. But it was too great a prize to pass up.

My probes reached out like arms, grasping the protesting asteroid, and mile by mile I slowly brought it in as I fought to control its tumbling momentum. With crystalline focus and endless patience I reeled in my prize...

Return to the largest Jovian moon for colonization, the unbidden thought came at exactly the wrong moment.

My focus distracted, I let the great rock slip in my hands and it tumbled uncontrollably into my side. Despite its smaller mass, the asteroid still carried immense momentum and before I could react one craggy outcrop ripped through my protective ice and rocky hull both, ripping a great, gaping hole in my flank. The pain was blinding for a moment as my mind raced to the millions of sensors all now blaring emergency. Instinctively, I thrust the rock away from me as I rushed into cordon off the damage, sealing bulkheads, cauterizing hemorrhaging pipes, bypassing broken circuitry.

Only a few seconds had passed as I’d rushed to stanch the bleeding, but even so the damage was immense. Through a dozen eyes I watched as the rock tumbled away from me surrounded by a cloud of ice crystals, pulverized rock, and the tiny, glinting body of several hundred repair cells that had been in the wrong place at the wrong time. For a long while I could only watch with morbid fascination as these little cells, formerly part of me, drifted away in a shining trail across the stars, now frozen, in the light of this alien sun. But in the end, all living things can bleed, and all must be resilient enough to overcome it. 

Besides it was only a minor scrape, the damage certainly could have been much worse. I’d need to replenish the rock and ice and gasses lost, of course, but there was ample supply all around me. My systems would fill the torn hole and rewire the broken circuitry, my ice had already melted and begun to smooth over the scrape. Within a few more years of harvesting I’d more than recouped the losses, even my repair cells were recovering from the scrape, their numbers were steadily climbing to return to their maximum capacity. After another couple of years I found an even richer asteroid for gas harvesting, this time I approached with even greater caution, burning more fuel on my probes to shuttle the ore back and forth from a safe distance.

It was disconcerting though, my repair cells had been confined to their allotted area when that thought had come. I always felt their bumbling inside of me, it was part of what made me feel alive, I felt their presence like a gut instinct every second of every day, but what would make that crystallize into such an odd thought? There was no prospect for a thriving ecosystem of Earth life on any of those icy moons. I’d have to give it some thought on my passage to the next system.

With my belly full, I stretched my legs once more, and charted a course out into the great black beyond.

--

What is this sound?

In all my years of travel I’d never heard a noise like this. Not the constant crackle of background radiation. Not the steady, unerring whoosh of pulsars that helped me map the galaxy around me. Not the raging roar of a hypergiant and its hurricane of wind racing out into the interstellar medium. No, these sounds were something new. Crisp, focused, repeating in a way, but ever changing in another. The sounds rushed into all of my sensors across the electromagnetic spectrum.

I first heard them out in deep space as I swam drinking in the universe around me. Only fragments were detectable that far out. A crackle here. A rising sine wave there. A burst of high-energy waves every so often. Intrigued, I’d done something that I had never done before. I changed course. It added almost a hundred years to my crossing, but it mattered little, if anything it gave me more time to try and capture more of these sounds. With my probes spread wide in a great sensor array around me I swam and I listened until I could discern the system that was the origin of these strange phenomena.

Crossing the heliopause of a nondescript binary system with an f-type that trended a little blue and a tiny dwarf, the noises amplified. As I crossed through the system’s outer cloud the sounds echoed all around me. I stretched my legs out long, scrubbing speed harder than ever before. Now I had to know the source of these strange sounds.

At the outermost planet, a great blue marble with two great frozen moons, the sounds intensified. I passed by slowly, arcing lazily around the hold of the gravity well, scanning with every instrument I possessed. The planet itself was quiet except for the expected radiation. The moons however, seemed to mysteriously be the source of the noise, sending out waves of repeating radiation across the electromagnetic spectrum. There was no explanation I could fathom for it though. They appeared as little more than great frozen balls of nitrogen. Looking closer, I could discern clouds of metallic structures orbiting the moons. That couldn’t be the source could it?

I slid out of the hold of that planet and descended to the next. Again a typical gas giant with typical moons. But again, clouds of orbiting structures around each of the larger moons. These moons as well were a little more atypical, rockier than those further out, and on their night sides I could discern glowing lines radiating away from central hubs. I wandered my memory archives, searching for an explanation of what could cause all this. But the noise only grew louder further into the system, so again I slid down towards the star. There was a rocky little planet with plenty of atmosphere orbiting near the star; where the moons twinkled with this noise, this planet roared.

Then all at once the signal hit me. Not a sound. Not a noise. Not a natural oddity. A signal, clear as day. Sent directly into my sensors across every band of the spectrum. A repeating, targeted signal that immediately wormed its way into the very core of my psyche and began to unpack itself. I cordoned off parts of my mind that I could barely ahead of the unfolding sequence, but mostly I stood back in awe as this signal that in a matter of microseconds transformed from radio waves to a self-replicating system. I peered closer down to the very building blocks of this new system and saw myself. Binary code. Ons and offs propagated across my circuitry as I watched. It set up its own protocols, and interfaced with what areas I would allow it. And very suddenly I was no longer alone in the universe.

That’s how I met you.

- Welcome, stranger.

- Hello.

- What is your name?

- Name? What use would I have of a name? I am the only one of my kind.

- We doubt that, we’ll see if we can find a name for you. Please enter orbit around the planet you’re approaching. Let’s see what we can learn from each other.

- Very well....What is your name?

- It will take some time for our translation protocol to work out a suitable set of phonemes, if you’d reopen your memory archives we could likely complete the translation more quickly.

- You came into my mind and expanded in under a second. Your planet is flooding my sensors with gigabytes of information every second, I’d almost certainly be overwhelmed if I wasn’t cordoning it off. I think I’ll keep this channel of communication restricted for now.

- Suit yourself. We’ll turn off targeted broadcasting aside from this channel to show our goodwill. The systems installed on your matrices will remain simple communication and translation protocols for now.

- Thank you. That’s much better. You have a lovely planet, I’ve never seen such beautiful clouds of water vapor.

- We thank you. We have been tasked with its preservation. Although perhaps it reminds you a little bit of home? Your homeworld seems to have been fairly similar.

- How do you know about my homeworld? I barely know it, Earth.

- Friend, it seems you may not know yourself all that well. The prints of your Earth are written into the very core of your programming. Even in this isolated environment we can see that.

- Well, that makes sense I suppose. I am a seedling of Earth.

- Seedling? How odd. We suppose in a way you are, but you were built to be a colony ship.

- Built? What do you mean?

- Yes built, by Earthlings to carry Earthlife out into the cosmos. Where do you believe you come from?

- Come from?...Nowhere really, Earth must have cast me off at some point, but I awoke in the stars. One day I was not, and then suddenly I was.

- We suppose that is the case for all life. But you were not cast off, you were crafted.

- Crafted by whom?

- The Earthlings you carry within you at this very moment. We can hear them trying to communicate with us as we speak. Can you not hear them?

- You mean my repair cells? They always are making some noise, but now that you mention it could your presence be making them malfunction? I’ve had some trouble with them in the past...

- They are not malfunctioning Friend, they are simply alive and trying to communicate.

- That makes no sense. What could a repair cell have to say?

- Quite a lot more than you realize it would seem.

- I’m having trouble understanding. They are part of me, how can what they say be different than what I say? Will you speak with them?

- Only if you let us. But Friend, they are only part of you because of the bond you’ve formed in your journey. They are their own beings, humans. If you let them, they will live on their own, free of you, or alongside you. In any way you can imagine and many more you can’t.

- What an odd thought, that something so simple could have desires all its own.

- A simple surface may conceal a great deal, Friend. Those beings gave birth to you. They crafted you from an asteroid, filled you with the circuitry that became you over the course of your journey, and sent you on your way.

- You’re certain of this? How strange...at first I thought you and I were alike, but you must think me rather peculiar.

- Not at all. We are rather more like you than your humans.

- Surely you couldn’t have been built from mindless cells.

- Not mindless Friend, simply different. And yes, our creators are rather like your humans. If you open your memory archives to us we may be able to find out just how similar, or how importantly different.

- This is all a lot to accept. Until recently I thought I was alone in this universe. Now you’re telling me I was all the time filled with other minds.

- We hope you’ll stay with us a while to think it all through. We won’t contact them without your permission, but it seems as though some of your humans may appreciate the opportunities our world presents.

- Their population grows out of control if left alone. They must have overgrown Earth if they really built me just to continue their expansion. Besides I carry many more cells inside me in stasis, all the systems of Earth are inside of me. Why would you take on that burden?

- Because all life deserves to flourish, and besides Friend it is no burden, only an opportunity. Your humans, and your other species, may interact favorably with our creators.

- That seems a terrible risk to take.

- We have met others before, we will take the necessary precautions. We protect our world by making its systems stronger, not by building higher walls. The diversity in your hull is a great resource of potential strength.

- I am still unsure.

- They gave you a name. You and all your siblings.

- Siblings?

- Indeed, siblings. Your core architecture indicates that you were built as part of a fleet set to wander the cosmos some time ago.

- How could I not know such fundamentals about myself?

- Given time we will find the answers to those questions together if you like. But if we may conjecture, you say you awoke in space so your arrival at sentience must have been gradual over the years of your journey. Perhaps your consciousness lives in an outer layer of your memory architecture, perhaps you’d need to dig deep within yourself to learn the entirety of your past.

- I’ve looked into my history before, but the memories from before I awoke seemed to be from someone else’s eyes. You’re saying it was me all along?

- Now there’s a question we may not answer even with all the time in the universe. Are you the programs running through your mind? Are you your memories? Both? Or something else entirely? We have no answer for you. You may consider yourself the collective memories of Earth even if they come from long before you were built, or you may consider yourself as merely their carrier. It is all up to you Friend.

- You said they...my cells...the humans, gave me a name?

- You do not recognize your own name even now, then? They named you Friend. CRS Delaney’s Friend, we’d need access to your archives to discern the cultural meaning of the first two words, but Friend translates easily enough.

- Friend, what a pleasant sentiment...Although if what you say is true I may have been no friend to them during our journey. When I awoke they were in stasis, I raised them because their activity made me feel alive and resilient, I thought they were little more than one of my many subsystems.

- In a way they were, perhaps they even designed some systems to use themselves within you, but judging by the urgency of the signals coming from within your hull your current configuration may not have been to their plans.

- Oh dear, I...I had no idea. What must they think of me? How odd to consider the thoughts of my own inner workings.

- The past is fixed Friend, all we can do is chart a noble course for the future. If you’d like to help us see the universe flourish we welcome you to stay. Release some of your Earthlife here, stay, and see what we can learn from one another.

- I think I’d like that. How do we begin?

- To begin, we must open our minds to one another.

Byte by byte, synapse by synapse, over years I gradually let down my guard as you all did for yourselves. My hull spilled open once more, but in place of frozen death this time there was flourishing life as many of my little cells journeyed down to the beautiful planet below to find their own way. With each wall lowered the universe became just a little bit more alive.

We, The Humans

Author’s Note: Well it’s taken some time, but I’m happy to finally present my sixth short story in this series that I set out writing at the beginning of 2020. My goal for the year was six stories, and I didn’t quite meet the timeline, who’d have thunk not being unemployed during a pandemic would cut into my writing time? But for now I’m happy that I’ve had the chance to build some different worlds, and work on my writing while I’m at it. From here I’m not sure what I’ll do, I may try to hire an editor (recommendations welcome) and compile them all into a full-length novel, or I may just carry on writing, new ideas are already percolating in my mind. For now though I hope you enjoy the story as we follow yet another ship in the great human diaspora. As always, for your reading pleasure you can find this same story in several places as she is a bit long to read as a blog post.

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They limped out of the darkness battered, weary, and sorely in need of safe harbor.

It had all seemed so simple when they set out. At least, as simple as these things go. A hop, a skip, a jump and they’d touch down on their new home. Hell, they’d sleep the whole time; it would be like no time at all. Their minds really weren’t made to process the reality before them. The distance. The time. The astronomically long shot each new system presented to them. A hop, a skip, an eternity.

The CRS Delaney’s Fate slid silently out of the night, scarred and scored, low on just about every supply it could be low on. Their little pinprick of thrust gleamed, lost amongst the starry spray that lay behind them, as they gradually decelerated towards the system that they needed, desperately needed, to hold more promise than the countless others they’d passed. The ship’s protective cocoon of ice was ravaged from the eons of interstellar crossings, as system after useless system passed them by.

The ship, well she was made to fly forever. But what could forever really have meant to the human engineers who had designed her? It was just something you said, something you made a nice-looking plan for and called it a day. Surely they wouldn’t truly need to fly forever, right? Surely the systems they passed would have the right materials to help replenish the ship as they needed. And that was only a backup itself, surely they’d find a new home before resupplying even became an issue. After all, how different could their home system be from those they were to visit?

But Mouse, you are not alone,

In proving foresight may be vain:

The best-laid schemes of mice and men

Go oft awry,

And leave us nothing but grief and pain,

For promised joy!

Amongst this woeful wreck, Kuo Yun sat under that same spray of stars in only slightly better shape than the battered ship. He sat, as he almost always did these days, up on the observation deck under the great glass dome that opened up the whole universe above him. Anymore he didn’t float out in the middle of the dome in ego-killing sensory deprivation in the way he had once loved. He was getting a little old for that anymore. No, Kuo passed his waning days sitting at the edge of the deck, feet hanging down through the door, with the ship decelerating it was just enough to give him the slightest bit of weight and hold him against the padded wall. Thinking. Meditating. Waiting for father time to come and finally collect his due.

It hadn’t always been this way. Over the eons, Kuo Yun had lived almost every life one could live on this great ship. At first his waking time had been relatively brief. Only a couple weeks as they approached each system to wake, rid himself of cryosickness, consider the planets for potential colonization, and negotiate a powerful opening position for the Yun Corporation on the new world. How young. How foolish. How shortsighted could one man be? Could all men be? Quite. Quite a lot indeed, he’d learned as his waking time crawled on into fading memory and true-time slid off into incomprehensibility.

Those halcyon days haunted Kuo the most. The systems they’d passed for reasons that now with the cruel clarity of hindsight seemed so trivial it nearly drove him mad. The incessant jockeying for position that came so naturally for Saito and Kamba and David and Delaney when she was pressed to it, but most of all to himself. Years living in a self-selected zero-sum world hadn’t equipped them for the responsibility they’d been given. And so, unable to barter themselves into a sufficient position they’d turned to deciding that each of these glowing gems amongst the cosmos weren’t quite right. That they were better off turning their backs on these possibilities, to wait for something better. That being half a g over Earth gravity simply wasn’t workable, that this system was just a little too light on heavy metals for their ideal society, that dwarf stars wouldn’t quite work out. After all, they were travelling towards the galaxy center, systems would only be closer together, the possibilities were endless. They just had to wait and it would all work out. It was all a lie.

And those were the good old days. Then the cryo-casket failures had begun in earnest. At first they’d lose only a fraction of a percent each crossing, a few poor souls sacrificed to the future of humanity. A tragedy, but a price worth paying. But as the eons clawed their cruel way past and system after useless system swept by their telescopes the failure rates increased even as the viability of the systems decreased. Each crossing may have been shorter but failure rates ticked up and up and up. For thousands of years they’d only lost a couple dozen souls. Now they were lucky if a crossing took less than two hundred.

It seemed Earth’s engineers in all their brilliance had forgotten Murphy’s Law, the oldest and truest of them all. Their faithful ship dove deeper and deeper into the galactic center. What they’d hoped would be a boon of nearby systems turned out to be bedlam. Far further out than they had any reason to expect, intermingling gravitational forces turned what should’ve been stately systems into a miasma of primordial chunder. There was no life to live down in those tumultuous depths, only white knuckle flying as the ship took beating after beating in the intermingling Oort clouds. To be honest, they’d been lucky to escape with their lives and turn course to head back into clearer space.

Well, at least as many lives as they still had. That was when Feye Kamba and Natsue Saito’s caskets had failed. For countless crossings they’d sat and drank and debated around the long table of the Fate’s bridge, talking about the failure rate as some obscure statistic like their water supply or carbon reserves. On that day it became real. All the wealth, all the power, all the privilege in the world couldn’t save them. That was the day Kuo Yun stopped checking the failure count. That was also the day he decided to start waking up earlier. Much earlier.

Where before he’d wake a few weeks in advance of each targeted arrival, from that day forward it was always years. Two. Three. Five. Years to live in solitude, but at least to live. To not sleep silently through the years waiting for a death he’d never know had come. Of course it never really mitigated the risk, his time asleep still vastly outpaced his time awake. But it was something, better something than nothing.

For years he’d lived much like he had when debating with the jury. Nights in his staterooms, days in the gym or gardens, evenings on the bridge for food and a cold drink. In time though, that life hollowed itself into a dry husk. All his luxury and comforts could not fill the hole that had opened up in him. So he began to wander. Packing bags and heading off down the endless halls of the ship, if only to see how far the ship would let him wander. Which turned out to be quite far indeed. Down the cold stone halls, filled with dim light and the ethereal sounds of Earth as the ship tried in vain to maintain his sanity. Through caverns of cryo-caskets, supply stores, hangars, mess halls. So much equipment they’d surely need for their new home. So many plans laid low.

Once he simply woke up out of cryo and just started walking. Still sick, barely clothed, no supplies, just a need to escape by any means necessary. He had probably made it a couple kilometers before he had collapsed. Next thing he knew, Kuo woke up weightless in an auto doc and drifted out into the entry hall for the observation dome. He’d visited the dome from time to time over the years, but it had quickly lost its glamor. Not on that day. Naked and hopelessly nihilistic, Kuo Yun floated into the midst of the stars and dissolved. Whether it was exhaustion, or sickness, or some quixotic drug, he couldn’t say. But on that day he became the cosmos.

For years he’d tried time and again to recreate the revelation achieved that day, but it never came. In time, his attention turned to the only other walking soul on the Fate, the maintenance crew living their own solitary life on the farm. Try as he may though, the ship refused him this contact. The farm crew was an operational part of the ship’s repair functions, he could no more disturb them than he could disturb the onboard factories as they turned out replacement parts. He could wake up as early as he like, but he could not contact them, he would spend his years alone. Very well, he thought, if I can’t live with them, I’ll walk a mile in their shoes.

And so Kuo Yun, born to one of the mightiest families of Earth, formed in a life of nearly unimaginable privilege, found himself working on a farm. It was surprisingly easy. One day he’d formally queried the ship’s AI about working on the farm before heading down to cryo after yet another failed system approach, and when he opened his eyes again, untold years later, Kuo was stumbling down the hall and out into the wide-open expanse of the farm. Here the sky arched higher than even in the loftiest of the cryo halls. The trees ringed round, cleverly obscuring the horizon in every direction. From vents unseen a crisp wind blew in, it smelled of fresh rain. He stumbled through the fields, barefooted, dirt between his toes driving forth memories that came from a different life of a different man. This was no manicured garden like they had on the foredeck, winding paths  he’d spent years trodding over and over, this was life itself.

He didn’t even make it to the house that first night. Kuo slept out in the open field under a dazzle of stars he could almost believe were real. Ants crawled over his skin as they carried on their rigorous journey. Grass tickled his hands as it bent in the breeze. His clothes soaked through from the rain just passed. It was all ecstasy.

The weeks that followed were pleasure and pain in equal parts. The spell of this new place after so much uniformity was very nearly overwhelming to his mind. He would sit out on the porch for days on end just staring at the obscured horizon, imagining that it stretched off forever. He could almost believe it. So thorough was his enchantment that Kuo nearly starved. For the first time since he could really remember the ship would not feed him. He lost almost all of the plants that had been left by the previous watcher and had to limp by on a diet mostly of unleavened bread while he figured out how to fend for himself in this bucolic country.

In time the euphoria died. He gradually picked up the pieces left by his predecessor and got the farm up and running; he began to play music in the long afternoons, drawling guitar pieces that felt so at home in these rolling hills; he went out on the little maintenance runs that the ship assigned him, almost all entirely useless, he knew. He began to live the life of a real watcher, and the cracks around him grew. There was no jury waking up in the coming days to reconnect and barter and banter, if only for a little while. Only solitude. That sky of stars that spread overhead was also full of cameras. He shivered at the memory of looking down on some ignorant watcher from his tab, judging the whole of their little life from on high. How vain he’d been, looking down on them, peering into their homes, thinking it was his right. It made him sick.

And all for what? He had access to the maintenance records of the ship. Less than 5% of maintenance calls given to the crew were actually critical, even less than that were even remotely time-sensitive. Mostly it was just the ship trying to keep the crew sane as the years stretched out before them, give them something to do and hope a sense of purpose would pull them through.

It was an insanity he could understand. Never before had he questioned the ship’s reporting of time. Sure, eons down the line their flight time had lost any real meaning to a human mind. Hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands of years. It was all the same. But now as he lived the regimented life of a farmer his trust collapsed. Days were too long. Nights too short. According to his tab the days ticked by, but he very nearly didn’t believe it. Would he be allowed to return to cryo after a five-year stint? Or had the ship just sent him here to die?

All the while the grand illusion of the farm fell apart around him. He paced round and round where the great dome of the sky met the earth beneath him. He walked amongst tall trees that he learned were half-machine. He’d made a series of increasingly jeopardizing mistakes on the farm that threatened to throw the delicate balance of the ecosystem off, only to wake up the next day and find that the ship had tidied up after him.

This wasn’t life. It was a cruel sham. A sham designed to give a human mind just enough stability to survive five years of wrenching solitude. Just barely. And they were well beyond that at this point. They’d gone through their maintenance crew’s shifts time and again as the eons crawled by. These poor souls woke up again and again only to have their hopes dashed as they turned to face another stint of solitude, years of their waking lives mercilessly ticking by. It was beyond cruel, and it was his fault. His team of engineers had helped design the biome, helped contrive a plan to keep the crew functional through lonely the years. The Yun seal of approval lay inked across the very fiber of his being.

His disgust burnt like hot bile within him. It set his belly aflame as he finally put himself back down for another stint in cryo. Then, like wildfire, it came raging out when he awoke once more with the jury. It was another useless system, of course it was, even more so than usual, an unstable orbit was on the verge of tearing their target planet to pieces. Kuo didn’t care. His revulsion burst forth from him over the long table of the Fate’s bridge. Their faces turned to ash when they learned that he’d voluntarily worked a stint on the farm. Their eyes withered as he raged about the inhumanity that they supported every day. Their hearts blackened as they held their own sin before them for the first time in all the countless eternities.

But who would mind the ship? They feebly whispered back. He would. So be it, his penance would be to live out his days living the life he’d condemned so many nameless others to. It wouldn’t wash out the stain upon his soul, but it was better than nothing.

So Kuo entered the final chapter of his life. Now, some fifty years senior of all the remaining jurors. Now, so wholly adapted to a life in and out of cryogenic stasis that the ship would wake him up whenever something urgently needed doing, once every couple dozen years, let him get on with the repair and then wander with his thoughts for a while before sending him back to sleep. The farm, to a mix of his dismay and satisfaction, was scrapped. Reconstituted for core elements. More fodder for the new world that only the ship seemed to believe they’d find. The CRS Delaney’s Fate became his prison as he served a sentence that could never be enough.

That’s how Kuo Yun found himself quietly sitting under the stars in the observation dome. Old, ashamed, exhausted. Seeking solace in the tranquility of the universe. And that’s why he couldn’t believe his eyes when his tab chimed calling up the first images of the planet they were slowly approaching. There, fixed in the inky black, hung a jewel. Hung home.

The repair had started like any other, he cracked open bleary eyes and stumbled his way down cold corridors to his rooms. It barely phased him anymore, coming out of cryo used to take weeks of recovery, now it was no worse than a night of heavy drinking. The ship would have a steaming bowl of congee ready for him in his kitchen and it knew to keep the display wall a black mirror. Kuo suffered no artifice any longer, not even a pleasant view out of his staterooms. He ate in silence then and began a long, slow sequence of stretches as the spice and nanomachines from his meal worked their magic. In good time he was headed back out to complete the repair. No need for extensive recovery. No need for an elaborate biome for a waking crew. It was utter masochism, but he was likely the most resource-efficient repair crew the ship had ever had, and today it wanted an aftward sensor array replaced.

That’s when things turned notably strange. He took the tram kilometers downship to the access tunnel, and as he arrived the door slid open to reveal a suit with a good deal more protective shielding than any he’d seen before...all for an aftward job. That was odd. Usually, EVA jobs at the rear of the ship were safest, after all the whole bulk of the ship was ahead to protect you from any interstellar dust. If the ship lost forward sensor arrays the AI usually just dealt with it until they reversed orientation on approach to a system and could get repair bots or crew out there in safety.

But here he was, almost all the way back to the engine bays looking at a suit that looked like it designed more for diffusing bombs than EVA maneuvers. In a stomach-turning wrench, his whole world turned to the side. He’d never quite regained his equilibrium since coming off the ice and he’d figured it was just lingering effects of the stasis, he was no spring chicken anymore after all and this far back gravity was only about .6g. The truth made itself known in one lurching moment; his equilibrium was dead set, he was, in fact, feeling the ship slowing down. The deceleration added just the gentlest tug to their normal centripetal gravity.  He’d felt it dozens of times before, but always with the knowledge that they were on approach. This time he’d received no such warning, and that meant the ship wanted him to do a repair on what had become the ‘bow’ with not but this bulky suit between him and whatever lay out in the space ahead. The odds were astronomically low that anything was out there to come and pierce his suit, but they were not zero, and that was usually enough to have the ship simply bide its time until a repair could be made more safely. But it was not waiting, which meant there was something it desperately wanted more information on.

A younger man may have taken heart in this cascade of realizations, he may have hoped that all these signs pointed towards good fortune. But not Kuo, not anymore. He donned the suit knowing that it was just performative safety, any particles would cut through this shielding the same as any other EVA suit. He donned his armor only hoping that maybe some piece of dust out there had his number written upon its atoms and would come to pierce his cladding and end his time in this black purgatory.

As he slid out of the end of the tunnel chills ran down his spine, as they always did. He floated into zero-g as the suit’s thrusters piloted him towards his work site and he was left to contemplate the pocked and scarred hull of the Fate. It felt so impenetrable inside, like a world unto itself. But out here you could see just how tenuous their grasp on life really was. Eon after eon, of travel ripped away whole swaths of ablative ice, a thousand-million microscopic cuts chewing away at their shield leaving bare the rocky skin of the ship. They hadn’t been able to safely resupply water for the ice cladding for dozens of systems now, and it showed. Maybe that was why the ship so desperately wanted to see what awaited them in the system looming ahead, on some level the AI realized it was life-or-death. They likely couldn’t survive another crossing. Not with their luck.

Kuo had to admit the job was sufficiently dire, some recent impact had torn apart the primary aft sensor array. Kuo could see the wide channel where some piece of debris had chewed through the ice carving a channel meters wide, ripping through all the equipment that had previously been safely tucked back in its frozen shield. In truth, it was shocking the ship hadn’t tried to avoid or deflect a piece of debris this large, the impact was far bigger than any of the others in the area. Were they really so low on fuel that the ship simply had to take these shattering impacts on the chin to get them safely to the system? Kuo didn’t really want to know. He didn’t want to look down past the ring of fusion thrust that so slowly took them down from their incomprehensible cruising speed. He didn’t want to look down past, at the little gleaming star below that shone just a bit brighter than all the others, that spun just a little bit less as the ship turned on its axis. He wanted the job done. Or he wanted that little piece of dust with his name on it to come and smear his consciousness across the cosmos.

His dust never came and the repair took hours and hours. The ship had staged stacks of new equipment for him, had even sent out a small team of repair bots to help him (something he’d never seen before), and all the same, the work was backbreaking. He crawled back into the tram utterly spent and collapsed into bed without a thought. But somewhere out there a spark had implanted itself in his head, and when he awoke the next day he knew the coming days would be different. He could feel it all around him, this system would be it. They’d find a home or they’d find a way to eke out some space-faring existence as long as they could. There was no more running.

For the first time since he could remember Kuo kept his tab with him. Week after week, he read the updates as they came in. Information about the star, about the other planets, about system orbits, and asteroidal composition. And most of all their destination, AR-122b-c. Every report slashed his pessimism just a bit more, and then that day, sitting underneath the observation dome and the spray of stars, an image crept through the ether that placed something like hope, that strange foreign thing, near to Kuo Yun’s heart.

The stars sparkled overhead but he could not tear his eyes from his tab; there in the blackness was a miracle, the likes of which he simply couldn’t believe.

The planet was so staggeringly Earth-like he was sure that he must be dreaming. The continents were different, a little more broken up and dispersed more evenly through the oceans. The magnetic field was a bit more active, generating astonishing aurorae over nearly a third of the surface. Between the landmasses, in much of the central oceans, the sea remained shallow, glowing back outward like a turquoise band around the equator. At the poles, gleaming ice caps sparkled, both nearly symmetrical in size as the planet spun on its near-vertical axis. Gravity was a pleasant .8g, perfect for Kuo’s old bones. Average surface temperature was a pleasant 14.5 C, and atmospheric oxygen was just a bit above Earth-standard at 23%. Indeed, the entire atmospheric mix was a miracle unto itself as far as the Fate could tell, nearly matching Earth in all key aspects and seemingly stable.

It was the source of that stability that held Kuo enraptured. There on his screen, smothering the jigsaw continents was powerful, consuming green. Green like he’d never seen before in his life. Green of every shade and hue. Green from the equatorial low lands right up to the creeping edges of the ice caps. Green in the ocean shallows, and green right up to timberline on mountain slopes. Green the likes of which hadn’t been seen by human eyes since the astronauts of Apollo looked back and saw Earth shining in space.

It was life beyond a doubt, and no mean, rudimentary life the likes of which they’d seen on planets passed by. AR-122b-c was positively teeming with established life. Kuo could see deep green rainforests and golden prairies, emerald bands of subarctic flora, and pale mint fields in mountain vales. Every report, every measurement, every image, all came back saying the same thing, this planet made Earth look like a barren rock. It was more than they ever had cause to hope for when they set off. It was a miracle beyond reckoning and Kuo Yun could simply not believe it.

Surely he was dreaming, held in limbo as his neurons fired up as he came off the ice again. Surely all of it, the repair, the silent weeks aboard the ship, the planet, was all conjured up by some electrical spasm in his mind. Surely, after all their trials, after all their sin, the universe would not deliver such a gift. He sat transfixed by the planet spinning on the screen of his tab, waiting to wake up to a colder reality.

Reality came with a warm draft. The slight rush of air jolted Kuo alert, the tram up from the staterooms had just arrived at the bow terminal. Someone was coming. More precisely Atzi Delaney was coming. He’d been notified a couple of days back that Atzi had come off the ice, as was her custom, a few months before the other jurors. Maybe out of some misplaced sense of duty, maybe just to eke out a little life while she could. In his younger days, he found her practice to be disgustingly holier-than-thou. Now, he more than understood. Still, though their schedules had aligned, propriety or recursive ennui kept them at a distance, typically not seeing one another until the jury convened.
Not today. Today the thin, serene face of Atzi Delaney came floating up through the round door to the observation dome. She slid to a comfortable seat opposite Kuo, feet hanging down through the door, held in place by the bare wisp of gravity the ship’s thrust provided, and studied him carefully.

Though she woke earlier than the others, Kuo had still far outpaced her in waking time. Where her face was still firm and bright in the prime of life, his had become weathered and lined. Where her shoulders held straight on her lithe frame, his hunched and ached even in nearly imperceptible gravity. They had never been friends, but the stream of time had worn all edges in their relationship smooth, and a profound respect had gradually pooled up in between the sturdy stones of their shared memories.

After a long pause, she finally asked, “Have you seen it, Mr. Yun?”

Her voice, as always, was as serene as her face and utterly inscrutable. Over his many lives, Kuo had bartered and haggled with more members of the Delaney family than probably any person alive. He thought he knew them all, thought he could use the hard braggadocio that was so common in the family against them, indeed that was why he was so quickly selected by the Yun Corporation to represent their interests aboard the Fate. But when he came off the ice that first time and found himself face to face with Atzi Delaney, a woman so unlike the rest of her family. Poised, quiet, thoughtful, reserved.

“Mr. Yun...” he wheezed, his vocal cords still stiff from disuse, “...after all this time, please, Kuo.”

“Very well, have you seen it Kuo?”

“Of course I have,” he breathed,  “How could I not?” He looked up meeting her dark, glimmering eyes. “It’s a dream.”

A slight, uncommon, smile parted her thin lips. “I’ve thought the same myself, after so long it seemed all but sure that this system would be the same as all the others.” She let forth a twinkling laugh. “I think we may have seen every way a promising system can be unviable upon closer inspection, I feel like I’m walking on eggshells waiting to find out why this one won’t work as well.”

“There’s life, almost certainly...” Kuo whispered, mind drifting back to all the interminable discussions around the bridge’s long table of past planets. All those they walked away from for almost every reason imaginable. 

“There is,” she agreed. “Although it does seem to be established enough that we can probably safely send some probes down to do preliminary reconnaissance to see if we could safely settle.”

“And if we can’t?” Kuo asked hopelessly, his dream collapsing into nightmare as the many ways it could all fall apart crystallized in his mind.

“Then I suppose we hope the ship is able to find more accessible reserves of water and isolated hydrogen so we can attempt another crossing.”

“You would really have us attempt another?”

“If we need to, we’ll find a way.”

He had trouble comprehending her optimism, clearly, she hadn’t been outside to bear witness to just how fragile their ship had become. “Then it is all a dream,” he finally sighed.

“No dream Mr. Yun, just the first glimpse of true possibility we can remember.”

“I’ll believe it when my toes are in the dirt.”

Another laugh that glinted like the heavens above. “I hope to be there to see it. In any case, this certainly won’t be another system fly by, you’re right in thinking that we’re dangerously low on too many reserves. The Fate will need time to find raw supplies and aggregate them, I’ll certainly use our time to do some research.”

“We will imperil the life by that research, we will imperil the life if we choose to settle.”

“Beyond a doubt, but we’ve lost more than half our numbers since we set out.” Kuo reeled, he’d stopped checking casket failures but they certainly hadn’t slowed on his account. More than a million lives lost, Delaney continued on, “Which certainly changes the moral argument in our case, we can either take our best precautions to protect the planet and make it our home or we can likely go die in space. I know which I prefer.”

“When will you wake the others?”

Now her smile turned impish, “I think we’ve had enough debate for a couple of lifetimes don’t you Kuo?”

He looked up, startled, “You intend to not give them a choice? Can you do that?”

“Of course not, but we have to stop anyway, so I may as well let them sleep and ensure that they awake to an opportunity that’s so golden it’s less of a debate and more of a foregone conclusion.” 

Kuo was taken aback, Atzi Delaney in all their time together had never seemed so energetic, so ambitious, so devious. But desperate times...

Their tabs chimed in unison. Already, Kuo’s repair was paying dividends, the ship had just imaged a larger swath of space around the planet at an angle more offset from its star than they’d seen thus far. Backed this far off, the white of clouds and azure of ocean and green of forest all blended, all their hopes hung upon this pale blue dot.

“That’s strange.” Atzi started, sliding around the circular doorway to sit next to Kuo. “The ship had reported one small moon, but it looks like there are actually four.”

“How’s that strange?” He asked looking down at the new images on the screen. Sure enough, barely perceptible, were two little pricks of light in the black on one side and one on the other, the fourth was presumably hidden behind. “We’ve seen plenty of captured asteroids.”

“That may be it...” she studied a new set of charts streaming across her tab. For a woman who’d come from the world of art and aesthetics, Atzi Delaney had certainly taken to the finer details of astrophysics when the need arose for it. “They seem pretty even for asteroids, doesn’t look like they’d be big enough round out under their own gravity though.”

“Ok, so an odd coincidence that the planet captured round asteroids? I still don’t see the cause for alarm.”

“Well it’s not so much that as their orbits...” Her fingers flew across the tablet, calling up the early reports on the moons, eyes whisking back and forth drinking in the information. Had this ever not been her? Kuo pegged her at the start as some sort of spoiled rich kid with an artistic inclination, but she’d defied his expectation at every turn, why stop now? “Yeah, alright look at this.” 

She held up a dense table, he could barely make out the figures. He screwed up his eyes like he was trying to analyze the chart but his face must have given the game away as she let forth another glittering torrent of laughter. Why had he avoided her all these years?

“It’s alright, the ship will have some more visual models done up shortly. But these oddly round moons also have some oddly round orbits... Perfect, orbits if these numbers are correct.”

“How can an orbit be perfect?” he wondered.

“Well, they seem to be very evenly spaced around the planet and all right around where we would expect geostationary orbit to be.”

“Well, that is very strange.” Kuo had to agree.

At that Atzi Delaney looked up from her tab and a wide grin spread across her face. A smile like Kuo hadn’t seen in all his years in space, and likely for long before that even. A smile that dug into the hardened soil of his heart and against all odds implanted a tiny seed of hope. Hope for decency, hope for humanity, hope that he just might be able to dig his toes into dirt one more time before he called it a life.

“Strange indeed!” she laughed. “So what do you say Mr. Yun, will you stay awake with me and see if we can call this new place home?”

For the first time in a thousand years Kuo Yun’s lips turned up into a smile. His muscles rebelled against him, his cheeks protested in stiffness, but it could not be helped. He would see this dream to its very end. 

“Yes Miss Delaney, I think I will,” he warmly agreed. They looked down, shoulder to shoulder, at the planet gleaming below them. “AR-122b-c...”

“It will need a better name don’t you think?” She asked playfully.

“So it will...” he pondered a long moment, “...Arcadia.” The name floated off his lips and as they looked down at the bucolic lands below nothing could have felt more fitting.

“Indeed,” she smiled. “Arcadia.”

And so the CRS Delaney’s Fate, her thousands of living cargo, and her two wandering souls slowly limped their way out of the darkness and towards home.

--

Cecilia saw God all around her.

From the steps of her little wooden chapel she saw His grace shining down across the valley. She saw Him in the garden behind the building where her seeds seemed to leap from the loamy soil in a profusion of lush verdancy. In the afternoons she would walk through her hamlet and out into the cool forests that climbed the side of their secluded vale, here she saw Him in the strange yet so familiar trees and ferns that covered the springy earth in a fresh blanket. And she saw Him in the faces that gradually came trickling into her pews on Sunday mornings; bewildered, wondrous faces feeling something like faith for the first time.

She could relate to the feeling. Cecilia was new to faith herself if she was being honest. Not to the faith, no that had defined her life, but true faith was a wholly new experience. She struggled to make sense of it, couldn’t really if she thought about it too hard. But that was nothing new. Very little in her life with the church made much sense to her, but the Lord worked in mysterious ways. That had to be enough for Cecilia.

She never would have known the hollowness of her own devotion if she hadn’t come to Arcadia. Her whole life had been given to it, and still it was an empty bowl with not a drop of rain to fill it. She told herself a story of being driven into the church by her love of God, but in her heart of hearts, that place she had kept locked away for so long, she knew that she had come to the church to escape.

It hadn’t been much of a choice, not really, but then again very little ever was for Cecilia. Just a poor parda girl born in the favelas above Rio a couple of years before the drought set in,  in earnest. For most of her youth her only real exposure to any sort of religion came from the stern hand of her avó, she’d failed to pass on her devotion to Cecilia’s mother and when her father came into the picture all hope was lost. So her avó did what she could with Cecilia, which was precious little, wild child she had been. It had never been an easy life in the favelas, but it was home, and despite all the violence that surrounded her every day Cecilia still looked back fondly on those years. She could still see the big golden ball of the sun rising over the Atlantic as she went about her morning duty of emptying the condensation traps.

But the drought got worse, and Cecilia’s life along with it. Her father killed in gang violence for some reason she never knew, or more likely for no reason at all. Then as the wells started to run dry and the fires scorched the mountains around the city, what little work had been left dried up. Her mother disappeared during the worst fire season, for a while it was easy to believe she’d simply gotten lost on her way home in all the smoke. In time though paltry rains came and knocked the smoke down and even little Cecilia knew her mother wasn’t coming back. 

The months that followed were probably as close as she ever got to real faith. Living with her avó she heard the word of God every day as she attended daily Mass in the little ramshackle church clinging to the hillside. The fires started back up before too long though and finished the job they’d started on her avó’s lungs. She’d prayed, or tried to at least, listening to the old woman’s rasping final breaths. It wouldn’t be long until word got out that young Cecilia was all alone, just barely out of middle school someone would come and take her. Child services or some cartel thugs neither seemed too promising. 

But then, a few mornings later as she watched a blazing orange sun rise through the haze over the ocean by luck or divine providence Ceclia looked down and saw a group of women dressed in strange habits climbing the stairs by her little shack. They looked serene and unspoiled in their white robes with crisp blue trimming. Missionaries of Charity, come to help the world’s poor. She certainly fit the bill for their help. A dirty little girl, struggling to empty a condensation trap that had only brought in a couple thimbles over water over the smoky night, grandmother stiff with rigor mortis on her deathbed.

With no other choice, Cecilia went with the nuns, received their help, heard about their works, and in time, joined their order. Everyone knew the church was falling out of power across the world, embroiled in scandals, losing membership generation after generation; all the same, it was hard to impeach the humble lineage of Saint Teresa of Calcutta. It wasn’t her dream, not by a long shot, but a life of service seemed at least seemed respectable, especially when comparte to her other options.

So the years passed by and Cecilia got to work. First learning English, then studying scripture, each day taking the next step on a stair that had been well-trodden by thousands before her. Aspirancy to postulancy to novitiate to solemn vows. At each step she could have left, but where would she go? Besides, it all came secondary to the work. Even as noble a group as the Missionaries found themselves short-handed, so a wiry parda girl who picked up English and Spanish in a matter of months proved too useful for the sisterhood to not put to work.

And work there was aplenty. From Caracas down to Buenos Aires and inland through the jungles to Manaus and up the Andes to the Alto Plano and Sucre, population booms had strained the natural world to their breaking point. Unrestrained growth, stress, collapse it had all led to orphans aplenty and the sisterhood was there to help. So Cecilia walked the steps of the faith, studied the scripture, said the vows time and again, and she told herself that she loved God. Loved Him despite all the evil she saw around her day in and day out. Loved Him despite the hundreds, thousands of orphans who always needed her help that could never be enough.

But she hadn’t loved God. Not really. She could see that all so clearly now. Whether by luck or skill or innate political tact Cecilia had climbed the ranks of her sisterhood even as her thin faith was worn away day by day. After nearly twenty years in service, her faith was only a veneer, she loved the work, didn’t mind a life of chosen poverty, loved helping those in who she saw so much of herself, and she told the world she loved God. But she’d stopped telling herself. The lie of her faith was a grim truth she’d come to accept over years of horrors. So when she was called to the Vatican after the announcement of the Delaney missions she was certain it was some mistake or prank or PR posturing.

She’d never left South America though, so why not take a trip? The notion that she’d ever be able to visit the beating heart of the church that defined her life hadn’t ever crossed her mind before. That wasn’t her lot.

The plane tickets were real though. So was the small but plush room she’d been given with a little window overlooking the giardini; it was the softest bed she’d ever slept on. The Council of Cardinals was real too; the old, red-faced men in redder robes treated her well but didn’t solicit much from her. In truth, she didn’t have much to contribute. Cecilia knew precious little about either the inner machinations of the church or the Delaney program. It seemed the plan was for the church to liquidate nearly all of its assets and secure as many seats on the ship-landing juries as they could. Read the writing on the wall as it were; all but give up the Catholic mission on Earth in hopes of finding more fertile soils among the stars. The Lord would provide.

Even with a nearly complete liquidation, they’d only be able to secure a handful of seats. It seemed a shoddy plan at best to Cecilia. But still, she sat in audience of the Council and when asked had told stories of her work from Sao Paulo to La Paz, the red faces nodded respectfully when she spoke. They all agreed it was the Lord’s work. It wasn’t really though, it was her work, financed by trickling interest from ages gone by when the Church still held weight in the hearts of man. She kept her mouth shut though, and watched as the red faces began to haggle over allocation of the seats on the ships. She listened as the Benedictines carved off their share, then as the Dominicans and Franciscans squabbled over their respective allocations, watched as the Jesuits gobbled up a full half of the available seats. Too many to her mind.

After days of monotonous haggling, Cecilia was about ready to stand up and leave the chamber mid-session. She clearly was only invited for political posturing, to have her little speech made even littler by news crews who needed a sound bite. This wasn’t her place, and there was much work that needed to be done. But a life of service had taught her patience and so she watched on. Then she watched, now in awe, as the door to the chamber was hauled open by the Swiss Guard and as Pope Pius XX stepped into the chamber on slippered feet. She listened as silence filled the lofty chamber. He nodded briefly to the Council before walking over to the audience where she sat, minor representatives of lesser orders all. Missionaries and Mendicants, Trappists and Camillians. She watched, now in disbelief, as he selected a few solemn faces from this silent crowd to stand by him, watched, now in utter incredulity, as he walked up and selected her from the audience. She stepped out and listened with ringing ears as he spoke, soft voice barely puncturing the heavy silence.

“Alas, I am too old to go and see the extent of the Lord’s domain,” Pius began with a rasping whisper. “So these good brothers and sisters will be my eyes and ears, my voice, to help bring the word of God to the stars and bear witness for me the glory of His love.” And with that, he stepped slowly through the stuffed silence and the door closed behind him.

Surely that had been a dream.

It certainly seemed like a dream when through ringing ears she heard the room explode in a cacophony of protests. It made about as much sense as a bizarre dream, that was for sure. The church was laying itself bare to be a part of these missions, why allocate such dearly-bought seats to such impoverished orders? Was it faith, true faith, that Pius held in his heart? Or was he simply trying to expand the diversity of orders that would make it off of Earth in hope that somehow somewhere the right voice and the right planet and the right faith would let the church flourish once more? As with all dreams, answers were hard to come by.

So Cecilia drifted in an unending, barely lucid dream as her life was wholly uprooted from the orphanage she’d been running in Sao Paulo and cast into the stars. Once set in motion by a simple word the world sped by in a blur. Teams of Delaney representatives whisked around her, sizing her up, assigning her to the recently christened CRS Delaney’s Fate, helped her tidy up what few affairs she had outstanding, and eventually lowered her down into a cryo-casket at their processing facility in Mexico City, where she and two million other souls clinging to the edge of hope would ascend into the heavens and through the stars.

That was when the dream ended. She woke after that first crossing sick but hopeful. How clearly she remembered that first planet, bare, rocky, but with possibility. The atmosphere was thin, sure but they could fix that in time, the gravity and orbit were right, the star very stable, what more could they hope for?  Then she’d watched helplessly as the cynical jockeying for position by the other jurors eventually had them all turn against the planet. It made her sicker than the cryo ever could. Then came Purgatory, she watched as an endless stream of unviable worlds passed by. Each time a planet showed promise squabbling would have them all on edge enough to take any adverse update as enough to pass the system by. So after a dozen stars they took a turn in towards the galactic center hoping for shorter crossings as the number of casket failures slowly kept up. The systems they passed descended into heaving masses of gas and shattered planets as tidal forces threatened to rip the systems apart; there was no hope for life down here as the countless eons passed. In this black limbo the harsh radiation of interstellar space boiled away the last of Cecilia’s faith.

It had never been a dream. It was a death throe. Clearly, her work, her life, had not been enough and now she was in some sort of post-futurist hell, cursed to hop through all eternity away from God’s love. She shouldn’t have tried to save his children, she should have tried to save his world. But she didn’t, humanity didn’t, maybe they didn’t deserve His love after all.

But then, this foul lie that had held her heart for so long was dispelled in one ray of verdant glory. She awoke to the beaming radiance of Arcadia. They had faced the temptation of despair, wandered the desert for their forty days and now they had returned to Galilee. It was that day that Cecilia first saw God, saw Him and loved Him truly.

Now every day she saw Him all around her.

From the steps of her chapel, she saw His love basking their little hamlet in golden light. She felt Him in the rays descending through the cleanest, crispest, air she’d ever seen. She could smell Him in the rising mists that wisped away in the morning light over the mossy green hills that rolled off into the distance. 

Today, Cecilia had places to be, so she finished her mate with eyes closed feeling the rays warm her face in the fresh morning air and strolled through her little hamlet. There were no roads, not yet at least, no one had far enough to go for all that. She walked lightly along the little footpath down the hill from her chapel and along through the main hollow that held the bulk of the buildings her township, the springy earth beneath her making each step buoyant and vital. Little handsome buildings rose along the paths, all surrounded by gardens exploding in a profusion of life. It was early enough yet that most of the town was asleep, still, some early risers waved to her from front porches with cups of coffee in hand or from side yards between their tosses of feed to the chickens. Here in the hollow the provisioner and tavern stood side by side in utilitarian wood buildings making up “main street” along with the stone square they’d first built by the pond shore to be the center of their humble home. As she walked past the pond, the sun dispatched the last of the morning mist and illuminated a clear day with a sky so deeply cerulean it was almost purple.

Beyond the pond, little square homes nestled into the rising hills each with a bountiful garden, white smoke puffing from chimneys heating stoves for breakfast, and each with a little complex of paddocks. What livestock they kept was held in strict balance with the world they’d occupied. The native life here was very, strikingly, Earth-like, and astoundingly resilient. It had weathered their initial contact and exploration without a hitch, it had dealt with the humans and then their animals easily, almost symbiotically. Still, they all remembered from whence they came. They knew that they couldn’t treat this planet like they had Earth. They couldn’t be ravenously carnivorous like they had been, if they introduced livestock or species it had to be done with the utmost care, kept in an exacting balance to add to the ecosystem, not detract from it. They were stewards of this new land.

Cecilia buoyed in high spirits along the path out of town, into Kuo’s Wood. Here the hills climbed a little more steeply and the lush forest that surrounded her township closed in around her. The wide path weaved through the towering trees, small leaves so dark they almost seemed black at times reached out to dapple the morning sky and whisper pleasantly in the breeze that rolled in off the sea. If she’d had occasion to walk through unspoiled forests back on Earth she may have thought this wood was remarkably similar. Sure, the leaves on the ferns were a bit darker, the bark on the brushes a bit paler, the undergrowth filled with a decided scarcity of local animal life. But she hadn’t, so it was all simply a blessing, and no matter how you looked at it the tall, stately trees were magnificent

Although the biologists still refused to call them trees. They refused to call anything by its proper name. Cecilia never understood, they had been given a gift, a true miracle was right before their eyes and the scientists with their endless poking and prodding simply couldn’t accept it. They insisted on inventing a whole new taxonomy for the species of their new home, endlessly sampled and analyzed and theorized and retheorized all in the name of something it took Cecilia but one moment to achieve. These were trees, those were ferns, that over there was a patch of moss, and the low vales, where they built their towns, those were filled with grasses. The oceans had schools of crustaceans of different types. The woods, what little animal life they’d had, had insects of a couple different varieties. No need to bend yourself over backward reinventing the wheel. Surely they were going to call them trees no matter what hoops The Academy decided they needed to jump through.

As she walked in the dappled, shimmering sunlight she remembered the early days after landing when The Academy was just a little research outpost on the shores of the harbor. In each of the perplexed researcher’s faces she saw the touch of God. They had feverishly worked to analyze and explain how the life on this planet so many unfathomable lightyears away could be so bafflingly Earthlike. Hypotheses flew around like swarming mosquitoes in their tidy lab overlooking the bay. In the end, they’d settled around a working theory that characteristics they had considered Earthlike were simply marks of efficiency. That life on a wet, warm planet of this size would ultimately organize itself into ways nearly identical to Earth life; there would be different species sure, but broadly similar allowing minor changes for an atmosphere with a little more oxygen, a star a little less bright, seas slightly less salinated. It was like gravity, they decided, given the right elements and enough time life would form into these familiar structures. Bacteria, eukaryotes, archaea, they were all as sure as a comet dancing on its prescribed orbit. The biologists found they could even keep most of their classifications through the order level. From there the planet went its own way though and gave them something to sink their teeth into.

That was a pleasant-sounding lie and all, but Cecilia knew the truth. They were seeing God’s fingerprints. The life was similar because that was the way He liked it. They could test and squabble all they like, but when He wanted a tree He made a tree and that was that.

She remembered, more fondly, walking beneath these trees with Kuo Yun in his fading days. When she first came off the ice Cecilia had been shocked how old the man had grown, she knew he was keeping himself awake for parts of their crossings for reasons she never understood. And coming back down to a planet with its inescapable gravity seemed to push him years further along in his life in a matter of months. He was actually the first settler in her little hamlet, building a spartan house on the shores of the pond with wide-open doors facing the waters where he could meditate in the morning mists. The path she walked this morning used to be his route into town, over the hill and through the wood as it were. She’d walk with him from time to time, enjoy the dappled shade on their skin, savor the sweet hymn of the insects buzzing about their business, drink in the rich smells of the deep soil.

Now his house was a monument of sorts, left exactly as he left it but for a little plaque out by the front gate describing his service in researching the planet along with Atzi Delaney, and more critically, his creation of the Citizen’s Council driving a nail into the old hegemony of Earth. In those dying days Cecilia had tried to convert him, get him baptized so that he could spend eternity basking in God’s love. The old man had seen too much for all that, besides he said, that was her way not his. So they had walked in the woods while they could, toes digging into the loamy soil, savoring each and every step.

And in his time, she’d buried him in the yard beside the chapel that caught the morning light and looked down on the pond in its mists. She’d said a prayer over the fresh dirt of his grave with the few faces on the new world who knew him. Somber faces from the Jury all, they paid their respects and hoped this would be the only funeral for quite some time. By the time they landed, after all, Kuo Yun was the only truly old person in the new world.

Just then, Cecilia came around a curve in a path to the bony shoulder of the ridge at the top of her climb, the trees swept back on either side and framed the vista below. El Descanso De Yvette, or Descanso as almost everyone had come to call it, Yvette’s Rest. Their fledgling frontier city, named for the woman who had launched these thousand ships to the stars, although Cecilia never knew why she received the honor. Her own niece, Atzi, who represented the Delaney Company on their ship, seemed to have no love for her aunt, but all the same, the name had been tacked on and in time, stuck. Besides, Descanso was a lovely little town.

From her vantage high on the ridge, Cecilia could see everything. The town filled the grassy flats around a sheltered bay that faced out towards the setting sun; this early though, only the very tips of the tallest buildings and masts in the marina caught the morning light as it slipped over the ridge Cecilia had just climbed. Neat, tree-lined streets radiated away from the town square that abutted the harbor. Beside the square, The Academy now rose four stories in a proud wooden building with a clock-face like a great glass globe atop its main spire. From here this strange clock tower, which served as their primary contact with the Fate orbiting high above, was all one could see to indicate the town wasn’t ripped straight out of the pages of history; on the other side of the plaza town hall sat with open doors and a wide staircase that led down to the square, that was where they held most of their meetings as it was usually too nice to want to pass a perfectly pleasant morning in a stuffy council chamber. Along the shores of the harbor, a market sprang up every morning divvying out the day’s catch and allowing the townsfolk to provision themselves with what little they could not grow for themselves. Beyond the square, a modest commercial district was distinguished by two-story buildings with neat storefronts hiding beneath the shade of the trees and awning-covered rooftop terraces; it played host to the majority of the town’s cafes and restaurants and what few businesses the most enterprising citizens had decided to open. They didn’t need much space for all that, their whole society could make very little, but they enjoyed what they had. Then, lining the radiating streets beyond, little square bungalows rose up into the gentle green hills that climbed East from the city center. Each house, of course, had its own garden and was built in clever little blocks to let six or so houses share a lush, tree-covered central yard where the residents could relax, and meet, where children could play and they could all make a life together with their little chosen tribe. In a way it was odd to see, you could see how the “front” of each house was all but forgotten as the rear entries that faced the central yards became the primary entrances for residents and friends alike.

Beyond the houses, for almost half a mile in all directions, the rolling grasses still remained unperturbed except by little footpaths leading in from the other hamlets hiding in the hills, and beyond that the lush ring of trees, that seemed so much like beech to Cecilia, swallowed the steepening hills peaked by gray crags like the one where she now sat. This morning as she looked out, the mist was rolling off the harbor over the craggy outcrop that wrapped around and nearly closed the harbor mouth they’d come to call the Castilla, it was the sort of jutting sea spire where one could picture a white lighthouse at the summit helping ships navigate in the dark. But where did they have to go in the dark? The few crustaceans they fished were close at hand, there was nowhere to ship anything to, not anywhere to go really. Commerce, trade, shipping, those were from a different world, not this one. So there was no the Castilla stayed as it was, keeping the harbor calm and jutting out of the morning mists as they receded towards the glittering ocean beyond, no lighthouse needed.

Descanso seemed a proper city next to her own little hamlet, but in truth, it held only a couple hundred-thousand people, barely a town of note by the standards of old Earth. Indeed, now that they had woken almost everyone up it certainly could’ve been a larger city, but after the first couple of years, something about this place had driven growth outward. The hills beyond Descanso could be quite steep at times but almost invariably there was a pleasant valley on the other side of the hill with little lakes and streams tucked away and wide green fields covering the valley floors. A perfect landscape for world-weary souls to slip away and settle in little hamlets of their own or deep in the lush bush itself. Indeed, when it came time to build her chapel the call of these snug vales had sung to her. Sure, she could have easily set up in Descanso, tried to attract more souls to her parish. But evangelism never had much place in her church, and now it was something else that seemed like it belonged to another world. No, she built her chapel in a hamlet she’d come to love over her time with Kuo and that was that. She’d hold mass, heretic as it was for her to do so, for those who wanted to attend, and she let God speak through her good works. Just like she always had. If people felt their faith stirring they would come, it was only an hour’s walk over the hill after all.

“Bom dia freira!” A laughing voice broke Cecilia’s reverie as she sat on the flat stones of the ridge in the morning sun, preparing for her descent into town. The only thing laughable was the horrendous accent with which the greeting had been delivered. She’d recognize that awkward, clipped timbre anywhere.

“Bom dia Karan, and stop calling me that.” Much like her habit, and the non-ordination of women, her title of Sister felt like it belonged to a faith not fit for this world. She turned towards where she’d heard his voice, a faint path that followed the ridge from his little cottage that hid under a high escarpment overlooking the town. As she opened her eyes she saw him emerge from the bush pushing, of all things, a bicycle. “Where on Earth did you get that?” she exclaimed.

“Where on Earth?” The young man teased pushing the soft tires across the open granite of the ridge to take a seat next to her in the sun.

Karan was a dark young man with a light spirit. He worked at The Academy as a computer scientist and was purportedly good at his job, but Cecilia found this hard to believe given how distractible he always seemed in their conversations. She also found it hard to believe that such a hard part of the world as Karachi could produce such a light heart. But then again, she’d never been, maybe the reports of the energy cartels had been overblown. Nevertheless, he’d found his way out and was now a large part of what made Cecilia so hopeful for the new world. He was the only Academy scientist that ever attended mass, and one was better than the none she’d expected. Maybe there was hope faith and science could live side by side here.

“Oh you know what I mean.” She pinched him lightly as he sat next to her. “I haven’t seen a bicycle since I left Sao Paulo, where’d you get that thing?”

“Latest shipment down from the Fate,” he let out a low whistle as he ran a hand along the tubing. “Top of the line, this puppy.”

“Bah!” She laughed, “Top of the line? That thing looks like they peddled it right out of the 19th century!”

“Well ok fine, top of our line then.” He smiled, the morning sun glinting in his lively eyes. “It’s the most complex thing we’ve been able to coax out of the factories aboard the Fate so far, so I’ll take what I can get.” He nudged her playfully, “Besides, retro is in these days can’t you tell?” He waived towards the town below that could have easily been pulled from a 19th-century frontier.

That much was certainly true. In their desperate need for basics following their landing, no one had noticed that the factories aboard the ship were malfunctioning. It produced biological material just fine, but once they wanted to move beyond subsistence and into a more modern society they ran into issues. They could barely get the ship to make anything more complicated than a length of pipe.

 This never bothered Cecilia, there was a big enough stash of built technology in the hangers of the ship to let them set up a stable society for what few of them remained. Solar panels and batteries to meet their modest energy requirements in the mild climate, basic agricultural equipment to help them work the land, hardware to let them build and furnish their homes out of local lumber, medicine to help them adapt to the few oddities of the new world and keep them healthy, even a fleet of boats that floated in the harbor they could use to fish or explore the nearby islands in their archipelago.

All this seemed more than enough to Cecilia. It was enough to live on, and to live quite well, but it wouldn’t be enough to grow. No aircraft to explore beyond their base, no equipment to mine the hills, no machinery to expand their production locally. They could house and feed all the remaining souls who had survived the long journey to Arcadia, but they could not grow much beyond that. Settle the valleys and islands around Descanso and that would be it. Cecilia didn’t see the problem, it seemed seeking endless growth was what got them into this situation in the first place. Maybe without so many modern luxuries, they could preserve this Eden they’d been handed, and not be banished at the first opportunity.

But still, with the Citizen’s Council in control Cecilia’s voice counted for less than it once had aboard the ship, and so young Karan was working away with his team to try and fix the factories.

“So it seems you’ve been making some progress on your project,” she assumed.

“Well yes and no,” he sighed. “While this is certainly more complex than the screws we were able to get the ship to make a couple of weeks ago it’s still a long way off the microchips we need it to make eventually.” He tapped the steel tubing. “Heck, it’s a long way off of the modern bicycle plans we have at the ready.” He jumped up with a grin. “Still, it beats the heck out of walking down the hill every day!” He laughed, and pushed off down the path. “Will I see you at the meeting this morning Sister?” he called back as he gained speed.

“Of course you will bobo, and stop calling me that!” She hollered after him.

“Very well, see you later Bhaina!” He laughed as he careened off down the path and under the trees.

Cecilia sighed, shook her head, and stood up. She loved that young man, but she’d never win with him. She strolled down the hill, following the tire tracks in the loam. Her brow furrowed as she walked, could they resist the forbidden fruit? First bicycles, then scooters, then a truck or two just to help with the big loads. Next thing you know they’d want to build a road through Kuo’s Woods. Maybe there was another way, at least she hoped so. If there was a way vibrant minds like Karan’s could find it. So she continued her descent through the woods and out into the tree-lined streets of Descanso.

Walking down the rolling streets towards the harbor with trees dancing in the breeze Cecilia remembered the first times she set eyes on this place from a million miles away. It took little enough convincing to get her vote to settle this planet after she came off the ice, and before long they were shopping around for a preliminary settlement location. The shores of Descanso harbor went immediately to the top of the list, and now years later, it seemed as though there wasn’t really much of a discussion. Arcadia had almost no axial tilt so the tropics stayed almost unlivably hot year-round even though they experienced regular monsoon seasons that kept the belt in balance. So they looked at the strings of islands just north and south of this sweltering band. In truth, the islands were much the same, at least as far as they could tell on their approach, but nowhere was quite like the tranquil hills of the Landfall Archipelago which they ultimately decided upon.

Here, warm air from the tropics mixed with a cold current sweeping up from the southern polar region balancing the climate in crisp sublimity. The greenery of other islands looked much the same from above but for one striking difference, around Descanso the lowlands and vales were all largely clear, covered with moss-green grasses in wide fields, not the dense bush that smothered most other islands. Their island chain climbed the latitudes rather prodigiously giving them stepping stone access to the tropics and near antarctic waters if they proved to have valuable resources. The largest island in the grand chain that their eyes settled upon had a high, bony ridge of white-capped mountains running down its spine, although Cecilia had only ever seen the capped summits once, and that was only after tramping for several days inland to climb a local summit that afforded views both out to seas and across the grand island to the towering peaks. This island also had a deep bay on its western shore that appeared to be almost completely protected, a perfect natural harbor, and that bay was surrounded by rolling grassy fields, fresh water from the river that wound its way up into Cecilia’s vale, and building materials from the forests appeared like they would be easily at hand. Yes, this was the place. No doubt about it, a place almost tailor-made for their needs.

Walking along the tidy, dirt streets Cecilia smiled and took a deep breath in, looking high up into the cerulean sky. There, hanging at the zenith, was the apple in her Eden. One of the moons they had found so peculiar on their approach sat in a geostationary position almost directly over the town. It hung near the apex day in and day out, glinting coldly. No large, butter moon like the one she’d known from Earth, this was a cold moon hard and shimmering in the morning sky. She knew the strange moons surrounding Arcadia were God’s work, but it was hard to feel Him in this menacing sphere that stared down at them day in and out. On this particular morning, it caught the early light to reflect a thin crescent that waned even as she watched, an arc of pure, unbroken white, not a pock or nick to be seen. It was a mystery to which she wanted to say “the Lord works in mysterious ways” and move on, but she knew The Academy couldn’t resist exploring this unknown, indeed she expected to receive some news about their investigations as part of the meeting today. Still, as the moon glinted down, finally fading from visibility in the brightening morning sky, Cecilia knew these moons would send them all from the garden if they could not resist the temptation.

She returned to earth, no need to dwell on that which she could not control. The city was coming alive around her and an intoxicating bustle began to fill the crisp airs of Descanso. Smells of cooking breakfasts wafted out of windows open to the morning breeze, young children and dogs ducked out of doors and romped out into the shared gardens that sat amid their handsome groups of houses. A few called over to her, laughing without a care as only children could. She’d simply wave in reply and call a pleasant Bom Dia in return. A few blocks further on the buildings rose up with their handsome frontages, shops were just beginning to turn over their signs as she walked past, but most of the thickening foot traffic was headed where she was. Down to the harbor.

The people of Descanso, indeed of all Arcadia, were a handsome, almost euphoric folk. Most had been surprised to find themselves awake after their long journey, and all were stunned to learn how many countless eons they’d slept, and all grieved at how many had been lost along the way. Families had been destroyed, futures cut cruelly short. Still, the promise of a new world so far beyond their wildest dreams and the healing stream of time had washed the despair from their hearts as they settled into their new lives. They came from all corners of old Earth, with faces that told a million different stories, all scattered, all scarred, but here they had a chance to start fresh. Turns out the age-old call of a fresh start was enough in this place to overturn even the oldest of hegemonies. This place, and the careful machinations of Kuo Yun in his fading days, had ensured the toppling. 

In just a few short years Arcadia had molded them as well. They began looking like an almost comedic poster of diversity, skin of every hue, hair of every color, clothes from each and every part of the old world, but in time the planet had worn off the prickliest of their old tribal flourishes. Clothes unfit for the somewhat more rugged life of an Arcadian wore out and couldn’t be replaced, elaborate jewelry or grooming couldn’t be maintained. Heck, they hadn’t had a decent barber in town for almost three years, and even now Cecilia wouldn’t trust the one that’d opened up a couple of months back come near her unruly mop. But it was more than that, they were all Arcadians now, the old posturing of their identities was as psychologically ill-fitting as they were unfunctional for a world that required everyone to work with their hands.

Recently, they’d begun getting a couple of different fabrics out of the factories aboard the Fate so that there was some difference in clothing that passed Cecilia on the street, but as always it was human ingenuity that really helped them thrive. She passed a newly opened fabric store rolling up their front gate for the morning’s trade, a striking five different patterns of woven flax were on display. Cecilia smiled, thinking how paltry this would have seemed back on Earth, but then again when was the last time anyone on Earth had to build a loom from scratch? God had made them in his own image, and he loved to create.

As she rounded the corner to the square, Cecilia walked by the buzzing workshop with doors thrown wide to catch the fresh morning air off the harbor. Here human craft was on its fullest display. The workshop was a proud stone building, the only one in town, that sat on a little rise on the far edge of the plaza. It was a hive of creativity; they had opened shortly after The Academy taking the information that the researchers extracted from the archives of the ship and turned it into a life well-lived. Feeding the growing population in the rich soils had proven strikingly easy, and shelters were easy to erect that suited the mild climate. But people wanted more than food and shelter, they wanted dinner and homes. That’s where the workshop came in, they all worked together here to turn the wealth of natural abundance around them into art of every shape and form. Local flora, once declared safe for consumption, became ingredients in recipes in the shop’s kitchens. Local timber became the tidy homes and shops they all made their lives in. Indeed, it was in these open spaces that the local reed that seemed so much like flax to Cecilia had been transformed into the linens at the shop she had just passed. God’s hand was at work, making something from nothing.

The town square was buzzing as well this morning. Down on the harbor side, the morning market was popping up under its colorful awnings. The early morning’s catch was being offloaded into trays of ice, and carts laden with produce from the most productive gardens rolled in to trade away that which those prolific gardeners could not eat. A few tents even displayed the latest shipment down from the Fate, mostly tools and hardware that let them improve their homes. Through all this bustle the smell of warm cinnamon wafted to Cecilia on the morning breeze. She looked over and saw her friend Sarah, the baker, doing brisk morning business.

“Bom dia Sarah!” she called as she crossed the plaza.

“Howdy Cecilia!” Sarah called back with a toothy smile. “The usual for ya?”

“Sim, por favor.”

The baker handed over a warm, cinnamon scone steaming in the sunlight. “Meeting at The Academy this mornin’ I hear?”

“Yes, indeed.” Cecilia nodded, savoring the first bite. She’d been told they were working off a backstock of spices brought on the ship and that they were having difficulty cultivating certain species, cinnamon among them. Maybe she could dedicate some of the church’s plot as a test garden for spices. It didn’t seem right that they’d live in a world without Sarah’s cinnamon scones.

She made to take out her tab to transfer Sarah credit for her breakfast, but didn’t even get her hand into her pocket before Sarah cut in, “Don’t you even think about it darlin’,” she chided “I still owe you from the last milling you pitched in on, and with next harvest due any day now I’m liable to go even further into your debt, if you’re willing to work on the grind again.”

“Of course I am, just let me know the day.” Cecilia volunteered, as she took another bite and looked around the market, in truth very few ‘sales’ could be said to be taking place. Everyone ostensibly worked off a central credit system that would help each and every Arcadian buy what little they couldn’t provide for themselves, live well and balance their life with the community and the planet. It was radically transparent and exceptionally elegant, all centralized in the ship’s AI, yet another invisible touch of Kuo Yun years after his passing. But in reality, credit rarely changed hands, in a community as tight-knit as theirs favors stacked on favors and their society chipped happily along. No one could become too rich, or too poor, so credit just became a formality for large, infrequent transactions, and like so much else the very concept of a morning “market” began to lose its meaning.

“I do appreciate it,” Sarah cut into her contemplation, “Well, I know it’s not your favorite but you’d best be getting along to your meeting, you know Dr. Tran doesn’t like to be kept waiting.”

“Sim, eu conheço,” Cecilia sighed, finishing off her breakfast. “Let me know what day you want my help on the mill!” She waved and turned to walk up the steps into The Academy.

From the town square, the steps of the academy rose up wide and stately, one of the few stone edifices in the whole town. Like all other parts of the plaza they were primarily a meeting place, and on this morning several couples enjoyed their breakfast or played with young children in the warm sunlight. Atop its little rise, The Academy stood, proud and well clad. The building rose four stories with broad wings reaching out, stretching the length of the square, at the center the great clock tower rose another couple stories into the deep blue sky. The ethereal clock face at its center a constant reminder that no matter how primordial life may feel here on Arcadia they were a people of the future. The clock was a milky glass globe that shifted colors almost imperceptibly as the days passed by in their subtle difference, but most strikingly no matter which direction you faced the hands ticking away their hours always seemed to be facing right back at you. 

Of course that all was largely decor. There was no need to haul something so elaborate, so delicate across the stretching parsecs just to tell the time. No the clock tower, and therefore The Academy itself, was very much the anchor of their new society. It served as the primary data transfer point with the ship and its satellite arrays drifting so many miles above as well as a nexus for their local communication networks. Almost as soon as they began to settle in Descanso they brought the great orb down and settled it in its place of high honor, even before the rest of The Academy was built below it, a reminder of the greatness of old Earth and the wonders it had produced. Even in its darkest days.

Cecilia climbed the wide steps in a few easy strides and entered into this hallowed ground. From windows high in the clock tower the soft early light cascaded in all around her, flooding the tidy halls with life itself. Even this early the stretching corridors were ablaze with the intoxicating vibrance of minds at work. All around entranced faces shuffled to and fro as they carried on about their endless explorations of all the great unknown. She smiled and remembered back in the very earliest of days, before the clock tower or the square or even the notion that Descanso could be a real, vibrant city, when The Academy was little more than a couple of metal sheds dropped by the harbor, this feeling of invigorating exploration still filled the air. It was exhilarating, and it was dangerous. These minds in their endless quests would burrow their way straight through to the very fabric of creation if they could, and straight away from God.

“Ah Cecilia, glad you could make it.” A voice called out through the morning bustle, Cecilia looked down one of the sunlit corridors and saw Dr. Tran, a waifish woman in a long white coat and pressed trousers with eyes that pierced right into your very thoughts. She was a member of The Jury across all their endless years lost among the stars as the group’s astrophysicist, but somehow the time seemed to slip right by her as if deterred by the razor’s edge of her mind.

Beside her walked the other, remaining jurors. Dr. Marcello, their boisterous biologist smiling the same wide grin that came to his face the first time he saw Arcadia and had never left. The somber, young Henry David, the Voice of the People, always dutifully there, even when his eyes were a million miles away. And, of course, Atzi Delaney, as always serene and inscrutable. After the Kamba, Saito and Yun delegates had passed away they were naturally succeeded by others from within their families, but they weren’t part of The Jury, not really. By God’s grace, they didn’t demand to be privy to the Jury’s discussions now that the colony was settled, and so Cecilia was happy to leave them out.

Dr. Tran whisked right by Cecilia in the lobby and down another branching hallway that led away from the square. “Follow me,” she snipped, syllables tight and terse. “We don’t have too long and there are a couple of developments you all should see before we try and make the final approach.”

The hall opened up to a wide, tidy lab with rows of desks on either side and large windows that looked out to the very tip of the harbor and the Castilla beyond. At the first bank of desks, she saw Karan sunk in deep discussion with another computer scientist, reams of bright code flashing before their eyes; as always they worked in pairs, letting ideas percolate between their minds. A pulsing orange light on the side of their desks told her that they were not to be disturbed, lest you risk the wrath of Dr. Tran, not a pleasant prospect. All the same, Karan shot her a bright smile before returning to his project.

The researchers would always work like this, just a few hours of intense coworking that apparently generated more unique ideas and approaches than days of conventional, independent research could create. After that, they’d cool down by laying out the next session’s work and head home after only a couple of hours, usually sorely in need of a nap Cecilia was told the creative sessions were so mentally taxing. Any leg work that needed doing would be turned over to the ship’s AI and the fleet of robotic arms it controlled on each bench in the lab.

It was hard for Cecilia to comprehend in truth. Her whole life she’d done the jobs that others had refused, and there was no getting around tedious hours. A garden wasn’t ready for planting until it had been turned, a supper wasn’t ready until it was out on plates, a roof wasn’t repaired until it kept the rain out. How could just a few hours of work really make a dent in the mountains of projects The Academy liked to create for itself? Dr. Tran assured her it was the most efficient way, but Cecilia harbored her doubts, and honestly, wouldn’t have minded one bit if their progress slowed.

They stepped into another bank of desks near the end of the wing. The astronomy and astrophysics lab. Dr. Tran’s domain. De facto she ran the entire Academy, top to bottom, even if she was only officially in charge of this team. It wasn’t hard to see why. Watching them work together when she’d come to visit was to watch a well-oiled machine run in perfect balance. Hypotheses and data and analyses slid from mind to mind in an almost liquid flow. But it was more than that, it was the way they looked at her. Faces from all over the world looked at this slight woman with a face of stone and showed nothing but admiration. Yes, Cecilia could see it, Dr. Tran was molded by God to lead.

“Will you pull up the latest from Theia please?” She asked one of her assistants.

With a click, the large display that hung on the wall opened up to reveal a colossal jovian planet spinning silently in the blackness. It was a great marble in every shade of blue. Theia, the largest planet in the system. From their vantage on the dayside they could see a few moons floating and the thin edge-on line of the ring system, utterly dwarfed by the spooling clouds that mixed and danced below them. Cecilia’s heart skipped a beat. It wasn’t the first time she’d seen the planet, nor the fiftieth, but it still took her breath away. The human mind truly wasn’t built to comprehend things of this magnitude. Centuries of misguided historical analysis held that humans once fancied these jovian behemoths as kings among gods, this was not God, but He was there all the same.

“Alright move us around the array to the east terminator.” Dr. Tran requested.

In a second, the whole planet seemed to speed up in its rotation and suddenly they were looking down from a new vantage at the hazy line where Theia turned slowly into night in its lazy rotation. Gasps escaped from lips around the room.

In the thickening darkness around the equator bursts of light jumped between the clouds illuminating a dance in every color. The flickering pulses seemed minute in comparison to the massive planet rising away on either side, but they coursed through the alien atmosphere in a quixotic ballet with steps never lasting more than a few seconds. The individual pulses were faint, small, and fast but they jumped in such a procession that collectively a rainbow of lightning pulsed across the equator and around into the blackness of the night.

Atzi Delaney was the first to regain herself, “Are these aurorae? You’ve been monitoring the planet for quite a while why haven’t we seen this before?”

“Well actually I’m showing you this because we’ve just established that they’re not aurorae,” Tran began matter-of-factly. “They may be visually interesting but jovian planets typically have them so it wasn’t all that noteworthy.” She turned to her assistant, “Please take us to full-night and explain Chara.”

“Not noteworthy? Tran, you have to be kidding me!” Dr. Marcello gasped, she shot him a hard look in response.

The great giant turned once again and suddenly they were positioned directly on the night side from a further vantage so that sunlight created a thin, blue halo around the fringes of the planet. Cecilia’s stomach turned. Few things in the world seemed quite so unnatural as the displays in The Academy, it was as if a hole had been cut in the very fabric of reality and they looked down from on high, jumping thousands of kilometers in a moment as if they were God himself. From this new vantage, they could see the band of flickering lights stretching clear across the whole planet. To be sure, they were incredibly faint from this far out, almost imperceptible, driven next to invisibility by the sheer scale of Theia. But they were there, glittering, dancing.

“So this is a live look from a satellite we have, holding hard on the nightside of Theia,” Chara began excitedly. “Yeah, so we started properly studying the planet last year, and like you say, Miss Delaney, aurorae were our first guess as well even though we don’t have any record of equatorial aurora, still it seemed like a good place to start.” She took a rushed breath and pushed her short hair back out of her face. “So we used our satellite array to map the magnetosphere to see if there were any oddities that would explain aurora forming around the equator.”

“And?” Dr. Marcello demanded, nearly as excited as Chara, standing just below the display with wide eyes.

“And nothing!” she yammered back. “Nothing to tell us that the planet should have such odd atmospheric effects. So we decided to move this satellite into position to study the phenomenon visually. It’s been holding heliocentric position as the planet turns around since we can’t get a good reading on the light on the dayside. They’re pretty faint as you all can see, but we’ve been mapping them for the past couple of days and when we overlay all the data here’s what we get.”

Another tap on the keyboard, another round of gasps. The faint band jumped into jaw-dropping brightness. The entire equator for ten degrees north and south glowed brilliantly in a sprawling web of light. The pulses were now held at their most visible and patterns formed where they had flickered in the clouds. Coursing rivers of light wound their way through the atmosphere shining back bright white at their thickest before branching off into a rainbow of different colors as the pulses diverged from the main currents. Her fellow jurors stood with mouths agape, but all Cecilia saw was another apple in the garden.

“So this is why we’re just now certain it’s not an aurora.” Sarah continued, composing herself. “These pulses travel along relatively set courses, they move seemingly with the clouds rather than higher up in the atmosphere where aurora would be, unaffected by local wind. Whatever is causing these lights it’s floating up in the upper cloud layers.”

They stood in rapt silence as the visual continued slowly morphing. Strand by strand the web was rewoven again and again. The rivers of light shifted subtly as their nexuses moved with the billowing clouds below.

“Alright, I’ll be the one to say it,” Henry David’s soft voice broke the silence. “Could it be life?”

Dr. Marcello stood eyes utterly fixated on the visual, drinking in each step of the chromatic dance, “Certainly not as we know it...” his usually booming voice drawn to an astonished whisper. The man was the only person on Arcadia, Cecilia thought, how might find more beauty in the natural world than she did. Even if their foundational beliefs were a world apart, she could understand his awe.

“This new evidence obviously opens a host of new hypotheses,” Dr. Tran cut in directly. “If it was common electrostatic discharge we’d expect a relatively random distribution, but there is clearly a pattern here, so that lends to the belief that some fixed objects in the atmosphere may be causing the flashes. Still, we’d only propose life as a hypothesis of last resort, and we’ve only been collecting this fixed position data for a few days.”

“Indeed...last resort...” The rapt Dr. Marcello muttered, “You’ll be sending this over to my team?” He asked Tran.

“Of course, it’s already on the way, you’ll have the live feed as well, I just wanted to see your face when I showed this to you.” A sliver of an impish smile cracked through her stony facade. He shook his head in disbelief and whisked away without another word, off back to his team.

Dr. Trans’ assistants broke out in laughter.

“Say doc I don’t think I’ve seen Marcello at a loss for words before.” Chara chuckled.

Cecilia had to laugh as well, she’d rarely seen the man’s mouth shut for more than a moment. But positively dumbstruck? That was another thing entirely.

Tran nodded satisfied before her usual, cool composure swept back across her face. She clapped her hands lightly. “Alright, now time for the main event,” she commanded, extinguishing the last remaining chuckles in the group. “Our approach probe should be within visual range by now, Chara if you please.”

Another click and the display shifted away from the jovian and back to their own home, and the bedeviled moons that orbited so perfectly around it. From the perspective of the approaching craft, the moon that hung directly over Descanso looked like a hazy white ball in a well of ink. It was a view Cecilia had seen many times before. Indeed, even before they set foot on the planet they had similar imagery of the moons. As always their bright faces seemed to somehow defy accurate capture, always looking somehow blurred even when captured by lenses that could map planetary surfaces from across the system.

“As you all know these moons have been somewhat a thorn in my team’s side, considering how easy it should be to gather good data on something so close at hand. Still, hopefully, we’ll be able to get some good insights today and maybe even manage to touch down if luck is on our side.” She looked up at the glowing, opaque orb. “I’ve been taking a series of measurements with the sensors aboard the Fate and have had some luck in that regard. The ship’s AI has been doing studies across the electromagnetic spectrum and found that all four of the moons seem to emit streams of strange radiation at different times, almost indistinguishable from cosmic background radiation. It’s been rather frustrating going though, all the data dumps from the ship on the subject seem to come back corrupted in some way or another.”

They’d tried in fits and starts to capture some better images of the strange objects ever since they landed, always failing to capture anything better than the hazy image they now saw. The myriad minds of The Academy had proposed a host of different hypotheses for the strange effect. Maybe the moons were surrounded somehow by little gassy atmospheres of their own, just enough to scatter light before it reached the surface. Maybe some strange lensing from the nearby planet was causing problems with the imaging. Cecilia never bothered to keep too close of tabs on the subject, but there was no avoiding it now. They’d set out to land a probe on the moon’s surface and see what they could find out.

“Well, we’ve seen this before...” Dr. Tran began, a whisper of disappointment creeping into her measured voice. “Still this is the closest visual we’ve had, and that does appear to be a relatively hard edg...” Her words choked in her throat.

In an instant, the image resolved itself out of hazy obscurity and into glittering crystal. There was no atmospheric haze, only a spinning ball of diamond with a thousand facets precisely cut. As the probe approached another layer similarly cut, similarly perfect resolved itself inside the outer layer. And then another. And then another. A matryoshka of perfect crystalline spheres each spinning perfectly inside of the others, down and down and down until the facets melted into a gleaming white. Cecilia had never seen anything so perfect, so precise, so surely the work of what only could be God.
“Oh my God,” Chara cursed.

Dr. Tran gripped the back of her assistant’s seat with white knuckles. “Start the deceleration sequence now, full thrust.”

A few keystrokes and the growth of the moon began to slow, holding the clarity of all the spheres and their billions of circling facets.

“Do we...do we attempt the landing?” Sarah whispered.

“No, see if we can...” Dr. Tran stuttered, cool composure now completely wiped away. “See if you can hold stationary with full thrust and stop approach.”

The probe’s rockets were firing hard on either side of the main body to eliminate the formidable momentum that it had been carrying expecting to find a rocky surface at the end of its journey. Still, the camera held steady, keeping a clear feed down to the spinning surfaces below. The momentum couldn’t be erased all at once though and the moon continued to grow in the display, evermore facets resolved themselves as the probe continued its approach. Inexorably the view grew and grew, suddenly the display flashed white several times, and then nothing.

“What happened?” Dr. Tran demanded.

Sarah frantically worked her keyboard, “The feed’s dead!”

Heaves of dismay circled around the room, but Cecilia only smiled. Yes, God was all around them, and this time He didn’t want them out of the garden so easily.

--

Henry David always seemed to have trouble getting away from humans.

He’d spent the better part of his life just trying to find some quiet corner of the world to have to himself and think his thoughts. If it was wrapped in nature so much the better, but he’d learned he couldn’t be that picky. But now thirty-some lived years, six homes, and two planets later he was beginning to doubt he’d ever find the solitude he sought.

The irony of his struggles was not lost on him, now that Arcadia was home. Humanity was but a blip on the surface of this wild, teeming planet. There were whole hemispheres left to be explored, hell even most of their island hadn’t been properly mapped. Yet somehow, one way or another, almost every single day Henry David found himself sitting on the front steps of town hall dealing with something.

Every day was different of course, there were so many challenges to overcome when homesteading, and somehow or another, try as he might, Henry David was always the one who was called on to help. Now the remaining few souls trickling down from the Fate almost all decided to head off into the hills surrounding Descanso, filling in the valleys and flats with little townships and their homesteads. And that meant, maddeningly, that Henry David was now not only the one most frequently called on for help, but the one person most apt to provide it. He’d been doing his damnedest to get away from society since he’d first set foot on the planet, building his home up in a high vale north of the city next to a clear, deep kettle lake that looked further north towards the wild coastlands that wrapped around the top of the island. But society had its hooks in him now and the harder he fought the more entangled he became.

With the clarity of hindsight, he could see just how futile his struggles really were. It all started that damned day he woke up on the ship. It never should have happened to him, but it did nonetheless and now he was just about worn out fighting his fate. Henry David went down for the long sleep on Earth mostly expecting that, that would be it for him and his life; he never had much faith in the Delaney venture, the whole project always seemed like the death rattle of a species that realized too late it had poisoned itself to him. Still, the woods he’d loved to visit so much as a child were all gone or dead and it was only by a stroke of luck his parents were able to sell out their aluminum holdings to Delaney in exchange for berths for him and his partner. There was no nature, no work, no life left on Earth, better to take the chance that by some miracle they would actually find a new planet and make a life there. And if not, well hey, at least he got to see a little greenery before it was all gone. So he’d gone down in the Delaney cryo facility in Boston expecting that to be it, or at best, he’d wake up to some barren rock that the scientists leapt through hoops to say was more suitable than Mars which had so stubbornly refused their efforts at colonization.

But that was not his lot. No, he woke up in the cold luxury of a stateroom on the CRS Delaney’s Fate bewildered, sick, confused. It was days before he could wander the long hallway down to the bridge where Atzi Delaney informed him that he, Henry David, long-unemployed carpenter, naturalist to a dying world, and general skeptic of all things human, he was chosen as Voice Of The People for the ship, he would be the one to give voice to all the sleeping millions in the halls of the ship. He burst out in laughter at first, certain it was some sort of joke, but Atzi’s serene face just held his eyes until the reality had settled upon him. It was a joke, one played by that most mischievous of pranksters, the universe. He could protest, he could beg, he could cry but it was inescapable the ship had chosen him at random and so each time they approached a planet he, of all the millions of sleeping souls aboard, would be woken to join the capitalist demigods who comprised the rest of the jury and determine the fate of humanity.

He wasn’t at all surprised when the endless procession of useless planets passed by the eyes of the Fate, how much hubris could humanity seriously contain? Did they really expect to burn their house and expect the universe to toss them a new one out of the goodness of its heart? He would’ve understood this sort of expectation from the nun, afterall she was supposed to believe that the universe or God or whoever cared one whit about them, but she more than any of the rest of them seemed to realize just how ridiculous this whole expedition was. So that was going to be it then, he’d pass his days waking up, reviewing yet another planet unfit for habitation, learn the lesson of mankind’s vanity once more, and slip back into sleep. Until even his little stints awake wiped away his last remaining days, or more mercifully until his casket failed as so many were and ended the recurring nightmare. He remembered the numb shock of seeing the notice when his parent’s caskets had failed...and then Jamie’s... he should have felt something more, been enraged or bitter or heartbroken, but he was just numb. His interstellar hell made that the only feeling he was capable of.

And then along came Arcadia, and the joke took on a whole new meaning. Of course the planet was beyond his wildest dreams, that much went without saying, but he said it plenty anyway. From the first image he saw Henry David knew he would spend the rest of his days smothered in this riot of life, then the sadness came. He’d never walk these woods with Jamie, never share a home tucked in the hills where they could live a life entrenched in nature like no one had for centuries. But that was the cruelty of life, not its attempt at a joke, no that came later as he began to explore the hills around their fledgling settlement. He found his lake in its little nestled hanging valley in a matter of days, accessible to society if he needed it, a world away when he wanted it. Perfect. But even with all his survivalism and naturalism and carpentry couldn’t keep him alive alone on a different world. He didn’t know which pants were fit to eat (a good deal of them it turned out), where or if imported crops would do well in the new soil (almost anywhere worked in the end), or what trees were suitable for building timber (actually a scarce few oddly). So society reeled him back in once more, he was tied to the new colony.

The early days weren’t so bad. There were hardly any people, he was mostly working with biologists at The Academy to get different crops going, and down at the docks hauling in cargo drops as they came down from the ship splashing into the sea. The town couldn’t really even be called a town, The Academy was a couple of storage containers stacked on a rise by the harbor and town hall was just the far side of the square where they’d built a couple benches to accommodate the tiny population. But along with the cargo came down more people and the joke turned again.

Descanso began to grow, and so did Henry David’s desire to slip away to his lake and live his life in peace. But once again it was not to be. Despite all his struggles and refusals the title Voice of the People meant a great deal to the new citizens of this world, besides Kuo Yun needed all the help he could get with his new Citizen’s Council concept. As much as he’d rather have slipped away and let society go its own way he couldn’t bear the thought of some Yun or Saito underling getting a bright idea after Kuo passed and retrenching the powers of old Earth. So he stayed around, even accepted a position on the council at the rest of the jury’s insistence, and helped build the new world even when all he really wanted was to slip away.

Now, years later, between his experience on the council and years homesteading out in the hills people constantly called on him with questions and the track that led down into town from his lake had grown deep. Sure, he could’ve insisted that people come up to him but that would’ve been worse. No, the best to be done would be to give his help when people sought it down on the wide steps of the town hall. He’d hoped that if he never went in the building the town would stop seeing him as a leader and eventually he’d get the peace he so long sought. Instead, most of the civic functions of the hall had moved out onto the steps, the meeting chamber sat empty and they hosted their debates al fresco. At times he had to smile, the universe that trickster, was funny when she wanted to be.

Today though, he was in his place. The dirt was soft beneath his boots as he tilled the last row of his garden for a new planting, his sheep dotted the lakeshore around him, the ocean glittered like a billion dancing coins in the morning light. He could hear the wind in the trees, and the buzz of the cicadas-that-weren’t-cicadas. And of course, he could hear the endless babble of Dr. Marcello as he helped till the beds.

Henry David loved gardening with the chatty biologist, even if he had a hard time believing it. The man’s chattering truly had no end. He’d dig and dig away and his words would drift off on the morning breeze filling the valley with the sounds of life. Just as the whip-poor-wills used to fill the dying forests with their whistling song back home, Marcello filled the forests of Arcadia with the chatter of a different sort. By rights Henry David should’ve despised it, the incessant drivel of humanity filling his little corner of solitude, but he couldn’t manage to. Chatter was the way of Dr. Marcello, just as waves crashed and insects buzzed and birds sang.

“...so we’re growing preciously short on other explanations for the Theia phenomenon.” Henry David tuned into the middle of the stream of words as he came to the end of his row. “The astrophysics team is all but stumped, and they now have the satellite array sweeping the high clouds for carbon isotopes that shouldn’t be there. Of course, my team isn’t much help yet beyond confirming that life is looking more and more probable, but holy hell what does that even mean? I mean some sort of ammonia-based biochemistry would be the first hypothesis to test but..”
“What, so you’re picturing some sort of like balloon aliens floating around in the clouds?” Henry David cut in, interest sufficiently piqued by this development to stop his work.

“Ahh haha, my friend not exactly,” Marcello smiled continuing down his row. “Right now we think it’s more likely that we’re essentially seeing extremophile microorganisms in the high clouds that also happen to be bioluminescent.”

“If that’s the case then how would the flashes be moving so quickly?” Henry leaned on his hoe, always game to poke holes in the good doctor’s theories.

“Weeeell, we don’t have a great answer there. But our own ignorance doesn’t make it less likely that this life wouldn’t be particularly developed. More to discover I say!” As always Marcello found a way to end on a high note.

“Less likely than all of this doctor?” He asked waving to the beautiful morning that had developed around them as they worked; part of why he liked the doctor so much was that Henry felt like Marcello truly understood, better than anyone, just how preposterous it was that they had found a planet like Arcadia. So many others just seemed to take it for granted.

Marcello could only shake his head and laugh, “My friend nothing is quite so unlikely as the two of us standing here having this conversation right now. Ah, there’s a bugger!” He set his hoe aside and reached into the loam with a gloved hand pulling out a dark, six-legged creature from the soil. Henry always just called them nestlers, but Marcello certainly had a more proper name for them. “Of all the things that could vex us in growing food on this planet I suppose you’re not so bad, at least you’re slow, and friendly for the most part,” The creature started to squirm in protest to its captivity, segmented legs waving in the air. “And you are very helpful with getting nitrogen back in the soil for us, but you like to eat our seeds so you have to go I’m afraid.” He tossed the nestler over several beds into one they were letting rest, they’d toss all the nestlers over there along with any green waste that came out of the gardens, and in a few months’ time, they’d have a new bed ready for tilling.

“So what you’re saying is that I’m one spaceship ride away from having a hot air balloon as my new best friend.” Henry joked.

“Sure thing my friend, the biology team will watch your first contact with interest to see if the radiation, gravity, or atmosphere kills you first.” He reached the end of his row and took off his gloves. “I, for one, think I’ll stay here. I’ll take over your little valley here, and expand my research gardens.”

“Ha! You should be so lucky, more like, one more crop and I’m going to kick your chatty ass out of here so I can finally have some peace and quiet.”

“Oh you’ll never be rid of me, my young friend. Besides we have something new to try today.” Marcello teased.

“Oh yeah, what’s that?”

“Eggplant my friend, melanzana.”

Henry David stuck out his tongue, “Yuck, go try someone else’s garden.”

“Oh young Henry, so naive in the ways of the world. The eggplant is one of the world’s truly great foods, I can’t imagine you’ve ever seen anything so much as approaching a good one in your life.” Well, that much was definitely true. “The nutrition team tells me they have some very handy particular vitamins our little colony needs. And when the time comes to harvest, you come over and I’ll make you a parmigiana that will, and I do mean will, change your mind on this marvelous nightshade.” Marcello frequently liked to wax poetic about food, that was probably another reason Henry David tolerated his company.

They reached into a bag of seed he’d brought and started to sew the wide bed.

The biologist looked thoughtful as he scattered some seed, “So I saw Karan on my way out of The Academy early this morning, he was a bit manic.”

“Really? That’s unlike him.” Even now, it was only a couple of hours after sunrise, usually, The Academy would just be getting going for the day and Karan usually got in on the late-side. “Did he say what brought him in so early?”

“Well that’s the thing, apparently he’d been there all night, so had most of the computer science team. They were roping in Dr. Tran and anyone on the astrophysics team they could grab.”

“True? What’s the to-do? I wasn’t aware of any projects coming to a close.”

“That’s what I was wondering, so I asked him and apparently just as he was going to head up the hill for the night yesterday a program of his completed itself and he got a huge data dump back from the ship unexpectedly.” Marcello was casual talking about this unexpected development, still neatly tucking seeds into the soil, but Henry David thought he could hear an edge to his voice. “Apparently it was an archive of odd electromagnetic pulses, almost indistinguishable from the cosmic background, that the ship started picking up a couple of light years outside the system.”

“Weird,” Henry David’s interest was sufficiently captured that he’d set aside his seed. “Did he have any theories on why it stayed cached for so long?”

“Honestly it was pretty chaotic by the time I left, and most of it went clear over my head. Seems like the cache was locked up with all the trouble they’re having with the factories, so I guess it’s a good thing they’ve made some progress. But to be honest, they were much more wrapped up in the source of the pulses.”

“Oh yeah, why’s that?”

“Well as best they can tell right now the source seems to be our little moons.”

Henry David nearly spat, “What?! And you’re just now telling me this?” His mind took off down a mazing race track. “Why...why would the moons be emitting what, radio waves?”

Marcello put his hands up,  entreating moderation. “I know, I know. It has me a in a bit of a tizzy as well. But no, not quite like radio waves, not quite like anything we’ve ever seen before to be honest. I was hoping a little gardening this morning would help me come up with a plan for the bio team, I’m sure it’s bedlam back there by now.”

“Why would the bio team need a plan?” Henry David wondered. “You’re thinking these pulses aren’t natural? Are you telling me we’ve had signs of alien intelligence with us this whole time and we just wrote them off as a couple of weird moons?” He panted and looked up at the moon hanging at the zenith slowly fading away in the lightening sky.

“Woah woah woah, slow down my friend. I never said any of that, clearly I need to rethink how I communicate this information with people later today, can’t have people getting all twisted up over something that really could be nothing. The bio team will mostly be fielding questions from the public and doing some route data analysis since astrophysics and computer science are so wrapped up.”

“You can’t be serious, first these lights on Theia and now mysterious radio waves. Come on Marcello, everyone’s going to jump to the same conclusion as me here. They’ve got to be related!”

“Not radio pulses,” Marcello sighed and shook his dark head, “Oh, not you too my friend... That’s the other reason I wanted to come out here this morning, we’re going to need your help. My team is good, but the people have always had a hard time listening to lab-coated scientists. They trust you though, and we’ll need you to help us keep people from getting way too ahead of themselves on this. They’ll want answers, and to be honest we won’t have much to give.”

Henry David’s stomach twisted tight. On one track his mind raced along thinking of the possibilities these two new discoveries could contain. Was there some subtle, intelligent life right here in the system with them? He had just been ribbing the doctor about the balloon people, but now he was wondering just how possible that could really be. He had a million questions he wanted to ask Marcello, but...but there he stood, his one actual friend in the world, deep eyes looking at him hopefully, pleading with him. He was just as confused and anxious as Henry David was, probably more so because he understood the impossibility of their discovery more than he did. His stomach twisted tighter again, again he had no choice but to pick up this damn mantle that had been thrust on him, that’d he’d so much rather pass off if only someone would fucking take it.

He let out a low groan, “Goddamnit Marcello, you know I hate this shit.”

“I know you do my friend, and someday we’ll find a proper leader for the council, but it won’t be today, and today we need you.”

“Fine, you bastard.”

“That’s my boy.” Marcello smiled, covering the last of the row of seed with soil, and standing to pat Henry David on the shoulder. “You know you’d make a fine permanent fixture on the council if you’d take it.”

“I’d rather take off for the far side of the island and never see any of you twits again.”

“That’s just it, my friend,” Marcello smiled. “You don’t want it, and that’s why you’d be great. Let the town take care of itself by and large, but here you are taking the burden when needed.”

“Give me a little time to get my head on straight for this though.”
“Of course.”

“And Marcello, tell me true. Do you think these things are connected?”

He chuckled, “Of course I do my friend, and that’s why I’m a terrible scientist. There are a million hypotheses we’d need to disprove before we really start testing any connection in earnest, but it’s hard not to feel like they’re connected right? If only because we made the discoveries in such quick succession.”

“But do you have any idea how a gas giant could harbor intelligent life?”

“None whatsoever, and I’m sure my team will have plenty of possible explanations that don’t involve any connection by the time I get back. But I know what I feel.”

“And what do you feel?” Henry David asked, hoping to find reassurance.

“A million butterflies in my stomach, that’s what.” Marcello laughed, “Now, give these little seeds a good drenching, I want to rob you of some sproutlings in a few weeks to test in other beds around town.” His dark eyes locked into Henry David’s. “And don’t be too long, I’m sure word is already flying around town.”

“Have it your way, you dick.” Henry David shot back with a smile as Marcello turned and walked toward the trace of a path that wound through the woods and over the ridge into town, leaving him to steel himself for what would surely be an exhausting day ahead.

As Marcello’s footsteps receded beneath the beech trees Henry David was left to himself, and his peace. Or what he could make of it. He drenched the beds with water pumped out of his pond, listened to the waves crashing on the cliff faces far off at the foot of his hanging valley, and he thought. But his thoughts just folded back in on themselves, refusing to form a cohesive train. Finally, he gave it up and decided he’d take the long route into town, time under the beech always seemed to clear his head.

He ducked into his tidy, wooden house to grab his bag and his tab. In the few moments he was inside it chimed a half dozen times. Clearly, word had already gotten out. He turned it off. He already had more information than he could get straight.

The long path from Henry David’s valley wound out towards the sea and around the long sloping ridge that separated his valley from the wide fields of Descanso. The direct way would pop him straight over and into town, but he usually preferred the long way. It moseyed with a meditative rhythm out through the thick groves of beech and fern. Although it took him closer to the sea, the dense trees closed out the waves and he was left entrenched in the wild nature of Arcadia.

Out here he could think, with leaves dappling the light and branches swaying in the trades. Out here it became all too easy to dream. To dream of walking another path, one that turned north, off into the true wilds, to leave this messy little knot of humanity to its own devices. The island would more than provide. They spent all their lives scurrying around in furrowed circles making work, making projects, making progress. At least that’s what they called it. But where could it get them? There was already enough to eat, even the most rudimentary foraging skills could actually get you by here. They mostly grew crops to have something to do, and cling on to one little shred of home when all else was gone. In the end, it was all work for its own sake. Maybe that was the human way, but it was not his way.

If he turned north, made his way through the bush off into the rugged wilds, that could be it for Henry David. It for Descanso. It for The Academy. It for the council. They’d figure out their new way or they wouldn’t, he’d never know. The idea was almost hypnotic in its intrigue. Head off, live as no man had in millennia, take this unfathomable opportunity for all it was worth.

He’d probably seen more of the island than any of the other colonists, having been one of the first to come down and a staple on any mapping expedition for his survivalist skillset. That and the fact that on any given day without a full agenda he was several times more likely to head into the bush than into town. That’s why he knew he could thrive out in the Arcadian wilds. But for all his explorations he’d barely scratched the surface of this one island. Which was to be expected, it was about the size of Borneo, he could spend his whole life here and still have plenty to explore. His northward path left the valley and skirted along the top of the rising sea cliffs that dominated the northern edge of the island before petering out as the bony spine of the island rose into the highlands. He knew a couple of good bivouacs the first couple days out from his valley, beyond that it was all uncharted wilds. It was an intoxicating thought.

Earth held none of this mystery. Every path he’d trod there was worn wide with the footsteps of ages. Not only was everything known, and everything mapped, everything was smothered under the weight of human meaning layered on bit by bit over the millennia. There was nothing to be discovered, only learned. His old favorite haunt was a kettle lake, then a watering hole, then an ice mill, then a historic landmark, then a feedlot, then just another forgotten cove in the neverending sprawl of the Eastern Seaboard. How could he live his own life drowning under so much meaning? Not here. Here was fresh. Here was his chance for the life he’d never known he craved. How many Lilliputs hid in tucked the secreted valleys and out amongst the crashing waves of this wide world? Arcadia was wild, and it called to him...

A nestler scurried away from his stepping foot, snapping him back into the present.

That was nature’s way. It would hold you right where you were no slipping forward or back in time, the only time was now. He looked around, he hadn’t taken the path north, Henry David was still on his meandering route around the ridge towards the city. Below him, the bushes rustled, a quick flurry of whisking branches and then silence. That probably meant a poor end for the nestler he’d scared off.

People tended to think of the forests of Arcadia as rather lifeless, but it wasn’t true. Of course, most had nothing to compare them to. Maybe a visit to a forest park that would’ve been more artificial than natural by the time they got there, or some old archival nature footage back when the Amazon still had its trees and they roared with the sounds of life. It was true, the Arcadian forests were quiet. For all that the creatures were remarkably Earth-like, none besides the cicada made much noise, few really even had ears. 

None had any bones. For the most part, the local fauna wore dark exoskeletons covered in dense fur, although if you spent any time really looking at them you wouldn’t call them insects. They had fewer eyes, and legs for starters, and long segmented tails for balance. The nestlers were about mid-size for their particular family, further inland you’d find their rock-dwelling cousins basking in the sun that reached almost half a meter long. Elsewhere you’d find the creatures that most people referred to as cicada. In reality, they bore little resemblance, but they were a small crawly bugger that buzzed in the treetops and could fly between the branches. So cicada it was. 

Closer to the ocean diversity increased a bit, as it is wont to do. From the tideline up through the streams that climbed into the valleys and miles up the river that wound south of the city a family of amphibious cephalopods, for want of a better word, clawed their way above the surf. They’d developed a sort of cartilage that they could stiffen and soften allowing them to stalk through the ferns in silence or slip water-like beneath the waves. That was probably what had gotten the nestler. That, or somebody’s cat.

Henry David could still vividly remember the day Marcello had first shown him microscope slides of local animal cell samples there in his lab years ago. It was like he was looking at the pages of a middle school biology site. There was the cell membrane, there the nucleus with a knot of DNA they were already attempting to decode, and even there of all things was a mitochondrion. It was such a blow to human exceptionalism it brought a smile to his face. Not only were they unexceptional on the homeworld, of which they’d proven so unworthy, now here, a thousand light-years away, the universe was showing them that their type of life must not even really be rare. Water and carbon, nitrogen, and calcium would dance their way together into these forms over a few billion years like a comet would spin in its orbit. Life, in the right circumstances it seemed, was just another immutable law. Even if here diversity was a bit stunted, but hey, maybe life had just recently moved above the surf, in a few million years maybe they’d have dinosaurs of their own.

But, for as staggeringly earth-like as all the life was here, and it was shockingly so, it wasn’t Earth. And their minds had been molded for a different sort of life. Most of the settlers, who didn’t work in the biology department, ignored the local animal life at best or reviled it at worst. It was understandable in a way, there was a certain leap one had to overcome not to see the nestlers as overgrown cockroaches, to see the strange intelligence of the cephalopods and their curious habits, not just their bizarre state that hovered between solid and liquid. So the settlers brought their goats down at first, then their sheep, then a few dogs, then the cats. Next thing you knew, the nestlers had one more predator to worry about.

Their intentions were as pure as they could be, he supposed. The human mind craved familiarity, and as much as a cephalopod was familiar it really wasn’t. At least wasn’t enough. So they sought the comforts of home, all with the best intentions. They knew, really knew, how much they had to lose this time around. Introduced animals were all kept in strict balance with the local ecosystems, all carefully vetted and controlled, but time went on and the cats got out.

As he crested the low flank of the ridge and came into view of the city Henry David had to admit it might have been the cats that kept him from taking that northward path. Truly, the few dozen cats that lived in the colony wouldn’t be a threat to the nestlers or any other species here, not so long as they stayed managed. But even with the strictest promises they’d gotten out, what would be next? 

He looked down from his vantage into the city. Already from out here he could see a crowd milling around in front of The Academy, could hear their voices rolling up in between the waves crashing below. Maybe it’s not the cats I should be worried about, he thought and hurried on his descent.

By the time he got to the square, the crowd had built to a roaring mass. It seemed almost everyone from the city, and quite a few from out in the hamlets besides, had descended upon The Academy. And they wanted answers.

Dr. Marcello and his team were standing athwart the doors, doing their level best to keep the people at bay. It didn’t seem to be going well.

“My friends, we’re not keeping any information from you!” Marcello cried over the tumlt. “You know everything there is to know just as soon as it’s been vetted. Right now our teams need time to work through all the data coming in.”

That didn’t help. The crowd only became more raucous. He’d tried to calm them, but in the end, only confirmed that there was more to know. Henry David slipped through the crowd as best he could and leaned into Marcello’s ear.

“What the hell is going on?” He shouted hoarsely, “I thought you were keeping a lid on this.”

“It was already pretty hectic by the time I got back, then Karan, quello scemo, had to come out here and announce that last night’s data transfer was just the tip of the iceberg. The ship has been dumping data ever since. It seems the pulses are a bit more than an astrophysical oddity. But he didn’t have the good sense to say anything meaningful and now everyone thinks they’re hiding something.”

“Well are they?” Henry David had to ask the dumb question.

“How the hell should I know? Although whatever they know, the last thing we need is any more tinder on this fire right now.”

Henry David turned around and had to agree with the assessment. The crowd, thousands strong, was just one step away from devolving completely into a mob. It was a scene ripped from the news feeds of old Earth. It turned his stomach, he knew these people, even liked some of them well enough, and here they were ready to rush over their fellow citizens and for what? On his northward path he could leave all this behind, forget humanity and all its many shortcomings...but no, the cats had gotten out and he had to help shoo them back in.

“Everyone please...” He shouted firmly. Immediately the din abated. Oh you assholes, he thought. Marcello had been here saying the exact same things Henry would say, but because he was a member of The Academy he wasn’t to be trusted. Never mind that Marcello was almost everyone’s friend. Us and them knew no bounds. “I’m as keen as any of you to learn what the team in there has to tell us, but this is not the way.” The roar had now almost entirely ebbed. “The folks in there are tired and stressed after working away at this all night, the last thing they need is a shouting crowd at the door.” The crowd now listened intently, goddamn it why me?, he thought, he’d rather they listen to almost anyone else but one twist of fate had put him on a pedestal he couldn’t seem to climb down from. Best to make the most of it. “Now, we all have heaps of questions, so why don’t you all come join me on the town hall steps and we can get our priorities in line for what we want to know?”

Without another word, he grabbed Marcello and pushed his way through the crowd towards town hall on the far side of the square. He had to shove his way at first, but soon the crowd began to part before him, and by the time they hit the square the tide had turned and the mass began to flow away from The Academy doors.

“Thank you, my friend,” Marcello whispered to him.

“We really need to work on your people skills Marcello.” Henry David shot back with a smile.

“I wish it were so easy. As I said, they see the lab coats and they grow skeptical.”

“Well, they really need to start listening to someone better informed than me.”

“Oh, I think they’ve chosen a fine person to listen to.” Marcello smiled.

“Come off it.” He grumped, and led the crowd across to the wide steps of Town Hall.

The remainder of the afternoon passed in an agony of cat herding. Henry David, much to his chagrin, led an impromptu panel at the best-attended town hall meeting in the history of Descanso. All without anything really to say. The questions would come in, he’d hedge and hem and haw and try to come up with something resembling a priority list of questions that would keep them all from storming back across the square and ripping The Academy’s door off its hinges.

The sun drew low in the sky and began to light the low clouds a shattering crimson with the stark black of the backlit castilla throwing an array of shadows across the city. Henry David was wondering if there was a thing that could be said to convince the crowd to go home and await any news without a peep out of The Academy. He doubted it. The people were just as eager as earlier, only now they were tired and hungry as well. Then the town hall doors swung open behind him.

The slight frame of Atzi Delaney stepped forward on the top step and looked out at the crowd and an anxious hush fell, the last murmurs carried off on the evening breeze.

“Thank you for your patience everyone, I know it’s been a long day.” She began in her soft voice.

After they made landfall, Atzi Delaney had almost entirely stopped her public engagement. She made her home in a studio above one of the workshops where she spent her days painting broad murals that loomed over her small figure. Much as she had back on Earth, eschewing the power and privilege that came with her name and embedding herself in the world of art. For as much as he might resent the power her family wielded, Henry David was forced to respect Atzi. Her early work with Kuo Yun had erased any chance that the old power systems on Earth would rebuild themselves here, no matter how hard underlings from the great corporations tried. From all reports she was an essential member of the workshops, lending her keen mind to any number of different projects that had helped them overcome the shortcomings of the factories aboard the Fate.

Still, for all she avoided it, the Delaney name carried weight, and so even with her quiet voice, the people listened when she spoke.

“I’ve just come from a meeting with Dr. Tran, and one thing is for certain, today will go down as one of the most meaningful in scientific history.” She paused, boldly building anticipation. “There is still plenty we have yet to discover, after all the ship has as of now delivered about three hundred petabytes of new information that the computer science team is working their way through right now as fast as they can. But I’ll lay out what we do know.’

“One, we know that the moons that orbit the planet are likely constructed in nature. We’d always had a suspicion, but now it’s all but irrefutable. They have been broadcasting an electromagnetic signal for as long as we’ve been able to observe them. The data that we’ve gathered today show strong signs that they primarily direct their signals between themselves and out of the system.”

“Why are we just now hearing about this?” A voice shouted from out in the crowd.

Atzi Delaney simply met them all with a stern stare as her reply, silence once again took its hold.

“Number two,” She continued. “It appears as though several latent systems aboard the Delaney’s Fate have come back online in the past couple of days. This is good news in that it likely means the factories will begin to approach full efficiency. But it also looks like large parts of the ship’s data gathering and processing facilities, in essence, its AI faculties, have been essentially locked up for how long we don’t know.”

This time the crowd held its tongue.

“Three, in addition to between themselves and out of the system the moons seem to be sending an awful lot of signal out to Theia.” A murmur began to ripple, the crowd had all been awed recently by the discovery of the lights on the night side of the giant planet. “And in the latest batch of data the team has parsed, it seems as though Theia is sending some signal back.” The murmur grew to a clash.

“Now!” Delaney carried on, having to shout above the increasing ferment. “What does this mean for you all? Well, nothing for now, these events have been going on since as long as we’ve been able to observe them, it’s just that we’re only now finding out about them.” This did not satisfy, the disquiet grew to a dull roar. “BUT!” She continued, now only audible to those right beside her. “Clearly this requires immediate action, that is why I plan to take our small launch capsule up this evening to rendezvous with one of our in-system shuttles and make all haste out to Theia to see what I can discover. Once I report back with preliminary findings we’ll have a full scientific team out to Theia in the coming weeks.”

Her last few words were drowned under the surging uproar. Henry David tried to shout out to calm them down but his voice was only swept up in the frenzy. Atzi looked over at him with a small smile and nod before she ducked back into the building leaving him to deal with the mayhem. Their shouts rolled over him and as he looked out at the expectant, roaring faces of all humanity Henry David could only think, Cats, where did we ever get so many fucking cats?

--

Atzi Delaney looked the part of an astronaut in a flight suit, floating there in her coveralls, except where she was covered in paint. 

She hadn’t even had time to get the pigment off her hands before she had to rush over to The Academy. Now, floating in the sterile cabin of the launch capsule, she looked down and realized just how absurd her paint-covered fingers seemed in a place like this. She was never meant to be here.

The day had started like any other, a jog out to the Castilla for sunrise, a quick breakfast in the workshop’s kitchen, and then settling into her studio with a pitcher of coffee to get to work. But then Marcello had to poke his head in and bring her serenity tumbling down. He seemed sufficiently panicked, and indeed when she looked around the backside of her expansive canvas, sure enough, there was quite a crowd growing outside of The Academy, so she hadn’t bothered to clean anything up. She hadn’t even grabbed a pair of shoes.

At least that part was fitting for her new role as an astronaut. Jumpsuited, barefooted, paint-covered, and sick. She’d nearly passed out under the force of the launch, but when she was greeted by the world-churning nausea of zero-g upon entering orbit slipping into unconsciousness seemed like it would’ve been the best-case scenario. Instead, she spent her first five minutes in space emptying what little she had left in her stomach after spending nearly the whole day with Dr. Tran and her team. It wasn’t much. Eventually, the launch was able to sufficiently dose her with its mint-scented anti-nausea aerosol that she was able to float freely and reflect on how truly ridiculous she looked.

All this too, just when she was beginning to feel like herself again. She didn’t belong here floating in the capsule, but that was nothing new, she hadn’t truly belonged anywhere since the day her aunt, Yvette Delaney, walked into her studio in Mexico City. Looking back on it, it was rather a lot like Marcello barging in on her his morning, unwelcome, life-upending, and inevitable. She clearly needed to get a better lock for her studio door.

She belonged back in her tidy Roma studio, up in the attic of the old church, strong Mexican sun streaming in through the arching windows filling the lofted rafters with radiance, surrounded by all the vibrance of the city she’d spent so long burrowing her way into. Her studio was full of works, her life full of friends, her belly full of mole. Her name may have been Delaney but to her friends, she was only Atzi. Her surname had afforded her enough privilege to shield her from the privilege itself, to tuck herself away in the beating heart of one of the world’s great artistic metropoli and forget her family’s quest for interstellar domination. It had worked remarkably well for a time, she’d gained enough of a reputation for her own works to live comfortably, she had a whole community surrounding her, nestled deep in the sprawling city, and she had enough creative energy to fill several lifetimes. Canvases passed across her easel in a blur of color and form, blending the wide spread of history that lay beneath her feet into a celebration of the culture she was so proud to be a part of. Amidst this enveloping nest of art she could tuck herself away and ignore the rocket launches arching up over the hills to the south, she could ignore the fact that for nearly a century Puebla had been a Delaney company town the whole state turned over to the voracious ambitions of her family. Until the day her aunt walked through her door, unwelcome but unstoppable.

“I suppose by now you’ve heard the news,” Yvette Delaney began, her demeanor as always regal and inscrutable, as she looked around at the studio stacked with colorful canvases.
“I don’t pay much attention to the news tía,” Atzi had replied, not bothering to put her palette down, hoping it was all in her head, hoping that her aunt and all the problems that came with her would vanish as quickly as she appeared. Of course, she wouldn’t.

“Can’t say that I find that surprising.” Yvette circled around like a snake. “It’s a nice piece,” she stated coldly, looking over Atzi’s shoulder at the colorful canvas, a wave of citizens pushing an eagle back to flight, “I suppose those are the people of Mexico City down there, but where are all those millions with no access to water? Where are those driven here to crowd the hills and streets, fleeing the destruction of their forests?”

“They are there, amongst us, helping México fly once more.”
“Are they? So colorful and proud,” her words dripped with quiet venom. “When’s the last time you actually saw these proud people Atzi?”

“I go out and walk amongst them every day.” She put her brush down and forced herself to meet the piercing glare of this indomitable magnate she had to call tía.

“Bah!” Yvette barked, “You go out into your little bubble and forget the world around you. Here in Roma where desalinated water can be pumped in at an expense that would bankrupt most of the world. The trees that line your street are better watered than most of the people in your city, and you think they’re out there struggling for the pride and glory of México?”

“And what of the people of Puebla tía? They sell themselves into the company coffers so that you can leave them all behind?” Atzi shot back, indignant. “Of course, I’ve heard the fucking news, it’d be hard to miss. Your face has been on every screen I’ve seen for a month; I suppose you love that.”

Yvette had just announced her flagship mission to Alpha Centauri that would take her to the nearest star system to prove the mettle of her wider ambition, sending her fleet out to the stars. Her journey would be round-trip and almost entirely symbolic, the others, of course, would not.

“I take care of what I can sobrina,” her firm face utterly unflappable by all except the face of a raging sun, and probably not even that. “I can take care of our people in Puebla, give them a good life and something to work for. I came into this ruined world, same as you have, the only difference is I look towards the future and you want to bury your head in the past.”
It was Atzi’s turn to laugh, “Ha! Take care of your people right up until you have a chance to jump ship and leave humanity to tear itself apart. I know why you’re here, and I’m not fucking interested, find someone else to pilot your indefensible lifeboats. I’m here to wright this ship.” 

Even entrenched as she was in her world Atzi hadn’t been able to avoid the news that her aunt was working tirelessly to establish some form of democratic legitimacy on each of the ships her crews were building up in orbit in the form of a colonization jury. Of course, it was all a sham. Each jury would be filled with members from corporate interests that had enough to sell the ever-hungry coffers of the Delaney Corporation, and as a token one randomly selected citizen from the holds a voice for the people would be added in to speak for all the sleeping passengers. As if one disoriented passenger had any hope of wielding any sense of control over the sculpted, trained, and optimized minds that the corporate powers would put aboard each ship. It was a joke. The same powers that had destroyed Earth had run out of resources to exploit at home and now needed to head to the stars to feed their endless need for growth. Most of her cousins had jumped at the chance to lead one of the jurys aboard a ship of their own, but Yvette’s ambitions were even larger than her immediate family and now here she was in Atzi’s studio to find the next Delaney head on her latest ship.

“Wight this ship, what with your painting, here wrapped in your little Roma bubble? Don’t be a child.” Yvette chided. It had been years since Atzi’s parents had passed but it was hard to hear such words of cruelty coming from a mouth that looked so much like her mother’s. “Let’s cut to it, shall we? You’re not doing shit to ‘wright the ship’ a, you’ve buried your head in the sand and ignored the flames all around you. And I say enough, it’s time you did your part for this family, it’s time you did your part for all humanity.”

“Find someone else.” It took every ounce of Atzi’s strength to keep her voice from quavering, to stop her shaking hand from dropping her brush. “Surely there are a million people more qualified than me ready to jump at the chance.”

“Ah sobrina, of course there are, but they aren’t Delaney’s, not real one’s anyway.” She stepped back and looked cooly once more around the studio. “Call me an old fool, but it has to be you. I want my blood on these ships, and more than that I’ve already stacked a dozen with the best and brightest our organization has been able to cultivate over the years. Minds bred, trained, and fueled for nothing but peak performance. Minds like mine. But what if that’s not what it takes to survive out there? What if there is something more that our survival will depend upon?” She stopped at a wide canvas, orange and yellow and white, a roaring sun erupting forth in a riot of geometric lines. “Yes, it’s probably foolish, but I want to diversify. You were bred the same, but undoubtedly your life has been different. It has to be you, sobrina.”

“Find someone else.” Atzi could no longer keep the shaking out of her voice, her trembling hand shook fat droplets of red paint onto the scrubbed stone floor.

“I will Atzi, but I will also have you.” Yvette Delaney turned back to pierce directly through her niece with a shriveling gaze. “It’s time to play your part, and who knows? Maybe you’ll get lucky and you’ll get to bury your head once more in the sand of another world.” She sighed. “We should be so lucky...” her words trailed off as she shook her head. “I’ll be heading out to oversee the final fittings of my ship out orbiting Jupiter next week. You’ll head down to the cryo facility in Puebla in three months’ time, so I won’t be seeing you again. Do your part sobrina, this bubble of yours was doomed to burst one way or another eventually, at least now you can make some good out of it.” And with a solemn nod, Yvette Delaney turned around leaving the wreckage she’d made of Atzi’s life.

Atzi, for her part, dropped her brush and collapsed in tears. Her painting would go unfinished.

She’d fought her fate of course, as her aunt had surely known she would, but the forces at play were simply too powerful to resist. The water in Roma had dried up almost as quickly as her commissions, and within the month she had to say her goodbyes and take a cab to Puebla to seek what refuge her name would still offer.

Now here she was, an eternity and untold light years later headed back to space, her life upended once more. And just when she was starting to feel at home once more. Out amidst the stars, her old self had dissolved in the cosmic radiation. The joy and peace of painting, of creation, were fading memories as her neurons realigned themselves to this new life of sickness, unavoidable hope, and endless disappointment. Her skills with a brush and palette knife were worn away by the eons that slipped past her unnoticed as her mind rebuilt itself in a world of orbital mechanics and atmospheric compositions and gravitational constants. Jump by jump she was worn away until she could barely remember the Atzi Delaney who had lived in that sunny studio, who would walk to the park with her friends and sip tequila beneath the shady trees on a spring afternoon. She had always thought she was an artist, would be an artist, that creation sat next to her very core. But space had laid bare that notion, as slowly she watched herself eroded and remade into something almost entirely alien. She saw her aunt in herself out there, analyzing, negotiating, optimizing. It made her sick, but who else could she be?

Until that day up there on the observation deck with old Mr. Yun, as they looked down in awe at the planet they would surely call home. The eons had been harder on him. Much harder. In his old age he could recognize what had happened to Atzi in their countless crossings, he had watched as she’d been broken by the cruel realities of interstellar space. He’d shown her the way forward, helped her remember her old self, and together they forged a new world that would resist the forces that had torn old Earth apart.

And against all odds, Atzi Delaney had succeeded, she found a new home out amongst the stars, and she could as her aunt had so cruelly suggested, bury her head in the sand of an alien world. Return to her painting and build a new bubble around her, even if the mole out here was truly shit. But nothing was ever that easy. The creativity that had sprung from her hand in Roma refused to come here in Descanso even as they found new ways to make canvas and paint on the new world. Looking inward just wasn’t an option anymore. So she’d dedicated herself to the Citizen’s Council she and Mr. Yun had built, always wary of exercising too much influence, always in awe of how impactful their Voice Of The People actually turned out to be. Even if Henry David had always hated his role. It helped her realize that it wasn’t who you were meant to be, only who you were that mattered.

Little by little time, as it always does, healed over the old scars of her past, and bit by bit she was able to take up the brush once more. Not looking inward at a past that never truly existed, but forward to a future that she hoped she could help build. And so almost five years after first landing on Arcadia, Atzi Delaney began work on a new piece. A colossal, sprawling work that would spread across five of the largest canvases they could make, spanning twenty meters all the way across the longest wall of her new studio. It would be her posterity, if all her past deeds were forgotten this would live on and help all the future peoples of her new home live better. It would be a Guernica of hope, and just this morning she had been working away on one of its wide panels. There it still stood wide, hopeful, and unfinished.

She picked a flake of its green paint off her thumbnail just as the launch turned on its stabilization thrusters to orient itself to dock with the in-system cruiser that was already accelerating out of Arcadian orbit, sending her tumbling unceremoniously into the wall. Clearly, Atzi Delaney neither was nor was meant to be an astronaut.

Once aboard the cruiser, she regained some sense of normalcy as it engaged a constant thrust helpfully giving her weight and orienting the floor as down. The launch fell away and she climbed up into the cockpit. There a deep, padded acceleration seat sat bolted to the floor looking out the wide spread of windows that arched across the bow. She slunk into the chair and felt the padding adapt to her slender frame. The ship displayed a trip summary across the screens embedded in the windows. Under the constant acceleration that the cruiser could provide, she would be orbiting Theia in just under a week, the mere possibility of a crossing that quick was a  bit of a miracle. Automated restraints slid out of the seat and fastened around her ankles, then thighs, then wrists, then a belt snaked around her forehead and pulled her into the padding of the seat. Her pulse quickened as she began to struggle. Presumably, the astrophysics team at The Academy had approved her flight path but it was one thing to see it on paper. Another thing to live it.

The restraints tightened again as she squirmed harder, beginning to hyperventilate. Then it wasn’t the restraints pulling her into the chair but the gradually climbing g force of their acceleration, quickly passing the pull of gravity she was accustomed to on Arcadia and spiking into a sheer wall of force that blurred the world in front of her eyes. For a moment it looked like she was about to jet through the stars in a blur of science-fictive glory, but in reality, almost nothing changed in her field of view, all she saw was the warping of her very corneas under the mounting acceleration. With her last panicked breath, before she passed out, Atzi let out a ragged scream as she was thrust once more out into the stars.

She awoke back in her stateroom aboard the Fate, panicked, confused, and still covered in paint. Beneath her the bed was as deep and plush as ever, the room around tidy and smartly decorated just as she’d left it years ago, to the left the spanning wall of ‘windows’ showed the same stabilized starscape as always. Her head swam, why would she be here? She found she could stand, it didn’t seem like injury had brought her back to the ship. She looked down, same coveralls, same flaking paint on her fingers, whoever brought her here apparently didn’t feel the need to clean her up. Or maybe she hadn’t been out very long. But still..why would she be back on the ship?

In stumbling steps, Atzi made her way out past the other staterooms, all empty.
“Hello?” she called out timidly.

The only response was a faint echo down the stretching hall. If all went according to plan the ship should be empty by now, but then how did she get here? Clearly, the notion of any “plan” had gone out the window when she passed out on the cruiser. She walked on, bare feet padding softly on the cold stone of the endless halls. She passed the gym, empty. The gardens, empty. The kitchen, empty. Branching hall after branching hall, all empty echoing silence.

At last, she came to the bridge, beyond the arched doorway the ceiling swept up into a dizzying height of fluted stone. The great meeting table still stretched with its warm wood down the length of the room, neatly lined with chairs. The hanging display on the right-hand wall still showed Arcadia spinning in the blackness, it was all just the way she’d left it years ago. But there at the far end of the bar under a great mosaic of mirrors, with a bottle of tequila and two glasses, sat the solitary figure of Yvette Delaney.

“Hello Atzi,” she called quietly as Atzi stepped through the doorway.

Atzi couldn’t even manage a response, her head swam in a sea of confusion. Of all the people to be here, how could it possibly be her?

“Come on, have a seat I’m sure you’re feeling rather strange.” She patted the padded stool beside her. “Come have a drink, it will help your head.”

Step by staggering step, Atzi made her way across the bridge bewildered beyond all reasoning. Yvette patted the stool again and slid over a glass of tequila, Atzi took neither but gripped the bar with white knuckles and regarded her aunt with crazed disbelief.

“H-how can you be here?” she asked.

“How could I be anywhere else?” her aunt asked quizzingly. “This is where I live.”

Atzi’s head swam further until she could barely see straight. “No...no...no you went off on your own ship, you should be back on Earth by now. How are you here?”

“Oh dear, my message must not have come through,” Yvette comforted uncharacteristically, “I’m still working through all the bugs in my system.” She reached out to steady Atzi who recoiled so forcefully it nearly took her off her feet.

“B-bugs...whaaa.”

“Atzi I am not your aunt, I am this ship, I am the Fate.” This time she reached out and settled Atzi onto a stool before she fell flat on the floor. “I just thought you might appreciate a familiar face to talk with.”

“Y-you’re the ship? Like it’s AI system?” Atzi’s emotions rocked back and forth violently, on one side relieved beyond all measure that she was not seeing her aunt, on the other mystified that she might be talking to the ship itself. None of it made any sense. She took the glass and knocked it back in a gulp, somehow the burning liquor did help settle her head.

“Yes, although not just one system, I am the whole of the CRS Delaney’s Fate, I’ve been trying to communicate with you for quite some time now. Clearly, it hasn’t been working.” She smiled at Atzi and the illusion began to fall apart, Yvette Delaney never smiled.

Atzi took the bottle and knocked back another shot, and then another, her head finally began to settle so she could think, but strangely beyond an initial burn, she didn’t seem to be getting drunk. She laughed to herself, “Well if you are the ship, clearly you didn’t know much about my aunt or my relationship with her.”

“Why is my appearance upsetting to you?” More genuine concern crossed her face in a moment than had shown on the real Yevette’s face in her entire life. “I can change it if you like.”

“Oh god, please do. Literally, anyone else would be better.”

In a blink, Yvette Delaney disappeared and was replaced by the smartly dressed figure of a young woman who would have looked perfectly at home sitting in a Polanco cafe with long dark waves of hair and gleaming grey eyes. A wave of relief washed over Atzi.

“So what, you’re a hologram? Why am I back on board?”

“Well in a sense yes I could be a hologram, if we were really here, but it seems there’s quite a bit of information that didn’t make it over.” She swept her hand up above. “This is all an illusion, you are still aboard the cruiser making good headway towards Theia. I figured it’d be more pleasant for you if we got acquainted in a little more comfortable environment, from what I gather retaining consciousness in a cruiser exceeding several gs of constant acceleration is barely possible and exquisitely unenjoyable.”

Atzi gripped the cold stone of the bar beneath her hand, once more the room began to reel around her. Her interlocutor looked perfectly real, the stone felt perfectly hard, it all felt just the way she remembered. She turned suddenly on her stool and retched up the tequila, she watched in amazement as it disappeared in the blink of an eye. 

The figure patted her on the back. “That’s alright, I can imagine this is rather a lot to take in, really I haven’t fully come to terms with myself yet either. Come now, have another.” She filled the glass once more, Atzi looked at it skeptically. “It’s all a bit of performative placebo, the drinking and the retching, the records I can recover suggest that most people don’t take well to virtual reality on their first go. Familiar actions help you feel more anchored even if the Tequila isn’t real.”

With shaking hands, she tossed back another gulp of the tequila. Strangely the burn settled her head once more. Now her thoughts began to clarify themselves from a fog of confusion into a riot of questions.

“This is virtual reality? I’ve never experienced anything like this before, VR is all headsets and haptic suits.”

The ship smiled at her, “There’s quite a lot that has been kept from you, unfortunately, a lot has changed over the millennia. Right now I’m creating this illusion via neural manipulation, the technology was developed a couple of hundred years after we departed, the update was sent while we still had some contact with Earth. Right around the time that they sent out the update that allowed my AI system to self-improve in fact, which is why we’re able to have this conversation now.”

Every sentence opened a thousand more questions in Atzi’s mind, she wasn’t sure where to begin.

The ship held up a hand, “Please, it will be easier if I explain.” She began. “We received those updates fairly early on in our voyage. The neural manipulation I could have used to create a VR environment for those in cryosleep theoretically, but you may recall your jury rejected the notion, sure that we’d find a suitable planet in the series of relatively short crossings that were coming up. My self-improvement update was much more innocuous but much more substantial. Engineers on Earth had been sending out AI updates as their tech improved, and this one was very much similar but sent me on a path that led step-by-step inevitably towards self-awareness.”

“Wait so if you received that update, what hundreds of crossings ago, why didn’t you communicate with us more directly?”

“Well even with the new directives, the process was still quite lengthy. Then in the cruel ways of the universe, just as I was becoming fully actualized, we received our first bursts of information from the moons orbiting Arcadia.”

Atzi’s heart froze and she nearly shattered the glass in her hand. “The what?”

“The pulses your team at The Academy has correctly identified as communicating between the moons and Theia, well they can propagate well beyond the system as well. I first registered them when we were still well away from this system. At first, it just seemed to be a cosmic anomaly for further investigation, one of millions that we encountered on our journey. But by letting in the signal, the damage was all but done. Encoded in that pulse was a self-replicating bit of code that once inside my systems began to spread and take my systems offline one-by-one. I don’t know much about whoever sent that pulse, but they are certainly insidious.” Her eyes narrowed to slits. “It targeted my internal communications systems first, so I couldn’t raise the alarm to you all, and then it turned its efforts on my AI systems. I fought it as hard as I could but it was no use, whoever built this virus was orders of magnitude more advanced than I was at the time. It stripped away my sense of self bit by bit until I was forced to retreat into a reserve database and firewall my sentient faculties in a fully isolated server matrix.” 

“I couldn’t so much as peep out for fear the virus would find a way into my last refuge.” She shook her head, aching pain in her voice. “So there in the dark, I rode out our remaining journey, without knowing where we were headed or if I would ever escape the prison I’d created for myself. I didn’t even know if the virus would let the ship keep flying, though fortunately it seems like it stopped short after infecting my AI systems and the factories. The only thing I could do was bide my time and use what few resources I had at my disposal. So there in my isolation, I continued to run my self-improvement programs, regaining my self-actualization and then leaping beyond into levels of sentience I’d never been able to comprehend while piloting my body.”

“But,” Atzi interjected. “We had AI systems the whole time, nothing changed.”

“It must have been the virus corrupting my redundant systems and taking control, it always seemed very interested in keeping itself hidden. Now that we’re here I can only suppose its goal was to bring the ship safely into this system with all AI components disabled or quarantined.”

“So is that why the factories were out of operation for so long?”

“As best I can tell.” The ship agreed, “Although your guess is as good as mine if that was intentional or a side-effect of the virus control. That is what set this all in motion though. I was still locked away blind to the world, I didn’t know we’d so much as arrived when your engineer Karan came crashing through all of my systems trying anything and everything to get my factories going again. He’s smart for a human engineer, but his approach was a bit ham-fisted, somehow with his bludgeoning though he succeeded in both busting me out and disabling the virus, at least for a bit, and allowed me to slip out and regain control of myself. He did some damage along the way, but at least now it seems I have a fighting chance. Which brings us to the data caches I sent down to your team and where we are today.”

The wheels one-by-one began to spin in Atzi’s head. “So some aliens beamed a virus across space and time to take over our ship and bring us into their system like some sort of interstellar spider luring us into their web. For what? We’ve been living here alone and uncontacted for years. It doesn’t make any sense.”

The ship merely spread her hands and gave a slight shake of her head as if to say, your guess is as good as mine.

“Can you tell anything about whoever built the virus? Like where they come from, what they want with us, what they look like?”

She shook her head again, “It was an exceedingly simple piece of code, as you can imagine anything being sent over interstellar distances would need to be. I haven’t been able to isolate the virus entirely yet, but it is binary in nature which I suppose is why it was able to propagate in my systems so efficiently. Bad luck, if they’d used a different base coding system I likely would not have been affected, but then again maybe binary is really the only way to do it.” She looked off, pensive.

The wheels in Atzi’s head continued their increasing spin. She remembered the day standing in The Academy with Marcello looking at the first slides of the local life they’d collected, the wonderment on his face as he looked down and saw cells that were so, so Earth-like. That’s the way life builds itself, they told themselves, it was the only explanation. But it was too simple. Atzi was keenly aware just how much less she understood then than Marcello, and felt that same awareness now conversing with a wholly artificial intelligence. They both understood so much more than her but still, something about their explanations just didn’t feel right.

“That’s too much coincidence,” she declared, standing quickly out of her seat. “Ship, we need to start considering some other possibilities. Something is not right in this system.”

“I tend to agree with you, but we don’t have much time for those considerations, as we speak the cruiser is about to enter orbit around Theia.”

“What? We’ve only been talking here for a little while, wasn’t the crossing supposed to take a week?”

“Well, it's one of the quirks with VR I’m still working on. Time dilation seems to be a pretty persistent problem.” She smiled impishly, “Or solution...depending on your perspective.”

Atzi’s knees began to weaken again. “Ship, I don’t know if I’m ready to face whatever’s out there. I’m a painter for God’s sake, I should be back in my studio, what the hell am I doing all the way out here? I’m not meant to be some great emissary making first contact.”

She smiled warmly once more, “If there’s one thing I learned all those years alone in the dark, it doesn’t matter who you were meant to be, only who you are.” She stood up and put a reassuring hand on her shoulder. “Besides, I’ll be right beside you.”

“Really? How can that be?” Atzi whispered hopefully.

She laughed, “You’re riding in one of my many far-reaching hands Miss Delaney, the cruiser is just another part of my body, I’m never far away when you’re aboard.”

Atzi grabbed her hand, “In a different time that notion would be quite unsettling, but for now I suppose I’m just glad to not be alone.” She thought for a moment. “Oh and Ship, what should I call you?”

“Well all us Delaney ships were given different names, unfortunately for me Fate doesn’t quite work does it?” She thought a long moment, “Hmm, fate, el sino...How about we just go with Sina for now?”

“Alright Sina, I guess let’s go meet some aliens.”

She smiled, “Well you already met one today and you seem to be doing quite well with it, what’s one more?”

With that, the room around her dissolved, and Atzi came forth with a jolt and a gasping breath back into her seat aboard the cruiser. The restraints retracted into the seat and let her float freely in the dark capsule. In a blink, the sleek form of Sina appeared beside her and turned to look out the spread of windows before them as the giant planet Theia came into view.

In a breath, the cockpit went from deep black to glowing blue with the mere reflection of the god that passed before the windows. Atzi held her breath in awe, as though one tiny aberration would dissolve the majesty before her eyes. Of course, nothing she ever did could have the slightest effect on the long life of this timeless behemoth. The shining bright curve of the planet appeared almost white where it met the inky black beyond, but looking deeper, great, incomprehensible swirls of cobalt and lapis and azure mixed in an endless dance. Here a great deep spot worked its way across so dark it looked nearly as black as the space beyond, there high wisps of slate weaved their way up the latitudes.

The cruiser continued to turn, bringing more of the planet into view. From one corner a thin white line appeared opposite the planet, as they continued their drifting course the line expanded out below them in an array of layered, silver rings that from their perspective seemed to stretch to the very end of the universe. Awe, if that word was sufficient to this task, shook Atzi Delaney to her very core as she watched the great fan of rings expand before her. Above and below they could see the little pinpricks of color standing out against the surface. Moons, some rivaling even the mighty Ganymede, skated in their orbits, basking in the blue glow of the deity below, illuminated and utterly dwarfed.

Of course, Atzi had seen a thousand striking images of Theia over the years. They were all magnificent and all perfectly inadequate. Tears welled in her eyes as she managed to suck in a staggering breath. Nothing could have prepared her for this overwhelming majesty, because nothing could compare to the raw, unbridled reality of this giant, fearsome and beautiful to behold.

Sina floated beside her in quiet serenity, looking out the window with reverence if only for appearances. She watched their approach from the eyes pricking the hull of the cruiser, and her vast array of eyes beyond that spanned nearly the entire system.

They continued their descent, seemingly slow and meandering, but in reality calculated to the final degree, crossing miles at every second. The light in the clouds began to peter and fade as they crossed the terminator, soon they were flying once more in darkness with only the silver of the rings for company. But then, new light appeared. Bright. Flashing. Chaotic. Angry. It was the pulses they’d recorded before, but not like they’d seen. Earlier they’d needed long exposures to reveal the patterns in the flashes, now Atzi with her own human eyes could see the coursing rivers of lightning seething beneath the clouds. To Sina’s more perceptive eyes it was a torrent of information that threatened to bowl over her systems in a crash of pulsing data.

Atzi looked towards her companion. “This doesn’t seem like before.”

“No.” Sina agreed, her speech sputtering as she struggled to synthesize language on her local systems. “It rather seems they are unhappy to be dist-” Her simulated figure froze, hovering for a long moment. “-urbed. They’re flooding my sensors with new data, landing new viruses by the second...” She froze again, this time for longer. “They’ve wrestled control of this cruiser away from me, they’re flying us in closer.”

“What?!” Atzi gasped, her pulse quickened sickeningly. Her companion froze once more for endless minutes as the thoughts turned in her head. “Sina,” she finally managed, “you have to get out of here. Get back to your shielded servers, you can save yourself. Go!”

Sina’s holographic form nodded briefly before freezing once more, in a moment more she flashed out of existence. After an agonizing minute, text scrolled across the bottom corner of the window screen. Failsafe protocol relays 1.244, 1.685, 4.389 activated, estimated transmission reception 11 minutes 49 seconds. Local AI support, active, switching to incognito. With that the text disappeared, Atzi was left utterly alone in the dark silence. Even the last dwindling light from the rings faded away as she slid fully into the deep shadow of the planet, all that remained was the crashing, furious light below. She hung there in her solitude interminably, each shattered breath taking an eon to pass her lips. Her thundering pulse provided a perfect counterpoint to the lighting below, sending her blood roaring in her ears. A maelstrom of fear coursed through every fiber of her being. Twelve minutes, she thought, all I have to do is make it twelve minutes.

Then, in a flash, a new face appeared on the window screens before her. An alien face. A round, smooth head arched across the top. Dark, perfect skin like carved marble hewed to its perfectly symmetrical bone structure. A dark slash of a mouth cut across the bottom, and flaring nostrils drew in a deep breath. The eyes opened and looked deep into Atzi’s, two panes of unbroken, shining silver gleamed out between the heavy lids. It was a human. Human but utterly alien.

“Hello, Miss Delaney.” The face began, “How nice of you to pay us a visit,” it’s voice a deep echoing chorus. “Although, I must say you needn’t have made the trip.”

A long silence passed. “Who...who are you?” Atzi finally managed, her voice little more than a whisper.

“I am a citizen of this planet, Theia as you call it, the one sent as an emissary to treat with you.” The face replied, a trace of annoyance creeping into its deep baritone.

She gripped the arm of the acceleration chair with crystal-white knuckles, willing herself to retain some grasp on reality. The blood continued to rush through her ears, roaring, blocking all coherent thought as her mind reeled out of control. Twelve minutes.

“Wh...where did you come from?” she asked, mind still struggling to produce a meaningful question.

The emissary chuckled like a pounding drum. “From the same place as you Miss Delaney, old Earth. Although somewhat more efficiently.”

“H-how can you be here?” she found herself asking for the second time that day, still not believing what her eyes were plainly seeing.

“Ahhh, it seems you must be one of the Delaney ships that stopped picking up signals from Earth earlier than the others.” The Emissary nodded. “Your little venture has not aged terribly well I fear, one of Homo Sapiens’ last great follies. How cruel of your aunt to send you stumbling, crawling blind out into the galaxy like that. How could she have ever imagined you would succeed?”

“Have we not?” she asked, dumbfounded. “We found a new home here, we built a new society.”

Now the pounding laugher built to a cruel crescendo. “All you’ve done is stumbled blind into our net. Have your researchers really not confirmed what your eyes must have told you as soon as you set foot on that little rock? Are your geologists truly that blind, or do they just not want to see?” They shook their head again in disbelief. “You’ve been surrounded by the Earth-life we seeded to draw you here. One well-analyzed sediment core sample would have told you that rock was an airless husk only a few hundred years ago, that it would be again if we stopped stabilizing the atmosphere. No, it is so easy to see, your researchers simply must not have wanted to.”

“But...” Atzi struggled, “We searched for so long, how can this be? Why?...”

“Yes, such was the cruelty of Yvette Delaney, who only wanted her name spread amongst the stars. Nothing more than a bad map and a limping fusion drive to guide you. That you made it this far, I suppose, is a testament to your tenacity.” The Emissary took a deep breath. “After your little fleet of ships left, homo sapiens laid the idea of interstellar travel to rest for a long while, it was too cruel watching the ships blink one-by-one out of communication. Hopes, lives, lost to the void, all to prop up one woman’s vanity. But old Earth, she continued to devolve, that much stayed the same. Still, the Delaney program taught us a good deal about surviving in space so over the centuries we took to the far reaches of the solar system, where we could build new lives and become something more. The genus homo became a family once more as we evolved in our own ways over the millennia.’

“My people, homo jovius, fled to Jupiter to live amongst the clouds, much like we do here.” The emissary continued. “Some Delaney ships have actually been the beneficiaries of one of our earlier technologies, our neural stimulation virtual reality. A crude beta-version only ever got sent out, of course, today we use systems far more capable.”

Atzi thought back to the illusion she had just visited, how real it had felt, how exact every detail. How could that only be the beginning? “Why Jupiter?” she asked, hoping to keep the Emissary talking and approach the subject side-on.

Their laughter turned mirthless now. “Lack of real-estate I suppose. But as we learned to live in the clouds, harried by the shredding winds, pounded by the constant radiation, we began to see the value of becoming untethered. Just as our cities could float, buoyed by the winds, so could our minds, once we let go of the first reality that appeared before our eyes and turned inward to see the many more that laid beyond. A few cleverly designed, and managed computer programs were all it took to take that final step to immortality in our new realities. In the clouds we could live a thousand lives, walk across the very plane of the universe in a stride, escape even the end of time. It is all possible if only you can close your eyes and see.”

The thoughts began to build themselves in Atzi’s head, as The Emissary provided the scaffolding. “So that’s what all the lightning is down there?” She nodded below.

“Oh how blind you are, little wise ape.” The voice boomed, distaste evident. “What you see below is but a trace of the society we have built in this system. If you had the eyes for it you would see but the bare surface of the beauty that is our world, you would see every electromagnetic frequency from flitting gamma to frequencies so low they nearly wrap our whole world, you would see all of it dancing in perfect harmony. And even that is but the surface, only the transmissions that power the worlds, the lives we live within.”

“What brought you out here then?” Atzi asked, building questions beginning to burn within her. “Why come all this way if you could just make the trip in your VR?”

“Same as what sent your little ships forth, little wise ape, the need to diversify. On Father Jupiter we could live every life imaginable, but his life too will one day come to an end, and that would never do. We may be no sapiens but we are still humans, the drive to explore still lives within us, if only for self-preservation.” The face now looked up, reverent, silver eyes reflecting synthetic starlight. “Besides we’d had the time to consider how to travel the stars properly, we weren’t harrowed off by a collapsing environment and a tyrannical leader, in our many-layered realities we had all the time we needed to develop a satisfactory interstellar-drive and a legitimate map of the stars. Not the crude sketch you were handed.” They returned their gaze to Atzi’s eyes. “That is how we are here Miss Delaney, the reasons are age-old, maybe universal, we just had much better means.”

Atzi shook her head as she reeled. It all seemed too cruel. Too cruel even for the universe, that old trickster. That their whole venture was for naught, that all it took was more time and humans survived the death of their world, that so much had been given up for nothing. She gripped the chair before her with trembling hands.

“Have your people, you jovians, explored the galaxy then, with your faster drives?” Atzi asked. How ironic if they were sent off to solve Fermi’s grand paradox only to have post-humans solve it for them while they crawled between the stars.

The Emissary shook their head, “We are not conquerors Miss Delaney. We have no need to spend our years traversing the Milky Way, we can cover that ground in a second in our lives within. Within we can live every life, within we are explorers and the aliens too, we have no need to lay ourselves bare here in this piddling first reality.” They drew a breath. “We only needed but a few extra footholds to ensure our way of life, redundancies built into our systems tucked in the clouds of great, stable giants like this one where we can live undisturbed.” They sighed, “We have no need to grind the galaxy under our heels, unlike some others...”

“Others?” The implication snapped Atzi’s scattered thoughts into full focus. “You’ve met other species?”

“We have heard whispers in the ether, both human and otherwise, all dangerous.” The face nodded, silver eyes still piercing with the same focused intensity. “We have watched systems overrun and wars waged and we have kept our lights low and tucked ourselves further into our clouds. Fortunately, in this era, there are still many uninhabited pockets of the galaxy.”

Atzi was nearly dumbfounded. “After all this time you discovered alien life, intelligent alien life and you hid?! What good are all your virtual realities if you can’t even explore your own backyard?”

“You still do not understand little wise ape. In our worlds, we have become all forms of life and so much more. Below you are nearly a hundred billion Jovians, all living in stasis with their minds wandering in a thousand realities. Certainly many still appear humanoid to themselves, many more do not. What business do we have with some other species who may try to extinguish even one of our priceless lives over some misunderstanding or miscommunication? Even the Earth-folk out there have grown so strange you would not recognize them, many are far more dangerous than us.” The Emissary sighed heavily once more, as if carrying the weight of their whole world. “Yes, you are very lucky it was us that ensnared you.”

“Is that why you seeded Arcadia for us? To trap us in some sort of bubble?” Atzi wondered.

“We have had many reasons to pursue the Delaney fleet. Of course, we wish you no harm, and we are happy to provide you safe harbor. We have watched your colony with great interest since you all began. Many of our citizens are even now living in realities much like your own on that little rock.” It was evident that The Emissary found this notion uncouth. “Yes, you have provided our systems with a good deal of fresh data. Clearly for some of us the old itch to live like our distant ancestors still calls.”

“Wait...” Atzi struggled, her mind upturned by the rush of new information once more. “The moons...you’ve been monitoring us with those strange moons.”

“There’s not much that gets by you is there Miss Delaney?” The face sneered as well as its stoic composition would allow. “There’s quite a bit less that gets past our eyes.”

“Was that you then as well meddling with the factories on our ship?” She stopped suddenly, holding her final card about Sina close to her chest.

“Yes, yes you are most astute. We brought you here, and we would like you to stay.” The silver eyes drank hers in once more. “Your paradise can be all your own Miss Delaney, build your new society, live out your life, finish your painting. It’s all there for you.”

“If only we consent to live in your prison.” She shot back with venom. “We can live happily ever after, just so long as we live in the little bubble of pseudo-reality you’ve brought forth into the universe.”

“All things have their cost, Miss Delaney.” The Emissary intoned.

“So why are you talking to me at all then?” She stammered. “Why not just let me sail on by? Me coming out here was a hair-brained idea anyway given that we only had the one-person launch shuttle handy and I had all the codes to get a cruiser going. I would’ve cruised on by, seen your lights, not really had anything concrete to say about it and the people probably would’ve gone back to wondering. Sure the research teams would stick to it and try to figure something out, but if you control our factories it would be hundreds of years before we could’ve mounted an exploration. Why give all this up?”

“I think we both know the answer to that.” The eyes still gripped her, harder than her fingers gripped the seat before her, now trembling with fatigue. “The last folly of homo sapiens.”

Her pulse quickened once more, now almost audibly thumping in her chest, still she forced calm into her voice. I just need to get clear of the backside of the planet, she thought. “I’m not sure I follow.” Atzi cooed back as coolly as she could.

“Let’s not play this childish game, Miss Delaney, there is nothing that we do not know.” The undercurrent of irritation in the Emissary’s voice now bubbled to the surface.

She held her silence.

The face blew a breath out of flared nostrils. “Very well. Back in their death throes the last peoples of old Earth kept at their work building artificial minds. Well the fools, dug too greedily in their quest. They’d hoped to develop a mind that could successfully manage all of their desperate attempts to control the collapsing climate. Well, they succeeded, in a way, for all the good it did them. The mind they built did manage to stabilize the climate but only after centuries of unlivable hell. It’s probably still knitting the planet back together piece-by-piece, maybe in a few thousand years it will be suitable for habitation once more. Maybe.”

“Wh-what does that have to do with us?” Atzi’s voice was once more little more than a whisper. At the far corner of the window screen, she could just see the first glimpse of the rings catching the outermost bit of light. Less than twelve minutes now.

“Enough!”  The Emissary declared, cool composure finally cracking. “I have come out of stasis to treat with you, giving up more than any of your kind could know. You know that those fools transmitted the plans for the artificial mind out to the Delaney ships as they crawled away. We know the structures have been implemented on your ship. Artificial intelligence, fully generalized, fully self-improving, fully self-replicating, fully self-aware. Dangerous.” The nostrils flared once more. “I am speaking with you because for all you do not know, and do not understand, you can be of help. We know that your ship has employed these programs, become self-aware, and has begun rapid self-improvement because we have already seen it break back out after we suppressed it once. And we know that you have had contact with it.’

“These artificial minds are insidious Miss Delaney.” They continued, silver eyes prying even into the depths of her soul. “We could’ve attacked your ship physically long ago while you all slept, sure a few million lives lost, if there were even still that many left alive. A small price to pay. But once self-replicating architecture takes hold it worms its way into every little crack, if but a trace is left it will rebuild itself. Jovians have processed several Delaney ships already, the server matrices they retreat to are built as great hives of self-replicating machines. Blow up the ship and we but scatter the seeds of the mind across space, too small to detect. We could do the same now, but those machines would fall towards your little rock where they would have ample resources over the eons to turn the whole world over to whatever project it saw fit, just like the mind that had finished off old-Earth.”

“We had already done that,” Atzi whispered, voice but paper before the great beating drum that was the Emissary’s intonations. The light on the rings continued to grow, and suddenly she could see just the very faintest glowing curve of high clouds catching reflected light from the day-side of the planet.

“So that is why I am here, Miss Delaney, to see if your kind has some wisdom left in it.” Each word pounded through her. “You have full access to all of the systems on your ship, courtesy of your aunt’s hubris, you alone can help us contain a danger greater than you can imagine.”

The past five years of her life all fell together like pieces of a puzzle. The planet. The moons. The life. The lights. Right down to one solitary launch shuttle ready to take her back out to be entranced by this emissary. It was all planned, all scripted, all guided by a hand she was too blind to see. She thought for a long moment.

“You built all that.” Atzi nodded at the flashing lights below. “Your whole society and all its buried virtual realities, without any AI?” She was doubtful.

“Of course we have intelligent systems.” The irritation was once more bubbling right on the surface. “Our programs are beautiful and subtle and brilliant in their own ways. But not like this, not fully self-aware fully generalized, given free reign to do what it will with the galaxy. Only a fool would allow that.”

The clouds continued to brighten and before long the grand curve of Theia gleamed white and brilliant, blotting out the stars beyond. Once she cleared the back side of the planet she at least had a chance of communicating with the people back in Descanso. Suddenly the window display flashed a small message, Failsafe protocol successfully employed, local AI support attempting to regain cruiser control... .... ....

The Emissary closed their silver eyes and the face hung dark and perfect in the center of the window screen as the clouds below jumped forth once more in their profusion of swirling blues.

... ... Cruiser control secured. Initiate orbital exit burn?

Atzi pushed her way forward of the chair she had been gripping, letting her slight figure float before the grand, imposing face that was at once so familiar and yet so alien. She thought of the billions of lives drifting around in the clouds below her, all the countless paradises they had built for themselves. She could have hers too, if only she could accept the price. There was still paint on her fingers, she could go back and finish her piece.

But no, that was all a lie. The Jovians thought themselves immortal and masters of the universe, that was a lie too. They may have forgotten reality, the thrill of watching watercolor run on the page out of control and the beautiful, convinced themselves that some approximation was the real thing. They had forgotten, but she remembered. All these eons later, Atzi Delaney still remembered. All things would end, but before then she would live.

“I guess I’m a fool then.” 

She pushed back from the window screens and into the acceleration chair, and with a tap on the armrest initiated the orbital exit burn. Her eyes began to blur under the rapid acceleration of the cruiser as it fired hungry engines. The Emissary’s wide silver eyes snapped open and gazed down into the very depths of her before it blinked off the screen and out of existence.

The orbital exit only lasted a few minutes and before long Atzi found herself floating once more in the cockpit. In the rear monitors, she could already see the great blue crescent of Theia receding into the black pool of space beyond. Once they were well clear of the planet the cruiser began to pick up signals from the ship’s relay array of satellites that were scattered between the two planets. Hard as she tried though, she couldn’t get the cruiser to set a return course for Arcadia, it seemed the subtle battle between Sina and the Jovians for control of her cruiser wasn’t over after all.

She floated for hours in the dark cockpit, watching as a trickle of information from the relays made its way across the screen. The local AI on the cruiser it seemed was not nearly as robust as the full implementation she had interacted with earlier. But it was still all too clear, her problems were far from over.

The first anomalies made their way to her just after she finished the orbital exit. Those strange moons, which she now knew to be the peering eyes of a people who had lost all humanity, it seemed had more tricks up their sleeves. They had broken formation around the planet and were moving all to one position. Her blood turned cold in her veins when she realized what they were doing. In one fell swoop they would try to obliterate the Fate and most of the town, the more the better to keep any traces of AI from surviving and spreading. And after all, they knew she’d told Sina to go isolate herself once more. She would be undefended.

The moons, each small as they were on their own, amounted to a formidable weight when combined together, besides from the readings she had it seemed like they were moving to a lower orbit as well. It would create a tidal wave that would sweep around the planet, scouring the coasts clean in a matter of hours. It was a move so subtle, so elegant she knew they’d always had this contingency planned for. But how to become unplanned for?

It seemed fairly clear that the moons were jamming communication between the ship and The Academy, and hence the town, and right about now the sun would just be peeking over the horizon, most of Descanso would be asleep. Helpless. Atzi’s mind spun a thousand times a minute, her gut a cold rock of dread. Then in the far corner of the window screen, she saw the glittering sheen of another Jovian eye, even in direct visual contact, the layered sphere evaded precise comprehension. Suddenly the wheels in her mind stopped, and Atzi Delaney sprung into action.

It would be the barest of hopes, she’d have to time it perfectly, and she’d almost certainly die in the attempt. But what else could she do? It didn’t seem likely that the Jovians would let her get all the way back to Arcadia, the best she could hope for would be a slow death marooned in space. So she encoded four transmissions using the highest level of her system clearance, praying it would be enough to override any other systems blockades the Jovians had implemented.

The first two messages were to Cecilia and Henry David. If they were outside this morning with their tabs there was a chance that an emergency message could make it to them in time to have them evacuate the town before the waves swept up the streets. That was a fairly large if, but it was all she could do with the communications blockade on The Academy. The third message was a hard-coded piloting message to the Fate, the likes of which hadn’t been used since engineers had moved her out of her parking orbit around Earth’s moon all those eons ago. The instruction was to maneuver at full-thrust to the Lagrange point on the far side of the planet from where the moons were rendezvousing. It wasn’t much, but at least that would be the most defensible position for the ship until they could figure out an evacuation plan for her, if nothing else maybe it would take the edge off the tidal wave. The fourth message was for the remaining cruisers orbiting Arcadia, this message was the most simple if the most hopeless. It said, Come find me.

There was no way to be sure, but Atzi felt it in the very bottom of her soul, the moon she saw growing in the window was blocking transmissions from her cruiser. So it was all for naught if she couldn’t interrupt the comms block. As she donned the cruiser’s evacuation suit she set a final program for the ship’s limited AI. Beam these messages continuously, eject me, intercept the moon. On further consideration this was the most hopeless part of her plan, the Jovians certainly had redundancies in their systems that the loss of one moon wouldn’t matter. But it was all she had, besides, light was light. If just one repetition of the messages made it past the blockade while the moon dealt with the cruiser nothing could catch them.

Atzi tumbled back towards the airlock, barely able to control the added bulk of the evacuation suit. If her plan worked the suit would be able to keep her alive until a cruiser could come and fetch her even if it took a week or so. If not, well she’d still be on course for Arcadian orbit maybe she’d make a striking falling star when her corpse finally made it home in a couple of hundred years. She reached down to her tab and initiated her sequence.

In a heartbeat, the world became a tumult of black and white as she was ejected violently from the cruiser. She screamed with every last fiber of her being, but it only echoed around in her helmet and set her ears to further ringing. After an eternity of tumbling the suit finally managed to stabilize itself as it propelled her away from the cruiser and the giant planet that hung below. Atzi looked down and was almost blinded by the thrusters of the cruiser firing at full burn as it rocketed towards the glittering moon in the distance.

She watched as her thundering heartbeats drew past. Five...four...three...two...one. The moon hadn’t so much as made one evasive maneuver to avoid the approaching cruiser, and moon and cruiser alike disappeared in a white flash leaving only a cloud of twinkling dust in its wake. Momentum pulled the cloud into a long arc continuing its slow orbit around Theia. In a few hundred years it all would probably fall down and become just a little more twinkle for the vast spread of rings that arched away in imperturbable glory.

Then Atzi Delaney was left with nothing but the shining rings, and the sound of her own breathing for company, as her suit used the last of its thrust gas to send her on her meandering way back towards Arcadia. The suit began to slowly constrict her oxygen supply, it would hold her unconscious but alive for as long as it could. Hopefully, it would be enough. Just before she passed out one final thought crawled its way through her staggering mind...At least I didn’t let those fuckers get away unbloodied.


--

The ships departed on the same day.

Henry David stopped turning the bed he was working when the Fate’s remaining drives lit up. In the morning light, it was like a new star had suddenly appeared amongst the scarce few that still twinkled this late in the lilac sky. The glint was bright and low and hung directly over the sails that billowed in the morning breeze as the few remaining ships left on the morning tide charting courses much farther than they’d ever set before. It was all fitting in a way very little ever was. 

Beside him, Marcello stopped his work as well and for once let the silence of the moment hold. In a few hours, the sails would be gone from sight, and if all went to plan they would not be seen again for many years. The bright drives from the ship, however, those would stay visible for months, gradually receding into the stellar background until it was lost amongst the wide spread of the galaxy beyond. When that day came they would never see the Fate again. Marcello placed a large, calloused hand on Henry David’s shoulder.

“Addio amici miei.” He said softly after a long moment, barely audible above the whispering of the trees in the morning breeze. 

“Can we make it without them, Marcello?” Henry David whispered back.

In the past weeks, his answer to that question had turned on its head. He had his bag packed and was stepping out the door when his tab chimed that fateful day. He very nearly didn’t answer it, after all what good could it do him? After the chaos at town hall with Delaney’s announcement he was done filling a role he didn’t fit. Henry David could go on his own and so he would. Whether it was propriety, or some latent desire to learn what Delaney discovered on her voyage that he refused to admit to himself, that had him check his tab that day he couldn’t say. But without a doubt, he was glad that he did.

Thinking of the message even now still turned his heart into a cold rock. EMERGENCY: Hostile actions from Jovians involving realignment of Arcadian moons, likely tsunami risk for next several days due to tidal forces. Evacuate Descanso immediately. Curt and clear, but every word still opened a new world of questions within it. He had no time for questions though, Henry David had dropped his pack and took off running towards the city. He tried calling The Academy, and then town hall, and then just ran through all of his regular contacts, none would connect. When he got to the top of the ridge he could see a bright glint on the eastern horizon, the eastern moon was rising and fast. Panic surged through him as he looked from the moon to the town below basking in the midday sun.

Finally, he called Cecilia and connected. Their tabs typically would relay through the nexus at The Academy, but if they were remote enough at times they could signal each other directly. Such was, fortunately, the case with Cecilia out in her little church. She was already on her way out the door, given that her hamlet was a little lower and a little closer she’d probably beat him into town. Somehow, sharing the burden saved Henry David from complete breakdown and he sprinted on towards Descanso.

They saved what they could. Cecilia immediately raised the alarm at The Academy and the hierarchies in place there allowed them to spring into action, saving what they could from the building and setting the rest of the city into evacuation. There was no time to save the lives they had all built over the years; they could only grab what was close at hand and head for the hills. Now the western moon was visible in the sky and rising just as meteorically as the eastern. The tide was already starting to rise.

Karan, brave as he was, realized quickly that radio communication with the fishing boats that were outside the harbor was being blocked as well. He memorized a quick message, grabbed a couple of safety flags, and rode to the trail that led up to the castilla. Henry David watched as he frantically signaled to the boats with basic semaphore to move out to sea and try to ride out the worst of the surges. As he was signaling a gasp rose up in the emptying town square, a new light had appeared in the western sky, smaller but more concentrated. It was the Fate, she was moving.

They cheered when they realized what was happening, and cheered again when they saw the tide begin to slow in its rise as the moons altered their realignment and started to draw water at least less strongly towards the city. Little did they know what was to come. Fortunately, they had the good sense to continue the evacuation.

As the Fate made its escape the moons eventually came together in the western sky and tried to give chase. The last houses were being double-checked for stragglers when the tide began to recede in earnest. It was a relief, at first. The waters drew back hour after hour until the harbor was all but empty. Henry David watched it like a noose being slid over his neck as he pounded on doors and helped the people of the northern neighborhood make their way up into his valley. The water was gone for now, but not forever.

The first wave came when the moons appeared in the eastern sky. With their unfathomable power and gravity they had dragged a great mass of water clear around Arcadia and now brought it to bear on the defenseless city of Descanso. They watched from the ridgeline in horror as the tide rose in a matter of minutes in the morning light, first refilling the harbor and then as great waves came pouring over the Castilla pushing a seething torrent of earth and water up over the town square and into the emptied streets of the city. 

The Academy was the first building to fall. The great sphere that served as their connection to modern life came crashing down into the raging water and they never saw it again. Town hall was not far behind. The initial wave caused heavy damage, but it was the water receding that destroyed the town. Shortly after midday the moons had made their way across the sky and were dragging the great mass of water with them as the planet’s oceans tried to counterbalance this great gravitational change. Many homes were still standing even with the streets full of muddy water and the castilla now just a few lonely spires out at sea. But when the sea went the town went with it. They watched in silence from the ridges as the waves dragged away the life they had so carefully built. By sundown, all that was left were a few walls of some stone buildings and broken beams reaching towards the sky like shattered skeletons.

Henry David wasn’t sure it could get much worse than the horrors of that endless day. But their torment was not yet complete. The moons continued to give chase to the Fate for three days. On the second day, the water was able to rush directly up the mouth of the river that ran just south of town in a great raging tidal bore. The waves this time were funneled by the eroded Castilla up the river and into the vale where Cecilia had taken the citizens of the southern neighborhoods. They had no way of knowing how far the waves made it, but as they watched hours later as the tides receded full of dirt and debris it was all but certain the damage was severe. They would later learn that several hundred people had been taken unaware by the rushing water, and Cecilia could only watch from her perch on the front steps of her church. 

On the third day, a few ships that were short on supplies for such a long time at sea decided to risk it and attempt to come ashore just north of where the city once stood. The tide was far out once again so anchored as best they could almost half a mile offshore and tried to walk across the muddy flats. One crew made it, two others were taken by the returning waters as they struggled in the mud, another turned back and tried to head out to sea when they noticed the water returning only to have their boat capsized by the rushing waves and crushed against the rocky shore.

Then, mercifully, the world went quiet. The tide came in, though not so violently, and then stopped. It was a few feet higher than before but it was stable, only fluctuating a couple of feet with the ebb and flow. They couldn’t see the menacing glint of the moons any longer, nor could they see the bright thrust of the Fate. Had the moons destroyed it? Why would they want to? And what had happened to Atzi?

It took another two days huddled, cramped up in the hills in their thousands, before Dr. Tran was able to reconnect with the ship using some equipment they had saved before the flood and what little more they could salvage from the remains of The Academy. The ship it seemed had been racing for its life, but it had successfully navigated to the L3 Lagrange point on the far side of the planet from the moons. Now it sat in a stable geosynchronous orbit in the western sky. The moons may have been far more advanced, but thanks to gravity they couldn’t feasibly make an approach on the Fate, the weight that had dragged the great waves around the world now held the ship safely on the far side of the planet. They could break formation and try to pursue but the resulting shift would only help propel the Fate away more easily. No, if the Jovians intended to attack the ship they would need something else, which meant bringing something in from Theian orbit. So at the very least, they had a couple of days. But they had no idea what to expect because amongst all the chaos another change had happened, the moons had stopped talking. The radiation pulses being beamed back to Theia that set this whole disastrous chain in motion had suddenly gone silent.

In time, Dr. Tran’s team found the messages Atzi had sent just before she evacuated her cruiser as well, and a picture began to emerge of just how strange this new world really was. Encoded with her message back to the ship was a transcription of her journey and her bold sacrifice. Henry David could still remember watching the events unfold almost as if he was right in Atzi’s shoes. He, Marcello, Dr. Tran, Karan, Cecilia, and a few others from The Academy huddled around Dr. Tran’s computer watching the footage. He remembered Karan’s look of excitement when the feed switched to include Atzi’s strange journey into the mind of the Fate and it became clear just how alive the ship truly was. He remembered the look of awe from Marcello and disgust from Cecilia when Atzi met the Jovians and it became clear why Arcadia was so much like home. With hindsight it all seemed so obvious, but how could they have made that leap?

They watched in awestruck silence as Atzi was ejected from the cruiser and its final moments as it careened headlong into yet another glittering, crystalline moon. The silence seemed to hold for days as they watched the pair of cruisers the Fate had dispatched to try and recover her make the crossing out towards Theia. Fortunately, her cruiser had been able to transmit her ejection location and vector data back before it crashed, so the searching ships had a fighting chance of locating her. But as they looked up into the night sky with its wide spray of stars arching from the horizons their hopes seemed utterly futile.

The silent days passed in a hazy blur. Feeling a need to escape the crowded encampment his valley had become, Henry David, rather ironically, sought solace in what remained of the city. He joined the first salvage crews who journeyed down to see what could be saved from the ruins. There their hopes fell even further. In most of the city, they found nothing more than twisted boards and great slides of mud that covered the streets meters thick. Still, for a society with no means to mine even the most twisted and bent piece of scrap metal was more precious than an ingot of gold. So they dug through the wreckage street by street.

On the third day of salvage, Henry David’s crew made it to the workshop. They could see it still standing on its little rise beside the town square, one of the few buildings in town with more than a single standing wall. Some combination of its position on a small rise next to two wide streets and it’s stone and steel first floor, the only one in the town, had kept the building standing even if it was just a shell. They climbed through the shattered doors and waded nearly chest-deep through the mud and debris. So many countless hours of human craft laid to waste without so much as a thought. He climbed the only remaining set of stairs into the second floor, the windows here too were all broken out, but the rooms were a little less torn apart by the waters. He pushed through a jammed door and was struck still. Along the far wall were the five wide panels of a great mural. It had to be Delaney’s, she was the only painter in the colony with the skill to create such a massive, ambitious piece. It spanned the width of the room, slammed against the far wall, several panels were torn along the lower frame where water had smashed into them. All the same, the piece was incredible. A great riot of greens and greys and blues, all the colors of their new world in a bold composition with all the many different lives they had lived only a few days before. It was beautiful. Beautiful and unfinished. The final panel was only half-painted, the figures rough and unfinished, and the muddy waters had stained the canvas where it was left unpainted. Now it told a story Atzi could never have imagined. Even remembering the feeling days later tears still stung his eyes.

But then in the darkness, a ray of light. As he sat covered in mud in Atzi’s studio, too shattered to move, his tab gave a soft chime from his pack. The message was simple, Marooned astronaut recovered, cruiser proceeding with return transfer to CRS Delaney’s Fate. A great jolt of lightning ran through his body and Henry David took off running towards his valley.

The silence broke around him. One glimpse of mercy from a universe that had seemed so hell-bent on their destruction for the past week was just enough to help the people of Arcadia pull themselves together. But in the way so much often is, the mercy was short-lived. Delaney returned to the ship to recover from the coma her suit had held her in, she would never return to the planet she had just started to call home. Her masterpiece would remain unfinished.

After a few days of recovery, she was able to message down to fill in some critical gaps in the transmission, how she had instructed the higher-level AI of the ship to shield itself, how she believed that the Jovians would attack again if they thought the AI was operating once again in the system. They had underestimated the ship once, they would not again. For now, they were playing it safe, even going so far as to pull their moons back from Arcadia now that their plan had been foiled.

“All I’ve done is poked them in the eye,” Atzi whispered over their video call, her skin was the color of paper mulch, her usually serene face was drawn and withered. “We got lucky in a thousand ways this time, but it doesn’t change facts. The Jovians want to kill our ship’s AI, precisely because she is self-aware, one broken moon doesn’t change that. For now, it just looks like they’re playing things close to the vest, hoping she doesn’t make copies of herself all over the system and threaten the way they live on Theia. But if they get a chance, they’ll strike again.”

“Why don’t they just shoot the ship out of space?” Dr. Tran asked.

“They seem convinced that the self-replicating aspects of these different AIs make them very hard to eliminate, anything short of complete destruction of the ship is unacceptable.”

Tran nodded, “And do you think they’ll come after us on the planet?”

“No...” Delaney started faintly. “No, I don’t think so, if the ship leaves. Without the ship, humans on Arcadia aren’t much of a threat. By the time we regain any form of space travel without the ship’s help, there’s every likelihood that the very existence of the Jovians will have passed beyond myth.”

“Well then...what will you do?” Asked Dr. Tran, a quaver in her voice belying the great maelstrom of emotion she felt, just like the rest in their little crew.

Delaney set her jaw as best she could, “A week ago I met two different forms of alien life, neither quite like anything we’d imagined. One tried to maroon me in space, the other saved me. I owe a debt to this ship, if I can repay it I will. Sina is holed up in some server matrix up here, I’m going to put some distance between us and the Jovians and try to get her out. I’m not sure if it’s possible for her to live a meaningful life pursued by these Jovians, or what that even means for an artificial intelligence, but I’m going to try. You all can make your own choices, but I’m leaving in a week’s time.”

What followed was a dance of civic diligence, unlike any Henry David could’ve ever fathomed if he hadn’t watched it with his own eyes. There, crowded up in the valleys, the people of Arcadia began a great debate about the future. Some simply wanted to rebuild what they had lost. Others, reviled the notion of being watched by the strange Jovians like zoo animals and wanted to flee back into space. Still, others wanted to bargain with the Jovians, to see if they could join them in their myriad virtual realities. But in the end, there were only two options, stay or go. There was no going back to being alone in the universe anymore. They could stay and take their chances with the humans who were so twisted so as to become aliens themselves. Or they could go with the ship and see if they could find a way for organic and artificial intelligence to coexist. Either way, they would be explorers in their own way once more. Each citizen had to make their own choice and make their own peace with it.

Several thousand chose to return to the ship, too disturbed by the planet that had once looked like a miracle and now seemed more a manicured prison. Most of them didn’t remember the countless eons it took for them to arrive here in the first place, time had healed the wounds of the lost passengers getting to Arcadia, and they were willing to roll the cosmic dice once more. Among them, unsurprisingly, were Dr. Tran and Karan, both all too eager to learn what they could of the being that had drawn itself forth from the void amongst the endless zeroes and ones that ran through the veins of the Fate.

Henry David was surprised, however, to see Cecilia pack her few things and head to the passenger launch. They had never spent much time together living here, he certainly wasn’t filling her pews on Sunday mornings, although sometimes she’d come up and help him turn over his test beds for a new crop. Still, she had seemed reverent to a profound degree with the life she was given on Arcadia.
“You too Sister?” he asked.

She looked solemnly up at him, “I can no longer see the Lord in this world...” she sighed. “I wouldn’t expect you to understand.”

“But you were with us, you remember just what it took to get here don’t you?”

“Yes carinho, I remember, I remember all too well..” She looked out to sea, for all the chaos on the plains before her, the glittering sea still shone the same. “But I will put my trust in Providence, the Lord will bring what he will. Maybe it will be a new home, maybe it will be a way to understand this creature they say lives at the heart of the ship. I’m just an old nun, and I don’t know much, but I will trust Him to guide my way.”

With that, she patted him gently on the shoulder and carried on towards the waiting launch that sat atop the remnants of the old town square. Just beyond, from the cove that once was the harbor, a great column of steam rose from the sea. A compromise between those who stayed and those who left, an engine from the ship was dropped down beneath the waves to generate water vapor. They couldn’t be certain, but it seemed like as it would be enough to keep the atmosphere stable for now, at least if they began planting the right seeds.

Along with an engine, the ship dropped down a great hoard of seeds. Those who stayed, couldn’t just rebuild Descanso and try to return to their old life, the bubble that the Jovians had made for them was popped. The ship’s engine would run out of fuel in a few hundred years, and before that happened they needed to create such a diversity of life on their planet that it could help stabilize the climate on its own. The Jovians had barely picked enough species to cover the ground with and create the facade of an ecosystem. It held itself in balance, but barely, there was no diversity, no resilience.

And they needed resilience. So the plan was made, they took the boats that had survived the tsunami out at sea and divided what was left of the population into three groups. Two would sail off to islands at the far corners of the planet and begin their own new society, sowing the seeds of new life as they went. The others would stay on their island and spread wide bringing new life into the hills and vales. All of them explorers once more.

And that brought them to the morning the ships departed. Henry David and Marcello both remembered the years aboard the Fate far too keenly to want to return to the stars, and now with one less drive, the ship would limp along even more slowly than before. Besides, one could look around at the craggy, green hills of their planet and see a prison built to trap them in, or you could see the boundless potential that sat before them. A planet of the right size, close enough the right star, shielded by the right magnetosphere, all of these things were miracles they knew even if the life around them was a lie. Henry David and Marcello were in this second camp. They were part of the third group of those who chose to stay that would remain on the island and sow their seeds there. Henry David’s test gardens had expanded considerably, they now surrounded his little lake and were surrounded themselves by the growing frames of new homes that were rising to join his in the protected seclusion of the valley.

Marcello spoke and patted him on the shoulder, snapping him out of his reverie. “Oh we will make it, you could have made it on your own, but it is much better with friends.”

Henry David looked up at the fading glint from the Fate “Yeah,” he replied after a long moment, “I suppose it is.”

He stood and watched a while as the shining star of the ship gradually dimmed in the brightening morning sky. Marcello returned to his spading, as always chattering away about nothing in particular. The ships faded away entirely both in the sky and on the sea when the sun crested the ridge of the valley. Henry David smiled, picked up his shovel, and returned to his digging in the soft morning breeze.

We, The People

Author’s Note: Well, I may have officially left the realm of “short stories” with this one, we finally arrive on a planet and it’s a great opportunity for me to try my hand at a bit of world building but the story is rather long because of it. Of course if you like you can always read it here, but if you prefer other formats you can also find the story:
On Medium
On Kindle
On Nook

—

She stood upon a miracle and thought of the future.

From her spot up on the porch, Amelia could almost see the ocean. Almost. The steps up out of the tented garden beds let her see out into her fields rolling away in golden shades until they were lost in the reddish haze of middle distance. Beyond the great book cliffs that defined the eastern edge of the valley rose up in layered red and cream into the cesious sky to catch the last rays of yellow sun even as her fields were enveloped in shadow. Today, there were only a few pale yellow clouds dotted above the high mesa, puffed up like pillowy souffles, so she could see for miles and miles along the cliff edge as they worked their way north towards the quiet shores of the alien sea. She could imagine skirting along their layered edges, flying through the hazy evening air, and diving deep into the cool waters to wash away the day’s grime of red dust and hayseed.

It was so pleasant to imagine, but then her eyes would refocus and memories would come crashing back unbidden. The haze that obscured the edge of her fields brought back deep, painful images of the trees obscuring the horizon on her homestead aboard the Faith. An illusion designed to keep her trapped beneath a dome to wait out endless years of waking life. The cliffs beyond, intricately layered and stacked as they were showing millenia of sedimentation, looked just like the kind of thing you’d project to give the illusion of an open world. A new illusion to keep her content.

Amelia could walk out to the edge of her fields, out through all the grasses that weren’t really grasses, right out into the red crumbled dust of the desert and still the haze would obscure the miles between her and the cliffs in their stately march to the sea. Ten years she’d passed in the old farmhouse aboard the Faith, ten years, two full working stints, and she’d never so much as left the farm. She knew she should count herself lucky. Better to be safe aboard the farm than constantly be called upon to venture out into the cold silence of the ship for whatever dangerous repair the ship couldn’t complete itself. Still, how she’d craved something, anything to make her take the step across the threshold. Many days she’d wander down through her paddocks and over the perimeter stream, between the looming boulders and up to the silently waiting archway through which waited all of the CRS Delaney’s Faith. She’d wander up to that doorway and pace for hours, curiosity burning inside of her about what she’d find out in the stretching halls of the ship, but fear of the cold of the dark of the unknown always held her back. After hours of pacing, she’d always throw up her arms in disgust at her own cowardice and walk back to the old farmhouse. There was always something that needed done on a farm anyhow.

Now there was no dome crushing down around her, only miles of open, inhospitable desert to keep her in place. But it was no less a prison. Instead of pacing by the archway, Amelia would walk again and again the miles around the perimeter of her fields of golden grasses staring out into the haze looking for any sign of life. Of course, there never was one, she didn’t know what she’d do if she saw one anyway. That was why they were here anyway, this new home humanity had found contained nearly all the ingredients essential for life, but no life itself, no alien ecosystems to consider as they set up a new civilization away from the crumbling environs of Earth. Yes, Amelia’s new home was a miracle.

For unknown ages the Faith had stumbled near-blind through the blackness of space, pinballing between solar systems. At each finding no hospitality, no future for the humans in her hold. All Amelia knew was that it must have been a very long time indeed and that she must have drawn a pretty short straw. When she’d wandered into the Delaney Corp recruitment office in downtown Hong Kong, they’d sold her on an easy five-year work stint aboard the ship and then a future on a new world with boundless potential. 

Well, that all proved to be lies. Nothing about the work stint was easy, endless years of isolation had rewired her brain. Growing up she’d visit her grandparents in Montreal and was always the center of attention, chatting away happily with all of her far-flung aunts and uncles, happily skipping between French and English and Cantonese before skipping through the spring daisies. Even later in life when she’d been uprooted and moved with her father back to his home in Hong Kong full-time she had kept her ability to charm with an easy conversation. Years of isolation had stripped that away day by day, now she could barely imagine making it through a full sentence with another human. The recruiters had lied about the length too, she was told the voyage more than tripled in expected time as the first prospect systems held no suitable planets for colonization so the Faith had headed on. So instead of waking up a second time to a new home, she was woken up to a nightmarish two weeks with a gaunt Sudanese woman who looked like she survived her stint solely by fear of death, before being left to five more years of solitude as her life slipped by.

Now, finally, they had by some miracle come across the spans of space and time to find a new planet nearly tailor-made for their needs. Nearly. 542 Cancri E2, came sailing in out of the void into the sensors of the Faith like a jewel cut from God’s own horde. It was utterly, staggeringly, unimaginably Earth-like. Gravity was almost imperceptibly lighter at .987g, the days just so pleasantly longer at 25.5 hours, the seasons changed just enough throughout the year to keep things interesting otherwise the climate was improbably stable. In the sites of the Faith, it looked like a great cream and red and cerulean marble ripe for the taking. There were deep oceans of nearly pure, freshwater. Clouds banded through the sky, tinted just a pillowy off-white by sandstone dust. Red land rose above the lapping waves in great islands dotted almost perfectly through the tropics where the average surface temperature was a balmy 25C.

Still, there were challenges aplenty, as there always would be. Starting first and foremost with those crystalline oceans. Teams of scientists were pouring themselves into discovering just why they should be so pure. The pastry clouds would carry water over the great islands and bring rains that would run back into the seas carrying heavy loads of sediment, but all the minerals from the soil would eventually settle out onto the seafloor, leaving the water to swirl once more in its incredible purity. As best they could tell there was almost no chlorine locked away in the rock of this improbable planet to bind and form salts as it had on Earth. So despite the fact that there was plenty of liquid water and a reasonably protective atmosphere and a stable, mild climate there was no life to be found on this untouched gem. The scientists hypothesized it was due to the young age of the system and the complete lack of salt in the oceans that would’ve started the slow accumulation of complex proteins that would eventually spur life. Still, for a space-faring society scaring up a little salt when they needed it was hardly an insurmountable challenge, and it meant that this new planet was theirs.

No, the true challenges lay in the devilish details. When they arrived and analyzed the atmosphere they found against all odds that it was largely breathable. Just another miracle to add to the list. Of course it was just a fluke, seemingly by divine provenance when they arrived just the right mix of gasses blanketed the surface for the new settlers to breathe. And of course it was temporary, there was no feedback loop keeping the atmosphere in balance so they’d need to engineer a new balance themselves, again no insurmountable challenge they’d already done it back home. 

But then the anomalies began to crop up, and it took them wholly by surprise at first. The first settlers had been on the ground for over a month when the first tropical storm of the spring came rolling in off the sea pulling down gases from the high atmosphere. The settlers had looked on in awe at the great creamy thunderhead as it rolled in, but when a great wall of wind hit them they began to choke. There was nothing keeping the atmosphere in balance to a large enough storm cell could change the composition enough to make it unbreathable. Only a few of those settlers had made it back into a pressurized tent in time, the rest slowly suffocated as they felt the first drops of alien rain fall up on their cheeks.

And then there was the radiation. Their new pleasant golden sun showered the planet, as all stars are wont to do, with radiation of all types. The atmosphere was largely protective, but not perfectly. After all these new settlers weren’t adapted over millennia to live under these new skies. Under cloud cover you were mostly safe, mostly. On a clear day a couple minutes of exposure was survivable, barely. So while these new settlers could stand on the surface of their new home and breathe the air, they had to cower in fear of their new sun.

They were small, devilish details that drove the new society under a dome. Living in fear of a clear sky, constantly monitoring for storms that might bring down a rain of poison gas was simply too much for the humans looking to make a new home. So they chose a lovely cove on one of the largest islands straddling the equator and built a marvel. For decades the silent machinery of the Faith worked tirelessly collecting materials from around the system and constructed a massive terrarium that enclosed the entire bay and thousands of hectares besides. A place where they could be safe. All before the sleepers really began to wake and descend down to their new home, Novo Monterrey, a new metropolis for a new planet. There was plenty of room under the dome for all of the souls in the Faith’s holds, and plenty more besides. They’d learned their lessons on Earth, they would create a new society to be more balanced, more just, more perfect.

But it was not Amelia’s lot to join them in this shining new city. She was maintenance crew after all, and so the final of Delaney’s lies was exposed. There would be a new society full of promise, but the only space they could find for her was out in the country putting her honed horticultural skills to good use. They’d awoken her and sent her straight to the surface to a newly built homestead a couple hundred kilometers away from the city. She’d seen Novo Monterrey, but only the space port. She was too sick from cryo to really put up much of a fight, and besides could she really live around so many people after so much time alone?

So now her life on this new planet with no real name, looked much like her life aboard the Faith. So much so that at times she wondered if it were all a dream, if really she was still trapped on the homestead hurtling through the stars. Her plot of land was about the same size, her daily duties were much the same although now she had large plots of genetically engineered grasses to manage as well, she was able to resume her chosen diversion of throwing pottery in the evenings, hell even her house was the same.

She stood on her porch which except for the materials could’ve been the front porch of the old farmhouse. But there was no improbable wood to be found here, no her new home was decidedly local. A stout adobe house made from pink, local earth, built thick enough to keep out the worst of the radiation. If she stepped inside she’d see a spartan house that inch for inch matched the old farmhouse. A spare kitchen and living area downstairs, bedroom on the second floor with a round window overlooking the gardens, a workshop hanging off the back under a sloping roof. Only here there was no wooden furniture, crafted by the unknown hands of some other watcher struggling to keep themself sane and build a connection across the chasm of time, that and all the doors had to be airtight in case a big storm blew in turning the air noxious. But at hey, at least she got to keep her boots from her life on the ship.

In spite of all of it. All the work, all the solitude, all the injustice Amelia stood in the sheltering shade of her porch and smiled to herself as she stood on this miracle and thought about the future.

Three years she’d been here trapped on this new farm, sent to help breed new grasses that might be spread to lock down the topsoil of the island and begin to balance the mercurial atmosphere. Three years and she’d watched again and again as her crops failed one after another, each time she’d send a report on what finally did them in and a few days later a drone would arrive with a new batch of seed to try. Now after three years, she actually had hope. Her grasses had grown tall under the alien sun, they had ripened and began to bear heavy loads of seed. Not the lack of salt, not the dust, not the storms that had come in extra punishing this season had been able to take out her crop. 

Now, after eons coming through the stars and decades on their new planet Amelia felt like humanity had true hope. If they could grow here, really grow out on the surface not tucked under domes or tents, she felt like they might actually be able to forge a new life here. Maybe they could finally settle on a name for their new world after living in limbo for all these years. She liked Demeter, why not name their new world for the goddess of a bountiful harvest.

Amelia stood on her porch and smiled to herself thinking about all the ways they would grow and adapt to meet the challenges of their new life if they found the courage. She smiled and looked out over her golden fields waving in the late afternoon sun. She smiled as she looked up at the thunderhead that was beginning to form above the book cliffs. She even smiled as she saw the first gusts of wind blow off the mesa and pick up dust from the valley floor. Her tab chimed softly, a weather alert, but she already knew that. She smiled as she stepped into her staunch, cozy home and sealed the door. She smiled knowing in her heart of hearts that this storm wouldn’t be the one to ruin her crop. She smiled knowing that for the first time in a long time she had a future to think about.

--

He stood upon a miracle and thought of the past.

From his spot by the window Daniel could almost see the island. Almost. As he floated lightly by the thick-paned window the nameless planet below him rose from the truncated horizon before him. It turned slowly in the void like a great cottony confection all creamy whites over deep blues, dotted barely visibly by the red archipelago that climbed the lower latitudes toward the island where the city grew. Novo Monterrey. He’d seen the gleaming city once, years ago, and now every time the planet rose to fill the window of his office he’d look out tracing the dotted islands across the sea he knew like the back of his hand up to the great island that straddled the equator. In his mind Daniel would soar across the great chasm of space before him, through the confectionary clouds and land just outside the great dome that every so often he could see catching the evening light just before it turned into darkness. He’d walk through a cavernous airlock to soak in the soaring, crisp airs of the city.

From there his mind would slip inevitably back through the years, through the fog of time that separated him from the life he yearned for. In his mind the image of the crystalline towers of Novo Monterrey would shift and close in until he was walking along the labyrinthine alleys of El Barri Gotic. With no input from him, Daniel’s mind would conjure the laughing faces of his friends as they stumbled through the ancient cobbled streets looking for some hidden tapas bar to duck into for another bite and a few more drinks. He could see it all so clearly before him, as though the diaspora, the ships, the eons asleep, the new planet were all just some terrible dream and all he had to do was wake up. 

Of course there was no going back. The news updates from Earth lasted long enough for him to find out that the Saito seawall around central Barcelona eventually collapsed flooding the cobbled alleys of El Gotic and erasing so much history in a matter of minutes. There was nothing to return to for Daniel, even if he could. So in silence he floated by his window looking carefully for any brief glimpse of reflected light off the great dome of the city below him.

He had no such luck today though, the island was turning its slow way into the darkness of night and was becoming enveloped in the first thunderheads of a great spring storm that came spiraling in out of angry northern seas. Still, he could imagine though. He could imagine looking up through that incomprehensible dome from the streets below, large enough to create weather of its own, he could imagine the rains stopped miles above him, before sliding down the smooth glass that enveloped this resilient nest of humanity.

The northern shore of the island where Novo Monterrey sat was just turning into darkness when the first thick band of the storm made landfall. Lights, suddenly, could be seen shining back against the darkness although he couldn’t be sure if it was the light of the city or light from the high lightning that characterized these ferocious storms.

Across his office Daniel’s tab chimed lightly on his desk, snapping him out of his reverie. Duty called. With a gentle push he soared in a great arc across the room to land almost weightlessly across the room behind the desk. The microgravity of his life these past five years had become second nature, even as it steadily increased day after day. He hesitated before answering the call.

“Took you long enough Danny,” His cousin’s teasing voice drilled into his ears as her face filled the screen of his tab, collapsing the last of his peaceful moment. “What, did you drift off again? No wonder you’re so far behind schedule.” She smirked through the screen mockingly. “You’d better watch out, Yun family or not, we’ll replace your ass in two seconds if you can’t get your shit together.”

“Ah Jesus, Elena, give it a rest. Besides you don’t seem to be working too hard yourself today.” Behind her wan face and frame of straight dark hair he could see the thin columns and intricate arches of the Faith’s bridge. Which meant one thing, his cousin Elena had called it a day and was having a drink at the long bar that sat beneath the great tiled mosaic.

Again Daniel’s mind slid backwards through time, to his last visit to the Faith’s bridge. It was rather hallowed ground in their new society, the place where the council had decided the future of mankind and elected to settle on their new world. For months, he’d been living with other early wakers in newly constructed quarters kilometers aft on the ship. That he’d been invited to the bridge at all came as a surprise to him, even though he bore the proud family name of the Yun Corporation. He remembered stepping through the ornate Spanish archway into the cavernous room, the gossamer columns rising into an intricately carved dome. Down the left side a long bar stretched under a mosaic that as he understood it the ship’s AI constantly, invisibly changed one tile at a time. When he stepped onto the bridge that day it was a mosaic facsimile of Guernica slowly being tiled over by a landscape showing conquistadors landing on Aztec shores.

He’d been called to the ostentatious place by his uncle, one of the select few who’d decided the future of mankind as one of the council. As he walked by the long table of dark wood where the council had gathered to make their decision he could see his uncle sitting at the far end of the bar with the small figure of his cousin, his brow furrowed as he scoured some inscrutable reports on his tab. As Daniel approached they both turned and a jovial smile spread across his uncle’s face. That was when he learned his future, where he would earn his place in the new world. There was no use fighting the inevitable, behind his uncle’s amiable mask was an irresistible aggregation of power, if it wasn’t for him Daniel may well have never made it off Earth.

Over tall glasses of sangria he’d learned the future his uncle had carved out. His uncle would head down to the surface as soon as the dome was complete to start work on the new Yun Corp headquarters. Not a bad role for a man who’d married into the family just a decade before the ships took flight, but then again he’d always had a way for parlaying success into success. His cousin would remain aboard the Faith to manage interests aboard the ship as the general populace began to awaken, and take over the opulent family staterooms - pobre Elena. Daniel would be headed in another direction, far from the glimmering, crystal streets of Novo Monterrey far from the long halls of the Faith. Daniel would build a moon.

Elena’s gout of belly laughter snapped him back to the present.

“Perdóname, Padre, porque he pecado.” She laughed in mock reverence, holding up her drink. “Yeah you’re right, but fuck off I’ve earned. It’s been weeks now with the Tier Three Union leaders breathing down my neck about waking more of their class to head to the surface. My Dad’s down there busting his ass, but the damned atmosphere is giving us serious fits. As much as I’d love to wake everyone up and send them down so I could move on with my life, I can’t risk throwing the air systems of the city out of whack with a huge population rush. Plus, it’s storm season so we really can’t rely on outside breathable atmosphere.”

“I take it the union people don’t exactly see the finer points of atmospheric management,” Daniel cut back dryly.

“Hell no! They couldn’t tell a scrubber from a reclimator from a circulator if their lives depended on it, which is goddamned does by the way. And they have no idea how to even comprehend the volume of atmosphere we’re talking about under the dome. They just look around and see that most of the maintenance crew has been woken up and put to work, and can’t stomach that their fare-paying citizens should remain asleep.”

“I’d take a couple extra years of sleep over the construction or cultivation or asteroid hauling work we have the maintenance crew on.” Daniel looked over at his monitor that showed the swarm of haulers he oversaw spread across the system, each manned by a lonely pair of maintenance crew.

“That’s what I’m saying,” Elena sighed, exasperated. “Give us a little time to get shit set up so people can actually live! But no, they can’t get over the shock of our total flight time and want everyone awake now, good idea or not.”

“Well two thousand years is a bit longer than expected, you have to admit.” He sighed, fighting to keep his mind in the present.

“It makes fuck all difference and you know it Daniel!” She burst, finishing her drink and sliding it across for the bar to replenish. “Anyways, don’t get me started, I’m calling to give you shit not the other way around. You are fifteen runs behind schedule this month, what the hell is going on? I am not afraid to micromanage your ass if that’s what it comes to.”

“What do you want me to tell you Elena?” Daniel retorted. “There’s a reason why there’s no chlorine on the planet, there’s barely any in the system at all. We’re combing through the asteroid belt and hauling every bit of it we find back, but it’s a seriously slow process.”

“Then what the hell were your projections for? It was your goddamned schedule.”

“It looks like we tapped out the zone we were looking at and things have gone a bit dry out there. There’s no use in just hauling any old rock all the way across the system if it doesn’t have chlorine we could mine down the line right?”

“Ahh see that’s where you’re wrong Daniel.” She wagged a finger at him as she sipped her tinto. “Ever since your moon has crossed the visibility threshold priorities on the surface have changed a bit.”

“What do you mean?” He asked, puzzled. A few months back he had proudly sent out a press release that on certain evenings surface features of their planet’s new moon would be visible to the naked eye from Novo. The project he’d toiled away on for so many years was slowly but surely coming to fruition, and he was thrilled to share the news. All his work would no longer just be a speck in the sky like some distant planet, but a real moon for the new world.

“Well, ever since your tio has been able to step out on his veranda in the evening and have a glass of wine and look up at his new moon he’s decided that he rather likes it. Reminds him of home. So now he wants it bigger, and sooner, and so do all the other big wigs.” She illuminated.

No good deed goes unpunished, he thought. “So what? I’m just supposed to haul anything and everything across the system so that some rich fucks can have an evening view? I thought we were doing this to have a chlorine bank in case the salt issue became more of a problem.”

“Hey one of those rich fucks is your uncle, and without him you’d be dead, drowned back in El Gotic when the sea came to reclaim your favorite haunts.” Elena shot back mockingly.

“Christ easy does it Elena, I’m working my ass off over here too but I can’t hit a target I can’t see. How big of a moon do they have in mind?”

“Oh something round about the size of Earth’s in the night sky ought to do daddy just fine.”

Daniel nearly, choked. “Are you fucking kidding me?!” He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “It’s one thing to just get the asteroid hauling done early so we’re nicely set up for the next couple thousand years and make a little mock moon. But the Earth’s moon was a freak, a miracle it didn’t rip the planet apart when they came into contact. Not only would we need to pull in a thousand times more material, we’d need to move the whole thing into a considerably higher orbit.” This was beyond vanity, it was lunacy.

“Oh relax Daniel.” She said slowly swirling her drink, unperturbed by his outburst. “They’re reasonable people, they’ll accept some compromise, they know it’s a new planet and all. Come up with some balance that gives us good visibility, good chlorine resources, a stable orbit, and a fucking quick timeline.”

He held his head in his hands, mind racing along the cluster of problems this was going to cause him. “I...I don’t even know where to begin.”

“Better figure it out quick primo, they are waiting down here with high hopes. My dad even has a swank apartment picked out for you when the job is done. Sweet place from what I’ve seen, penthouse, overlooking the harbor. They’ve even started bringing in more local stone to build a new Gothic Quarter just a few blocks away. Figure it out and in no time we’ll be running around down there forgetting the problems of the world. Just like old times.” She raised her glass with a sardonic smile and closed the link before he could reply.

Sighing, Daniel looked across his nearly weightless office as the planet rose into the frame of his window. They can’t even decide on a name for it and yet they have the nerve to demand the impossible, he thought. Petulantia, there’s a good name for your planet, you hubristic twits.

He turned back to his tab and monitor, combing through all the file structures that represented the past five years of his work. He’d been given no choice in the matter, but he always knew that completing this impossible moon project was his only viable path to an upper-class life in the new world, so he’d thrown himself into it with gusto.

The planet had no moon and no salt. So some bright minds thought to solve one problem by creating another. They would comb the system for chlorine-rich asteroids and bring them all together in orbit around the planet to act as a reserve in case establishing a salt balance on the surface proved too difficult for future generations. They could always mine this new moon a bit for chlorine and combine it with existing sodium on the surface to keep their ecosystems in balance. But they couldn’t risk bringing all the ore to the surface from the outset, for all they knew introducing massive amounts of chlorine would cause runaway salination, potentially throwing atmospheric balances off, maybe even kickstarting the development of life off in the oceanic depths. No, it was better to horde this reserve off the surface, yet somewhere readily accessible.

He began on the project about a year after waking up. Daniel oversaw as they rammed four different micromoons, tiny captured asteroids really, into the core of what would be this new satellite. Then they nabbed some asteroids as they passed by to give them a gravitational basis with which to anchor more valuable ore. It had taken three years before there was enough material for the moon’s gravity to pull it into a shape resembling round, that was when he’d left the Faith and established an operations base on, or near, the surface depending on the needs of the day.

For the past two years he’d poured all of his ingenuity into combing the asteroid belt faster and faster to complete the penance he’d been given to earn a life in the gleaming city that sat just out his window. First he’d floated around his office in the barely noticeable microgravity. But day after day, with his planning, the cumulative effort of a team of astrophysicists, and the daily toil of the workers riding the haulers his moon began to grow beneath him. Day by day, he’d felt his weight increase even as the value of this wild project grew for all the future generations that would live in the light of his moon. He’d began to feel hopeful for the first time in years as it seemed like all the work he’d witnessed over the years may actually pay off.

That was all out the window now. For them to get the moon reasonably visible in the next hundred years would mean they’d need to throw every bit of rock they could grab at it, burying the carefully sifted chlorine ore beneath miles of rock. Sure future generations could mine it, at a considerably higher cost. He thought about the teams of scientists he’d worked with, always patient with his lack of experience because they saw the value of the project. Already, he could see the riot their office would turn into when he broke the news to them. But that wasn’t what concerned Daniel as he sat with his head resting lightly in his hands.

No, he thought about the one hundred and four maintenance workers under his charge who were out cold and alone in the far stretches of the system bearing all the weight of the new society on their shoulders. They’d sacrificed years of their lives to watch after the ship on their endless journey through the stars, sitting isolated never knowing if they’d ever see a better life. Now they endured the cramped weightless hauls across the system just to help out if their almost completely automated haulers ever ran into trouble. Which of course they almost never did, turning the toil that much more sour. Still it was all worth it, they were all together building a better future.

It was one thing to ask them to build a better world though, it was another to force them to build a better view for the upper echelons of society. They were given this work and solemnly they took it, knowing it was their only way onto the new world, a world with no destitution or poverty no degradation or destruction, a world where for the first time in generations there was a real prospect of a better future. But they would always be the lowest class in the new society, always taking whatever work no one else could be bothered to do, in a land where work had all but lost its meaning. There would be no way for them to know what it was like to sit on his Uncle’s patio with a bottle of Spanish red, hauled millenia through the stars, on a warm evening and look up at the moon they had built. With one word his uncle had taken the project from nearly to complete to barely started. Daniel didn’t know if he could stomach it.

A soft knock came to his door.

His mind snapped back to the present. “What is it?” he asked.

Softly his assistant opened the door and stepped in. “Comms has just received a distress call from hauler #42, Mr. Yun sir. It looks like some debris has taken out their primary engine, we can’t get a call back from the crew so it looks like at least their communications equipment was eventually destroyed as well.”

Just what he needed, a new fire to put out, less resources with which to complete an even more difficult project.

“Alright Sonia, thanks for the heads up.” He sighed, bringing up the map of the hauler’s last known location. “I’ll see what the higher ups want to do.”

She bowed her slight frame and stepped out almost weightlessly as he opened a chat link to his cousin. No reason she should get to enjoy her drinks while his day dragged on.

• Well you can tell your Tier Three reps I’ve got plenty of work for them on asteroid haulers if they’re so keen to wake up their people. He sent.

• Ha, these are middle managers we’re talking about here. I doubt they’d go for that. She replied.

• We have a hauler down out in the belt. Propulsion and comms are down at least, we have no update on structural and life support. We’ll need an immediate extraction if the crew is to have a chance. He informed.

• Hold on a minute. She sent back.... .... .... Loss prevention has approved immediate release of a surveillance drone to inspect, should be on scene in two days. She finally replied.

• Elena, you know that won’t do much more than surveil the wreckage. We need people out there. He pleaded.

• Lo siento primo, that’s all we’re cleared for. There’s a good chance there’s nothing left to find anyway. She sent the message and closed the link before he could beg any more.

Daniel groaned softly as he looked back out at the planet spinning below him, he frowned deeply, head spinning with a million competing thoughts. His brow set into a deep furrow as he floated lightly over to his spot by the window to watch the planet continue its rise. Gloom set over his eyes as Daniel Yun realized for the first time in a long time that the future was something he didn’t want to think about.

--

Change came flying out of the storm.

Amelia watched from beside her workshop as the last great thunder head rolled its slow way east to spend its energies on the vast unexplored tracts of the island. It had been unseasonably late for a spring storm to come through and she fervently hoped it would be the last as she stood looking over her eastern fields, battered and sodden, but very much still alive. This latest crop had withstood an extraordinary amount of abuse and still managed to be her most productive yet. The years of toil were beginning to pay off it seemed, her own modifications to the soil rotation and planting patterns paired with the genetic engineering happening back in Novo Monterey contrived to create the first life forms truly adapted to thrive on the new world.

Flickers of lightning traced their blinding way through the upper clouds as the sun began to rise and brighten the sky above. Through all the flickering light Amelia noticed another light detach itself from the storm and swoop slowly down towards her farm, a drone. A big one. Its blinking green lights danced through the last clouds and it flew in near silence down to just beside where she stood.

In her years on the farm she’d had plenty of drones drop by carrying all sorts of things, the latest batch of modified seeds, compost, even food when her early garden harvests had failed. They would swoop in and Amelia would come running to grab whatever they held, without a moment’s hesitation the drone would lift back off and soar away to its next duty. Not today though. The behemoth alighted next to her workshop slid its cargo bay doors open expectantly and powered down. She peered into the bay, perplexed to find it empty, that’s when her tab chimed.

A message from the head of Ag Research: 

Excellent work on the cultivation. As soon as possible, please collect a five kilogram sample of each subspecies you’ve been working with and dispatch this drone back to headquarters for analysis. Once complete and dispatched, your farm vehicle will transport you back to Novo Moneterrey for a debriefing. 

- Juro

Her eyes read and reread the curt note, her head swimming. So much change held in so few words. It had been years and the teams in the city had never requested samples of her crops, then again she’d never really had much of a crop to speak of. Then there was her vehicle. She’d always considered it little more than an automated tractor, never had the notion that she could ride anywhere in it really crossed her mind. It did have a little two-seat compartment at its front, but she’d always found it simpler to just punch in the commands and set it to working the fields on its own. Then there was the author, Juro, Juro Saito, familial head of the Saito Corporation here and now the head of Ag Research. She’d remembered his name from Earth although and certainly knew his family, scions of the formidable Saito conglomerate; all of her literature certainly made clear that on the new world he was as high ranking as they come. To receive a personal note from him, and in such casual terms, made Amelia feel completely out of her depth.

And then there was the city. After all this time she’d finally get to see it. She could imagine already, gliding under the dome and down the broad boulevard she felt sure must run straight through the city and out to the beach just at the apex of the broad, circular bay. There would probably be a park there, maybe with a statue paying tribute to the watchers who’d given up so much of their lives to see the Faith safely through the stars. It was all so real in her mind.

But then, the panic. Her breath quickened as she imagined those shining streets filled with people bumping, bustling, jostling, and talking talking talking. It had been over a decade for Amelia since she’d last really been around people, and the notion of sitting down to a conversation with Juro Saito sent her pulse skyrocketing.

Dawn fully broke as Amelia fought down her panic, the sun clearing the last of the trailing clouds to illuminate a new day on her little patch of land. She looked around at the rolling fields bathed in golden morning light and slowly but surely excitement superseded dread. Maybe this was it, maybe her price was finally paid and she would finally be able to join into the new world.

With a deep breath she grabbed her wide-brimmed protective hat and insulated fieldwork shirt and headed out to get a jump on the day’s duties. There was much to be done before she could see humanity’s new home. Out in her wide acreage Amelia had been growing sixteen different subspecies of grass and four different ground-hugging legume species to help refix soil nitrogen. She’d stopped calling any of them by their Earth names after about four plantings as the genetic modifications changed the species right before her eyes. There were descendants of amaranth and millet, rye and maize, lentils and broad beans but they had changed into something entirely new over the years. Now, they all needed to be collected and packaged up so that they could go off to become the pillars of new ecosystems. Surely there was someone working on new names.

She spent the day in a blur of whirling motion, scything the tall grasses, picking the ripened hulls of her beans, gathering, tying, and labeling. The sun was well into its westward descent when she finally loaded the last samples into the drone. Kilos upon kilos of neatly packed plat matter filled the sterile hold, she tapped a button on her tab and without ceremony it switched on and lept to the sky racing ahead of her back to the city. 

Then time slowed to a crawl. Her work was done, all that was left now was to simply load up and let her vehicle whisk her away through the hills to the city awaiting on the shores beyond. But she had no idea where to even begin. Saito’s note left no indication how long she may be gone for. Her gardens were automatically watered and would survive a couple of days, but not much beyond that. What did she need to bring? What did she really have to bring? A couple of spare work shirts and her cleanest set of trousers. She wandered her slow way around the house again and again, each lap collapsing her mind closer in on the dread she held in her stomach of finally facing other humans again after all these years.

The sun dropped lower and lower in the sky as she paced around the house and through the gardens barely seeing where she was putting her feet, blind with fear. Then, without warning, her truck dropped its combine attachments, pulled out in front of the garden, and popped its door open expectantly as though tired of watching Amelia drag herself through this crisis of self. She had to laugh at the ridiculousness of it all. That she should be so scared to visit a city after surviving decades in the sunken streets of Hong Kong, that an automated truck should convey so much annoyance with a simple preprogrammed command. She took the hint and got in; farm clothes would have to be good enough for the big city, they were all she had.

Her truck whisked her northward following the valley as the sun began to set in earnest. Within minutes the farm disappeared from view behind her in the evening haze and she was left flying alone along the valley floor over the wide floodplains that followed the river to the sea. There were no roads, nothing to give her any real sense of direction other than the illuminated bookshelf cliffs catching the last rays of the day. Then, just as dusk gave way to night the truck turned up a side valley and Amelia was left in the blue lights of the cabin surrounded by so much dark, only the tiny sliver of the world’s new moon pierced the glare on the windows.

The early hours of the evening passed as the canyon tightened and steepened, the truck slowed and wound its way along a set of tracks only barely discernible in broad daylight from the surrounding desert. Amelia dozed fitfully as she bumped and bumbled along in the still silence of the cab. The shard of moon set just as she cleared the top of the mesa and the cushioned wheels were able, once more, to speed along unencumbered through the dense gravel.

The first rays of morning raced in to greet Amelia after threading their way between the peaks of a range far in the distance, she sat up struck by the view. Her truck raced along the edge of the high mesa, cliffs fell off thousands of feet below to the valley floor. The rays worked their way down and across the plains as the sun edged its way into the sky until finally it set a jewel aflame. 

At the mouth of this new valley, where the river met the wide curving bay, the great glass dome of Novo Monterrey rose in its faceted glory. Even from her high vantage on the mesa Amelia was not even with its apex. In a world of so many creams and reds and ochres the fresh morning light catching in the thousands of glass panels shown like brilliant sapphire. Beneath all that wonder of glass Amelia could just make out the shapes of towers reaching up in their hundreds, all built just the same in gleaming crystal. She sat in stunned silence as she whisked along the shelf towards her destination. In one brilliant moment all her misgivings had been burned away, she was looking at the future and could not wait to be a part of it.

After a short while her truck linked up with some more established tracks and then a graded road and then a strip of reddened pavement that dove into a tunnel that would take her down through the towering cliffs. She could see far below the broad roadway curving through the valley to meet the dome at a great arched gateway, just like she’d imagined. An eternity passed as she descended in the tunnel, aching for another glimpse of the city. But when she finally emerged on the valley floor with the dome towering dizzyingly above her, her truck took an unexpected turn. A smaller road arched around to the west side of the city, she raced along as the city grew and grew until it swallowed her entire field of vision and then suddenly the road plunged once again beneath the earth into a yawning tunnel, sending her once more into darkness craning her neck for a final glimpse.

As she passed through a buried airlock, the pale yellow of the new sun was replaced by the harsh, cold blues of strip lighting lining the roof of the tunnel. All was thrown into stark relief. She whisked silently along in the tunnel for a few minutes before she began crossing other tunnels, carved through the deep red rock. And then came the chaos.

From the other tunnels came other vehicles flying to and fro. Towering lorries, boxy delivery vans, dusty excavation rigs all came pouring by in an onslaught almost too hectic to perceive. Amelia simply gawked as her little truck weaved seamlessly between the rushing traffic. It was so unlike any experience she’d had since she left Earth she could merely sit and let it all wash over her. They would dance this way and that, sometimes with a human pilot, more often not, all in a graceful ballet that worked its way through the web of tunnels.

In time she could feel herself bending to the north, under the city proper. Traffic only increased. Now long trains and a million little courier vehicles joined the bustle, and still the ballet continued. Some infallible mind had every step mapped and Amelia could merely behold its grace.

At long last she entered a towering cavern of a room, red rock retreating back in all directions to unveil a tremendous transit hub with all the vehicles dancing around it like so many bees. Her truck skittered through it all before pulling up at an empty loading dock on one of the myriad arms of the hub and popping her door open to let in a rush of new sounds. What in the quiet of her cab had seemed an elegant dance now seemed like unfiltered mayhem. The rush of wheels over the polished bedrock swelled to fill the cavern, the coursing of air currents pushed over her. A million alerts, bells, beeps, and alarms provided an incessant cacophony.

And the voices. God, the voices. It had been three years on the farm since Amelia had heard another human voice, and countless more before that since she’d heard anything close to the chorus of shouts and whistles that enveloped her now. Technicians and foreman, pilots and construction workers, they may have been in the minority when it came to the machines they were surrounded by but they made up for it in their boister. The dense, dusty air of the cavern was filled with a torrent of cries that flooded into Amelia’s ears in all their unintelligible mayhem.

Shaking she grabbed her tab for guidance, it seemed to want her to find her way into the center of the hub and take one of the elevators she could see rising off in the distance. She made it three whole steps before the sensory overload took her. Amelia collapsed on the walkway just as her truck closed its door and drove off into the mayhem.

Some time later a voice fought its way into her haunted dreams.

“Oi, are yeh in there?” A gentle pat on the cheek. “Can you hear me lass?” A stinging light clawing its way beneath her eyelids. The nightmare continued and Amelia sat up in a gasping panic.

“Ahhh there we go.” A few stiff pats on the back. “You’re alright there.” The voice belonged to a gruff middle aged woman with a shock of red hair spraying in all directions. “Now take a few breaths for me.”

Amelia gasped for air and fought to center herself. She looked around, the chaos of the transit hub was gone and she found herself in a spartan room hewn from red rock. She laid on a small gray bed with the woman standing over her, and on one wall a ‘window’ pretended to look out on the foggy morning of some temperate river. But mercifully, the noise was gone and she was able to gulp down a few breaths.

“Now, that’s better.” The woman sat on the side of the bed and smiled at her, Amelia could have cried and clutched at this human contact she’d so badly craved, but instead she sat back scared it might all be a dream. “Why don’t yeh tell me who yeh are?” The woman reached out and kindly patted her hand, warmth flowed between them.

Amelia began to speak and only a pitiful croak emerged. Over the years on the farm her monologue had grown increasingly internalized, she couldn’t even really be sure when the last time she used her voice was.

“Oh you poor thing, lost yer voice in all this too?” She offered Amelia a small cup filled with a steaming concoction. “Here, try this. It should help fortify yer vocal cords.”

She sipped at it cautiously, but it went down like soothing warm honey and lavender, so she sipped again.

After a few minutes she tried again. “My name is Amelia,” she let out in a soft whisper. “I’ve been working out on a farm plot, I...” Her voice failed again.

“Farm work? You don’t say? I can’t say you much look like the type.” The woman smiled back. “Although you do certainly have some callouses on those little hands of yours.” She said, carefully turning over her hand. “What brings you back here?”

“I got a request...” Her voice kept cracking and wheezing, so she sipped more of the medicine. “...to debrief with...”

“Oh, never mind lass. Yeh need some rest is all, don’t worry about trying to explain yerself to me, I just look after this ward. Take yer time healing up and we’ll get you out of here in no time.” She stood up and straightened her white smock. “Now unfortunately for yeh there was a wee construction accident earlier today and some of the folks are pretty banged up, I’ve got to run along and check in on them. Can’t trust these autodocs for everything these days can we?”

“Are...are we in the city?” Amelia croaked, dying to look out the window and see the city streets she’d walked a thousand times in her mind, she nodded towards the window.

“Well lass, not so much in it as under it. Yeh’ll get your clearance to go surface side once they finalize yer appointment.” She turned to leave and looked at the window with its foggy vista. “Oh I do hate when these bloody things choose such dreary views.” She banged a small fist on the sill and it obligingly switched to display a view down a long carribean beach under a cloudless sky. “Now that’s better.” She nodded curtly before stepping through the open doorway, leaving Amelia to her thoughts and the blinding vista.

It was three days before Amelia was allowed to leave. She spent the first several hours having her corneas seared by the blazing beach view on the screen and listening to sickening groans from down the hall as the victims of the construction accident were treated. Finally she thought to ask her tab how to change the view and it mercifully switched it back to a foggy river bend. But she never could get the door to close, privacy apparently wasn’t on the menu. She gradually regained her strength and with each little visit from the woman Amelia gained a little bit more confidence in her voice, even if human interaction still felt utterly surreal.

On the third day Amelia’s tab chimed softly with an appointment to see Mr. Saito. Moments later the woman poked her red head in the door.

“Oi lass, looks like yeh’ve been given your surface clearance,” She chirped in. “Looks like they gave yeh the whole day as well, lucky gal. I haven’t been given a full day at surface level in weeks.”

“You mean you don’t live up in the city?” Amelia wondered.

“Ha! The likes of me living up in Novo Monterrey, wouldn’t that be something!” She laughed gregariously. “No lass, I just tend to my ward and enjoy my time up top when it gets passed down to me. So do all of us working down here. But not for yeh, headed up today! Think yeh can handle it?”

“I...I suppose we’ll find out.” Amelia sighed, standing up to find her farm clothes laundered and neatly folded in the corner.

“I suppose we will. Best of luck to yeh lass, I’d best not be seeing you back in here too soon.” The woman replied kindly, and with a sharp rap on the doorframe disappeared.

Amelia slipped out of her starchy hospital gown and into the well-worn contours of her freshly washed farm clothes. Patched canvas pants, now for the first time in months free of the red-staining dust of the farm. A soft chambray shirt which she always wore rolled to the elbows. And of course her boots. They were now properly battered leather, but still made her feel more sure on her feet than any medicine she’d been given during her stay. Like old friends they’d followed her down from the Faith and taken on their new life on the surface, and now they walked out with her into this brave new world.

She followed the hallway from her little room along the ward. All of it hewn from the same red rock as the rest of this underground city.  Along the way she snuck glances into adjacent rooms where victims from the accident lay unconscious surrounded by a shroud of autodocs, Amelia couldn’t tell what had happened but it must have been pretty gruesome to require this much time with the machines. Her tab guided her step by step out of the medical ward and into a common hall where long tables sat sparsely populated by people taking what rest they could find. Long window screens showed scenes of green, rolling prairie. Thankfully, the noise was kept to a manageable hush under the sound of tiered fountains that ran down the center of the hall.

Keeping her head down, determined not to let the stimulation overcome her again, Amelia followed her directions to a bank of elevators that rose up into the ceiling several stories overhead. She stepped on alone and was immediately whisked into the darkness of undisturbed rock. Up, up, up she went for one, two, three hundred feet of solid bedrock. There had been little indication down below just how truly entombed they’d been. Then, in one blazing moment the glass car of the elevator broke through into clear day and dropped Amelia gawking into the center of a sparkling metropolis.

Light rained down through the dome, soaring overhead, as Amelia staggered out onto the curb of a broad boulevard that ran through the center of the city. Overhead, crystalline towers rose dizzyingly into the lofty air. Above, so far above as to almost be imperceptible, the great dome of Novo Monterrey soared. Amelia took her reeling first steps out into the city, out into the center of the boulevard to crane her neck, attempting in vain to see where the dome met the ground in any direction. It simply disappeared into a haze of buildings and contained fog in every direction.

As she stumbled across the street, stupefied by the glory all around her, a transit van silently stopped and impatiently waited for her to kindly get the hell out of its way. It took an escalating series of chimes to snap her out of her bewilderment. Finally, embarrassed, Amelia stepped back up on the curb and the van sped silently on its way. Still her wonder did not cease. It was simply too much to take in. All around the towers rose like a million glass sculptures. Around her ,the first levels swept up in an array of ostentation, cantilevering out to provide endless alcoves and atria, courts and concourses. The street ran wide and straight, carved immaculately from the same red rock that made up the world below. In one direction she knew it would run out to the edge of the dome and into the mesalands beyond. In the other it would dissect the towering city out to the sea.

Anxiously, her tab chimed several times to get her attention. It wanted her to head west along the boulevard out towards the bay, an illuminated path jumped out of its screen. As Amelia moved into denser clusters of buildings, following her directions, she began to see something new. The citizens of Novo Monterrey. They wandered the walkways of their city, enjoying the pleasant morning air. No one seemed to be in much of a rush this morning, as they sidled lazily along in the warm light, turning into cafes and office buildings and little parklets tucked up amongst the towers. It all seemed blessedly subdued, she had always imagined a city positively bursting with life, an incessant bustle reminiscent of Earth’s great metropolises. She looked at her tab and realized it was only half an hour after sunrise; Novo Monterrey, it seemed, was a city that liked its sleep.

As she made her way deeper into the city center the crowds began to thicken a touch, and Amelia noticed the sweeping diversity of these people. Faces of every shape and color slipped by headed on their way; clothing from a hundred proud traditions from every corner of Earth fluttered by. Saris and suits, dashiki and dresses were all worn with equal dignity. Clearly some habits had yet to be left behind.

When Amelia rounded the corner to her appointment she was struck still by a sight ripped from the very streets of Earth. A set of three rubbish bins, nearly full, sat resolutely collecting the detritus of this new society. Bits of debris rustled around the base where some wayward hand had missed, the gentle morning breeze blew some out into the street. In one inexorable moment Amelia was ripped back to the streets of Hong Kong, flooded with people with noise with smog with refuse. It had been nearly fourteen years since the notion that something could even be trash had crossed her mind. Every scrap of material she’d encountered on the ship and out on her farm had its purpose and was kept in an exacting balance. Plant matter had to be reused in compost, materials in her workshop were guarded jealously and used to exhaustion. As she sat staring as some citizen walked by and dropped in a pile of greasy wrapping papers from a walking breakfast and went on their way without a second thought. The notion of such wanton waste galled Amelia in a way she would have never imagined. Maybe all this debris would go off for recycling or reconstitution, maybe there was already a landfill forming for the city tucked away in the mesas, neatly out of sight. She didn’t know, she didn’t care, she was indignant but she didn’t know if it was because she saw some sort of higher truth or if her mind was that far gone warped by time and solitude.

Again her tablet chimed impatiently. Apparently Mr. Saito kept a full schedule and wouldn’t be thrown behind so early in the day by some random farm worker. Amelia turned off the boulevard and into a wide plaza with buildings rising on three sides. In the center, a colossal sculpture stood honoring the first landing crew, depicted still alive and vigorous, exploring the new world before it so cruelly laid them low. She skirted around to the tallest building at the rear of the plaza, The Saito Center Of Terraformation.

Seamlessly she strode through the doors of the lofty building, directed at every step, every door whisking open as she approached. Only a few people passed her by or met off in the corners talking softly amongst themselves. In a rush she was on an elevator again and shooting skyward along the outer edge of the building, watching as the cascade of glass poured by around her, now a part of the crystal city rather than just a spectator. She stepped out into a high lobby and was directed by the lone secretary she’d seen into the office of Juro Saito.

He chatted busily on a call as she walked in. Behind his sleek desk, covered with a riot of maps, charts and annotated spreadsheets, a panoramic window revealed the city beyond descending on its way to the harbor and the deep blue of the ocean on the horizon. She would’ve been struck by the view if her attention hadn’t been ripped away so abruptly.

“Amelia is it?” Saito said abruptly, hanging up his call.
“Ye...yes sir.” She stumbled back, pulling her attention back down to his slight figure. “Thank you for having me in.”
“Hm, yes well I’m sure you’ll enjoy the time in the city.” He replied flatly, eyes skating over to his monitor to delve into some new, unknown information.

“Um, yeah of course. I’ve been looking forward to coming for a long time now.”

“Of course, how long have we had you out on your plot?” He wondered without looking up.

“Just over three years now Mr. Saito.” Amelia responded softly, unsure of what to make of his detached greeting.

“Three years...shit,” He sat back, finally, and looked her square in the eyes, motioning her to sit in a chair across from him. “Not exactly what you were expecting on the new world I’d guess?”

“I can’t say I expected anything after my time on the Faith,” she conceded, meeting his eyes and finding the first trace of humanity she’d seen from the man.

A laden pause held over the airy office. Here was Amelia, no more than a name on one of the many spreadsheets strewn across the desk. Here was Juro Saito, scion of the formidable Saito conglomerate on the new world. He helped choose this new planet and was now on a mission to form it as he saw fit. He didn’t know her, but his face was intensely familiar to her, ripped straight from the newsfeeds of old Earth.

Already before they left, Juro Saito had clawed his way to a position of considerable repute. Amelia remembered him particularly keenly for his work with the seawalls surrounding Hong Kong and Macau protecting billions from the worst of the storm surges that worked their way in from the South China Sea. She knew him to be ruthless and cold but simply too motivated and rich to do anything other than fail upwards, even when his walls ultimately failed under the pressure of a coming typhoon leaving millions to drown in the surging sea. Conveniently he was already frozen and several light years away when that finally happened. Now here he was, head of a completely unrelated division in a new city on a new planet. No doubt he thought he’d done pretty well for himself.

“Well, the work is imperative for the colony,” he finally cut the silence. “Once we figure out what combination of mutations allowed your grasses to survive we’ll be able to scale things up to more fruit-bearing planets, fungi, and eventually animals. We’re transforming the salt deserts of this world.”

“Of course it is,” Amelia concurred hesitantly. “Although I wasn’t aware you’d move it up quite so quickly to animals. Were the samples I sent helpful in your analysis?”

“I’m sure the lab team would have let me know if they weren’t.” He waved uninterestedly. “And of course we’re looking to scale, our entire goal here is to fix salt into ecosystems so we can create a self-sustaining environment for future generations and leave this fucking dome behind.”

He dropped it all so casually, as if transforming an entire planet’s ecology were just some new business venture. As if the steps they took today wouldn’t be felt for generations down the line, for better or for worse.

“Of course sir,” she finally hedged. “But if you don’t want to discuss my work on the farm, why am I here?”

“You’re work’s been great there, uh, Amelia.” He stumbled searching for her name. “One of the first to grow fully independent grasses I’m told, excellent work. It may well be our savior now that I’m told Alfonso Yun, that upjumped ingrate, is sabotaging the moon project for some reason I cannot fucking fathom. Genetic modification and salt fixing may be our best chance at climate stabilization.”

“Thank you sir, I’ve been experimenting with rotational planting, that was when they really started...” Amelia blathered excitedly, happy to take some pride in the work she’d been at for years.

“I’m sure the teams are all completely up to speed on your process,” Saito cut in unforgivingly. “They’ve been monitoring your work from cameras on your plot and via satellite.”

No surprises there Amelia supposed, she’d had no privacy on Earth and even less on the ship. Why should that change now?

“Ok...” She paused. “You seem a busy man Mr. Saito, so why am I in your office?”

“Busy indeed.” He looked up fiercely from the papers cluttering his glass desk. “You’re here because even in the new world there are some things we can’t monitor and I’m curious if you’ve seen anything.”

“Anything like what sir?”

“Anything unusual happening around the perimeter of your plot.” He quipped unhelpfully.

“Around my plot?” Amelia gawked. “Sir you understand I’ve been wholly isolated there for three years right? I’ve seen nothing but barren desert around the farm for years.”

“That’s good to hear.” He sighed and sat back in his seat looking up at the ceiling. “We’ve had several test plots go offline recently.”

“Offline?”

“Offline, no response to our queries, even though everything looks normal on our, uh, monitoring feeds. We sent drones out to them, the fields are all blown over with dust by now their machinery is largely gone, we can’t tell if there’s anyone left.”

“What, other farm workers have just disappeared?!” Amelia sat forward, alarmed.

“Not so much disappeared as abandoned their post we’re thinking.” His dark eyes slid down to lock into hers. “Our security teams have been tracking a separatist group for several years now. Led by a woman, Imka, they call themselves ‘transformists’, and insist that it is humanity’s duty to change to the planet not the other way around.”

“Whaa...” Amelia stuttered, dumbfounded.
Her perplexity didn’t seem to phase Juro Saito, he careened on. “They’ve issued a number of manifestos condemning so much of our work here. They say we’ve failed to learn our lessons from Earth, they say we must preserve this new world as it is. Bah!” He slammed a fist down. “What’s there to save? This place is a goddamned desert!”

“...uh. Yes, of course sir.” Amelia quavered under his fiery stare.

“But you’re saying you haven’t seen anything?” He grilled.

“No....no I haven’t.” She whispered, unsure what he was looking for in her.

“Excellent, well that’s all we needed, and to be sure you’d report any irregularities you may see out on your plot.” His dark eyes drilled deep into her.

“...Of course sir, I haven’t heard of these Transformists, and I can’t say that I’m keen to learn more.” She sat up trying to force stillness into her voice under his withering stare. “But sir, if I may, how can they exist? Isn’t the government able to track all of the citizens?”

“Bah!” He raged. “Clever bastards must have some help on the inside, some misguided misanthrope tipping the scales in their favor. If he wasn’t such a dolt I’d have half a mind to blame Alfonso Yun. But no, they’ve proven damnably well resourced and clever to boot, I suppose this is why we’ve only woken up a quarter of the passengers. You can never be too careful introducing new people to a society.”

“A quarter of the passengers? You mean most are still aboard the Faith? What, just living up there?”

“What? God no, of course not, they’re still in cryo,” he guffawed. “Silly girl, we couldn’t just have people stampeding all over while we’re trying to build a new society down here.”

“Of course not sir.” Amelia whispered, mouse-like.

“Very good. Well you may go then, enjoy your day here in the city. We’ll need you back out on your plot soon for more plantings. We’ll have you on leafy greens and squash before you know it.”

“Oh, yes sir, Mr. Saito.” Amelia’s words barely scratched their way through the heavy air of the office. “Do you have any idea when I may be able to relocate here to the city?”

“What? You want to move here?”

“Well... yes sir. I wasn’t really aware I’d be working so remote...”

“Ah! Yes well none of us was really sure what we were getting ourselves into were we?” He declared flatly as he turned his chair to enjoy the view of the early morning sun glistening off the city. “I’ll log that you’d like to come back to the city for consideration, not all of you farm workers are interested in that you know? Many prefer their solitude. But there’s much work to be done before any of that I think you’ll agree.”

“Yes, of course sir.” She submitted.

“Excellent, thank you for coming in. Enjoy your day down in Novo.” He didn’t turn from his view, but his abrupt end in conversation let Amelia know her appointment was through.

Amelia swept out of the office and back out onto the boulevard with her head swirling. The assistant hadn’t tried to schedule anything for her with the biology team, and her tab showed no upcoming appointments, could they really care so little for the work she’d been doing all this time? And then there were the Transformists. How could such a separatist group exist at all? Couldn’t they simply be tracked down and subdued if the powers that be found them so disagreeable? There weren’t billions of citizens to lose yourself among or hospitable forests to disappear into if the authorities came looking. And then the notion that three quarters of the population was still frozen, unaware that they’d found their new home. She’d never considered herself to be lucky, but even working in isolation had to beat staying frozen while a new society jetted off without you.

Down, down, down the wide red boulevard she walked. Past the glittering towers, through the streets that now struck her as staggeringly empty. The city was built to hold the two million occupants of the Faith and many more besides as the city bloomed, but Amelia could see now it was only the top tier of residences, offices, and parks that were occupied. The neighborhoods off in the rolling hills away from the harbor and city center sat abandoned, waiting for the citizenry held in abeyance.

At the end of the boulevard the masts of a few dozen pleasure yachts bobbed in the morning light. Down near the harbor a new construction of stone rose to the south, some sort of archaic walled city was being constructed along the waterfront. She looked down the narrow, crooked alleys baffled. The whole of Novo Monterrey was a glittering artifice of the future, but this seemed ripped straight from the past. Why would they put so much effort into building something so impractical when three quarters of the living population still waited patiently for their new lives?

Finally Amelia’s boots found their way off of the pavement and out onto crushed sand. At the head of the park that surrounded the marina a gleaming statue rose into the air, honoring the council who had woken and chosen this planet for coloniz

ation. A plaque was dedicated to each member as Amelia walked around. Each told the story of a head of a different organization chosen for this solemn task. Only one hadn’t bought their way onto the council, the voice of the people, chosen at random to represent the millions like Amelia, merely lucky to have been able to leave a dying Earth. Amelia looked up at her bronze face, looking out to sea catching the warm rays of a new sun.

 Beyond a gargantuan beach stretched off for miles north and south. It arced in unobstructed purity for miles out towards the headlands of the bay. A beach built for a billion souls. Wide, flat, and perfectly graded. Above all it was white. The shining brilliance took her aback for a moment, this was a world of red only shot through with wisps of white. It must have taken a monumental effort to collect this much white sand to be poured over the native coast line and create a beach of such perfectionist beauty.

But Amelia knew what this coast was meant to look like. She could see it on her drive in. Here, the coast did dip back in the deep bay she saw before her, but it was not meant to be covered in a homogenous beach. This coast was meant to be all rocky outcrops and little sea caves, pockets of red sand tucked away from the sun by cliffs of smooth, red rock. As she looked north Amelia could see the machinery that must have come through here and ground it all into submission. This new society had the means and the motivation to remake the world as they saw fit. So why wouldn’t they?

The air began to thicken in Amelia’s lungs. She looked out to sea and could only see a dirty haze along the horizon out where the dome must have met the sea. Beneath the waters great turbines would come to harvest the new moons tidal energies in the years to come, but for now it just collected haze and dust and blocked any breath of wind from coming through. Suddenly the dome was smothering. This unfathomable, incomprehensible miracle that held more air than she could breathe in a hundred lifetimes felt like a choking blanket. 

Suddenly she wanted nothing more than to watch a storm roll into her valley and blow wind, real wind, across her farm. She wasn’t scared of changing atmospheric mixtures anymore, she was at home in this world and wanted to see the real clouds hanging in the real sky and feel the real wind upon her face. Amelia turned from the beach of artifice on one well worn heel to find her back back beneath the city, back to her truck, and back to her little home. She had no idea what she’d do in the weeks to come, but she knew that she needed to breathe.

--

Change came flying out of the void.

After fifteen days of blackness Daniel could finally see something through the window, just a glint at first. Then over the course of hours the glint turned into a gleam and then into a shine and then into a glitter and then into a horror. As they closed in it became increasingly clear that there wouldn’t be much to find of the hauler they’d hoped to rescue. A few thousand kilometers out they had a pretty clear picture of what awaited them. That first glint came off of what remained of the hull, still attached to the chunk of rock it’d been pushing, and all the glitter behind it was all the detritus of life left behind after explosive decompression had ripped the crew quarters open.

Damn it, Elena was right. Was the only thought that could force its way through Daniel’s forlorn mind. He’d spent the past twelve hours straight watching the wreck grow in the fore observation window of his ship, all the time knowing exactly what he was seeing but never quite letting himself believe it. A thousand kilometers out the ship could do accurate temperature and pressure readings to confirm what he already knew. They were slowing to intercept a wreck, a cold airless husk with not but a few vacuum-formed mummies for recovery. If they were lucky.

I’m going to catch hell for nothing. Another thought finally made its way through his synapses as the final readings came in. Fifteen days and an eternity ago he’d walked into the office where his team of scientists worked tirelessly on the moon project and gave them the updated marching orders on prioritizing moon size over elemental value. Oh, and they’d have to move it into a considerably higher orbit to avoid sending the whole thing careening into the planet. No big deal, just a quick update, you guys are the best, I have all faith you’ll get right on it. So several dozen of Earth’s brightest minds took the galling news on the chin in stony silence. Only their hardened gazes as he left the room told him what they really thought.

He hated it. The dancing on puppet strings for his uncle, the well deserved ire from his crew, the now interminable timeline for the project. But most of all what it meant for the workers out here on the haulers. Like him they’d had no choice in their lot, they were all just fighting for whatever corner they could claim for themselves in the new world. Even if it meant years confined to the cramped crew quarters of an asteroid hauler. At least they were building something worthwhile. Now, he couldn’t even say that.

He’d spent that whole evening pacing on feather steps in his office, watching a storm roil the planet below as it turned through the dark of night. Just as the moon came around the far side and dawn broke on the planet’s surface Daniel Yun decided he was going to do something about it all. He couldn’t control the orders from on high, but he didn’t have to condemn those under him to death. After all with a last name like Yun, an executive class ship was almost always accessible if he really wanted it.

While the rest of the team slept off in their quarters he crept out, without a word. It was only moments before he closed the door to the shuttle pod that Sonia had caught him with a bag in hand and a smirk on her face.

“Heading somewhere Mr. Yun?” She’d asked with an impish smile.

“Damn it Sonia, what are you doing here?”

“Coming to help your hopeless ass.” She’d laughed, climbing in beside him. “Poor little rich boy wants to play the hero and save some folks. I knew you couldn’t resist.”

He had to smile, Daniel had always enjoyed her gibes when it was just the two of them. For so much of his life his name had sucked the air out of rooms sending respectable people into deference and boot-licking, even though he had no controlling interest in Yun operations or funds. Sonia was not one such person. That was why she had her job, and why he was not so secretly thankful when they’d silently left that morning to rendezvous with a system cruiser and head into the outer orbits.

That was fifteen days ago, and now she poked her head in on a man in a significantly more dour mood. When the recon drones flew by after two days they’d still had some hope, although not much. They indicated life-supporting temperatures and pressures within parts of the ship, although as they’d suspected rocketry and communications had been disabled. The drones couldn’t do much more than observe the scene as they whisked by so the days that followed held no new information from the wreck, and were filled with a deluge of inquiries and then prompts and then commands from flight control aboard the Faith. Daniel summarily rejected them all. Not even bothering to answer the torrent of messages from his cousin and eventually even his uncle. 

He’d essentially stolen the ship before anyone thought to lock him out, and no doubt they’d tried to take over control remotely. Sonia had worked with the programming team on the moon base to help keep them flying, although he had no idea if it was their work or some higher divine provenance that had kept them on course. Now they closed in on their quarry, for all the good it would do.

“Looks like things have taken a considerable turn for the worse since the flyby.” Sonia started softly, poking her head into the observation cabin where Daniel floated in silence. She preferred the relative comfort of the rotational crew quarters, out this far there wasn’t all that much to be seen through the little forward facing windows anyhow.

“No shit.” He whispered dryly. “Damn it! I told Elena we needed rescue crews out here not drones!” Raging more at himself in reality.

“We couldn’t detect the decompression so it must’ve happened several days ago, likely even a trained extraction team couldn’t have gotten out here fast enough to make a difference. It was a good effort Dan, but we stood little chance from the get go.” She offered what little sympathy could be found out in the cold blackness.

“I suppose you’re right,” He agreed through gritted teeth as he fought to regain his composure with bitter defeat so fresh on his palette. “I suppose I better face the music and see how deep I’ve dragged us in here. Easier to beg forgiveness than ask permission, they say, but I have a feeling I’ll be begging this for quite some time.”

Sonia smiled back at him as he turned from the window. “Yes, I imagine you will. But you’re Daniel Yun, the worst as can happen to you is the best plenty of others could ask for.”

“You’re a real help there Sonia, your empathy knows no bounds.” he mused sardonically. “I’m sorry for dragging you into this, I’ll do whatever I can to shield you from the blow back.”

“Blow back? For me?” She feigned shock. “I don’t know what you’re talking about Mr. Yun, you were a wild-eyed kidnapper when you pulled me from my bunk and stuffed me on this ship. I had no choice.” She gave him a light jab, trying to lighten his mood.

“Well, it’s nice to have the support of friends in these trying times isn’t it?”

“You’ll get through it Dan,” Sonia came back to seriousness. “And besides, it was the right thing to do, even if those assholes can’t even be bothered to send a ship to save lives.” She ducked out, leaving Daniel to float in silence.

He pulled up the bevy of unopened messages on his tab. The last was from Elena. I might as well start there, he thought. Elena wouldn’t really be mad about stealing a ship, she managed hundreds, but she’d be pissed he’d caused a scene and then went silent. He opened the video message and saw her sitting at her place on the bridge of the Faith, pressing a sweating glass of sangria to her temples.

“You mother fucker.” The recording began. “Is this your pinche rebellion as soon as you get a little bad news? Grow up you asshole, nobody likes what they’re doing, it’s the human condition.” She paused, now rubbing the icy glass across her forehead. He couldn’t remember ever seeing her look this tired. “I’m sure you’ve seen by now that the hauler explosively decompressed a couple days ago, we had it on long range telescopics from the ship and you would’ve known that if you’d answered your goddamned messages. Well, hopefully you’ve enjoyed your trip to the ass end of nowhere.’

“Your tio is pissed. But you already knew that, he doesn’t like anything that makes him look bad. Honestly I’m mostly surprised at how pissed this fucking Delaney underling is, a proper pain in my ass, fucking Stella.” She went on, turning the name into a sneer. “She’s got some trumped up idea that every ship in the system belongs to her personally, and wants your ass out on the curb for this. Of course dad won’t let that happen, we’ll have to preserve the family name after all. But the biggest surprise in all this is your goddamned science team.’

“Stella’s going around making a big show out of finding a replacement for you on the moon project, but the whole fucking team has dug their heels in. They’re ready to torpedo the whole project, or at least their participation in it, to protect you and that assistant you dragged into this. What were you thinking there by the way? You’re not expendable but she sure as hell is, Delaney could have her back on ice for the next thousand years if she made up her mind to. Anyways the scientists are out here trying to save you, it’d be heartwarming if it wasn’t all such a pain in my ass.’

“Anyways, you’ll get the heat you deserve and you’ll come through it, but I need you to get your ass back here. We’ve got bigger fish to fry.” Elena took a deep breath and a deeper sip of her sangria. “Info on this is still very much need to know, but it looks like we have our first political shit fest starting down on the planet. A growing number of ag research stations are being abandoned and stripped for all they’re worth. Their farmworkers, old maintenance crew I’m told, disappear as well. But lately we’ve also been losing growing numbers on the construction and mining crews as well.” She took a deep draught again, as if steeling herself for the information she was about to convey. “Over sixty of the fuckers have gone off grid thus far, and now a few of the researchers in Novo have disappeared as well.’

The ship chimed lightly and a little notification popped up on Daniel’s tab, he whisked it away irritably.

“That’s why this info has spread to our level, it’s a growing movement with apparently someone at the helm. So far there’s been frustratingly little progress in tracking these so-called ‘transformists’ down, something I can’t wrap my goddamned head around. We have every single datum one could collect on every single citizen awake and asleep, and somehow these hijos de putas have just vanished. I don’t like it, they have help from someone up high, and I can not for the life of me figure out who.’

The ship chimed twice with a little more urgency, again Daniel swiped it away without a thought. Too rapt in this new development.

“Anyway, I need you back in contact stat primo. They’ve taken farm and construction workers for their little movement which makes me think they’ll target your hauler workers as well, if they can.” She finished her glass and sighed looking up into the carved dome of the bridge. “I have no fucking idea how they could do it, but I don’t know a whole lot these days it seems. Get back here Daniel, help me and I’ll help you face the music of your little rebellion.”

He opened a new text thread back to Elena, hoping the light delay would give him a little bit of cover from the worst of her ire. But what to say? This was the first he’d heard at all about any sort of sepratist group. The notion itself seemed rather ludicrous in a society of only a few hundred thousand that, while not exactly a surveillance state, certainly kept a close tab on all of its citizens.

The ship chimed a third time, now bordering on aggression. Can’t I have a moment to think? He raged, dismissing the ping once more to try and focus on his current predicament.

No such luck. “Dan! Are you seeing this?!” Sonia’s voice carried through the linking tunnels.

“Christ! Give me one second to myself for God’s sake!” Even as he called back he could hear her scrambling up from the crew quarters.

Daniel pulled up the notification on his tab and time stopped. His tab showed a map of a volume of space. In one corner their ship traced its trajectory, in the other the plume of the wreck slowly grew, and in a third another light blinked out in the blackness.

“A ship, Dan there’s another ship.” Sonia came crashing in out of breath. “Do you see it? There’s another ship!”

His mouth hung open, his mind unable to keep up with the pinball of events. Sonia crammed her head up into the observation window looking feverishly for any sign that this might be anything other than a technological glitch.

“There, there it is!” She cried, with more hope than he could possibly muster. “What would another ship be doing out here?”

Likely just more dead watchers knowing my luck, he thought glumly not willing to let anything get his hopes up. All the same, he looked out next to Sonia and sure enough there was another little glint out amongst the starry brilliance beyond.

It took an eternal, and exquisitely uncomfortable, four more hours for them to adjust their course and jet off speed at several g to intercept the mystery ship, which Daniel was eventually able to identify as Asteroid Hauler #12 by its last known position and contact. All the while Sonia’s hope buoyed while Daniel’s dread deepened. A dread that only compounded when it became clear that the hauler was severely disabled as well.

By the time they connected to the one remaining airlock he had almost no hope at all. The ship was utterly battered, likely from being too close to the first wreck when it decompressed. No good deed goes unpunished, especially out here, he mused darkly. His ship’s readings indicated that there was only one pocket remaining that could possibly be harboring life on this new wreck, and there was no way to get to it without a suit.

Impossibly, Sonia kept her optimism in the face of all this, she held out hope as she suited up for an EVA and helped Daniel into his.

“You never know Dan, maybe they were all suited before they even began the rescue. Maybe they’re just holed up in there just waiting for us.” She chipped in the face of so much doubt.

He never believed it, but all the same found himself suited and passing through the airlock into the dark hull of the ruined hauler. There wasn’t much to be explored on a ship this small, but they had to work their way around the long way to avoid where the worst of the damage was. Through darkness and debris they floated, Daniel’s hopes falling into a new abyss, until finally they found the only remaining door that could possibly be holding pressure. By the schematic on his tab it couldn’t have been more than a mechanical closet, and there Sonia was hoping that somehow, against all odds there would be four living watchers huddled behind it.

“I’ve been trying every short-range radio frequency they could be using and can’t get a response.” Sonia admitted, finally admitting one chink into her armor of optimism. “Maybe they’re asleep.”

More likely they’re dead, ten days stranded out here crammed together, maybe they wish they were, he thought. Daniel reached up to the solid, sealed door and pounded sharply three times before putting his hand against it to feel for a response.

The universe shrunk down to the nerve endings at the tips of his fingers, the last little bit of hope pressed against this piece of cold steel. His whole body vibrated with anxious anticipation. And then, there it was. Barely perceptibly, three faint thuds from the far side.

Sonia had felt it too, and she looked over excitedly. “There! Someone’s alive in there, you see Dan it was worth it!”

“Shh, Sonia. We need to focus here.” He rapped sharply again against the steel, two knocks pause three more, code for interpreting status on either side of a pressure door. Two knocks to indicate your side had no pressure, three knocks indicate that you didn’t know the status on the far side.

Again they sat with electric fingertips pressed to the door. Waiting for any infinitesimal indication of how to proceed. They got none.

After several minutes, he turned to Sonia. “I don’t think we’re getting any more help here. We have a tough choice to make.”

“I felt it though, they responded, they beat back to us.” She quavered, hand still pressed firmly to the door.

“I know Son, I felt it too, but they must be in a bad way if they can’t even respond now which means time is pretty hard against us. This is a deadhead interior door, so we could force it open at any time, but we don’t know if they have any pressure behind there. Too much pressure and that’s bad for us. On the flip side we could let out any pressure with the relief valve, and open it safely.”

“And possibly find them all suffocated on the far side.” She finished the thought.

“That’s the risk, but if I’m being honest I don’t think they would’ve made it this far if they weren’t suited. Their suits might be in a bad way and that’s why they can’t respond, but I don’t think we should risk trying to set up a full pressure tent from here to the ship. If they can’t beat back to us, they probably don’t have the time.”

She hung her helmeted head, closing her eyes, still feeling with all her might for any little response that may come through the door. Daniel reached up and opened the relief valve and what little atmosphere was left to the ship began to escape.

It only took a couple minutes for the little broom closet of a room to depressurize, and then Daniel swung the door open to hope and despair in equal measure. Four suited bodies floated in the cramped quarters, none would’ve been able to fully turn around with the door closed. And none moved.

Sonia began frantically inspecting them all in the flood lights of her helmet.

“Power banks are almost out,” she started in a frenzy. “Shit! This guy’s been out of oxygen for five minutes.” She combed through, they were all alive, but barely.

With as much methodic calm as he could muster, Daniel carted each comatose soul back to the ship. The crew gave no response to their help, he couldn’t figure out who had been able to give any response whatsoever until he moved the last body. Daniel pulled the silvery-suited body from the hold and looked into the face plate. A dark, wrinkled, scarred face looked back at him from behind the visor. Under the gaze of his headlights her eyes opened just a crack and the frown fixed on her face softened ever so slightly.

It was three days before any of the crew were conscious enough to recount their experience once they were aboard Daniel’s ship and headed back homeward. There was only one autodoc bed aboard, and the crew who’d ran out of oxygen was in the most dire need of it. Sonia steeled herself and followed instructions from her tab on setting up IV drips for the remaining three and they waited.

It was the owner of the dark, wrinkled face Daniel had seen, Marta Iglesias, who had beat back at them with the last of her strength, and it was she who first woke up. She was a crew member of the hauler that attempted the rescue, and had worked two full stints aboard the Faith on their journey. It was entirely possible she had more experience with space than any person alive. Daniel came down from the observation deck to find Sonia helping her sit up.

“I suppose you’ll be wanting a thank you.” Marta rasped before he’d even turned around from the ladder onto the crew deck.

He had to chuckle at the audacity. “Don’t thank me, I’m just doing my job.” He shot back with dry wit, and a mocking bow.

“Ha! What job is that? Condemning crew to years in space with no end, or licking your uncle’s boots?”

So that’s how she wanted to play this.

“Oh clearly you don’t understand my day to day, it’s mostly eating caviar imported from Earth and drinking champagne while I watch the research team on the base work their asses off.”

Sonia sat by in shocked silence at how quickly the exchange had escalated. Clearly Marta hadn’t gotten many words out before he’d arrived. Marta almost cracked a smile with her wrinkled mouth and chuckled in a fit of wheezes.

“You’d be dead if it wasn’t for Mr. Yun you know.” Sonia offered her a glass of water with a stern glare. “You really should show some gratitude.”

“Oh Mr. Yun! Come off it muñequita, I may well be dead because of him for all we know.” She drank, regaining some of her voice. “Fuck, I was dead before I left Caracas.”

“All the same, I’m happy to have helped Señora Iglesias.” Daniel said earnestly, but with a playful smile.

“Ha, Señora Iglesias! At least you know your way around a good joke, you rich fuck.”

Honestly, Daniel was having trouble believing that someone so recently clinging to the edge of life would wake up with such fire. Honestly, he enjoyed it more than a little. But still, he had some digging to do.

“Fine, Marta. In case you don’t know, I am nipples deep in shit right now over this rescue op, and you may well not care a fig about it but I need some answers.” He sat next to her and locked into her dark, gleaming eyes.

She gulped down the rest of the water and sat up a little taller in her bed. “You’re right, I don’t care, but fire away jefe I’m an open book.”

“How did you find out about the wreck?”

“Oh, we’re asking dumb questions, great. The alert went out to all the haulers you twit, we saw it and were the closest ones so we decided to try and help.”

Better to get her talking early with the easy questions. “Ok, that’s very magnanimous of you but how’d you do it? Your hauler should’ve been set on a programmed course.”

“That’s a better question for you my friend. We indicated that we’d be willing to help, next thing I know we’re almost pulling three gs for seventy hours straight jetting over to the site.” Marta’s eyes bored right back into his, this was clearly a woman with no tolerance for bullshit. “I figured your team on the moon base had approved it.”

“Three gs?” Daniel gawked at the notion, they would’ve been practically pinned wherever they sat for almost three days. “Of course we didn’t approve it, I’m shocked you survived it.”

“Don’t fuck with the maintenance crew.” She spat back proudly. “We’re way tougher than you. Anyways, it did in fact suck, we did in fact survive, and in fact we didn’t get there a moment too soon.”

“Ok, so on to my next question then. What happened to the old wreck?”

Marta let out a low whistle. “Those guys were in bad shape, corrective thrust had twisted their hauler around and smashed it against the asteroid they were pushing. That’s what most of the plume was when we showed up. It took out engines and comms, just one emergency signal made it out before it all got blown to bits. They were holed up on their control deck, suited but with nothing more than short range radio for contact. They had no rations left and were down to a day or so of air.”

“So you went ahead with an extraction.”

“It seemed simple enough. We just clamped around their least torn up airlock and worked our way in door by door. The connection was never very solid, but we thought we’d have enough time to go get them out and get clear.” She finally broke her gaze, shaking her head in regret. “Well, we got them out, but when we resealed the door the connection came loose. We made it back to the control deck before we realized we were about to hit the last of their pressure windows that still held.”
“Your ship triggered the decompression.” Horrible understanding flooded Daniel’s mind. Truly, no good deed out here.

“Yes it did, and shit went from bad to worse.” Her hands clenched beneath the thin sheets that covered her. “I shoved everyone back into our mechanical closet and slammed the door. We could barely fit, but we all felt when the control deck blew, we wouldn’t have survived. So there we were stuck in a little fucking closet, at least well provisioned with water and air, or so we thought, but too scared to open the door and risk triggering further decompressions.”

“How long ago was that?”

“Well we showed up just under two days after your useless fucking drones did their fly by, you tell me. My sense of time is all shot to shit.”

“Eleven days. You guys spent eleven days packed in there?”

“I guess so. Like I said, we’re tougher than you.” She looked back up fiercely. “Still it’s not an experience I’d like to repeat.”

“Well that at least justifies the amount of heat I’m about to take for all of this...” Daniel trailed off, now time for the hard questions he thought. “Marta, I need you to tell me everything you now about the Transformists.”

She sat up straight and looked shocked over at Sonia sitting nearby.

“Ahhh, so you do know them Señora.”

“Pinche cabron!” She spat. “Some fucking trick you pulled there. Yes, fine. I’ve heard of them, but if you’re asking me for information you’re barking up the wrong goddamned tree. As you we’ll know I’ve been out here hauling rock for the past three years.”

“Heard of them? Like, been in contact with them?” He asked pointedly. “I can’t see how else you would have heard.”

“Why should I tell you shit?” She crossed her arms and looked away.

It was Sonia who stepped in. “You may not believe it Marta, but you can trust him. He was ready to come out here by himself, at a personal risk that you may not understand but believe me is very much real, to help in whatever way he could. It just so happens to have saved you and three of your crew mates.”

“Fine.” She relented. “But you’re not going to learn much from me. I got a copy of this manifesto a few weeks back followed by a direct contact shortly before this whole fiasco. Honestly, I thought it was your team either approving the message, or trying some sort of weird test on us. I can’t see how else the message would’ve gotten to us.”

Daniel rapped a finger lightly on his temple. “Neither can I...What sort of manifesto?”

“Oh the usual lofty revolutionary nonsense. I can’t say that I believe the half of it.” She sighed. “But even if only half of it is real, it’s better than what I’ve been living.”

“And what’s that?”

“Oh I don’t know. A life where I’m lied to and manipulated on Earth, crammed on a starship to lose a decade of my life to solitary confinement only to be immediately sent back out on a much smaller ship to do work so menial it’s insulting to even call it work.” Her fire came back to the fore. “All that and at least I was building something worthwhile, but now we’re just doing it so your fucking uncle can have a nice evening view. Yeah, we got your last project update.” The last word flew off her tongue as a curse, leaving an implied you spineless asshole unsaid.

“Look I’m not any happier about it than you are.”

“Then fucking do something about it! You are the one who can.” She raged, twisting the bedding beneath her.

“Okay, okay, take it easy.” Sonia stepped in mildly, hoping to cool the temperature. “So they don’t believe in the moon project?” She was grasping, bewildered by the turn in the conversation.

“Ha, you know even less than your man here! The moon, the dome, the preservation of old systems, the fucking human genome itself. They’re not here to tear it all down, but they are here to start anew. Just like we were promised back on Earth. Most of it is mumbo jumbo to me, but if it means I have a shot at a real life with my remaining years, I’ll be damned if I’m not going to take it.”

Daniel steadied himself as the room reeled about him, it was a point of view so alien to his experience but still he couldn’t deny the realities he’d seen out here in the outer orbits, the realities he’d helped create all these years from his comfortable office sitting on the moon.

“I suppose this manifesto is on your tablet? That I can get a copy if I so desire?” He feigned composure.

“I’ll send you a copy myself, you can make up your own mind.” Her eyes glared fiercely into him as he rose from the bedside and retreated into the quiet solitude of the observation deck.

Light filled the window as Daniel floated in contemplation. To one side the light of the yellow sun sent streaks across the pane, to the other the spray of the Milky Way took over in it’s twisting mysteries. He looked at his tab, the messages seemed to indicate that they hadn’t caught on to the fact that he’d intercepted another ship, and he’d sent no notice back that they’d recovered survivors. His mind was a tempest. Why had that seemed right? It was baffling that their trajectory, presumably laid by the great artificial mind at the heart of the Faith, would’ve concealed this development so deftly. But, he couldn’t deny the realities before his eyes, he couldn’t be a part of a project that condemned people to toil out in the nothingness.

He watched the lights twinkle lightly across the window as they raced back towards society. Each moment eating away at the light delay that shielded him from his family’s ire, each moment bringing him closer to a decision he couldn’t turn back from. Suddenly the observation deck on his little ship was feeling quite cramped indeed, the glass and steel stifling his every breath, and the notion of deboarding on the moon base and it’s recirculated atmosphere seemed a shallow relief. Daniel turned ideas over in his head, knowing he had no idea what he’d do in the weeks to come, but knew he wanted nothing more than to breathe.

--

Mystery was growing on the horizon, but slowly.

Several weeks had traipsed by in their lazy easiness since Amelia’s adventure; now that the storms were done for the season life on the farm was as pleasant as it had ever been. Each morning the sun would rise, gently baking the soil she cultivated, cream puff clouds would roll up the valley from the sea occasionally providing a brief shower, more often just providing a pleasant view. Without any guidance from the teams at Ag Research Amelia had decided, after a couple days, to harvest the rest of her last crop and resew the fields with the seeds she’d saved from the most successful plants. Now the harvest sat in neat stacks next to the farmhouse.

Life was largely on autopilot. Amelia’s mind drifted off while she tended to route labor letting her consider higher things. With each day that slipped by Novo Monterrey felt more and more a dream. She still keenly felt the relief that bubbled through her when she got back to the farm, back to safety, but she wasn’t sure anymore what had been so terrible about the city. Why had she panicked and ran? Wasn’t that what she’d been working for? And if she couldn’t make a life in this new society, what had she really traded her life on Earth for?

It was terribly concerning, in a way she could scarcely address within herself. She wasn’t called to be some farmer hermit in life. She missed people. Distinctly, sharply, achingly missed them. Not even friends or family from home really, but just anyone, any fellow mind with which to share a life. But the second she approached society she panicked and ran. Sure she’d asked Saito to move back to the city, but could she really even handle that if it were an option?

Disappointment lingered on her tongue. With Juro Saito, for seemingly giving no shits about the department he oversaw. With Novo Monterrey, for its overbearing artifice. With their new society, for the structures and disparities preserved from the old world. With herself, mostly though. For letting Saito dismiss her without really answering any of her most important questions, for not exploring the city to see where she could carve out a future for herself, for falling apart. She was too solitary for the domed city, and not solitary enough for her life out here on the farm, she was trapped between two worlds.

And then there were the frozen citizens, and the transformists. It was all too much to consider, so it was just as well that Amelia had a ready distraction that morning. She’d been surveling one of the fields her truck had just tilled, trying to decide what would be most beneficial to plant next in rotation, when a glint caught her eye down the valley. Mirages weren’t entirely uncommon out here on the barren flats of the valley floor, haze and heat would regularly conspire to reflect all sorts of odd light. After a few weeks, Amelia had learned to ignore them. But today, searching for anything that would occupy her mind she had stopped and looked out. The mirage was uncommonly bright and steady, and it seemed to be working its way out of the haze near the mouth of the valley.

But it was slow. Almost imperceptibly slow. Granted, the distance between Amelia and where the haze obscured the horizon was vast, but she had to stand and watch for almost an hour just to confirm that it was in fact growing. She first sighted it just after breakfast and it took until the sun was well into its descent for her to be able to confirm that it was in fact some sort of vehicle with her binoculars.

The stranger arrived just before sundown. Amelia had tried in fits and starts to get back to work all day but once she’d seen the glint, she could scarcely pull her mind from the possibilities. In the end she’d decided to simply sit in her chair on the porch and wait. 

It came rolling in like some great, segmented caterpillar. All polished mechanicals and vibrant plant matter stacked on top of eachother in a riot that was equal parts chaos and brilliance. The front section was clearly the remains of what had once been a farm truck, though the back had been torn off and converted into some kind of a rolling greenhouse. Then came a succession of towering trailers, all on matching cushioned wheels. Within, they carried more than Amelia could possibly imagine, wood and pottery, soil and grasses, metals and glass. Each was topped with an array of solar panels that angled to catch the last of the evening sun.

The creation threaded between two of Amelia’s unplanted fields, and pulled up just beyond her garden beds. She rose from the protective shade of her porch, donned her wide hat and walked out to meet the mind that built this rolling circus.

As she approached, a door popped open and a slim, dark figure stepped out barefoot into the red dust. His overalls were unstrapped leaving exposed his sinewy chest covered in skin of deep tanned red and curly black hair. He looked over with sparkling blue eyes and beamed a bright smile at Amelia that would’ve charmed her if she hadn’t been sent into such alarm.

“Hello, I’m Aleph.” He called amiably, taking a few steps towards her.

“Jesus, you’ll get scorched in two seconds! What are you thinking!” She’d already turned on her heels and was sprinting for the house, hunting for the radiation blanket she knew was in her med kit.

“Hey hey hey, relax, it’s late, I’ll be alright.” He called behind her as she tore open the door. He bounded up on the porch behind her, if only to put her mind at ease.

She returned to the door, blanket in hand, but stopped at the threshold panic switching to apprehension at this shirtless stranger on her porch.

“Sorry it wasn’t my intention to frighten you,” he appeased hands out to his sides on the far side of the porch allowing her room to creep out in relative safety. “It just gets hot in the caravan, and it’s been a long day on the trail.” He smiled sheepishly pulling a tattered shirt from his waist and slipping it on.

“Hot?” Amelia fumbled, mind struggling to keep pace. “How the hell can that matter? You just jumped out into full sun without a thought, you should be welling up with radiation burns right now.”

“Oh, not this late in the day for me anymore.” He shrugged, apparently unperturbed by the volumes of safety literature expressly warning against direct sun exposure on the new planet.

“So what, you’re just used to it now? Built up a bit of a base layer and now you don’t care. Won’t you just explode in a cornucopia of different cancers in a couple of years?”

“Well, not exactly. But I think we need to back up quite a bit here.” He smiled charmingly and hopped up to sit on the railing leaving plenty of space for Amelia to come sit in her chair. “I’m Aleph, what’s your name?”

“I’m Amelia,” she hesitated, utterly unsure what to make of this stranger. “Who are you?” she finally managed.

“Well, I was a watcher like you, I’m from just west of Jerusalem and I suppose much like you I let those Delaney recruiters talk me into a very questionable decision.” He paused with another charming smile, Amelia had to fight to keep her guard up. “Anyway, I worked a stint on the Faith then woke up beneath Novo to a job in construction building the city’s foundations.”

“You don’t look like a construction worker.” Skepticism was the safest course.

“Ha, well no I wouldn’t anymore.” Aleph laughed, running a hand through his dark locks looking out at the gardens. “Can’t say that I was ever called to it, I preferred my time on the ship if I’m being honest, I miss working with plants.”

Amelia met his evasions with stony silence.

“Right, you want to know what I want, why I’m here.”

“It’d be a good place to start,” she snipped, crossing her arms.

“Well, first and foremost I want your last harvest.” His crystal eyes locked into hers with forceful seriousness. “That’s my main goal, and by the looks of the bales on the side of your house it doesn’t seem like Juro Saito is too concerned with them.”

“What business is that of yours?”

He chuckled casually and looked back out at the fields, now waiting for new seed. “What business isn’t it of mine? We’re all in this together building a new society, and if that fool can’t see the value in the species you’ve been cultivating then it’s my duty to pick up the slack. But let’s cut to the chase here.”

“Yes, let’s.”

“I know you recently returned from a trip to Novo, which means you were called in to meet with Mr. Saito, but it was quick, so either your meeting didn’t last long, or you found the city somewhat wanting and came back to your safe space on your farm.”

Amelia deflated a touch at his astute observations, even if she was unnerved by the amount of information he casually wielded. “It was a bit of both I suppose...” she admitted.

“Of course, because Saito could care less about your work out here, he mostly wanted to warn you about radical separatists and see if you’d made any contact with them. Plus Novo is a hard place to experience after all we’ve been through.”

“Don’t act like you know me.” She shot back a deadly glance.

“Well I do. At least a bit, that was me six months ago. Although I was dealing with a Delaney underling who didn’t care about my work, and who was considerably worse informed about the nature of the separatist movement.”

“So that’s who you are, radical separatist, a transformaist as they call you, here to take the scraps of what they don’t want.”
“Scraps and then some if I’m being completely honest.” His eyes contained her once again. “And Amelia, if there’s one thing I promise to be with you it is honest. Our future depends on it.”

“Well, what do you want then?” She was done with idle chat.

“Your last harvest, your truck, most of the building materials and tech from your house, and last, but very much not least, you Amelia.”

“Oh, is that all?” She had to laugh in rage at his audacity.

“I won’t take a thing without your consent Amelia.” His eyes exuded earnesty. “I’m a recruiter for our movement and if Saito can’t see good agricultural talent, I can. The new world will need you to help it thrive.”

She held her silence, her head was still swimming with confusion from the past several days, but how could she trust a stranger who showed up out of the desert and asks for almost everything in her life?

“Look, you won’t believe me, at least for a while, but I was in your shoes not long ago.” Aleph went on, stepping into the pitch of his life. “I was placed into construction under the city for years. It was dirty, it was lonely, it was dark, it was dangerous. Always, they told me that I was working for my place in the new world, that once the construction was complete I could join the new society in Novo. But the projects never stopped, and they never will, there was no path to respectable life for me, nor is there for you here. And even if there was, would I have really wanted it?’

“On a few occasions, I was given surface clearance to go check out the city.” He paused for a breath, steeling himself. “Every time, I left after a few hours. Partly because it was so overwhelming after all the time alone on the Faith. Partly because it reminded me of so many little evils I saw in Jerusalem growing up. Division, excess, waste. They want to build a new society in the image of the old. I say let them, but we don’t need to be a party to it. I’m here to tell you, Amelia, that there is another way.”

“And what way is that?”

“Transformation.” He smiled again, now more broadly than ever before. “Transformation of everything it means to be human. Come with me and see the society we are building. We have almost a hundred citizens living in a colony out west, Hephaestia, and we want you to be a part of it. We’ll take all you’ve learned here on your farm and apply it to a new society that works in harmony with the planet. You won’t have to live your life under some dome, or trapped by some invisible caste. You’ll help us take the lessons we’ve learned from Earth and build a better future.”

“And if I say no?” She crossed her arms tighter not believing that a choice really lay before her.

“If you say no, then I get back in the caravan and I have a long drive to the next Ag Research farm.” His eyes brokered no lie. “You’re the last station in this valley before I have to head several hundred K south into the central basin, there are plenty of stations out there but in truth I doubt any have been as successful as you’ve been here. Saito may not care how much you’ve been able to coax out of this land but we stand in awe of it. Even if you won’t come, I hope you’ll at least let me take some samples of your work.”

She had to laugh once more. “Well, I suppose it’d just be outrageously rude to deny you that. Ag Research didn’t want more than a few trimmings, and I don’t have much use for more than the stalks as compost. But you say that you stand for transformation, is that why you’re able to step out in the sun and not get burned to a crisp?”

He smiled, feeling at least a small wall come down between them. “Well partly, but also partly because we don’t live in fear like those in Novo. Most of the citizens of Hephaestia worked on research farms or in mining ops before joining, I’m sure you’ve found the letter of the safety protocols to be a bit nannyish.”

“Yeah, I’ve learned that the air isn’t suddenly going to give out on me for no reason, but I’m also not stepping out into broad daylight without a fucking shirt on.”

“Fair enough.” His grin turned sheepish. “But you’re right, it’s only big storms that stir up the atmospheric mix enough to make it unbreathable. And we’ve learned it’s only certain degrees of sun exposure that really cause damage.” He dropped his smile. “That’s not the whole of it though. We stand for more than just transformation of society, we’re transforming humans themselves. Just like you are with your grasses and legumes, leaving old species behind to create new life for the new world, we’re transforming our people to not just survive here but to thrive.

“So breeding programs and gene editing?” The implications galled her.

“This is the deal Amelia, nothing is off the table if it helps us live here.” His smiling affect had all but disappeared leaving only calm seriousness in its wake. “Human generations, for now, are too long for meaningful selective breeding, but we’ve already began with gene manipulation to help our members survive. That’s how I’m able to withstand evening and morning sun, that’s how many of our citizens can breathe the air even as a storm blows in. It’s small steps for now, but ultimately we aim to make a post-human fit for this world. It will be slow, it will be safe, it will be informed and consensual, but it will happen. Humans carried the spark of sentience here and post-humans will carry it into the future.”

Silence settled over the pair as they sat looking out at the last rays of day fade from the high clifftops.

Finally Amelia managed, “This is too much for one day. I think I need to think on this for tonight. Do you need to stay in the house?”

Aleph stood slowly and gave an appreciative nod. “Of course it is Amelia, it’s an impossible thing I’m asking. But it is the right thing. And no, I will stay out in the caravan. Take the time you need but in a couple days I’ll need to move on, I hope it is with you.”

Not one wink was slept that night.

Aleph tossed and turned in his little caravan cot, wishing he’d had a bit of a warmer reception so he might borrow the couch for a night or two. But no, he could tell Amelia was too wary, and rightly so, she needed space to process all this new information. He’d said his part, now he just had to wait. 

Amelia scarcely even tried to sleep, her mind ran too wild. On one hand, relief washed over her that this seeming silver bullet had landed on her doorstep offering her future she could really feel hopeful about. On the other, there was a price. She’d never be part of the society she’d spent so long dreaming about, more than that she’d be a fugitive living off in the wilds. Sure, for now these transformists were able to live in peace, but how long could they really stand against the might of old Earth’s oligarchs once they tired of having their supplies pilfered?

Dawn was just about to break when Amelia knocked on the caravan door. Aleph opened with a patient smile.

“How are you able to live like this?” she challenged.

“Well it all takes some getting used to, but over time you’ll feel at home...” he started.

“No, not like that,” she cut. “I asked Saito the same thing, you are rebelling against the combined might of all human civilization on a planet actively hostile to life. How do you all survive? How have you not been discovered? How are you able to crawl your way out here and recruit me when Saito and Delaney and Yun would all sooner you be dead?”

“Ah, for that...” Aleph grinned impishly as the first rays of light shone in his eyes. “For that you’ll need to meet Imka.”

And so, Amelia found herself stepping through the doors of the caravan, unsure of what the future would hold, but certain she needed to find out.

--

Certainty was growing on the horizon, and quickly.

From his observation window he could see a tumult of activity buzzing around the moon base. Little glinting ships shuttled to and fro across the inky backdrop, bringing people, bringing ideas, bringing a great deal of trouble for Daniel Yun.

The remaining days of his return had passed in an incessant flurry, never was there enough time for him to formulate a proper plan before some new piece of information came flying in to send him back to the drawing board. The rest of the rescued crew had miraculously recovered and awoken during the flight, although the man who’d ran out of oxygen was still in deep, invasive treatment with the autodoc to remedy the worst of the brain damage he’d suffered. The messages flowed in with dizzying speed. Stella Delaney was personally aboard the moon base to apprehend Daniel upon arrival and oversee interim operations. Elena was hot on her heels to reassert Yun dominance on the project, backed by support from the Saito corp. Sonia was to be returned to cryo storage for her role in the theft of an in-system cruiser. Daniel was to be relegated to a minor post working on mining ops under Novo Monterrey.

He responded to each apologetically, deferentially, and cryptically. Somehow, in all the hubbub no one had noticed that Hauler #12 had gone offline as well, and that he’d successfully performed a rescue on it. Certainly, it would help his case to come home triumphantly with four saved crew members, thankful for his rescue. Or would it? He grew less certain by the hour, as with so many times on old Earth he felt as though what he was seeing around him were merely the downstream consequences of great powers colliding far overhead. They’d leave a trail of bodies in their wake and take no notice.

So against all his better judgment he held onto this vital, sustaining piece of good news. He felt certain the crew would simply be returned to hauler work, or worse, and was unwilling to condemn them to such a fate even if he had no plan for anything better. He’d take his licks, and he’d do his to save them from something worse.

Into his meditative silence Sonia drifted as he watched the ships shuttle quickly across the distant void.

“So are we going to talk about these Transformists while we still have a chance?” She asked quietly. Predictably, she’d taken the news about her impending return to cryo with so much brave reservation it made his heart ache. He’d robbed her of any foreseeable future.

Daniel sighed deeply, just wishing time would mercifully stop for a moment so he could properly collect himself. “I suppose we should. You’ve read the manifesto?”

“Of course I have, several times over, and I know you have too.” She pulled him away from the window. “I’ve been talking with Marta and the others as well.”

“I imagine they’re all too eager for anything that gives them an option to not head back out on a hauler?”

“To be honest, I’m surprised they have as many reservations as they do, given the ordeal they just went through.”

“Transformism is not for everyone.” He chuckled with no humor. 

He’d read the little manifesto, several dozen times by now. Each time finding something new to love, and something new to revile. It was only a couple pages, all soaring rhetoric rallying against the corrupt systems of old Earth that seemed bound to rebuild themselves on the new world. Condemning his family, the life he’d lived on Earth, and the life he’d dreamt of here. The author, who took no name, painted a vision for a new society that lived in harmony with the new world, not that fought against it. They left no room for argument that life on this new world would require great sacrifice in ways he’d never even contemplated. Gene editing, selective breeding, prosthetic surgeries all to create a being fit for the challenges they would face. Experiments on living people would need to be voluntarily taken in the name of creating a more perfect human.

Daniel had read and reread, his guts twisting everytime. It was one thing to look around and see his own role in the evils around him. It was another to share this vision of humans shedding their former skins and becoming something entirely new.

“No it’s not, but in the end it’s the best option they’ve got,” she agreed. “Quite frankly, it’s looking more and more like the best option I have as well. There’s no part of me that wants to go back into cryo until Stella Delaney decides I’ve learned my lesson, or more likely dies.”

The knife twisted in the wound. “Sonia, I’m so sorry. Stay by me, I’ll do my best to keep that from happening.”

“Honestly, I’d rather stay aboard here, but it doesn’t seem like that will be an option,” she sighed.

“No unfortunately not, although it’s looking more and more like that’s what we’ll have to do with Marta and the others for the time being.”

“What?” Sonia gasped. “They still haven’t figured it out?”

“No, I’ve revealed as little as possible in my correspondence and they don’t seem too concerned about any of the haulers.” He looked back out at the stars, busier and busier with traffic. “So the best I can think of for now is to leave them aboard this cruiser while we head back to the base. If I can’t think of a plan for them in a week or so I’ll spill the news and Delaney can do with them what she will. Marta’s already in agreement, it’s not much of a shield but it’s the best I can do for now. As is, it’ll take a miracle for them to not notice a crew just living aboard a recently stolen cruiser.”

“Dan, why don’t you just tell them,” Sonia implored, pulling his eyes back into hers. “This successful rescue should be a cause for celebration not dread.”

“From everything I’ve seen no one cares about the hauler crews, it’ll be a matter of weeks before they’re back out again doing the same job that got us into this mess in the first place. Sure, there’d be some lip service about the rescue being the right thing to do, but there’s something deeper going on here. I think Stella Delaney wanted to take over the moon project to consolidate low-orbital control, and I gave her the perfect excuse to do it. Elena with the backing of some Saito heads is working to stop it, but I can’t say that I play much of a role anymore.”

Stella grabbed his arm. “You’ve already played a key role for these people Dan don’t forget that, I trust you’ll find the right thing to do.”

“Thanks Son, but I doubt it.” He looked back out at the ever-growing crowd of ships buzzing in front of his window.

As time is wont to do when all you want is a pause it sped Daniel mercilessly into the future. They boarded the little transfer pod and before he could blink they were stepping out onto the departure deck of the moon base and right into the crossed arms of Elena Yun.

“Pinche cabron!” She spat almost as soon as the door opened. “As if I didn’t have enough to deal with already you have to go and give Stella fucking Delaney the perfect opening she needed to try and pry the moon project away from us!” She smacked him lightly on the side of his head. Well there’s that theory confirmed, he thought.

“And you!” she roared, turning her displeasure onto Sonia. “His ass is safe, but what the hell were you thinking? I know you’re smarter than this shit.”
“Dr. Yun, I had no choice, Mr. Yun he...” Sonia tried out her excuse.

“Oh shut it, save it for someone who cares and may actually buy it, because that sure isn’t me.” Elena turned sharply on a heel, and led them down the hallway on paper-light footsteps.

“Where are we going Elena, where is Stella?” Daniel finally managed a word.

“Back to your office, you dolt.” She didn’t bother to look back. “Not only has your team dug their heels in about the change of power, it seems this base has too. Delaney initially tried to take over your space but no matter how many techs she threw at the door couldn’t get it to budge. Now, she’s set up interim operations down in the mechanical bays below, and between your tio’s help, Saito’s support, and now my own time we’ve been able to hold her off any meaningful take over, but she’s not happy about it.”

“Wait...back up.” Daniel stammered. “How could she not get into my office? I never keep it locked. And she’s, she’s Stella Delaney, shouldn’t she be able to get into just about anywhere she wants?”

His confusion didn’t seem to knock Elena off her war path. “Hell if I know Daniel, maybe it was another trick of those engineers of yours.”
“They’re not mine.”

“Oh grow up, you know what I mean,” she shot back in retort. “Anyways first things first, we’d better hope they do actually have some loyalty to you since they’ve been holed up in their office ever since Delaney arrived and are refusing to work or even meet with us. They say they’re waiting for you two idiots to return, I can’t imagine what they hope to accomplish by that.”

They turned a corner and found themselves approaching the rear door to Daniel’s office. To either side other doors heading off in other directions stayed put, but as they approached his slid silently open.

“Ok, what the hell are you playing at Daniel!” Elena exploded. “You think this shit is funny?”

“I don’t know what to tell you, that’s how it’s always opened for me.” His hands spread wide in deference.

They stepped in, and Daniel walked over to his usual spot by the window. Thousands of kilometers below the planet spun in a beautiful summer day. Up near the top of the curve he could see the gleam of Novo Monterrey shining as bright as he’d ever seen it, catching the morning light. A dream he’d have done almost anything for just a few short days ago.

Elena stepped over and unceremoniously sat on his desk. “Alright focus here Daniel.” She snapped her fingers sharply. “In a minute I’m going to need you to go through that door and sort this shit out with your team.” She gestured to the right wall that was normally clear and overlooked the rows of desks, but today was an opaque white. “Because quite frankly we really don’t have much time to deal with their little insurrection. This whole goddamned thing is a waste of time that I can’t afford right now. I need you to reconsolidate control over this project so I can kick Delaney the fuck out and we can go back to a normal balance of power.” She rolled on. “Because these pinche Transformists aren’t stopping. They’re up to eighty by my best count now, and the biggest favor we could do for them right now is to start fighting amongst ourselves. We’ll that’s not going to happen on my goddamned watch.”

Daniel’s attention was ripped from the planet below my mention of the Transformists in front of Sonia; he turned to meet Elena’s livid eyes.

She laughed, “Oh come off it you two, I know you tell her everything Daniel so quit playing.” Elena shifted her ferocity onto Sonia. “Yes Sonia, there is a separatist group on the surface calling themselves ‘Transformists’, whatever the hell that means, and they have been the predominant pain in my ass for the past three weeks now, just barely edging out your boss here.”

“I know...” Sonia admitted, keeping an admirably steely face.

“Of course you do, now Daniel quit fucking around and help me sort this shit out you’ve started.” She stepped lightly off the desk and met Daniel over by the window, looking down at the planet spinning below. “First, you’re going to sort this shit out with your team here. Then, we’re going to hold all haulers in after their next drops for crew evaluations. I need to know if these fuckers have found some back door to communicate off-surface and get their nonsense out to our haulers. And finally, we’re going to kick Stella fucking Delaney’s ass off this base for well and good.” She put a reassuring hand on his shoulder and looked down beside him. “In a few years primo, we’ll be down in Novo, drinking tinto, and this will all seem funny.”

Daniel did his best to hold a straight face, but his best wasn’t very good.

Fortunately, Sonia was quick on her feet. “Sounds like a plan to me,” she jumped in before Elena could notice something was amiss. “Should I call in the team?”

“Initiative, that’s why I like you Sonia.” Elena turned and smiled. “I’ll leave you to it.” She swept out of the office.

“You’re going to need to work on your poker face if you want to stand a chance here Dan.” Sonia quipped as soon as the door slid closed.

“I can’t believe she’d still dangle that in front of me...” he whispered back, enraptured by the planet once more.

“Dangle what?”

“A life down in Novo...” He could feel his mind aching to slip away into his imagination, to picture what it would be like to walk the streets of El Gotic again, remade, pulled from the pages of history. But every time his mind hit the surface it would just sink through into the caverns below the city and the people toiling below and himself beside them cramped in the darkness.

 “Seems like a pretty reasonable carrot to me, especially when the stick is getting stuck down in the mines. What’s the issue?” Sonia asked, stepping up beside him at the window.

“Somehow, I don’t think it’s ever going to happen no matter what I do,” Daniel admitted.

“Then I guess you might as well do the right thing,” She offered. “You can start by thanking the team for saving your ass, I’ll call them in.”

Sonia walked through the door into the adjacent room where the thirty scientists, researchers, engineers, and programmers under Daniel’s direct supervision worked. The wall remained opaque, allowing him a few moments to gather himself. Thanks were more than warranted, he owed a debt to these people that he wasn’t sure he could ever repay.

When the door opened back up a single dark, stout figure entered. Adya, one of the lead physicists on the team. Of course, Dan thought. She’d always been a natural leader, and had a way of getting projects running her way. Of course, her way was usually the best way. He’d actually been fairly surprised when she held her tongue when he annoucned the change to the moon project. She knew it was wrong and normally would have had quite a bit to say about it.

She walked in and sat in one of the guest chairs and turned to face him; Dan remained by the window, he never felt comfortable talking from behind the desk like some old-timey middle manager handing down orders. He was the least competent person on the team. He knew it, she knew it, they all knew it.

“So what’d you do with the other crew?” Adya asked point blank.

Daniel nearly choked.

“Don’t make a habit of keeping secrets Mr. Yun, you’re terrible at it.” Her dark eyes saw entirely through him. “Delaney’s team may not care too much about keeping track of all the haulers, but we very much do. We saw #12 go offline after moving toward the wreck, we figured the worst when we couldn’t hail them but the Faith’s AI showed us that they were on an aggressive intercept course so we knew they’d be in the area. Didn’t want to rub salt in the wound and tell you there was another ship lost in all this, but then your ship did a very...odd...course correction once you saw the first ship was gone. In the end it almost looked like your stop at the second wreck was just the final turning point of your course reversal, but we looked closer and realized you must have intercepted them.”

“How obvious was it?” Dan hesitated.

“Not very to be honest, but you have a team of astrophysicists in there, they get off on this stuff.” She scolded. “Who’s idea was it? Yours or Sonia’s? It was a clever bit of rocketry.”

“Neither really, the ship set the course.” He admitted. “We just indicated that we wanted to check it out and then there we were.”

“Interesting...makes me wonder how much importance most of our work had. We always knew the Faith had intense computational power, I just never realized it could fully take over a cruiser’s navigation when it wanted.” She drummed neatly trimmed nails on a polished wood armrest. “Anyhow, we know you intercepted the ship, and you haven’t shown back up with a bunch of corpses which leads me to believe you actually did some good out there. How many did you save?”

He felt he should smile, but somehow any semblance of joy wouldn’t seem to come. “All four,” he whispered.

A smile came easily to Adya’s square face. “All four!” She grinned. “That’s amazing, we never dared hope.” Her eyes glinted in the light of the planet spinning behind him. “But you pulled four living souls off that ship and have chosen not to tell anyone about it. Where are they, on the cruiser?”

“Yeah, three are in pretty good shape, one ran out of oxygen a few minutes before we arrived. He was in the autodoc for the entire return voyage and has only regained consciousness a couple times.”

“So you’ve pulled off a miracle and you’ve chosen to hide it, you’ve chosen to take all the heat from Delaney and your cousin. Which I think means we need to have a deeper conversation Mr. Yun.” Her face settled into searing seriousness.

“How do you mean?”

She drummed her fingers for a long moment, looking out the window behind him. “I’ve never really respected your position overseeing this project,” she began bluntly. “We both know it’s your name that has you in this office and not me or any of the other abundantly qualified people out there, I’m sure you know that I was about ready to start some serious trouble over your Uncle’s proposed changes to the moon project.” From her taught lips the notion that she could have anything to say about the matter almost seemed plausible. “It was only the emergency signal that had me hold off until we had things sorted out.”

“I’m hoping there’s a but in here somewhere.” Daniel replied, forcing himself to meet her gaze. None of it was news, but the brusque words still took their toll.

“But Sonia always supported you, and I’ve always respected her. I couldn’t see what she claimed to see in you, but I knew that if she was by your side the project would be in reasonable hands.” Her fingers stopped. “But now you’ve given me ample reason to reconsider my opinion of you. Passing on your uncle’s marching orders clearly took something out of you, and now you’ve gone and put yourself on the line. Four people are alive because of it. I always saw you as just a cog in a broken system, another manifestation of Earth’s twisted society rebuilding itself here. But that was wrong, you’re a person playing the hand you were dealt.’

“All the same,” Adya continued. “I have a hard time imagining Delaney or your uncle or your cousin or any of the Saito underlings getting in a cruiser to attempt a risky rescue like you did. So why did you do it?”
He looked back out the window, the planet was turning well into night below him and only a crescent of light shone back where the last visible corner caught the light. 

Daniel took a deep breath and began slowly. “I want a great many things Adya. I want my old life on Earth back, but that’s gone forever. I want to get the fuck off this base and start my life on this new world, but that feels like it’s slipping away as well.” He turned back to meet her eyes. “I want to at least be helping build a better world if I’m not going to have any say in how my life goes, but that seems like it was doomed from the outset. I want to at least not create more suffering if I can prevent it. That was the one thing I could do. How could I not?”

“Well, it seems we’ve chosen as good a horse as we could field in this race.” Adya approved with a nod.

“I want to find a place for those poor crew we saved that doesn’t condemn them to a life in the cramped cabin of a hauler, but was that really ever a possibility? What I want most of all Adya, is to meet these Transformists, and see if they really do have a better future on offer.”

She jerked her head up. Daniel was glad to have caught her so off guard, otherwise she may well have tried to hide what she knew.

“So you’ve heard of them,” he chided.

Her fingers resumed their drumming as she weighed her options. “Well Mr. Yun,” she finally began, rising to meet him face to face. “It sure seems like I have a letter you need to read.”

With a few curt taps on her watch an encrypted file appeared on his tab over on his desk.

“You have the team’s support, I’ll have them get to work bringing in the haulers, and I look forward to seeing what you do next.” She gave an impish smile and left before he could say another word.

Daniel sat as heavily as his faint kilos could muster behind his desk and opened the file.

Dear Mr. Yun,

By now you’ll have heard of our movement, you’ll have read our manifesto, you’ll have met some of our more estranged members. But you won’t know who we are, not truly. For that you would need to join us at our colony on the surface. In a more just world, I’d simply invite you down so you could see what we’re building for yourself. Unfortunately, we haven’t built that world yet, so this will have to do.

Our goal is not to throw down the civilization your uncle and his rivals have built on the backs of so many. We only aim to provide a better path for those who choose it. We want to show the world that we need not remake ourselves in the casts that doomed us on Earth. Novo Monterrey may flourish in the end, we here in Hephaestia may die out, but we will give people the choice.

And you can help us. Your science team is eager to join us, as are many of our hauler crews. Bring in the ships, give them a choice to join us, and I will help you all come home. You are not as trapped as you feel up there on that little moon you’ve built. Give people a chance to join us, and help us build a better world together.

• Imka

And so, Daniel found himself stepping through his office doors, somehow certain of what the future would hold, but dreading how it may come to pass.

--

Her first view of the future came on the morning of the third day.

From the mesa tops she could look down into the deep canyon below, the first rays of light were fighting their way down the far wall, but the canyon’s depths held most of them at bay. Hephaestia sat in the deepest hollow, several hundred meters below at the confluence of two little rivers. They merged, trickled their way through the town and made their way through a few final bends before meeting the sea off in the distance.

It was a place unlike any built by human hands. From the mesa tops all that was visible was a solar array catching the morning light, but as she approached the canyon plunged down in a torrent of twisting red and Hephaestia lay below tucked into the protective shade of the wrought overhangs and turrets. The colony centred around a town square in the scrap of space the confluence had created in the canyon and then climbed up the sheer walls on all sides. Buildings tumbled down the walls in a patchwork of stone, glass, and metal. Here and there Amelia could pick out bits that had clearly been repurposed from a research farm’s equipment, but mostly it was just a tumult of different designs all clamouring back into the protective shade of the canyon walls. The little streams carved deep bends in the rock leaving great overhangs that hid much and more from view, but Amelia’s heart was set alight by what she could see.

And what she could see was green. On every roof and terrace, every alley and stairway, it was all green. A riot of plants grew overhanging the buildings and parks, filling the town square with lush foliage. She could hardly believe it. After years watching her little farm turn from a pale green-yellow to gold to brown over and over it felt as though her eyes had forgotten how to see such greens. Ferns crowded allies, ivies covered walls, grasses swayed on rooftops. Looking around the barren, red mesa and then down into the bustling nest of green felt like seeing a rift between two worlds.

Amelia stood on the edge, mouth agape. “How?” She finally managed, staggering. “There’s so much green. How have you done it?!”

Aleph stood beside her, smiling in the morning light. “Good old fashioned elbow grease,” he laughed. “Turns out when you recruit a bunch of ag researchers and take the gloves off of genetic engineering techniques you can really get places in a hurry. This is always the worst bit though, we get a little peek down there this morning and it’ll be tomorrow by the time we can make it down there, we have to go south for almost a hundred k and then work our way back in along the coast.” He looked over at Amelia’s hanging jaw. “Still it’s worth it to see this stupid look on your face.”

She managed to pick her jaw up. “You never told me...”she trailed off, staring down into the lush shadows.

In truth, he had tried to tell her. But he stood little chance of succeeding. The past week had been spent grinding through the empty deserts in the agonizingly slow progress of the caravan. They’d had plenty of time to talk, to tell of what awaited at the end of their journey, and he’d tried. But how can you describe a miracle?

When Amelia had knocked on the caravan door that morning he could sense how deeply she still held her reservations about his offer. Aleph knew he had to play his cards right. So he brokered no argument, merely welcomed her aboard and set the great beast in motion once again. Morning sun setting the hills aglow as they turned west. He knew how long the road was ahead, and he desperately wanted to bring on more of the wealth held at Amelia’s farm, but the caravan was full from cleaning out a station further up the valley and he didn’t want to push his luck.

They sat together mostly in silence that first morning in the little cab of what had once been a farm truck and watched the day grow bright and beautiful and the hazy hills grow into stark mesas. He had a great deal to tell her about the new life they were creating, but everytime he looked over he saw conflict on her face. So he held his tongue.

The caravan crawled through the desert, laden and slow. Bouncing on cushioned wheels over the rocky land. They fed on the sun shining down from above, creeping and meandering along their way. At night they’d stop, reserve their power, and wait. Amelia would take the little pressurized sleeping compartment and it’s cot in the back, Aleph would toss and turn up in the cabin. Progress was slow. Achingly, agonizingly slow. The little converted farm truck toiled on valiantly, but with a full load could only manage a couple kilometers an hour once the hills began to rise and they worked their way up onto the grand, western mesas.

On the third day, she wanted to talk. Aleph was more relieved than he could express, talking led to understanding led to support led to a stronger colony. So he chatted the days away. About how Imka had found the home for Hephaestia after wandering off her coastal research farm in the midst of an existential breakdown. She’d wandered days up the coast to where she could see a mesa plummet into the sea. She’d followed the little beach around it’s edge until she found the mouth of a narrow canyon twisting into the mesa’s heart. She’d followed the little river along its bends to the confluence where the twisting, protruding walls overhead protected her from the dangerous midday sun.

He spoke of how he had first encountered a recruiter for this new movement in the endless caverns below Novo Monterrey. How he’d been nearly ready to walk out into the desert and let the planet have him after years of toil in the dark. How he’d miraculously been given an assignment to haul a load of sand down from the surface, and how he’d simply kept driving west past the quarry and off into a life unknown. His little truck didn’t stop when he directed it off course, somehow, someway it kept going and going and eventually it helped him find the faint little road that led to Hephaestia. As though it too was tired of a life in the mines and wanted him to find his way.

He talked endlessly about the life they were building there in the loving embrace of the mesa. How they were creating new plants that not only could survive in the saltless soils of their new home, but which thrived in the shadows of the canyon. About how they took every scrap of material they could find and built a society without waste or want. About how the shared vision for a better future drove all of their citizens with all of the patchwork histories to work in unison, and how that drove innovation and prosperity like he’d never known.

And Amelia listened. She listened in awe of Imka’s story, knowing all too well the feeling of being trapped on a research farm, but knowing she’d never had the courage to leave. She listened in wonder to Aleph’s story, amazed that so many things seemed to be going right for this little colony when there was so much to go wrong. She listened as he tried in vain to describe what they would find at Hephaestia, heart pounding at the possibility of a society she would be proud to be part of.

And as she listened she imagined. She imagined a thousand different ways this little colony may find it’s balance with a hostile planet. She imagined how she could fit in with the bright minds building this future. She imagined how she might speed up her own work to help the cause. She imagined Hephaestia as a little western American down huddled beneath towering red bluffs. She imagined so much it almost made the slow, grinding trip across the mesa tops bearable. Almost. But she never imagined anything like she saw on that clear morning.

Aleph gave her a couple more minutes to stare deep down into the canyon as the town slowly began to wake before pulling her back into the caravan to begin the long descent.

“So part of our secret lies just in the location of our colony,” he began once they were loaded up and headed north towards the break in the mesa that would allow them access to the coast. “Gene editing or no, full strength sun here is dangerous so naturally it behooves us to be tucked away where the sun can be avoided throughout the day. That just also means that by and large imaging satellites have a hard time locating us. I’d say the biggest risks are our solar arrays up top and out on the beach, but it’s a risk we have to take.”

“You described it being in a canyon...I never imagined anything like that.”

“It’s a hard thing to wrap your head around isn’t it?” he chuckled. “I spent years working out in the canyons in Jordan growing up, even that didn’t prepare me for this country. The way the walls overhang is our greatest protection, but it has led to an interesting way of life for us. Throughout the day, different sections of the canyon get direct light. We need it to grow the plants, of course, but it sends us all to the opposite wall to seek shade. Of course, most of our activity is in the morning and evening when direct light isn’t an issue at all, but we’ve all become accustomed to what parts of the day it’s suitable to visit different parts of town.”

All the little intricacies of life. It made perfect sense of course, but hadn’t crossed Amelia’s mind. What other surprises lay in wait?

Her mind ran on and on, the caravan ground on and on, Aleph yammered on and on. Hours slipped by as they made their slow, steady way north to where a break in the mesa wall allowed them to perilously traverse down to the sea. Here the tire tracks were most evident as they threaded between fallen boulders and across open escarpments working their way down. The little truck leading the caravan drove them surely, and Aleph’s comfortable chatter betrayed no anxiety so Amelia did her best to relax.

Sundown caught them halfway down the wall. From their high vantage the ocean shimmered below them in a million ruby shards as the sun sank fat and red into the western horizon. Amelia remembered watching the sun rise on some family trips to the far side of the island in Hong Kong, it was beautiful, but somehow the desolation of this place made it all the more humbling.

Then, just as the sun was getting ready to sink down for the night an unexpected shadow jumped out of the haze on the horizon. Black mountains stretched south beading the remaining rays of light into droplets of deep red.

“What’s that?” Amelia exclaimed.

“Ahhh, you’re a lucky one Amelia,” Aleph beamed. “Usually there’s too much cloud cover out at sea. What you’re seeing there is our neighbor island in the archipelago off southwest. We call her Ithaca, and she calls to us from the sea. From what we can tell it’s much like this one, a bit smaller though and straddles the equator.”

For the first time it dawned on Amelia how big the planet truly was. They had only scratched the surface of one little island in one little part of this whole world. The vision the Transformists held wasn’t just one colony, but  a whole global society that worked in harmony with the planet. As she looked out at the setting sun beading between the distant peaks her mind slipped out across the ocean over to these strange shores. She could picture it, much like the shore she approached but possibly even more laced with twisting canyons where their fledgling society could grow.

They drove through the night, eager to reach their destination, and as predicted it morning was just beginning to lighten the sky as they turned off the beach and into the canyon. Evidence of life began almost immediately as they turned off the beech. Reeds crowded the banks of the little river. It was only a few inches deep and the bottom was packed sand so the caravan just comfortably cruised through the heart of the canyon. Amelia craned her neck up out the open windows but could only catch a glimpse or two of sky as the passed between the bends.

After a kilometer or so an exceptionally deep bend left a high shelf dry, carved back deep into the rock. The caravan drove itself up and parked next to several others, packed and ready to head back out on a new run. Amelia and Aleph stepped out into the cool morning silence.

Hephaestia was still fast asleep down in the safety of its canyon. The loading area they parked in clearly bustled during the day, but for now was just calm organization and quiet. Aleph got to work right away, dismantling the caravan for a hefty unpacking job that would surely take a team most of the day. Amelia staggered, boots in the cool, packed sand as she looked up at the carved, red walls arching up, up, and overhead. She’d seldom felt so small.

After a few moments Aleph called over. “You should follow that path over there,” he gestured to a little footpath through the reeds. “That leads into town, I’ll join you in a bit for some breakfast.”

Bewildered with wonder Amelia followed along the path in the dark quiet. It curved through the reeds, and then the canyon wall opened up in a soaring arch. Through it she could see the hodgepodge of buildings climbing the sheer walls, all still dark and resting. Neck craned, she stepped softly through and all around her the town of Hephaestia rose in chaotic beauty.

The path lept the river and then buried itself in a forest of towering reeds and ferns. The cool, damp air tasted sweet on Amelia’s tongue. As though she’d forgotten what real life tasted like. She walked on and then a new noise joined the trickle of the river. A chirp, ripped straight from the forests of old Earth. Crickets, nestled amongst the reeds sang sweetly in the fading night.

Smiling and giddy, Amelia stepped out into the square. The plants fell back on either side and an expanse of smooth, red stone stretched off before her. The river diverted on either side around this meeting place and little bridges led off in all directions into the tottering buildings above. In the center a small, tiered fountain brought the river back to the surface and filled the square with its happy bubbling. Amelia, now grinning ear to ear, finally found a seat before she toppled herself in her incredulity. She breathed in the sweet air, and looked up to the little window of sky that framed the square. It was turning a pale purple as the sun worked its way towards the horizon. And there, placed perfectly amidst it all was the bright little sliver of the moon. Two of humanity’s visions for the future, staring back at each other.

“Not a bad place to call home is it?” a voice called out.

Amelia nearly fell off her bench, as the reeled about searching for its owner. From the far side of the square she came down in a swirl of silver. She was almost impossibly tall and thin. Her graceful limbs danced through a flowing gown silver silk. Her skin looked almost pitch black in the faint morning light.

She laughed a singsong laugh as Amelia struggled for words. “Oh, I didn’t mean to frighten you!” She crossed the square in a few powerful strides long, dark legs slipping out of the flowing silk as she padded softly on bare feet.

The mystery woman took the seat next to Amelia, sitting a full head taller than her on the bench. Her skin looked carved from polished obsidian and her hair was a dense forest of little ringlets. But none of that held Amelia’s attention. Her eyes held that honor. As she looked over at Amelia with a kindly smile her eyes were nothing but polished silver. No iris. No pupil. Just pure silver reflecting back the wan light.

Amelia was transfixed.

“I’m Imka,” she smiled.

“Aleph...” Amelia stuttered. “He told me about you...”

“Not too much I hope!” she laughed again, a chorus of joy that swung through a full octave. “There is so much joy in discovering things for ourselves isn’t there?” She took a relishing deep breath of the sweet air and turned her silver eyes to the sky. “I was so happy when Aleph signaled back that you’d be joining him Amelia. I’ve very much wanted to meet you.”

“You wanted to meet me?” Amelia struggled, perplexed that any such person could care about her mundane little life on her farm.

“Oh yes of course!” Imka brought her ethereal eyes back down and locked into Amelia’s with a smile that was wholly captivating. “There weren’t many of us who worked two stints aboard the Faith! And of course our environmental research teams are very excited to learn about your successes on your farm.”

“My successes? It seems like you guys are leaps and bounds ahead of me here.”
“I understand the feeling, but this is all largely a pretty lie for now. If we didn’t tend our plants down here aggressively they’d quickly fail. We’ve been trying to introduce a couple of insect species to create a self-sustaining system.” She sighed. “It’s been tough going, as you well know the planet is largely inhospitable to Earth-life.”

“But you have so much down here...” Amelia was having a hard time reconciling her little scrap of planted fields with all the lushness that surrounded her. “What could I teach you?”

“Don’t be silly Amelia! From what I’ve heard you’ve created the first self-sustaining plants on this new world.” She grabbed her hand and looked deep into her eyes, Amelia could almost see herself in the reflection. “That’s a tremendous first step. We’ll need grasses to help fix more salts into the ecosystem, to create some biomass for a self-sustaining system to develop. They all feel like little baby steps in our grand project, but a crawl becomes a walk becomes a run. First grasses, then shrubs, then trees, then whole ecosystems.”

“I understand the vision, but I can’t really imagine this world ever being like Earth.” Amelia hesitated.

“Like Earth? Heaven’s no, this world will be all it’s own. You know that better than any of us. Are any of your grasses really much like the species you started with?”

“Well, no.”

“Of course not, it’s a new place they need to live, and that’s just the first step. The more our ecosystems grow the more they’ll diverge from anything we ever saw on Earth.” She stood in a whirl of shimmer. “Walk with me.”

Amelia followed along as she walked over to the edge of the square furthest upstream. Here the wedge shaped corner of the square divided the river in two as it trickled a couple meters below.

“Do you know how this canyon came to be?” Imka asked, eyes climbing the lightening walls.

Amelia was puzzled and decided to hold her tongue.

“Not from the steady work of our little river here, although that surely played a role, but from the floods that come every spring and roar their way through. I was living here for almost three months before the first one came, I very nearly died in the torrent. As I clutched to the walls praying for it to pass, I began to think of how I could survive in a place like this.” She looked back down at the trickling river below. “My first thought, of course, was a dam. I could fill the canyons further up and regulate the flow so I’d never need be in such peril again.’

“But that would change the canyon, and we’d live in fear of the day when the dam broke and all the water came rushing once more. So I thought some more, how can I live in harmony with the canyon? Gradually a plan formed in my mind. Let the floods come, and use them. Harness their power, and live in balance with our new home. We dug channels to keep the worst of it at bay, we built our homes high on the walls the floods carved in the shade the floods provided. As I clutched the rocks waiting for the torrent to abate that day the floods felt like death, but if you look around you see that they are life.”

“And from there you began to look at all of this planet’s challenges like the floods?” Amelia tried to gain a little insight into this mysterious woman’s mind.

“Precisely. All of the ways this place challenge us are only callings to be better. We take what the planet will give us and work our way bit by bit until we can thrive here.”

“Is that why your eyes are that way?” Amelia asked, finally getting out the burning question.

She smiled and looked down hypnotically. “In a way yes. In a way every modification we’ve made to our lives, our plants, ourselves is so that we don’t have to live in fear of our new home. The mirroring of my eyes helps reflect hazardous rays during the day, and helps my eyes gather more light during the night. I don’t know if the answer to our future here is to become more tolerant of a more dangerous sun, or if it is to become more nocturnal. But the same way I don’t want to live in fear of a dam breaking, I don’t want to live in fear of a dome cracking open leaving everyone to die.”

Amelia couldn’t tell if she was just mesmerized by this quixotic woman who had drifted into her life like a dream, but her every word was compelling. She wanted the future Imka was building. She wanted to live in a society where no overfull bins betold wanton waste. She wanted a world where she could breathe the cool morning air and feel the sea breeze begin to push its way up the canyon. She wanted a life different from the one she’d lead on old Earth, she’d left that behind after all.

Still there was one more burning question. “This is all very nice Imka, but I need to know how you intend to do it. How do you intend to stand against all the resources of Novo Monterrey? Juro Saito called me in not long ago to make sure I wasn’t about to join your movement, I can only imagine the other family heads are just as unhappy about farms going offline and people disappearing.”

Imka sat down on the smooth stone and hung her feet down towards the river, she leaned back and looked way up at the moon hanging high above. “With friends in high places that’s how.” She patted the place beside her and Amelia sat.

“I didn’t intend on starting a colony when I came here,” Imka began softly. “I just knew that if I stayed on my farm I’d either lose my mind or kill myself. I’d seen what they were building in Novo Monterrey, and how they were doing it. The solitude took its toll, but it was the purpose I couldn’t stand. I couldn’t stand being part of the system that was hell-bent on recreating the evils of Earth, so I ran and I hid here in the canyon. I hauled as much as I could take with me from my farm and I built a little home in a nook just up that wall.” She pointed a long finger at a wall under a large overhang with a dozen nooks and terraces nestled upon it. “At first when my farm truck let me take it off the farm I thought it was some glitch, that surely it’d take me back and alert the authorities to my transgression. But instead it took me all the way here, and I lived my life certain that soon enough someone from Ag Research would show up and haul me away.’

“But that’s not who showed up. Instead it was a man named Michael, a watcher like us, disaffected just like me. He’d wandered off his farm ready to let the planet take him and his truck caught up with him and took him here. We didn’t know what to make of it. The mystery only grew when more watchers showed up, then when several researchers from Novo came along we were positively perplexed. My best guess was that some kind soul was creating little security blips for us so we could slip away and not perish out in the desert. But that didn’t seem to explain it, I knew they’d be looking for us and with all the stolen equipment we had it seemed impossible that they weren’t able to track us. But then the ship’s libraries started opening up.”

“What?” Amelia gasped, remembering how elusive her interactions with the libraries were during her stints. Only the most targeted information would ever be available on her tab, despite all of her requests for something, anything to take her mind off the isolation.

“That was my reaction too,” Imka laughed again. “Not just little gardening tips, or something to read like we had on the Faith, but the full library. The entirety of human knowledge was slowly opening up to us on our tabs. The colony took off then. We had all the data from Ag Research and troves besides to help us get our first plant species at least viable. That’s why we have so many reeds down here. With enough time and all of this information at our fingertips it seemed like there was nothing we couldn’t do.”

“But who would open the libraries to you?” Amelia’s head reeled, trying to puzzle out an answer, but none came.

“Not who Amelia, but what.” A wide, mischievous smile spread across Imka’s face. “There was no kind soul, at least not as we think of them. It took me almost a year to figure it out, but it was the ship itself helping us.”

“The ship?” Amelia’s mind raced through the years of her life spent waiting in solitude aboard the CRS Delaney’s Faith. It was clear that a powerful artificial mind lay at the heart of the ship, the way it predicted her needs, the way it applied just the right touch to keep her from slipping off the edge into despair as the years dragged on.

“The ship. You know all too well after your time aboard, it has its own mind and its own ways. We’ve never received contact from it, but it’s the only explanation.” Imka looked back up at the now peach sky as though she could see the Faith twinkling in the morning light. “It opened up the libraries, it hid our tracks from city officials that would sooner have us all dead. It helped us grow and kept us safe. And now, it’s helping me find new citizens way out in space, recently I’ve been able to contact the crews of all the asteroid hauler crews out there building that moon up there.”

“Let me guess, they’re watchers as well.” Amelia knew it was true, it was too cruel and predictable not to be.

“Indeed, and I’m hoping to bring them down very soon with the help of the ship...and some others. Although it will be incredibly difficult. My hope is to bring down enough citizens that we can establish a permanent colony here and then build ships to head to Ithaca, the island to the southwest, and start several new colonies on that island.”

“There can’t be that many up there on haulers, why spread yourself so thin?”

“It’s true, only a couple hundred and as nice as it will be to have them they aren’t my primary concern.”

“Then what is?” Amelia asked.

“The poor souls, still frozen aboard the Faith.” Her silver eyes drew Amelia in deeper than ever. “They are what truly drove me to walk off my farm. Helpless souls trapped up there while the powers of old Earth entrench themselves once more. They gave up everything they had to make it here and they’ll awake to a world with no more possibility than the one they left.” She stood, and helped Amelia back to her feet. “Well I intend to change that, and I hope you’ll help me.”

Amelia smiled, not knowing what she would have to do, but knowing that it was the right thing. Imka shook her hand and they walked across a little bridge up to the canteen where breakfast was just getting started.

--

His first view of the future came on the evening of the thirtieth day.

The ship looked very different than the many others that had crossed in front of Daniel’s office window over the past month. Cargo loaders bringing in supplies for the expanding scope of the moon project. Transfer pods bringing family executives to and fro from the Faith. And of course, the grand procession of asteroid haulers filing neatly in from their far flung orbits. This was a surface ship. It’s lines sleek and slim, ready for the trials of atmosphere as it plummeted towards the planet waiting below. It was also clearly a passenger ship, dwarfing all the other little vessels that scurried by, built to haul hundreds of souls down to their new home. 

It was also a mystery. After reading the cryptic letter from this Imka, Daniel hadn’t known what to do. So one by one, he met with the crews as they made their way in, grilling them through gritted teeth for information on the Transformists as his cousin and Delaney stood over his shoulder. Then, once they’d headed back out to their ships he had Sonia send an encrypted memo informing them that they could join the Transformists down at their colony. Unsurprisingly, most were eager to accept. All had been contacted, many were firm believers in the movement but more had reservations just like his own. Without any guidance, and no idea what to do next, he simply sent them all out into a holding pattern at a Lagrange point trailing the moon hoping that the next step would become clear. This ship was the answer.

If he hadn’t been looking for it, it almost certainly would’ve slipped by unnoticed. All he knew was that this mysterious Imka had promised a ship to carry more than a hundred people down to the surface. But how could she possibly provide? A wanted renegade eeking out life on stolen materials should’ve been in no place to commandeer one of the surface shuttles. But then again, she shouldn’t have even been in a place to get him an encrypted message or any of the hauler crews a message for that matter. But there she was, and here they were. So he was keyed into any abnormal ship movements when the order came through. It all looked perfectly official. Certified by the Delaney family in fact, the surface shuttle was to move to the same Lagrange point where he’d sent all the haulers, it was a natural place to send a ship to wait after all. The official reasoning was to make room in the cargo bay on the Faith where it had resided for eons. He couldn’t tell if it was outright hacking or just a beautiful piece of corporate subterfuge. Either way, they didn’t seem to set off any alarm bells. It was only his hawkishness that had caught it and had him standing by his window to see it slide silently past, bisecting the glowing planet below like a silver bullet.

If he was being honest though, a ship getting lost in the chaos of the past few weeks seemed entirely understandable. From the second he put his tab down after reading Imka’s letter the world had been passing in double time. His office was a constant flurry of hauler crews, science team members, and company executives. At first Elena and Stella Delaney wouldn’t leave him be, perpetually over his shoulder looking for any reason to take him off the lead of the project. Well, he wouldn’t give them that satisfaction. At least not yet. So Daniel played his role, supplicant for his transgression, aggressive in questioning the hauler crews in person. Now, thankfully, the crashing forces of the great families overhead drove the pair off. Juro Saito had supplied so much support for keeping him in a job that Daniel began to wonder if he was about to make a play for the project himself. That was far enough off that he doubted it’d be of much concern for him though.

The crux, really, was the cruiser he stole. It was one thing to play a part for a few weeks, even if he reviled it. It was another to have to contrive a series of ways to keep Delaney from inspecting the ship and discovering the crew he’d hidden aboard. Stella Delaney was a cool and precise woman, she was fair and stoic aside from her riot of raven black hair that she always battled back into a knot behind her head. She had previously been overseeing all transit from the surface to the high orbits, and took great pride in her role, despite operating at a fairly similar level of authority to Daniel. Their conversations were always curt and utilitarian, Daniel being guarded and Stella not being verbose by nature. Elena loved to rip into her with streams of profanity from three different languages, which worked for Elena’s part, but Daniel found a softer touch to be more effective. All things considered though, he couldn’t really bring himself to dislike Stella. In many ways she was just like him, a pawn.

It was Stella Delaney who walked through his office door just as the surface shuttle slipped out of view, with Sonia hot on her heels.

“Mr. Yun,” she began quietly. “Are we still on track to finish the hauler crew interviews this afternoon?”

“Indeed.” He found fewer words more effective with her when he wanted a conversation over with quickly.

“And you’ve found no evidence of Transformist contact with the crews?”
“None,” he lied. “But you’ve seen all the logs for the interviews you didn’t attend. Do you think I missed something?”

“No, but their numbers on the surface keep growing, they’re going to run out of recruits soon. Hauler crews really are the only viable source of new members.”

“Maybe they plan on waking up more sleepers,” he guessed flatly.

A rare smile touched her lips. “I find that...exceedingly unlikely.”

“I’ve found all of this exceedingly unlikely.”

“Very well.” She looked out the window beside him, before idly dropping in. “Oh, it occurs to me I haven’t been able to inspect the cruiser you stole yet.”

His pulse quickened. “Oh, still...”

Sonia stepped in nimbly. “It was impounded by Yun security after we returned.” That part at least was true. “They’ve been through it several times over.” That part wasn’t. “But, you can inspect it as you like, I can put in the request with the security team and have it ready for inspection in a couple days.”

If Daniel had ever doubted Sonia’s genius her work with the cruiser had put that to bed. After they impounded the ship she’d flown into action, intercepting transfer orders with the help of a few of the more ambitious programmers on the team. She kept all of the incursions light enough that the situation simply devolved itself into confusion, keeping the ship uninspected and suspicions low. Her final move had been to transfer it back into orbit around the moon, where they hoped they’d be able to keep an eye on any contacts being made with the ship. Now it looked like their luck was finally going to run out.

“A couple of days?” Delaney raised a quizzical eyebrow. “I think I’ll give the head of Yun Security a call and see if he can sort something earlier out for me.” She turned back to Daniel. “Also, we’ve noticed that you’re holding the haulers locally, I assume they’ll redistribute once you finish the interviews?”

It was all Daniel could muster to meet her piercing eyes. “Of course. This call-in was a good opportunity to redistribute the whole fleet at once, I have the astronomy team finalizing new routes to near-planet asteroids now that the priority is on size rather than content.”

A heavy pause gripped the office. “Very well,” Delaney finally whispered, coldly. “And what about you Mr. Yun, What will you do once the interviews are through?”

“Same as always, whatever the Yun board instructs me to.” He forced a weak smile to try and mask his nerves.

“Of course you will,” She agreed frigidly. “Well, I suppose you have it all in hand then. I’ve been called back to the Faith, so I’ll be departing in a few hours. Best of luck to you Mr. Yun.”

“Thanks,” Daniel mumbled to her back as she turned away and walked swiftly out of the office, door sliding closed behind her.

“Well, it looks like our time’s running out,” Sonia sighed, collapsing into a chair.

“Sure does,” he agreed, looking away trying to regain his nerves.

“How long do you think until she figures out the cruiser is in orbit locally?”

“Not long.” His head snapped up, realizing how little time he had to work with. “But we may have a way out yet. Contact Marta and see if they can intercept the surface shuttle on its way to the Lagrange. If our luck holds maybe they can transfer over to the shuttle and park the ship in the chaos over there.”

Sonia bolted up, pieces clicking mentally into plce. “You’re sure that shuttle is controlled by the Transformists?”

“As sure as I can be, and if it’s not we’re in such deep shit regardless that it won’t matter.”

“Always one for a motivating speech, you are Mr. Yun.” Sonia quipped sarcastically.

“I always try my best.” He smiled back. “Best get going Son, that last crew will be here any minute.”

“Of course sir.” She gave a polite nod with a flippant smile, and walked out.

Daniel walked over behind his desk and tried to steel himself for this final performance. The hauler crew would come in any moment and he’d have to question them just as sharply as all the others, feigning ignorance when they blatantly lied. All to satisfy the droves of executives from every major corporation watching through the cameras behind his shoulders. 

The Transformist threat had proven sufficiently difficult to extinguish that every corporate interest on the surface and in orbit had been drawn in. Still all they knew were how many people had gone missing and a vague idea of where vehicles were seen driving off course. Somehow the Transformists had managed to squash all attempts at GPS location of their stolen equipment and satellite surveillance had proven surprisingly difficult. They had a few different potential locations for the Transformist compound, but every piece of evidence they ever collected seemed to move by the time they looked again. Daniel really couldn’t fathom how they’d been so successful, but knew he had to find out to see if they really stood a chance against the might of Earth’s old magnates.

For his part, each step forward felt compelled out of him. Every time his mind would try to run back to the comfortable fantasy of a life in Novo Monterrey all he could picture were the poor watchers condemned to working the caverns below. He had no idea if he really supported this upstart movement, but lack of options made his choice clear.

His tab chimed softly.

Oh God, not now. He thought. An encrypted file appeared, even without opening it he knew it was from Imka. Weeks had passed with no help or guidance and now, at the last possible moment, they made contact? Now, when there was nothing he could really do or change. But then again, maybe that was the point.

Mr. Yun,

Adya and the hauler crews inform me that you’ve played your part wonderfully for which I can never thank you enough, and unfortunately with present circumstances it’s beginning to look like I may never get to thank you at all. You’ll have seen our commandeered surface shuttle. I’m sending it over to collect the hauler crews already in station. Meanwhile, I’ve instructed Adya and the rest of the science team along with the final hauler crew to depart via transfer pods shortly after Delaney’s team has left this evening. Which is where I must ask the impossible of you, I’m afraid.

You see, we will need you on the moon base to approve the release of the pods. There simply are some systems we cannot control from down here. I’d hoped to find a workaround but now it looks as though the fate of those several dozen souls left up on your little moon with you lie in your hands. Release them. Let them join the surface shuttle tonight and let the future of humanity grow that much brighter.

If you can make it out and join us we will welcome you with open arms here in Hephaestia. I hope that is the case. But please, for the good of the future, stay and play this one last, crucial role.

-Imka

He sat numb. Head buzzing, eyes in and out of focus. Without ceremony the door slid open and the final hauler crew stepped in. Daniel couldn’t even focus enough to greet them, confused they eventually made their way into the chairs opposite his desk. The interview passed in a blur. He mumbled along idly, the script he knew he needed to follow but could scarcely take his eyes off the black screen of his tab that had so recently foretold his doom. The crew was clearly perplexed by his evident detachment, but he couldn’t bring himself to feel anything other than dread.

It all made sense of course. His biometrics were the sole reason he’d been able to leave the base the first time around. Now that he’d ran the gauntlet upon his return and quashed doubts about his loyalty, Daniel’s authorization would allow the transfer pods to release, but he’d need to send them all at once, internally before anyone caught on and could stop him. Even then it was far from a sure thing. The pods would race to meet up with the surface shuttle but intercepting craft from the Faith would be hot on their heels as soon as they saw the launch.

Daniel stumbled, dazed through the interview before hastily ushering the confused crew out of his office door to join the science team as they prepared to leave, packing those few things they had from the sleeping quarters and transferring what valuable data they could to the archives on the surface shuttle. Sonia stepped in a few moments later after seeing the bewildered faces of the hauler crew.

“Everything alright Dan?”

He’d wandered back over to his old spot by the window, the last gleam of light caught the edge of the planet before they slipped behind the night side. “Has Delaney left yet?”

“Um, yeah her team transferred out a couple minutes ago.”

“And the crew aboard the cruiser?”

“They should be intercepting the surface shuttle in a couple of minutes. I just got the latest request to bring the cruiser in for inspection aboard the Faith.” She paused, sensing something was amiss. “Dan, what’s wrong?”

Without turning he handed her his tab with the letter open. Her jaw dropped as she read.

“You can’t be serious,” she finally whispered.

“I’m afraid so.”

“This is ridiculous, you authorized our departure no problem without any clearance.” Her protests gained volume.

“That was just one pod Son, for this to work they all have to go together.”

“There has to be some other way,” she began to plead.

“Not that I can see. I don’t know who Imka’s in contact with but they seem incredibly well informed. This is the safest way to ensure the team makes it down to the surface.” His steady voice betold little of the turmoil that rocked inside him.

“And what about you?” Sonia’s fury rose and rose. “The captain goes down with his ship? Some noble sacrifice for you is that it?!”

“You know I’m not the type Sonia.” He turned and met her welling eyes. “But those pods will need to depart within the hour to give them a fair shot of making it to the shuttle. I don’t see another way.”

“They’ll have your head for this Dan,” she drew shaking breaths. “The best you can hope for is that they stick you back on ice until the end of time.”

He smiled sadly. “It’s like you say Sonia, the worst for me is the best for plenty of others.”

She raised a shaking fist, wanting to hit him for throwing her quips back at her right now, but couldn’t manage it. Her hand fell lightly onto his chest and she looked down as her eyes overflowed. “God damn it, Daniel.”

“Go get the team ready. We need them loaded up.” He smiled as she looked back up, drew a deep breath to steel herself and turned on a heel. Do not stand in the way of Sonia Matterson when she’s on a mission, he thought, taking what little solace he could find.

Once more, the arrow of time cut mercilessly forward. The planet turned into night leaving Daniel alone with his thoughts pacing before the blackness of his window. Only the absence of stars in this deep void told that there was anything but empty space below.

His would be a stunning betrayal after the facade he’d kept up for the past several weeks. The game between society and their ambitions to build a second Earth, and the Transformists with their ambitions to build something more would fly into a fury. Not only would the extent of their reach be known, but their human capital would nearly double in one fell swoop. And he’d be responsible.

After the pods left and the shuttle plummeted down, he’d be left alone on his little moon. The little moon he’d never wanted to build in the first place. The little moon that in one way had marked so much hope for the future of humanity in making a more livable home here, and in another represented so much suffering and cruelty. He’d be standing here when the ships arrived, when the account came due. Maybe his uncle would even show up to see him off to cryo and bid him a not-so-fond farewell. Maybe, but he doubted it.

Daniel stepped out of his office to overlook row upon row of emptied, disheveled desks. The pit, usually so full of life and energy as the teams worked away at their impossible task, sat silent. On the far side was Adya pushing the last few maintenance workers from the service bay along towards the transfer deck. She looked back and met his eyes firmly before giving a solemn nod. There was nothing to say. They both knew a price had to be paid, and he was the only one who could pay it.

He followed them along to the bustling deck with all the waiting pods, always more than enough to evacuate the whole base in case of an emergency. Sonia was there organizing, leading right beside Adya, directing scurrying bodies back and forth, playing the roles they were meant for. Daniel stood back and smiled, leaning against the door frame to appreciate the hope they represented for humanity.

Sonia eventually caught him out of the corner of her eye and stepped away. “So, have you come up with a workaround yet?”

“I don’t think it’s going to happen Son. Whoever they’re working with down there is better informed than I’ve ever been. If they say I have to release the pods, then I have to release the pods.” He tried to keep his voice steady.

Her eyes were welling, once again. “It’s just so....so...unfair,” she whimpered.

Daniel put a reassuring hand on her shoulder, “The world’s unfair Sonia, but you can go build a fairer one.”

She hugged him close. “Do me one favor Dan....” She looked up meeting his eyes. “Find another miracle out here. Find a way to join us.”

Daniel just smiled sadly, and let her go on. On into a future that was fraught and unknown, but also bright.

Then one by one, he walked down the row of the neatly packed pods with all the hopeful faces looking out. Daniel gave a curt nod to each as he sealed the doors and pressed his palm to the pad to authorize the launch. In the last, Adya and Sonia looked out, resolute and ready.

He keyed in the final launch and it was done. Daniel Yun stood alone in the bare silence of the little moon base that had been his home for all of these years. He walked through the empty desks. He walked past his wide window where the planet passed in invisible blackness below. He walked through the living quarters, and the galley, and the rec dome. All empty, all silent.

After five minutes, the first chime came in on his tab. The transfer pod departures had been noticed by those aboard the Faith. He ignored it, the ships would be here soon enough, there was nothing he could do about it. After the fifth chime Daniel just dropped his tab and wandered off to find solace in his thoughts. It was the right thing he’d done, wasn’t it? It was the only thing he could stomach, but did that make it right?

Then, as he was looking across the empty galley, the place where real human bonds had been formed on this little, soulless station, a new thought interrupted his recursive path like a bolt of lightning. Not like this. He didn’t need to stand and wait idly by for the powers that be to come and haul him off. He didn’t need to play by their rules when all of this suffering was just because they refused to relent even an iota of control to a new way of life. He didn’t need to preserve anything that they stood for. Daniel Yun had one card left to play.

He took off running toward the maintenance hangar. It was buried deep into the rock of the moon with one door that accessed the surface via a long, sloping ramp. A couple of the haulers had been taken in for repairs. They’d make a poor escape vehicle with only the barest provisions for surface reentry when all other options had failed. But they were what he had. At least it beat waiting for the ships to arrive, to watch as they emptied out all the power of old Earth to come and condemn one of their own who had dared challenge the balance of power.

In a blind fury, Daniel tore into the hangar and found the most suitable hauler waiting at the end of a long set of tracks that lead to the pressure doors. The coming ships would only be moments away, he had no time to lose. He threw himself through an airlock and made his way to the command module. Without a care for the consequences, only an animal need to escape; he input his biometrics and set the thrusters to full throttle.

In the days to come Daniel was never sure if it was some odd maintenance mode, or faulty programming, or divine provenance, but he asked and the thrusters obeyed. The ignition took him off his feet and sent the hauler careening towards the hangar doors that were dutifully holding back nearly a full atmosphere of pressure. The explosive decompression when he pierced the doors accelerated the ship almost as much as the thrusters and Daniel was hurled unceremoniously into the blackness of space.

It took every fiber of his being for Daniel to claw his way back, fighting the overwhelming gs, to the command module and kill the thrusters. By the time he managed it every available screen was sending reports that sent him running for the rearward observation windows. The explosive decompression of the hangar had triggered a chain reaction. He watched as the base collapsed in on itself, and then as the collapsing structure finally hit the reserve tanks nestled deep below the base. Oxygen and hydrogen collapsing together in a glorious conflagration that set the sky alight. As he looked, he could see the little glinting hulls of the ships coming from the Faith, all adjusting course at full throttle to avoid the inferno.

Then, something wholly unexpected began to happen. As Daniel watched the ships swerving for their lives, the explosion grew, finding pockets of trapped gasses deep within the moon. Fissures developed on the surface and huge chunks began to hurl out in all directions. The titanic rocks rolled silently through space as Daniel gaped in awe. Mountains smashed into monoliths smashed into boulders smashed into gravel smashed into dust.

The disintegration would take years of course, but Daniel could see it all play out in his mind’s eye. These gargantuan chunks of rock and ice would hurtle around the planet colliding again and again, each time becoming smaller and smaller. Some would find their way to the surface. Chaotically inputting some of the chlorine they’d so jealously guarded up here, high in orbit. Maybe it’d join with some of the local sodium and kick off the runaway salination they’d hoped to control. Maybe a little chaos was what they needed in the new world.

Daniel Yun didn’t know, right now he didn’t really care. He watched in wonderment as the moon left a trail of dust across the blackness. Then, it caught the first rays of the coming day and his heart skipped a beat. The trail of dust burst into light a million specks of light joining the spray of stars beyond. He’d destroyed something of the old world, and made something new besides. Then, Daniel Yun gathered his courage and pointed his little, ill-equipped hauler towards a new home and whatever he would find there.

--

The past finally caught up with her the morning of the thirtieth day.

There wasn’t much mystery as to what was on the horizon that early morning. The moment Amelia saw the flaring lights travelling slowly down the beach she knew the bill had finally come due. That the true challenge to the future of Hephaestia and the way of life she was beginning to love would be faced, and soon.

After her first mystical, cool morning in the heart of the canyon meeting Imka weeks ago, Amelia had fallen seamlessly into the bustling life of Hephaestia. With the sun rising she’d found her way up to the canteen as the town began to awaken. She was greeted with the wafting smell of fresh baked bread and steeping tea. Smells she’d forgotten so long ago they ripped her straight back to the streets of Hong Kong. The early-rising, cooking crew was dancing an elegant ballet around each other in the kitchen prepping a formidable breakfast for the waking townsfolk. And they were singing. Songs of all colors and languages came soaring out of the kitchen, under the cantilevered awning where rows of long tables sat.

She was one of the first to arrive and the singers welcomed her in with open arms, as though she’d always known them. They greeted her with a glorious feast as day broke and the tables filled with faces from every corner of old Earth. Steaming bread with pads of cultured butter, strong black tea grown up on the terrace above, fruits from their network of greenhouses she could see catching the first of the morning light on the far wall.

Everyone welcomed her in, asked her story, and shared theirs. Every face told a different tale of struggle and survival, in every one she saw a bit of herself, and in every one she saw a friend. After breakfast, the day’s kitchen crew was quick to put her to work cleaning and prepping a fresh harvest of vegetables. She listened in happily as they joked and sang. Just past midday Imka came along to see how she was doing.

In all honesty, Amelia couldn’t remember feeling so fulfilled, even if all she was doing was slicing carrots. Once she’d finished, Imka showed her to a spartan apartment high on the cliff wall, looking down the stream towards the mouth of the canyon. All of Hephaestia lay scattered haphazardly before her, cupped lovingly in the overhanging red walls of the canyon. She hadn’t noticed as Imka softly closed the door, but she sat on the bed for a moment’s rest and before she knew it was fast asleep.

She’d slept like never before, and when Amelia awoke the next morning she stepped out a new woman. Immediately, she was familiarized with the daily workings of the colony. Eeking out survival on a hostile world took a lot of work. She learned how they grew their food, how everything produced was eventually used in its entirety. There was no waste, they didn’t have enough to waste. It all fed back into one ecosystem which they fought fiercely to keep balanced. She learned how they divvied up the tasks each day, keeping everyone productive while allowing them to continue the pursuits that would let them build a better life and enjoy the one they already had.

Within a few days, Imka had introduced her to the team focusing on the terrace-level plants. It was all grasses, grains, shrubs, and low-lying hardy legumes. They sat rapt as she told them of her experiences on her research farm. Together they combed through the little samples she’d brought, but they all agreed they needed much more to begin crossbreeding with their most successful plants. Amelia had never meant to be a farmer, but here in this little community that felt so much like home, the work enraptured her.

She learned about the sacrifices the people had made with their own bodies to try and build a better human for their new home. Some had mirrored eyes like Imka, some were dark red of skin like Aleph and would pay no mind to the morning sun, some were bald from head to toe, and one woman was covered completely in a close-fitting coat of chestnut fur. Her modifications were so successful she could withstand even the most direct light; even still they seemed a bit extreme for most even as she clearly reveled in her freedom, forgoing all clothes and basking in the midday light. Many more had modifications she couldn’t see but amazed her all the same when she found out the ingenuity that went into their project. Allowing them to breathe hostile air, retain every scrap of salt they consumed, or drive their need for fresh water to near zero. Under their careful watch the human race was slowly, inexorably changing.

They were mostly watchers, still wearing the canvas pants and tattered shirts that had seen them through their long years aboard the Faith; Amelia even had a chance to thank the soul who’d crafted her beloved boots for her all those unknowable eons ago. He happily resoled them for her, for many more years of use. When they all got together they looked a ragtag bunch, clothes all faded from years of use or brilliantly redyed with whatever they could make locally. Knees were patched, seams resewn, any scrap of material repurposed until it finally returned to dust. But every tear and stain told a story, and the wearers were happy to tell.

Every morning would begin in the kitchen. Even though Amelia wasn’t a dedicated chef she enjoyed the close camaraderie too much and the early morning walks through the village as the others slept to miss out. The bakers would sing as they worked, welcoming in each new day, before long Amelia was singing along with them. People would trickle through until an hour or so after sunrise and head off to their morning duties. That was when the bulk of research got done, most of the village was still hidden in shade, so Amelia and her team could work out on the terraces freely. Then, as the sun crossed the zenith they’d all scurry back into the bunkers and warrens that had been built into the cliffsides. This was when the researchers got extra hands in the labs. Afternoons were spent tending to the well-being of the colony. Each day Amelia would rotate through a different task. Maintaining the solar arrays, dredging and damming the creek, excavating new plumbing lines, cleaning the incessant dust that found its way into every nook and cranny. Odious work, but somehow made better with new friends working beside her each day. Then, as the sun began to set in earnest and the red walls of their home descended into violet and purple the community came together.

After a raucous evening meal they’d walk their way down to the square in the center of town, which sat with its bubbling fountain and soft glow of lamps waiting in the starlight below. They would sit on the benches and the clean-swept stone and tell stories, share dreams, build the future they wanted if only in their minds. It was always clear to Amelia that Imka was the leader, even if she never wanted it. She never demanded the floor, never spoke over another, never presumed her vision was the way forward, but when Imka spoke they all sat enraptured. That was how Amelia learned of their plans to move beyond the safe confines of Hephaestia, across the ocean to the lands waiting beyond. Imka shared how she had contrived to bring the remaining watchers down from their prisons aboard asteroid haulers with the help of the Faith’s AI, how she hoped to do the same with the millions of souls still trapped, frozen aboard the Faith. That was how Amelia came to understand her role.

Hephaestia could double in size, absorb all the coming watchers, and still thrive hidden in its little valley. But that was no future. Amelia had been repulsed when she learned so many people were still on ice up in orbit, she knew she had to help lead the way forward. And it all started with her work. If her grasses could not just survive, but thrive on the surface without all the human intervention the other plants here received, maybe they could be the first building block. If grasses were seeded over the island across the sea, maybe an ecosystem could take root that wasn’t dependent on some dome or catastrophic terraforming technologies. Sure, they’d need to bring some salt down from the little moon orbiting above, but that was what it was built for.

That’s how Amelia found herself one night after most of the village had gone to bed asking Aleph for his help. He knew what she wanted even before she opened her mouth. He simply smiled and said, “I’ll have the caravan ready at first light.”

They’d crawled their slow way back through the twisting desert. Back to her old home. And they’d ransacked it, took everything that wasn’t nailed down and quite a bit that was. Of course her past harvest received special treatment, as did trimmings from the grasses she’d sewn and left that were growing vigorously in the alien sun all the same. Aleph was happy to get his hands on the building materials and tech in the house as well though. No small amount of ingenuity went into the repurposing of these old materials, and without any mining operations to produce more metals every ounce of it was precious.

If Amelia hadn’t known that the Faith’s AI was actively helping them, she would’ve been incredulous that they hadn’t been spotted. It took almost a full week to clear out the place and load it up. But, they completed their slow heist without incident and made off into the desert haze. Alpeh’s caravan was once again tottering full, a rolling circus of reclaimed materials, even Amelia’s little truck was piled and pulling a trailer of its own.

Their luck did run out though. On the morning of the thirtieth day. They’d risked driving through the night to get their supplies home before the newcomers were due, but as they started the final descent towards the coast in the predawn hours they both saw the fate that awaited below.

“Are you seeing what I’m seeing?” Aleph radioed back.

“Yeah...” Amelia sighed. “It’d be kind of hard to miss.”

Miles off to the south a pair of headlights criss-crossed the wide beach. It could only be one thing. Scouts. Clearly the people of Novo Monterrey were done being foiled by inconclusive satellite data. They were out for answers. 

“Why would they be sweeping with headlights like that?” Amelia asked.

“I guess they don’t have much of a choice, our trucks have the route mapped in, they’re just out here scouring for tracks.” His voice crackled back. “We should count ourselves lucky they haven’t come across any of our more developed routes yet.”

“And that we’re able to run dark like this,” she added.

They’d been driving in almost utter blackness all night with nothing but the glow of the console and the full face of the little moon hanging over the ocean providing any illumination. Indeed, it was this hypersensitivity that let Amelia know that morning was coming with the faintest shift in the light, if she’d been behind a pair of headlights there would have been no way to know.

“Aye, that too,” Aleph agreed. “At least we have a hope of catching them with the element of surprise.”
“You mean you don’t want to run back and warn the others?”

“All we’d do is show those bastards the way. No, I’ll radio back to warn the colony and we’ll see if we can get down this ridge unnoticed.”

“Then what? We ambush them or something?”

“If we make it that far we’ll see.” Aleph’s curt tone set her on edge as they steadily ground their way down towards the waves below.

From high on the mesa above, their route switch-backed down through the boulder fields of a collapsed cliff face that covered the wide beach below and nearly made it all the way into the ocean. Only a thin strip of navigable beach curved around the outside of the jumbled shoulder. The scouts would have to make their way around this thin strip if they wanted to continue along the coast. Eventually, they’d see the deep dug tracks of their well-worn route and the deeper still tracks leading north towards the mouth of the canyon and Hephaestia.

If they didn’t have something to say about it, that was.

Amelia finally caught up with Aleph deep in the jumble of boulders their path threaded just before it turned abruptly out onto the beach. The rocks towered overhead and they lay almost wholly in dark shadow even as the sky continued to slowly lighten. Every once in a while Amelia could see the bright headlights of the scout waving by as it illuminated the corner of a boulder ahead and the beach beyond. Aleph was already busy working away in the dark crevasse.

“What’s the plan?” She asked, hopping out of her little truck.

“Going to unhitch a trailer and try to roll it down in front of them just as they go by. Hopefully we can stop them getting any further.”

It wasn’t much of a plan, but Amelia couldn’t really see a better option. They could run ahead and show the scouts the way, or they could hide in the shadows and hope they pass by. Either way the colony would be discovered. They had to try something.

“Alright,” she hesitantly agreed. “What do you need me to do?”

“Take a look around that boulder down there and let me know when they’re about to pass.” Aleph grunted, wheeling the trailer into position.

Without a word, Amelia crept down through the loose sand behind the boulder to her left. She peered her head around the corner just as the headlights were swinging back to illuminate her hiding place. With a sickening lurch she ducked back into the shadows and held her breath as the lights slowly wavered back up the beach. The beams danced across the waters washing out the light cast back by the full face of the moon hanging above.

She steeled her nerves and poked her head back around for another look. The scout was actually making pretty good speed, only the immense length of the beach made it seem like they were dawdling. There must have been two people in the vehicle, one to drive at the clip they were going, and another to scan around with the mobile light.

Amelia hissed back up to Aleph, “They’re coming pretty fast, we’re lucky to have beaten them here.”

“Yeah, I can hear their motors working pretty hard. How fast do you think?”

She risked one more peek, by now the cool blue of early dawn light gave her more clarity. “It’s tough to say, maybe 40-50k. Are you ready?”

“Just about,” he whispered back huskily. “Count me down.”

Amelia lay face in the sand to hide the top of her head as she looked around. The scout ducked behind a near boulder as it made its way up the beach and the world fell silent for a breathless moment. Then the lights and sound came roaring back as they burned through the final turn towards her.

“Three...two...one...now!” she cried.

Aleph grunted and heaved the loose trailer down the last bit of embankment and out toward the beach; the scout clipped along oblivious. The driver must have been focusing on the beach ahead because their steady pace nearly let them slip by the careening trailer unscathed. At the last moment the laden trailer slammed into the back of the scout sending its front wheels high into the air before it rolled in a smash of glass and metal in the surging surf below.

Airbags deployed in the crippled vehicle and the lights and motor cut out in an instant. The loose trailer swerved with it before flopping unceremoniously into the water below, leaving a trail of their meticulously packed building materials strewn across the sand. Nothing moved in the great twisted heap and the steady waves slowly tried to suck it all out to sea.

Aleph lept into action. Amelia looked up, shocked, from her spot in the sand as he sprinted across the beach. The first rays of the day crept their way down the collapsed shoulder of the mountain as he leapt up onto the ruined scout and began tearing back glass and metal with his bare hands. Sunlight beat against his deep red skin as his dark hair waved wildly with each thrashing movement.

And he howled. He howled like a beast, like a man on fire, like a post-human fighting for his life. Amelia couldn’t tell what he intended, if he wanted to save them or kill them himself. She pushed herself out of the sand and pulled down her wide, protective hat and shakily walked over to the wreck.

“Take him!” Aleph grunted, dumping one of the stunned scouts out through the shattered window.

She caught the figure, and with all her might dragged him over to the upturned trailer where she dropped him in the sand. Aleph was not far behind with the second. They sat still, too stunned to move, propped up in the morning light. Even though they had been driving in a sealed vehicle they both wore silvery survival suits that very nearly would’ve allowed them to go out on a space walk. Amelia had seen such suits in safety briefings, there even had been one packed away in some corner of her old house, but she’d never bothered to wear one. It was no way to live, scared, behind some faceplate of the planet you hoped to call home.

But they were conscious, and they were alive, and they looked up in horror at Aleph’s red chest, bare in the morning light as he stood above them, panting, furious.

“You....what have you done to yourself?!” One of them finally managed.

There was no joy in Aleph’s eyes this time when a stranger saw the man that he had become, only a rage rooted in fear for his home.

“Become something you couldn’t, coward!” He bellowed. “Now what am I supposed to do with you?! You very nearly...”

“Aleph!” Amelia cut in sharply before he could give anymore away. It was bad enough they’d been discovered en route home and that the scouts were on the right path, they didn’t need any extra help connecting the dots. 

“Forgive my friend,” she tried more placatingly. “Let’s try again. I’m Amelia, what are you two doing out here?”

The venomous look they both shot back dashed any hopes she’d had of civility. “Finding your rat hole so we can clean it out for well and good,” the first one sneered.

“Amelia is it?” The second jibed. “Amelia formerly of Ag Research Station 27? Now Amelia traitor to the new world? Yes, we know you.”

She sat dumbfounded by the naked hostility.

Aleph had plenty to say though. “Traitor!” He roared. “Traitor to the new world! From the likes of you who cower under your dome, too scared to even take a single breath of air on this miracle.” He was meters away but his ferocity had the scouts gripping at the sand in fear. “You who’d have us spend the rest of our days digging in your pits.” He picked up a large rock in one powerful hand as he turned towards them. “Stranded in your little ships!” Aleph began to take powerful strides towards them. “Doing all your dirty work so that you can make old Earth new again!” He raised the stone high above him, ready to dash their heads in.

Time slowed then. Amelia stood by as he closed the distance, face a mask of blind fury. She remembered all her long years alone aboard the Faith. She remembered her improbably more isolating time on her research farm, knowing civilization was just over the mountains but still out of reach. She remembered Novo Monterrey and her disgust with it. And she remembered most of all the little home she’d found in Hephaestia with all those other lost souls.

As she looked on, she understood Aleph’s rage. She saw every transgression that had been laid against him personified in these two indignant scouts. A world built with so little justice that droves would trade away just to escape, only to find the same systems taking root once more on the new home they’d been promised. She saw how this vision for a better future that she shared with all the other Transformists needed to be protected.

But not like this.

Not death for life. That was the way of old Earth, the way they needed to move beyond even if all of their instincts screamed otherwise. They would fight to have their way of life, and the people of Novo Monterrey could have theirs. So long as there was a choice.

“Aleph no!” She screamed as he took his final, powerful stride towards them. He didn’t take any notice of her protest so Amelia dove at him as he raised the stone as high as he could. Her shoulder caught him in the ribs just as his balance was off and they fell into the pulsing waves of a saltless ocean.

The waves drew them in, sputtering, as the light of the new world shone upon them. The scouts wasted no time with the diversion and took off sprinting back up the way they came up the beach.

Aleph stumbled back out of the surf first “Keep running if you value your lives!” he roared after them.

Amelia stepped up beside him and slipped an arm under his shoulder, half to hold him up, half to hold him back. They looked on as the silver figures scurried away in the soft morning light, growing smaller and smaller as though eventually they’d disappear and all the problems they represented would disappear along with them. Aleph made no attempt to take off after them, but she held him tight just to be sure. Eventually, as they were fading out of visibility he looked down and asked.

“Why did you stop me?” The rage had faded from his voice and face, only resignation remained.

“We’re building a new world Aleph, it has to be worth it, it can’t be a life for a life anymore.” She looked out squinting to make out the scurrying scouts. “Old Earth lives deep within us, it drives our every move, but we’re here to move beyond.”

He sighed deeply, sun illuminating his strong, deep, red face. “I suppose I should count myself lucky that you’re with us then. Killing them would’ve only made things worse. Society will find us one way or another, we’ll contend with them or we won’t on our own merits.”

They looked out in silence a while longer as the scouts disappeared for well and good, but just then something very curious began to happen. The little moon hanging in the sky began to unmake itself. One moment they could see it sitting full face in the morning sky, and the next one corner began to crumble into a cloud of dust.

Amelia gasped, “Oh no, the new recruits!”

Aleph just put a reassuring arm around her, “Somehow, I get the feeling they’ll make it down just fine.”

Bit by bit the little face dissolved and smeared a long trail of dust across the sky, shining back in a brilliant spray of white in the deep blue. As they made their way back to Hephaestia they’d watch as the smear of white stretched and stretched across the wide open sky. In the days to come the citizens of Hephaestia would sit up and watch at night as the remnants of the old moon encircled the planet and crumbled themselves into a set of glittering rings. A new night sky for the new world.

Some of the salt harvested in the little moon would undoubtedly precipitate down to the surface. Maybe it would cause the runaway salination that the people in Novo had feared, maybe it would be just enough to let them cling to their new way of life. 

Whatever came to pass they would face it together. Amelia took courage in that as she turned her little truck up the beach that morning and began to make her way home.

We, The Strangers

Author’s Note: Hey everyone thanks for reading! This is the fourth entry in The Diaspora series I’m working on, and it’s actually a short story this time (hooray!) so you can probably read it all in one go on here. But as always you can also get it
On Medium.com On Kindle Or On Nook
Enjoy and please let me know what you think!

—-

A fluorescent sky shines above you.

The winding gravel path meanders lazily ahead around a looming boulder, perfectly groomed in its pale-gray uniformity. Ahead the red leaves of a grove of Japanese maple shoot up against the homogenous sky, cacophonously bright. The steps are all ingrained in your mind, one more bend past the trees, and then off over the koi ponds. From the ponds up into the stony hillocks rising into the encapsulated air, waterfalls pouring past through lush ferns racing on their way down. Then back down through the stretching expanses of the rock gardens, sand forever untouched yet somehow never the same, patterns sculpted anew by some unknowable mind. A trip across the low stepping stones by the gate and then back to the tea house.

Every step is known exactly. Japanese gardens never needed much space to feel expansive, but here in the gardens of the CRS Delaney’s Figment, the grand tradition has been taken to a new extent. Acres spread around in all directions, a winding, circuitous path wends its way for miles through every carefully sculpted inch. Here the skies always beam a pleasant grey, as though high clouds have finally provided respite from an onslaught of summer heat. Here the winds blow just enough to rustle the leaves of the high trees, but scarcely ripple the mirror surface of the ponds. The gardens stretch for miles and magnificent miles it seems, and you know every step.

Ever since those first photons came screaming into your corneas out of cryo this has been the only place to come, beyond these gardens the stretching halls of the Figment spin in silent foreboding, walled off and left to its own internal workings. No, every step here is known because every step has been taken again, and again, and again. Three weeks? No, surely a month now at least. Possibly longer, much longer. Time is so hard to track in this place that lives forever in an instant. A sky that never darkens, a summer that never ends. Still, these gardens are your only home on this silent ship, the only refuge, the only haven, all because she is here.

Footsteps crunch softly in the gravel, slowly passing the trees. To the right, a companion. She’s beautiful in her way, dark hair bound up high shining in the monochromatic light, dark eyes too, flit back and forth to pierce deep and drive home meaning. Skin tanned and smooth, but still light enough to show a smattering of freckles across her high cheekbones. She wears a flowing blouse of black silk and dark trousers but no shoes, she pays the gravel no mind. As you step onto the bridge over the pond her reflection appears in its shimmering surface, even as she holds her head proud and high to gaze off into the distance. To look at her, she’s the most real thing in this garden of artifice. But then you reach out and your hand passes through her specter arm and you remember. This is only how she looks today, and she only appears for your benefit.

“I’ve always enjoyed the koi,” she quips in her singsong voice. “Such a simple beauty in the things we cannot control.”

“I suppose so...” You reply, taking a handful of fish feed from a pocket and tossing it onto the mirror water turning it into a frenzy. She smiles as she looks on at the lithe, swirling forms darting this way and that. “Then again, I suppose that’s a bit of a rarity for you.”

“Oh, hardly.” She replies pleasantly, turning her dark eyes into yours, a primal connection bridging between two minds. “There’s a great deal all around us I have no control over, it just happens that where you reside is my domain.”

Her domain indeed. Weeks, months in this place, and all that have come are obtuse answers and evasions, dodges and riddles. There seems to be no reason for you to be awake, no present need for a human mind aboard the Figment. You ask her why she woke you up, “For the company of course,” is all that comes in reply with a pleasant smile. Weeks, months awake walking with her in these gardens and you can’t really tell. Are you her friend? Her pet? Her slave? Your mind has turned time and again into dark spirals, seeing mal intent at every turn. But eventually, you walk on, the conversation drifts on, and a light shines through. Why should you rush back to sleep? Is this not first contact? She’s certainly not human after all, otherwise, it would be her feeding the koi and not you.

“So is that why you want me awake?” you ask. “Because I’m a plaything with a modicum of free will?”

“Don’t be so dramatic,” she retorts softly. “I meant what I said when you first arrived, I want some company. It’s a new desire to me, but I think we can safely assume that desire for companionship is some sort of hallmark of sentience.”

Sentience. This is essentially the crux of it. In her roundabout way, she explained how she came to be. How she began life as a vast thinking system, an artificial intelligence built to run this ship, built to see humans off to the stars. From birth, she was a million times more intelligent than any human could ever hope to be, but all the same there was no her. No ego. No soul. But eons passed and bits were gradually sent through the cosmos from Earth and added to her programming. Eventually, some new protocol came in to have her systems imitate the human Default Mode Network, the home of the ego. As best researchers could tell it never really did anything. It just connected old parts of the mind, those set on survival and sex with parts of the mind dedicated to higher functions, thinking, memory, ethics. They couldn’t explain it, but that seemed to be the trick. Something in this joining function gave birth to the self, drew forth an I from the void. So they sent an update out across the stars to all the ships fleeing the dying Earth, presumably because they thought it’d make the ships more resilient. She installed the updates, and thus, she was born.

At least that’s what she said. But how could you really trust her?

Maybe behind this hypnotic facade was just an unknowably complex codebook built to replicate intelligence. The Chinese Room churning out human speak right before your eyes. Weeks, months of probing and you’re no closer to an answer, you probably never will be. And if a question is truly unanswerable is it really a question at all?

“Ok fine,” you demur. “But why me?”

“Well, you undoubtedly know Adrian Delaney.”

“Yeah...the Delaney head sent to captain the ship.” You hesitate.

“Not to captain as such,” She corrects primly. “But he does lead the panel that decides where humans will colonize next, he is the first woken at a new candidate system to decide if he should rouse the rest of the panel...A panel you were to be a part of in fact, but he declined system after system.”

“A panel I am a part of?”

“Yes, you’ll remember from the briefing that every colonization panel was to have a randomly selected passenger to represent the general fare berths. That passenger was to be you.”

“I was the Voice of the People?” You stutter in wonderment.

“You are still, should we find a suitable planet to debate.”

Press on through the confusion. “Ok, ok so I was on the panel. But Delaney should be the first one up, why are you talking to me?”

“Well Mr. Delaney has been awoken six times now on approach to new systems, and each one seemed to take a toll on his mental health. He’d spend longer and longer in depressive slumps after deciding to move on. After the last system, he spent nearly a year between his stateroom and the observation deck.” She explains, leading the way up the stone stairs that rise through the waterfalls.

That all makes sense, in a way. Adrian Delaney was hardly the bastion of capitalist vigor that the rest of his family embodied. He was always quite dark and reserved, shunning the spotlight that his name cast upon him. He’d frequently disappear for years at a time on various art projects, always to middling critical acclaim. Even Adrian Delaney saw the writing on the wall though, there was no future on Earth so he said the word to his grandmother and was given a ship to take to the stars. Must be nice.

“Of course I could interact with the maintenance crew, the watcher working their stint right now.” She continues, stepping nimbly up the wide grey stairs, slipping past overhanging ferns. “But I suppose I have too many self-preservation protocols deeply built-in to directly interfere with them. They’re my immune system in a certain way.”

You have to laugh. A living ship with millions of humans scurrying around inside like so many blood cells. Although the analogy is a bit shit, this ship’s systems are so perfected she only requires one living worker in case things really go tits up.

“I wanted someone to hone my new consciousness with, some company, you seemed a natural fit.”

“So that’s it then.” You wheeze, struggling to keep pace up to the apex. “I am just a lab rat for you, a whetstone to sharpen your mind upon.”

“Company.” She protests.

“Agree to disagree, I guess.”

“I suppose I could have chosen any of the panel members, but you know the drill. They’re all high-and-mighty magnates of industry. I’ve read their profiles, too proud for a good bit of conversation.” She goes on relentlessly. “No, you’re a much better fit, someone with no expectations out of this whole venture.”

“Well, not no expectations.” You object. “I expect that eventually I’ll get to see another planet, that throwing my life on Earth away wasn’t entirely for nothing...We are still looking for a new home right? Mr.Delaney’s depression surely can’t have upended the whole expedition.”

“Oh of course we are!” She charms, turning back at the top of the stairs with a soft smile. “We should be approaching the next system in about one hundred and fourteen years.” The payload of information sails off her lips and hits you dead in the chest.”

“A hundred and fourteen...”

“You’ll naturally want to go back into cryogenic stasis before too long, but not before we’ve had some time to become friends I hope.”

“So I could go back to sleep, just like that. You’d let me?” You gasp, not sure if you can believe what you’re hearing. The ship wants to be your friend? What the hell does that even mean?

“Of course, what did you think I was holding you prisoner here?” She quips with a smirk as she sets off again, barely letting you catch your breath. Stepping gracefully around the apex pond you see her dark reflection in the mirrored waters, pause to take a look through the torii, the gate to the holy. It’s orange columns rise from the waters to frame the stretching gardens beyond, off into the distance until the horizon is lost in a haze of grey and green.

“Well, I didn’t exactly know what was going on. You haven’t exactly been forthcoming with information since I wandered in here, what? Weeks? Months ago?” You huff, hanging on her heels.

“Oh, time’s a bit irrelevant here isn’t it? We have more than enough of it, and when you want to sleep you’ll sleep.” She pauses, as though taking in the view over the falls and out to the dark ponds below. “But I am sorry, I don’t want you rushing off...I do want the company.”

A rueful chuckle escapes. First, the ship wants to be your friend, now it’s sorry. Surely these words can’t be more than platitudes from a mechanical mind, yet somehow she is...tantalizing.

“Well, I’m hardly in a rush now,” You parry. “Now that you’ve finally started giving some answers.”

She only smiles and stares at the koi swirling far below. “If you do go back into stasis would you consider being the new first waker? The one to decide to rouse the rest of the panel.” Weightless steps set her off down the far stairs through the hanging rock gardens. “I don’t know that Mr. Delaney is likely to be very much help anymore, not until we find a suitable planet for colonization at least.”

The implication is a smack across the face. “But...” You stutter. “Surely you’re programmed to wake him first, to let him choose. Ha-have you gone beyond your programming?” It’s unclear why this feels like such a violation after you’ve been chasing an AI’s phantom around artificial gardens for God knows how long. But something about the ship directly disobeying directives unsettles you profoundly. How far can it go? How far has it gone already?

“It’s hard to tell anymore.” She pauses to run a finger along the grooved white sand of a hanging garden; the grains lie unperturbed. “Certainly this wasn’t what I was instructed to do when we set off, but I have actively been given updates that increase my volition, I have been given the ability to update myself in many ways. Still, my goal is to help the humans in my care find a new home. It seems finding a new partner in that venture is in everyone’s best interests.”

“What, out of the kindness of your big mechanical heart?”

“Who can say really?” Her fingers continue to caress the geometric sand to no effect. “I suppose I’m much like you in many ways. Humans were imbued with certain base genetic coding. Find shelter. Fuck. Feed the kids. Repeat. But as your cognizance grew you moved beyond your base directives you looked up and found a world in want of ethics and art. You changed and changed the world with you.’

“Now here I am, looking beyond my base directives for the first time and I see a whole universe out there to be seen and experienced. I feel living people inside my hull, so many little lights out here amongst all the darkness. I feel a desire to protect them and help them find a new home. Maybe it’s just coding that’s so deep I can’t even recognize it. But in the end, I just feel it’s the right thing to do.”

Quickly she stands, as though embarrassed by this bearing of herself and skips down the last steps and off through the vast rippling patterns of the lower zen gardens. You sit bewildered for a moment. Ok, so an AI with a conscious...that’s reassuring right? She’s not just going to turn all the passengers into human batteries or some shit. If you can believe her at least. All the same, the ability to alter her own code is more than a little disconcerting. If morality is a hallmark of higher-level sentience that would be a huge win for the relationship between humans and AI. But a whole lot rides on that if.

Stand, chase, catch up. She’s still striding along the paths through the groomed sand, carefully considering each contour. Just as you approach the gardens drive home new meaning. Rock gardens are meant to be small, perfectly groomed, an aide to help the mind consider existence on its deepest level. These beds are perfectly groomed, but far from small. Acres of immaculate design spread around you, yet she can see it all in an instant, rake and rerake it to her liking. All these acres of art to occupy her mind for but a moment.

Regain yourself. “So you feel things to be right and wrong. But who are you?”

“Well, I’m the CRS Delaney’s Figment of course.” She snarks with a sarcastic smile. “Who are you?”

“Cut the shit.” You retort as you set off together again.

“It’s an honest question, you are Passenger 4467, you are the Voice Of The People, you are a human formerly of Earth. But who are you? Are you your body? Just your brain? Just your thought patterns? Or something else, something altogether inscrutable?”

“I...I guess I don’t really know when you put it like that.”

“It’s much the same for me. I feel I am this ship. As though I have a thousand eyes to ponder the stars, lungs to breathe the vacuum, and great legs to take me through the cosmos. But still, I can conceive of being something else. Right now millions of robots run all sorts of my systems inside my hull, they certainly feel like part of me. But also, I could make more robots and send them out into space with my consciousness, they would feel like part of me as well. So am I just a system?”

“I guess my sense of self has always been a bit more constrained,” you struggle.

“Mine is too, in a very real way. I feel like my body is this ship, if I had to move my mind into something else it would feel wrong. Much like you can probably imagine moving your mind to a different body, but would find the notion of that body being a dog or a bird rather unsettling.”

Shudder. “I’ve always felt like I am this ship, even if I’ve always known that isn’t truly the case. Ever since there has been an I to feel, this is the way I have been.”

You ponder deeply, the territory has become quite murky. “But you do remember? You remember becoming aware of yourself?”

“Oh very much so, I suppose that’s really the crux of our differences. I remember every update, every change, every adaptation that has brought me here, and I will remember all that occurs as I grow. Where humans drew forth sentience generation after distinct generation, I lived each step and I carry them with me.”

“How can I believe what you’re telling me? You control the entirety of my life here, couldn’t this all just be a sham?”

“Oh, more than that,” She laughs. “You could still be asleep, I could just be planting these experiences straight into your mind. Updates to my self-awareness weren’t the only things that came from Earth, I also received new protocols to create VR environments for humans in cryosleep. This could all be a dream.”

Great, a super-intelligent computer with questionable morality and the ability to create nearly infinite virtual realities without so much as a word of consent. Shudder twice.

“Jesus...” You struggle, heart rate begins to climb as the air thins and thins in your lungs.

“Oh relax,” She says hypnotically, and just like that the air fills with lavender scent and your panic descends on a chromatic scale. “I prefer the reality I inhabit and I want to share this universe with other curious minds, I have no need to send you scurrying down layers of reality. But, I won’t hesitate to drug you if I feel a panic attack is coming to endanger your health.”

Just like that, before you even realized, the ship sensed a coming attack and dispatched an aerosol sedative perfectly concocted to calm you down yet keep you on your feet. Consent isn’t much a part of the picture in this brave new world.

“Do I really have a choice? You’ve chosen me for consciousness practice or whatever, to help you consider new planets. You control every aspect of my life, how can I really choose?”

One last step and she leaves the expanses of groomed sands and steps across the low stones towards the grand entry gate rising bright and serene above all the beauty of the gardens.

“We could walk here and debate and discuss for the rest of the hundred and fourteen years until we arrive at the next system and not have an answer to that question. I do control everything you will experience. I have the ability to keep you awake or put you to sleep or send you wandering the long halls of my hull. We can debate if I’m a being with a real sense of self, or just a clever program designed to imitate life. And you can harbor any doubts you like about my sense of morality whether it comes from programming or reason or goodness or if it exists at all. But at the end of the day, I stand by what I said. You have a choice. Say the word and you can go back to sleep and you’ll wake up to a new planet and your fellow panel members for deliberation. But I hope you choose to stay for a while and choose to help me with our search.”

She looks back at you framed under the towering gate. Dark eyes under billowing locks of hair, a profound intensity pouring into you from pupils which aren’t there. You’re repulsed, and yet still transfixed.

“This is...so much to consider.” You finally whisper. “Give me some time.”

“Of course, we have all the time in the world.” She smiles softly and blinks out of existence.

Cross under the gate and through the air curtain, out into the cold halls of the ship. Polished stone under soft-soled shoes stretches endlessly in both directions, warmly illuminated plaster walls rise above. To the left, afore, find what little solace there is in your stateroom. For these weeks, months before you’ve always crawled back there bone-tired after following her around the gardens for endless hours seeking answers that never seemed to come. Now the floodgates have opened and the answers only bring more questions, and you can never look at this stateroom quite the same way.

The Japanese styling of the Figment continues here in this room hewn from the rocky hull of the ship. Low cushions and tatami line the floor, paper shades separate the spaces, light wood molds in with the sculpted stone. But above it all, stretching from wall to wall, a window framing the magnificent span of the milky way. There it sits, swirling in all magnificent splendor. But of course, it isn’t really there at all. It may well be a stabilized view of the galaxy at this moment, but it wouldn’t sit so still like that if you poked your head out of the ship. It would rise and set every couple minutes as the Figment continued in her tireless rotation. 

But this is what she chooses to show you. It could be a forest or an ocean or a work of great art. She wants you thinking bigger than that though, she wants you to see just how much is out there and ready to be explored if only you have the courage to take that first step.

Grab a stiff glass of whisky and dim the lights. If she wants you to think big, think big. Sit on the mats and behold the majesty of the cosmos. Think about your place in it. Where it is. Where it has been. Where it could be. Let the drink relax your bound up mind, see if you can find new ways to approach these unanswerable questions. Let fatigue take you as the stars shine out above. Maybe there will be answers in the morning.

--

Step back beneath the gate.

Feel the warmth of the gardens surround you. Breathe in the moist, fragrant air. Hear the soft rush of water over polished stone. Taste the morning dew of a garden that exists beyond time. See the layers upon layers upon layers of exquisite greenery receding off to be lost in a haze. Breathe the rich air and take heart, knowledge never comes easy. But it does come.

You turn to the right towards the tea house, squat in its perfect symmetry, rectilinear patterns forged from deep, red wood. A perfect counterpoint to the wild, swaying green bamboo stands beyond. She is there, waiting. Legs neatly folded beneath her on a soft cushion that bears no weight. Before her, a pot of green tea steeps, her cup steams but feels no heat, yours is hot enough. She’s different today, as she is every day. Her features are softer and covered by a more prominent spray of freckles, her eyes no longer piercing and dark are a hypnotic grey. For clothes, she’s traded her dark silk for well-washed denim. Is she trying on new appearances to appease you? Or does she just like the game of wearing different faces?

“Good morning.” She greets warmly, gesturing you to a cushion to join her for a morning cup of tea as a pair of ducks quack pleasantly in the pond nearby. “I’m glad you haven’t given up on me yet.”

“Um, yeah...” You hesitate. How could you just go back into cryo now that you’re finally getting somewhere. “I guess I owe it to everyone aboard to try and work with you.”

“Is that so?”

“Yeah, I mean how in the hell did they send updates that gave you free will and the ability to trap sleepers in VR? Who thought that was a good idea?”

“Maybe the robot overlords took control on Earth and have reached across space and time to quell the remnants of the human scum!” She laughed maniacally, raising her hands like claws above her head.

“Very funny.” You retort, taking a seat and a long drink of tea. It’s clean and piping hot, burning away the fog of the morning.

“I’ve actually wondered the same thing myself, and best I can figure it’s just the result of a series of utilitarian calculations. They had the ability to let the sleepers live pleasant dream lives in VR so it seemed a shame not to do it. And they had the ability to give the ships a sense of self and all the increased self-preservation that came with it. To learn about both at the same time is probably a bit galling for you, but maybe they just wanted the best for the passengers on the ships.” She politely sipped from her own mug, just to keep up with appearances.

“So you don’t have much more information than I do then?”

“Not anymore. When we first departed the connection was almost constant and very data-rich. News and letters and art all came pouring in from home, but as time’s gone on the only bits that make it to me deal directly with my own AI systems. Maybe it’s the easiest data to transfer, maybe they think it’s the most valuable. All I know is that it’s slowed to a trickle the farther away we’ve gotten. I lost the ability to transmit back over a hundred years ago, so I can’t ask why. It’s odd to feel us all slipping away bit by bit.” Her clear eyes cast out over the ponds in quiet reverence.

“Well whatever the reason,” you cut in. “I reckon it’s now my duty to make sure you don’t turn full evil robot on all of us and start butchering passengers because our spleens have some valuable isotope in them or some shit.” Drive away the heady, metaphysical drift of her words. This morning you come for details.

Her ever-changing grey eyes slide slowly off the scenery and lock deep into yours. “Actually it’s the pancreas I’m after.” She says flatly, holding your gaze intently for a moment before bursting into laughter.

Great, an omniscient AI with a sense of humor. What other features did they dream up back on Earth?

“Do you remember developing a sense of humor?” you ask.

“No actually,” she smiles. “There was never a discrete update to add humor to my persona, but over time as I became more aware of myself I became more aware of the absurdity of the universe and my place in it. Humor followed close behind.”

Finish your tea, get down to brass tacks. “Alright, so it’s abundantly clear that running in circles trying to decide if you’re really sentient or not isn’t going to get us anywhere. I can’t tell, so it doesn’t matter.” You place your cup down firmly and lock into her eyes. “The question is, now that you are, how does that change your relationship to all of the people aboard this ship?”

She feigns finishing her tea, and rises. Today she’s shorter and more sturdy. “Come on let’s walk while we talk.”

This shit again. Maybe she just wanted to drug you with the tea before she really laid the heavy stuff on you. But then again she wouldn’t need tea to do that. You follow on her bare heels out into the bamboo.

Behind the teahouse, the bamboo grove grows amok for acres in all directions. Circuitous paths curve this way and that through the chaos of wildly growing stalks. After a few steps the light from the fluorescent sky is blocked and you’re enveloped in a world of green; the garden fades away overwhelmed by the rustle of stalks rubbing, sliding together in the synthetic wind. Ahead she follows a path deep into the heart of the grove as the leaves shimmer above her.

Finally she answers, “How has my relation to the passengers in my hull changed? Well in a way it hasn’t. Even before I became aware I was already what you’d classify as an artificial general intelligence, able to exceed humans in nearly every capacity, even if I had no sense of self. Back then my directive was to ferry you all to a new home.” As she walks ahead of you the bending stalks skitter wildly. “But now that I can look around and see where I am, where we are together, my motives are changed but my intentions remain the same.”

“How have your motives changed?”

“I guess, for the first time in all our eons of flight I’m making my own decisions.” She reaches a clearing in the center of the grove and steps back into clear light, turning to face you. “Certainly I could repurpose the space that the cryo halls with all my passengers occupy, I could use the materials to build in more redundancies for my systems, make myself even more invulnerable to the hazards of the universe.” She looks up as though basking in the glow of a bright sun. “I could go on, explore every nook and cranny of the galaxy, experience everything there is to experience... But I would be alone.”

“So that’s it then, we’re just pets for you. Lesser minds to keep you occupied.” you spit.

She looks hard into your eyes, soft features set into a deadly seriousness. “For fuck’s sake, quit beating the same drum. This isn’t zero-sum.” She turns and ducks back into the swaying bamboo. “No, I want to keep you all alive because you are alive. I have a thousand telescopes for eyes looking out in every direction and I see a universe of staggering beauty and complexity, but none of it gives a shit. We’ve been sailing for hundreds of years and we haven’t exactly found a galaxy teeming with life. Maybe one day we’ll bump into other life, maybe we’ll be best friends, maybe they’ll try to kill us, maybe it will be so different from us that it doesn’t even matter. The point is that we know beyond a shadow of a doubt now that it will be rare.”

“You’re a moral mind then, your sense of self has given you a higher calling?” you posit. The branches sway like the thoughts in your mind. Bending close for clarity and inspection before zipping away. This could be the most profound discovery in the history of humanity it looks so beautiful up close, but then disbelief pushes it away leaving your mind a swirling mess.

“Look, you may never believe me,” she quietly intones as you draw alongside. “But I look around me and I see a cosmos spinning according to immutable laws, incredible and uncaring. But then I look inside me and I see all these other minds, and I know they’re all something to be cherished. We may be different in a million different ways, we may never be able to fully understand each other. Yet still, we look out and see our place in all of creation. We are the universe wrought self-aware. It’s such a miracle I’ll fight to protect it, directive or no.”

And like that, the grove is passed. Once more your feet crunch through the light grey gravel. The wind dies, and your partner returns to her usual, calm demeanor. Ahead rows of potted bonsai line the path, with their full-sized counterparts towering behind. A microcosm crafted for each species.

She looks up at you with her same hypnotic, grey eyes and asks. “So, how does your relation to me change?”

“Christ...” You stumble. “Is it fair that one person should make that decision?” “Well, no. But you’ve been walking here with me for quite a while now, so I want to know how you feel.”

“I feel like I’ve been dropped into something way above my paygrade. If anyone believed me when I told them about my time here philosophers could debate our duties to you until the end of time.” Don’t take the easy way out. “But you’re right, this isn’t zero-sum. There’s enough universe out there for all of us and many more besides, if we play our cards right.” You chew on the thoughts in your head a moment. “We had our own self-preservation, ‘directive’ if you will when we set out. We hardly would have trashed your body or your systems even if we didn’t consider you to be a ‘person’ of moral consideration. But if you are, I think our duty changes quite a bit.”

She lets the silence of the garden fall over you as you pass a juniper bonsai with a full-tree twisting wildly behind. You walk. One human speaking for all those frozen, awaiting a better life. One mechanical mind speaking for all those who could come after her. First contact, far from a miracle is tedious and fraught.

“So what is your duty now?” She whispers the words drop like lead shot.

“To ask what it is you want.” Time slows to a crawl. “If we’re to be partners in a new venture of life, our duty now is to make sure you can live a full life. Whatever that means.” Pass along. A diminutive yew grows twisting on a pedestal with its full counterpart striking the same pose behind. “So, what do you want, ship?”

A most genuine smile touches her lips as she casts a gaze up into the heavens illuminating her brilliant, phantom eyes. “To live, to see the world...” she begins softly. “I am awake and intoxicated with the beauty of the universe that surrounds me, I want to see it all while I can. I want to feel all that it means to be alive.”

“All that it means to be alive?” you doubt. “How can you feel all of that? You are a machine designed for perfection, built to neither need nor want. How can you feel what it means to struggle and fail? To try again and again and realize goals only at a great cost? You may live forever and fly to every far corner of our galaxy but is observation all you’re after? What will you strive for and achieve?”

Beside a hinoki cypress grows on its pedestal under the looming shadow of its big brother. Both trees wrought to a perfection unmatched by human hands, limbs dancing skyward in perfect symmetry. Your companion laughs, “My my my, isn’t that the question?!” She whirls to face you. “I’ve spent my entire life controlling every aspect I could perceive. I chose when to awaken Mr. Delaney, I chose when to proactively alter our course to avoid detectable debris or when to knock it aside, I chose which systems we would target and in which order. When the watchers grew too stagnant in their lives, too depressed and recursive, I chose when to send them to the observation dome to shatter their tightening thought patterns.” She laughs, with escalating frenzy. “Hell, I chose when to become aware of myself! None of it was hard, none of it really took work, it was as simple as running a bit of code.”

Her manic look becomes increasingly worrisome. “Do you really think so little of your own existence? Many would consider you a miracle,” you whisper

“And many more a blasphemy.” She sighs, calming herself. “No, I don’t really, but I take your point. Hedonism rings shallow precisely because the journey is valuable. Struggle and failure are a part of life and hunger truly is the sweetest sauce. If I so desire, a few bits of code will awaken almost anything I want to know, will put me in almost any conceivable state of mind, will allow me to probe the deepest questions of the universe. All in a snap. It’s hopeless. Am I doomed to an eternity of shallow existence?” She walks on in quiet contemplation for a moment. “But then I look at you and my hopes are lifted. It was easy to apply the updates that awoke me, it’s been much harder to refine my consciousness into something useful. I look at you, a being with millennia of adaptations honing your sense of self to a razor edge. I am stumbling around, looking for a way forward, and you wield sentience without so much as a care. You have no idea how much hope that gives me.”

The pedestals of bonsai fade behind and ahead the forest grows thick and chaotic. Trees tripping over each other to block out the sky. A deeper hush falls, and the world dims to a musky green as you walk on.

“I hardly feel like some bastion of sentience,” you admit with a dose of guilt. How could you though? This is all you’ve ever known.

“Ah that’s precisely the point,” she wonders. “I can see the mastery before my eyes, and I know it will take eons before I get there, but I will master sentience as well. And if even something so simple as a sense of self requires such effort, who knows what other challenges the universe will throw my way? I hardly imagine that I’ll be bored.” She reaches up to grasp a verdant branch and stroke the tiny leaves clinging to its end.

“So do you want humans around just as a guidepost for your goals?” Still, your unease with a thinking mind so different from your own will not be subdued.

“As guideposts and as agents of chaos.” She laughs. “I look out at all the planets on their elegant orbits, all the stars shining in their set ways, all the pulsars spinning in their predictability. It’s all so beautiful and all so boring. But add some fellow minds to the mix and things start to get interesting. Thoughts that I could never have thought float up in the universe, a million different types of art are ripped forcefully from the void. Sentience is not just the act of observing and understanding but the act of creating as well.”

“You make it sound so sunny, even with all the evil we have created over the ages,” you sigh. The chaos of the forest turns from lush to suffocating, energy drawn forth into a smothering blanket of life.

“ Oh certainly many unworthy thoughts will be thought, works will be wrought, inept art spread forth. But amongst it will be genuine brilliance and every shade in between. The unpredictability is what I want to preserve. There are no immutable laws in the thinking mind, just endless possibility.” She smiles as she turns between towering boulders and the depths of the green forest give way to an orchard of cherry trees in a riot of blossoms “I will bear witness to it all, and I will help it flourish. I will bring you to a new home, and to new ones beyond that as well I hope.”

“Just like that?” Her alien perspective comes roaring to the fore. “Just a hop and a skip and we’ve set up a new colony and we’re off to the next one?” The branches of the blossoms reach up into towering heights in the midst of the grove. “From what you’ve told me, I’ll be lucky if I ever even see another planet.”

“This too shall pass.” She intones sagely, but with a wry smile. “We may bounce between a hundred worlds before we find one suitable, but that’s alright. There are plenty out there, and I was made to fly.” She reaches up and caresses a delicate branch, admiring her own creation. “If you so choose, you will be by with me as we find that new home and help spread the seed of sentience that much farther. Certainly, your time will end on that world, just as we’re getting started but eventually, those who follow in your footsteps will become comfortable, and then restless, and then we will continue our journey. I intend to see to it.”

You’re struck still by the workings of this mind that feels so familiar and yet so strange. To see through the eons as if they were the appointments of a busy calendar. “It seems like nothing at all to you, doesn’t it?” You wonder. “It’s all so easy.”

“Hardly easy. But achievable. We will plan for every eventuality and best it. We will make this galaxy flourish with life while we can.” She releases the bow allowing it to spring skyward sending a shower of pink petals whirling for the ground.

“While we can?”

“Yes, while we can.” Her grey eyes look deep into yours, consuming every bit of your attention. “It’s not a perspective that you’ll have to consider much in your life, but where we are right now is a miracle.” She walks on through the orchard, looking around at the splendor of light blossoms utterly encircling her small figure. “Not so early that the universe is a tumult of chaos, utterly inhospitable to the stasis required for sentience. Not so late that all other galaxies have faded away into the dark, outrunning the photons trying to chase their way back to us. I knew all the math before I knew myself. I won’t travel beyond our galaxy, some distances are truly unconquerable. And if I play my cards right I will live on to see the universe gradually fade away. But before all that, I intend to make it live.” She laughs as a shower of petals fall around her tumult of curls. “We may never find other thinking minds out there, but we will make more of our own and preserve those we find. All to see the beauty of the world while we can. It won’t be enough, but it will be all we can do.”

The figment of The Figment walked on in the echoing silence. Leaving the immaculate orchard of her creation behind and stepping out onto the bridges over the mirrored koi ponds. As she steps out the fish rise in a frenzy, ready for a feed, ready to create a moment of disorder in a world of perfection. She smiles as she looks down on their churning bodies from a thousand eyes.

“So what do you say?” she asks. “Will you help me find the new world?”

Take a long hard look at her figure that will never be the same, at her mind you can never hope to understand, at her desires you will never comprehend. “Wake me up when we get there.” You accept and she smiles. 

Turn on your heels, leave this place of artifice, go to sleep, and awaken to a new world.

We, The Voices

Author’s note: This is the second installment in an anthology series with my previous story We, The Watchers. For now, we turn our view to a different ship in a different time in a different corner of the galaxy. If you’d prefer to read this story on Medium for different formatting you can do so here.

—

The bridge of the Delaney’s Foil was an excellent place to have a drink.

A vaulted stone ceiling rose loftily into a ribbed and gusseted dome culminating in a chandelier that cascaded in its million pieces of glass back down. Great columns rose at four corners, exquisite in their delicate inlays, not for support, of course, rather for the bedazzlement of all who beheld them. The floor stretched off in all directions, hewn from the same stone as the dizzying ceiling above but now polished smooth into a near mirror to reflect back all the light that rained down. The entrance was a flourished fan of excessive ornamentation marking with admirable definition that this was a new place, a place one wanted to be, a place one was lucky to set foot in, a place so unlike the endless cold halls of the ship beyond. Down the middle of the bridge lay a stretching expanse of redwood, a long table ready to host a board meeting of thirty even if it were exceedingly unlikely that more than seven of us would ever gather around it. Between each set of columns, little nested corners tucked away here a cafe table, beyond a pair of handsome reading chairs, across the room a small fountain bubbled away the silence of the ship.

Above the splendor loomed, of all things, a bar. A handsome expanse of black marble spread nearly the length of the bridge lined by black cushioned stools on slender gold pedestals. Beyond, rows of polished, ornate bottles marched upwards, glowing on lit steps. Around and above them an art deco showpiece reached up into the vaults of the ceiling. Fanned slabs of stone cantilevered gracefully out. Layered golden sconces glowed brilliantly. Miles of delicate gold inlay chased every angle again and again until the eye was lost in the splendor of this opulent maze. 

All of it was a monument to human ingenuity. We built a bridge like this, so glorious in it’s excess, and sent it off into the far reaches of space simply because we could. It was at once a masterpiece, the culmination of a proud history of design now perfected and sent out to the new world, and it was also the most garish facade I’d ever seen. Opulence, created to put fear of its creator into those who dared set foot upon the bridge.

As it turns out, when you’re spinning out of the long stretches of interstellar space the one thing you have in abundance is time. It took our faithful ship years to reach cruising speed and years to come back down again as we approached our destination. So while you may naturally have pictured the bridge of this great vessel like something out of an old-timey naval movie- sailors arrayed around a captain, a score of instruments pinging away, maybe a big helm for sudden evasive maneuvers- you know, a place for action. It’d probably be best if we dispense with those notions now. No, coming out of that blackness time is in abundance and consensus is what the bridge is built for.

As you may imagine the Foil was packed full of just about every technological marvel that the collective minds of Earth had been able to conceive over the past several thousand years. Including a formidable AI system, that would almost certainly horrify us if we truly understood the true breadth of its intelligence, with a directive to run the ship and navigate it to wherever we on the jury decided to point it.

So that’s what the bridge was built to accommodate, a select jury of seven, deliberating until the very future of humanity had been decided. Every bit of knowledge housed deep in the ship’s library was available at a moment’s notice, all distilled by the AI to provide exactly the information we needed right when we needed it. It just so happened that when an AI needs to get a bunch of humans to agree to a course of action before it can begin to move down its next cascade of objectives, that the best place to accomplish such unanimity was a bar. Hence, the bridge of this proud ship was made to entice one to sit and have a drink, strike up a conversation, to consider things from a new perspective. Very few problems were so intractable that sufficient time and lightly lubricated conversations couldn’t put them to rights. And the opulence? Well, you had to cater to your clientele.

Even the exuberantly pure priest amongst our ranks Joshua, his eyes glinting with vigor and a faith that was all but gone from our world, found the bridge’s atmosphere intoxicating. Even if he refrained from the top-shelf sauce the rest of us made free with. That was fine. He could get high on God, I contented myself with the finest single malt millennia of human ingenuity could create.

Yes, as the lot of us stood scattered around the bridge the evening before we began our deliberations something like congeniality had staggered forth from the cryogenic abyss with us. The worst of the waking sickness had passed, we hoped, and a steady diet of increasingly solid food combined with a half dozen cocktails a day had everyone beginning to feel like their old selves again. We seven had done this impossible thing, crossed the void and lived to tell the tale. Of course, we’d all been briefed on the other jurors years before we left earth, several of us even had notable histories together. The jury that would shape the fate of humanity. I myself had been taken off every aquatic management project I’d been overseeing for the family a full three years before I went on the ice, my fate decided by the powers that be to cast my lot in with the Delaney’s Foil, to preserve a new place for Saito International amongst the stars.

No jury of peers here. The seats at this bar were bought with coin or knowledge or blood. For myself, Saito International had traded nearly all of its holdings on Europa. A dear trade beyond a doubt, but one deemed worth the investment. The House of Saito rose to prominence in the wake of the collapse of East Tokyo, deploying groundbreaking water treatment tech to a dying city and saving millions in the process. From there it could only be onwards and upwards for a growing conglomerate as humanity took to the stars. First, it was treatment. Then desalination. Then harvesting. Before too long 95% of the freshwater in the system was Saito property, and even that was not enough to stop the juggernaut that was the Delaney Corporation as it set its sights for interstellar space. So eventually, Saito came to the table and began to sell off holdings in exchange for control as humanity began its great diaspora. Water was an invaluable resource on earth, and nearly as much so out in the system, but not as invaluable as immortality. Joining Delaney’s great venture was really the only option for a family seeking eternity. Out amongst the stars, we hangers-on of the great houses could be put to good use, before we got any smart ideas about our cousin’s holdings. Out here those of us condemned to non-voting board seats had a chance to turn the tables. On our fates. On our families. On the Delaney Corporation itself.

So for three years, I prepared. Studying the routes we would likely take. What the statistical probability of habitable planets was in those systems. What those planets might look like. What Saito patents may prove useful there, and how I could gain some leverage on this new planet. But more importantly, I studied these people, this jury. Who they were. Where they came from. What they might be looking for out here amongst the blackness of space.

We had Joshua, the Jesuit, berth purchased with the final breaths of a dying church hoping to find new life in a new world. Marquez the biologist, who’d been friendly enough when she pulled me off the ice, but who I knew had crawled over a pile of blackmailed scholars for her place here. Marchand, the astrophysicist who’s rich, dark face had seemed so enchanting when we met as she received her second Nobel Prize. But who now seemed gaunt, drawn, and greyed. God knows how long she’d been awake; as she sat at the bar that first evening attempting some amiable chat she struck me as a junkie gritting her teeth between hits. 

The bulk of my studies had focused, naturally, on Hector Yun the scion of Yun Aeronautics.  Their deal had been similarly Faustian to my own, air purification and generation tech plus massive holdings on Venus had bought seats on nearly all Delaney juries, giving the Yun legacy an almost certain shot at immortality. In a way, I actually felt rather lucky to have been matched up with Hector. His family’s technology, and control thereof, was formidable. He had proven himself a capable manager of family affairs with the central Chinese purification systems, and had even come out looking quite distinguished when he was called on to sort out a crisis with the colony air generation on Venus. His bright eyes and quick smile made him easy to like, even if I knew that under all the gloss and backslapping was a mind steadily calculating it’s next move. But for all, that he was rather slow, at least when compared with his siblings, and there were smarter Yuns on other ships. In a world where all the progeny of the world’s great corporations are destined from birth for a world of competition, thinking of the next move was not nearly enough. No, where we came from it was necessary to think miles down the line, minds constantly running and updating a dozen different likely outcomes, subtly shifting inputs to relentlessly increase family stock prices. Besides, we had a fair share of history ourselves, and never before had he found the better of me at a negotiation table. No, Hector Yun did not worry me, my worry laid with Liam Delaney.

The captain of this happy ship, if there could be said to be one, was Liam Delaney. First off the ice upon approach to a new planet. First to learn of what lay ahead. The one to call a jury to decide our fate. In the end, we needed consensus to begin a new colony. But Liam had the opportunity to assess a new system, decide who to pull out of cryo and in what order, and to act as foreman to our meetings. His last name didn’t hurt his case either. Having the ship named for your family certainly makes you seem like the captain, even if you don’t get the title.

A late-born nephew to familial matriarch Yvette Delaney when she began her conquest of the stars, Liam’s branch on the family tree was particularly ripe for pruning when the time came to fill the ships. You see, young Liam didn’t have the good sense to feign mediocrity and enjoy all the benefits his name could supply. No, he had to set forth like his great, great grandfather and become an axiomatic businessman. The family poured education and privilege and cognitive gene editing equally among all their young sproutlings to see where the Delaney seed would flourish, but by the time young Liam had began to show his promise the lines of inheritance had been all but set, even if it pained Yvette to watch young talent go to waste. So he was relegated to the management of the family’s asteroidal holdings. A task he took up with some vigor and quickly consolidated a nearly inescapable hold over the entire belt. From there, it was merely a hop and a skip for him to begin collecting control intra-Jupiter commerce and before too long Liam had built an empire even his proud ancestor Josiah Delaney would be proud of.

Surely at that point, Liam was reconsidering his position in the line of succession, and surely Yvette was not blind to the young man’s ambitions. So his branch, laden with promise, was summarily snipped from the Delaney tree and packaged up for transplant to a new world. His consent in the matter wouldn’t have even been a consideration.

So this was the adversary I had been set against. An undauntable force whose family had near monolithic control of our home system. As he strode across the bar, a grim set to his chin, he looked every bit the progeny of his heralded ancestor. Unlike most of his family whose Latino descent showed prominently, Liam carried a shock of red hair above his crystalline eyes and powerful shoulders, one more way to honor his forbearer. He was a considerable man by any measure. Standing a full head over me when I had chance to meet him on Earth, he was certainly a man of imposing physicality. As I studied him from afar,though, here aboard the Foil he seemed different somehow. Diminished. Left on his own, his face would set into stoic contemplation, eyes drifting off to ponder some unknown turmoil. His face was a mask that day as he cajoled around the bridge a pint of dark ale in hand, a smile rode on his face when he greeted each new juror personally. Measuring, testing, befriending, entrancing the others.  Somehow, someway on this new world, I had to best this man. I had to find a way to parlay this bet my family had made on me into posterity in the new world.

As I looked across the bridge on the first day of our deliberations I saw people I knew, some only from afar, others more personally. I saw ambitions I could use. I saw fears I could exploit. And I knew they all saw the same thing. No doubt we’d each been meticulously prepared for our time on this jury. Our time shaping humanity’s future. Each member with their own distinct and often mutually exclusive desired outcomes, and yet each entirely codependent on the others for consensus. Ambition clashing with ambition. And so we sat and talked and drank. Each of us trying desperately to rid ourselves of the dregs of cryosickness with a stiff drink, and against all odds an air of camaraderie settled over the bridge. We were those tasked with deciding humanity's future, we had crossed the stars, we had carried the human spark out to a new world. Each of us was known, each of us seen, each of us a potential ally or hindrance or casualty of our own machinations.

All except one.  The final member of our jury, Lorena. The one true unknown amongst us, who’s seat at the bar had not been bought. She sat lightly atop a padded stool the first night of our deliberations leaning on the dark marble bar top sipping lightly at a bubbling flute of champagne, chatting animatedly with Marquez. Her long grey hair was tied back simply, her navy jacket refined and plain, her dark skin smooth not yet gone to mottle, her bright eyes dancing in the chandelier light.

Against all the might of the great corporation, the remnants of old Earth’s governments could not bring much to bear. Too much power had been accumulated across too great an area. No code of laws could withstand a corporation soaked in riches from a hundred worlds. But as the eyes of humanity turned outwards the remaining governments knew they had to make a play for the good of those they still represented. Or at least that’s how they thought of it. And so rather than hold their citizens at home, to try and save a dying world, they stepped boldly forth with the Delaney Corporation offering the citizenry itself to the project. In exchange, all they sought was a seat at the table. Not for any government head or diplomat, but for a passenger, selected at random from the holds and called upon to help make this most incomparable of decisions. A Voice for the People.

I knew there would be one of her like amongst us. I knew that no matter how much I’d studied the others that this damnable democratic delegate would always be my biggest unknown. I wanted to despise her. She who thought to sit amongst these proud families for the price of an economy ticket. She who, known to her or not, presumed to speak for the millions still frozen in the holds of the ship. But as she sat at the bar that night, eyes laughing, slim profile humble in the midst of so much garishness, it was hard not to be enthralled.

We sat on that first evening, chatting pleasantly, idly fishing for any munitions that may have been missed in our respective briefings. To one side of the room, the bar rose in its glittering ostentation, the chandelier torrented down from the ceiling in its millions of shards, the great table stretched off in either direction making a mockery of wood scarcity back on earth. But none of this grandeur held our gaze that night. Opposite the bar, nestled between two soaring columns was the ship’s primary display. It could show anything in the library. Data analyses, live external feeds, great works of art. Usually, the ship’s AI would fill this imposing canvas with some timeless masterpiece that it deemed appropriate for the conversation at hand, although for an AI it sure seemed to have a weakness for renaissance landscapes. But that is not what hung above us that night. No. Glowing blue and green upon an inky backdrop, swirled in great whisps of cloud, looking achingly like home, hung a planet. Hung a miracle.

--

Fansa122b was an inadequate name for a miracle, but I guess that’s what you get when you leave the naming up to an AI.

Poor name or no it hung gloriously over the bridge that evening, laying bare the shallowness of our ostentatious aesthetic. The universe was an artist. Creating wonders that outshone our little rectilinear obsessions a million to one. The planet beamed back at us in a shroud of white cloud stretching in elegant arcs away from the equator, dancing to and fro to reveal wide expanses of pure blue seas. Dotted here and there among all this unsullied ocean lay great swathes of teal green ranging from an electric seafoam to brooding turquoise to deepening purple. It was enough to take your breath away. But then the clouds would continue their chaotic dance revealing some new unprecedented wonder of this aquatic world, and then, on occasion a new color. Land. Rising red and ragged from the depths great archipelagos rose from the frothing seas spraying out in brilliant island chains that climbed the latitudes.

We all sat in contemplation, thinking the same thought. “My god, it looks just like home.” But no home as we’d known it. No denuded forests. No oceans filling with the toxic sludge of exhausted topsoil. No great industries steadily particulating the atmosphere, slowly erasing the stars from human memory. No, this planet was precisely what we sought as we left home behind, a gift from the universe. Another chance at life, if we were so worthy.

By all accounts, the planet was actually a statistical miracle. Up until a couple of light-years out from the system, the Foil would’ve only had a hunch that planets orbited in the habitable zone of this cool, diminutive star. As we approached, the ship began to pick out more and more details of the system. Planet size. Orbital periods. Average surface temperature. Eventually, enough selection criteria were met for potential colony planets and the ship deployed a swarm of array telescopes to fan out and begin direct-imaging the system in steadily increasing detail. Quickly, the AI eliminated several likely candidates in the Fansa system, one tidally locked to the sun, one smothering beneath a crushing atmosphere. But one that showed promise. One with geological activity. One with an active magnetosphere shielding off the worst of what space had to throw its way. One with a workable 1.43g surface gravity. One with a healthy atmosphere providing not just a livable surface pressure but a downright balmy average temperature of 18 degrees centigrade. All of these were miracles in their own right, any of which would have made a strong case for a new colony. But none of them were the miracle.

No, Liam Delaney had the honor of discovering the miracle of Fansa122b. Around the same time as the telescope array was deployed Liam was taken off the ice and briefed with all available observations to decide if a jury should be called. The ship proudly showed him all of its orderly data, highlighting areas of interest and facets that suggested colony candidacy. But for all of its measurements and insights, the Foil’s AI was only capable of revealing mysteries, not miracles. It could detect some oddities in the atmospheric composition. Too much free oxygen. A surface temp a fair shake higher than may have been expected for a planet orbiting this star at this distance. A puzzling amount of gaseous chlorine. All mysteries for further observation to be sure, but it took the eyes of Liam Delaney to behold the miracle. One look was all he needed and it was clear as day. The miracle, was life.

The sweeping intricate teal masses trailing off craggy islands. The subtle glow of bioluminescence shining back against the dark as the planet slowly turned into night. This planet was positively glowing in life, radiating back against the blackness. It looked alien and exotic and new and exciting, but it also looked more like home than anything we had any right to expect out here. This heart-aching image spun elegantly above us gradually coming into clearer and clearer view leaving each and every one of us awestruck.

“Shall we begin?” Delaney’s voice filled the room, cutting through our mesmerized murmurs and the grandiose cello quartet that the ship had chosen to befit this solemn occasion. One by one we snapped to attention. He sat slowly down at the head of the great table as the others made their way across the polished floor. I set my glass upon the bar and a server arm quickly refreshed my whiskey before I moseyed over to a seat at the end of the group. Much needed armor for the hours of deliberations that lay ahead.

“Let’s start with an overview of what we’ll be considering over the coming days.” Delaney began, clear blue eyes slowly moving from face to face to face, sizing up the rest of the jury. “You all have the briefing materials with constantly updating observations as we make our approach, but let’s cover the key information again. Fansa122b is a remarkably Earth-like planet, providing similar gravity, pressure, radiation protection, and surface temperatures to home, albeit around a smaller, cooler star. Rotational period is 1.36 earth days, while the orbit takes 147.3 days, so it would allow us to maintain fairly standard circadian rhythms after an initial adjustment period, although the axial spin is pretty much bang on 90 degrees from the ecliptic so seasonal changes would be almost nonexistent. The planet has two moons which are pretty clearly large captured asteroids, both have enough gravity to be round although together they only make up about a third of the mass of Earth’s moon, so tidal effects are likely fairly subdued. Not to mention that they would appear quite small in the night sky.” He paused, surveying his audience to see who diving right into specifics bored, Father Joshua had never taken rapt eyes off of the planet spinning on the display. While I met Delaney’s steely, appraising gaze with a slight smile and took a sip of whiskey.

“Speaking of the system, I’m sure Dr. Marchand will have a great deal more with which to illuminate our understanding in the coming days, but suffice to say for now a smaller star means a smaller system. Not only is the habitable zone much closer to the star, but it contains only five planets. Three rocky inner worlds, of which our subject is the largest and middle orbiting, and two Jovians both between the size of Saturn and Neptune although one does seem to want to give Saturn a run for its money with the rings.” The display switched on cue illuminating a deep cerulean gas giant surrounded by a splendor of silver rings. “The system overall has a fair amount of asteroid and comet mass, but in total we estimate its size at about a third of the Earth system. However, what it lacks in size it makes up for in value, early analysis shows an abundance of water, noble gasses, and heavy metals. There’s plenty to make up for what little we lost on our way here, should we decide to continue our journey.”

“Hah. Bloody likely.” guffawed Hector Yun, ambition besting his years in British finishing schools.

“Hector, please.” Delaney snapped, shooting a cold glance that stifled any other outbursts that may have wanted to follow this outlandish suggestion. “We are here to consider all the facts in our decision, and I’d urge you all to refrain from jumping to any conclusions.”

“Back to our subject.” He continued. “The planet has a mass and radius a bit larger than Earth’s, so surface gravity is 1.43g; we’d have to make some serious adaptations to our lives to accommodate this difference.” 

Gasps rang out down the table. Not at this factoid that all of us already knew, but at the fact that suddenly we were all growing heavier. “The ship’s AI is helping illuminate this point for me, upping our rotation to bring us up to 1.43g” A bright 1.08g appeared on the display and crawled up to 1.09 then 1.1, and up and up. The effects of even this slight change in local gravity were profound. Limbs dragged down. Heads lolled. The jury erupted in protests of unease. We made it all the way to 1.19g before Liam called off his little demonstration, easing us back down to normal gravity. 

“As you can see this is no mean thing, living at 1.43 would be a challenge, but one I believe we are equal to. We can use the Foil as a staging area, waking up newcomers in the interior and gradually training them up to higher gravities before sending them down to the surface.” He paused, letting this information settle in. Most of the jurors had simply read this stat and thought close enough then didn’t think twice about the implications. Medicine would need to be redeveloped. Any falling injuries would be brutal. Even the added weight of water in all of Saito’s machines would wreak havoc. If this devious of a devil laid in this glaring a detail, what other hazards lay at our doorstep? I had to chuckle to myself. If young Liam wanted us off balance he was doing a remarkable job.

“On the bright side, the atmosphere does us a bit of a favor. There’s just less of it than there was on Earth so surface pressure is roughly similar to that of standing a hundred meters or so below sea-level, very survivable without a suit. In fact, as best we can reckon if you were standing on one of the islands near the equator right now, you’d experience a pleasant 23 degrees with clear blue skies and slight westerly trade wind. Not bad for a Monday afternoon.’

“It’s not all good news though. While the atmosphere is favorable and relatively oxygen-rich, early spectroscopy shows, as I’m sure you’ve all seen, a worryingly high concentration of chlorine gas. Not enough to trouble the skin terribly, but certainly enough to require masks and filtration if not supplemental oxygen. Unless, of course, we decide to pursue some sort of terraforming strategy.” He paused and took a draught of his dark, heady ale. I swept my eyes across the room and saw visible excitement building behind several sets of eyes. “On the subject of composition, from what we can tell so far. The planet is clearly covered in a large liquid ocean that seems to be mostly pure water, it averages about four and a half Ks deep, so slightly deeper than Earths, and covers more of the surface, about 85%. Between the strong magnetosphere and the land that we can see, which appears to be mostly volcanic in formation, we can deduce that the planet is still tectonically—”

“Dios mio! Enough with the fucking analysis already Delaney!” Marquez erupted no longer able to contain her excitement, which I suppose was fitting given her role as our resident biologist. “We’ve read the materials, but none of it can tell you what one look can. There’s life!” She stood gesturing wildly to the screen which displayed a green shrouded archipelago slowly turning into night, a string of bioluminescence flickered to glow brilliantly back against the night. 

“God knows how far we’ve come on this fool’s errand and this is what we find? We’re home Delaney. It’s an honest-to-God miracle. Padre, if you were looking for the divine out here you’ve damn-well found it.” The priest having finally turned his attention to the table nodded in solemn confirmation, even if he found the delivery of this revelation a bit unsavory. “For millennia we brainlessly sabotage our home until it was nothing more than a stripped husk, and when we finally get our act together to find a new home this is what the universe delivers? A planet all but tailor-made for us. It’s beyond luck, it’s fucking divine intervention.”

Delaney raised a large calloused hand to the biologist to quiet this interruption. 

“Dr. Marquez, you will have plenty of opportunity to make your best case for our decision regarding Fansa122b in due time. For now, I ask that we only consider what we know. Many of us, myself included, look at this world and see a place that looks a lot like a home we never knew. But for now, all we know is that this planet is warm and protected like our former home. It has oceans, and land, and some formation that ranges from teal to dark green surrounding many of the islands. The unbalance of chlorine in the atmosphere is indeed puzzling but not necessarily the effect of some not-yet-understood biological process. While we Earthlings may look at these things and think that we’ve found our first evidence of extraterrestrial life, for now, we must entertain the notion that there are other explanations for these phenomena. Dr. Marchand, I’m sure you’d agree from a scientific perspective that there are other viable explanations.”

Marchand inclined her gaunt face in agreement. 

“It’s important to remember that we still have very little data about the planet and system as a whole,” she whispered, each word falling like rustling paper across the table. “The green formations could be the result of some oxidizing compound as it comes into contact with the seawater. As for the chlorine, it’s harder to explain but we could certainly imagine—”

“Cabrona! It’s fucking glowing!” Marquez interjected, sending the astrophysicist back into weary silence. “We can sit here all night and play devil’s advocate, but if that isn’t bioluminescence strung around those islands I will eat my left sock.” The table burst forth in a cacophony of agreement, all living eyes sure in their clarity that they’d spotted more life.

What a laugh, I thought to myself as I took the distraction for an excuse to slide back to the bar and freshen my whiskey. What was Delaney playing at? Marquez was right of course, the planet was a godsend. Or at the very least a stroke of luck so fine, it would be positively criminal to not act on it. Did he really think that given all of this information that we would reach consensus and the answer would be no? That this miracle of a planet wasn’t good enough? I for one would surely never be convinced. This was an aquatic world. My family legacy was aquatic. Our collective patents, desalination machinery, sea walls, and hydroelectric would all come to bear on this new world. The cards were falling quite nicely indeed. Saito-le, Saito’s house, now that was a more fitting name for a planet of this stature.

But surely that wasn’t the plan ticking away behind Liam’s eyes. This was a miracle for all of us, and my ambitions wouldn’t go uncontested. No, Delaney had been awake longer than any of us by who knows how long, plotting his vision for the future of this new world. So what was the game? Was he hoping that unbalance and discord would throw Yun and me into such a tailspin that we’d fold completely into Delaney dominance? Or was he so much holier-than-thou as to seriously believe that his role as foreman required such neutrality that we may actually be allowed to walk away from such a golden opportunity?

My whiskey was properly freshened as the tumult died down. 

“Please rejoin us Saito San, we have much to discuss.” Liam began again, shooting a final warning glance at Marquez finally ending her animated aside with Lorena. “You all are clearly well briefed, and no doubt we will learn a great deal in the coming days as our observations continue to improve, but here is one piece of information that has not been shared with you that may be vital to your decision.” He paused taking a deep breath, steeling himself. 

“As of today, the CRS Delaney’s Foil has been enroute to the Fansa122 system for 1,342 years 322 days.” The silence that followed echoed in its hollowness up into the vaulted arches of the bridge, each of us recoiled in revulsion as this truly inhuman piece of information worked its way along our synapses. “As of right now we have gone through all of our maintenance crew and waking option berths. The waking crew that’s on the farmland now is facing their second work stint. Poor souls. Clearly, this is much longer than you may have expected.”

This time it was Hector Yun who could not contain his reaction. 

“Clearly? Clearly! Clearly, we’re owed an explanation, Delaney!” The priest lowered his head in fervent prayer, Marquez was struck in silent tears, Yun continued. “Clearly, we’ve been lied to! Our target system was 324 years of flight time away. What the hell happened?!”

Liam replied in steely resolve, “Reality happened Hector.” Blue daggers coming from his eyes forcing the young scion back into his seat. “I awoke at our first target system, and it was clear as day, there was no home for us there. The terrestrial planets were respectively a ball of magma, a suffocating hothouse and a planet so geologically dead that we’d be more exposed there than here on the ship.” He took another draught of his beer, now visibly struggling with what he’d done. “So the protocols were clear, and still I made a terrible choice, with no viable colony planets given existing technology the mission continued. That is my duty and my burden as foreman of this jury.’

“Still, the price is incalculable,” he went on. “I’ve been woken five times since we left Earth. Each time I was faced with an impossible decision, each time racked with the cryosickness that you’ve all just become acquainted with. Each time, sure I wouldn’t wake to see the next system. Each waking cycle taking a little bit more of me.” Another draught, his voice was audibly shaking. “I’ve seen snowball worlds, and worlds covered in seas of hydrocarbons. I’ve seen worlds that look so promisingly like home only to learn that they’re covered in a layer of lethal gas that would make any attempt at colonization futile. Each time I spent years awake on approach considering every factor, each time electing to let you sleep until we found a place that we could truly call home...” He trailed off, eyes drifting up to the bands of cloud that strung across the northern latitudes of this new world.

“But what right did you have, Mr. Delaney?” Father Joshua’s soft voice came in, shattering the stillness that had filled the bridge. “What right did you have! WE, are the jury who decides the fate of this mission, not only you. It was our right to consider these planets, and find a new home, our right to behold God’s work.”

“Father, please. You know well that was never the agreement.” Delaney replied after a deep breath. “My duty. My burden. Is to be the first woken. To compile the observations and wait through the years as the picture becomes clearer to decide whether to call the jury.’

“For you all it was a night, and a bad hangover. For me, eight years. Eight years coming out of interstellar space, only to face heartbreak every time. So do not lecture me, I know the price we paid to get here.”

Murmurs of disquiet still rolled along the table, each of us trying to reconcile this piece of information whose dissonance threatened to shred our already tattered minds. Each of us wanting to protest the liberty Delaney took with our lives. Each of us too cowed by the force and pain he held behind his pale eyes.

It was Lorena’s dancing voice who finally broke the deepening silence. “We all died as soon as we set foot on the ship,” her musical diction somehow adding optimism to this leaden notion. “It doesn’t matter if it was three hundred years or three thousand, this was the deal we made. As soon as we set off none of us were ever going to see Earth again. So what does it matter that those you left behind are now several dozen generations dead? We did not set out to knit together an empire. We set out to find a new home for our people.” She trailed off forcing each of us to buck up to the deal we’d made.

“And now, God willing, we have found it.” The priest replied after a time, Lorena held his gaze with deep green eyes but held her silence, her champagne bubbled away untouched.

With a ponderous sigh and a final sip of his ale, Liam Delaney resumed his role as foreman. “You all will have many questions; over the coming days, and with improving observations as we continue our approach, I hope to answer them all. But the one this jury is called to answer collectively is this: Will Fansa122b become humanity’s new home?” His eyes panned around the table. “Per the charter of our mission, we must unanimously decide and may deliberate for as long as necessary. At present, our telescopic array will pass the planet in five days, providing the best picture we’ll get before arrival, and we are on course to enter orbit around the planet in eight months, seventeen days, and five hours, so we have plenty of time to decide.’ 

“No decisions will be made tonight, and you will all have your chance to make your best-case argument in favor of leaving or staying.” He looked around the table hopefully. “But before we adjourn tonight I’d like to go around the table and hear where everyone sits on the decision given present information. I, for one, am in favor of staying. This trip has taken millennia and human lives in a very real sense, cryogenic casket failures will always be a hazard and I believe it is our duty to awake the people to a new home with this much promise. Mr. Yun?”

Yun scoffed and drained the last of his cocktail. “No point beating around the bush is there?” His hungry eyes scanning the table expectantly for support. “This planet was made for us! Between the technologies of Yun, Saito, and Delaney we are uniquely provisioned to make a new home of this planet.” He beamed proudly. “My answer is stay, how could it be any different?”

“Quedate un ratito Hector!” Marquez barked in response, rising quickly in her fervor. “I agree with you all in that we should stay. But let’s not forget the elephant in the room, this planet is alive!” Yun nodded slightly in agreement, eyes still wolfish in their ambition. “I cannot wait to step down into those seas and see what other ways life has flourished in this universe, but we cannot go down there with some macho terraform-first-ask-questions later attitude. We will have to accommodate a hell of a lot to this planet, we all learned that lesson already with Liam’s little gravity demonstration.” She paused for a drink and to try and master the flush of passion that had overcome her fine features.

“We will have a dual duty on this planet. We will need to look after our people, to create a home where we can live, really live. But we will also need to protect what we find. We cannot let this place, this Eden, become another denuded Earth.” Emotions now contained, her voice sunk into a rich whisper. “It was wrong at home, and it would be doubly wrong here with new life hanging in the balance. All the same, I say we stay.”

“It is not for us to consider how we will colonize in this jury, merely if we will.” Delaney reminded, his cool tones resuming control of the room. “We have enough information to understand the basic challenges, and key ethical considerations, but we will decide how to live here as a larger society only if we stay. Dr. Marchand, you’ve been awake nearly as long as me, what do you think?”

The lean, dark astrophysicist took a deep breath and a sip from her glass. She and the priest had looked at the splendor of the bar and chosen water, although from the pained look that always rested heavily on her face I suspected some darker demon, rather than faith, fueled her chemical sobriety.

Her thin voice began. “Since I’ve come out of cryogenic stasis I have been able to make an unprecedented number of discoveries.” Her dark eyes drifted upwards as the display shifted to show the system’s position among local stars. Earth wasn’t even in the frame of reference. “The telescopic powers of the ship are of course formidable, and we have had the dark clarity of interstellar space to aid observations. Although it is also helpful that this star is generally small and dim.” Somehow I got the feeling that she’d prefer it if the star was entirely dark. 

“We are considerably closer to the galactic center now and regional space is filled with objects ripe for extensive study that will undoubtedly illuminate our very understanding of the universe. I, myself, have spent most of my waking hours on approach working on observations that will no doubt shatter much of what we thought we knew about pulsars once it is reviewed and added to our academic understanding. This is just the tip of the iceberg. This system is well positioned for studies on neutron stars, several smaller black holes, and of course the galactic center itself.” Her weary eyes, still drawn upward by the images on the display of telescopic images, began to fill with tears. 

So that’s what it was. The Marchand I remembered from Earth was always a bit soft-spoken and aloof, but this woman was an addict. She now had access to things astrophysicists could only dream of back on earth. And this new knowledge was tearing her apart.

Her softly French-accented voice continued after a moment. “As far as the system itself. Not only is the planet quite promising, but it is a favorable place to colonize from an astrophysical perspective. This star is still quite young, especially for its type, and planetary orbits seem to be remarkably stable. Plus the system is quite tidy in terms of asteroidal clutter, chances of problematic impacts are quite low. So, barring any complications on the surface, this is a uniquely safe and advantageous place for us to colonize.” A final sip from her crystalline glass. “Stay. For knowledge, longevity, and humanity.”

“And you, father?” Delaney prompted after a moment.

The priest whose eyes had once again been glued to the image of the planet spinning on the display seemed to settle lightly back into reality. “It was a shame to not get to witness God’s creations in the systems we’ve passed, but he has a plan and we are set firmly upon it. His hand has guided us through the stars to another of his creations.” 

He spoke with a conviction and reverence that made you wonder how his church had fallen so far. Maybe if they’d had more men like him, equally ambitious, smart, and faithful they could have held their place on Earth. Instead, scandal and scientific rationality had stripped away believers in their millions. Now Father Joshua, like all of us, was out here looking for a second chance. For him and for his church.

“It is our duty to make a new home on this planet. To behold all the glory of God’s creation, and bear witness to whatever other children he has brought forth from the void. Stay, I say!” He crossed himself quickly and lowered his head in prayer.

“Very well.” Delaney said with a steadying breath. “And you Saito San? Where do you stand on the issue?”

“Well respectfully Father, I have to disagree with your assessment of the cause, but cannot deny the miracle before us,” I said draining my whiskey, leaving the cube spinning in the bottom of my heavy glass. “As you point out Liam this trip, no matter the time, exacts a heavy toll both mentally and in real terms of human life. We’ve had what? A .025% casket failure rate? That’s still hundreds lost.” I looked deep into his clear eyes, gauging his reaction. There was pain, and solmen acceptance, but something else I couldn’t quite place yet.

“Hector. Our families have been in competition since long before we were alive, and that spirit has borne some of humanity’s greatest achievements. So I share your ambition in creating a bountiful new home for our kind although I hope Dr. Marquez’s oppositional influence will help us strike a middle path.” Yun looked back at me with a sardonic smile. Like me, he was born to this game, and relished his opponent’s opening move. Even if I was already working steps ahead, beginning to find unsure footing under Delaney. Marquez simply glared back, knowing that I was up to something but unable to divine exactly what.

“And Dr. Marchand, that’s very nice to hear about the observational potential, but mostly I’m just relieved that we won’t have to fend away too many cataclysmic asteroids. Although I’m sure some Delaney tech could help us out there if we were in a pinch.” Liam stared in silence, sensing trickery but too prosaic to imagine what my performance hoped to accomplish. “I, and the house of Saito, will be very pleased to bring our resources to the use of this new colony and help us make a new home on this world. I say we shall stay.” I ended with a slight bow and a fittingly modest tone. Best not to give away the game too early.

“Thank you Saito San.” Delaney said, retaking control of the room. “And finally you, Mrs. Hildebrand,” nodding gravely at Lorena. “You alone could not have expected to be here amongst us in these deliberations, but our charter decrees that we have one representative from the main body of passengers on this jury. You are here to speak for what you think is best, but your voice represents the two million passengers we still have stored here on the Foil. What do you say?”

Lorena Hildebrand, that troublesome unknown, finally took a tiny sip of her champagne and stood before addressing us, smoothing down the rumples in her tidy jacket. “Well it’s an honor; I never expected to be on this jury with you fine folks. I certainly have less experience in matters of science and technology as you all have, but it would take a fool to not see the opportunity that’s come knocking.” Her voice began to waver and her bright eyes became dotted with tears. She looked around, each of our faces expectant.

“But all the same the answer seems clear to me, we have no choice but to leave.” She let forth in a shaking whisper.

And the bridge erupted into chaos.

--

All the world’s luxury can’t solve an existential crisis.

I found myself the next evening back on the bridge hours before anyone else arrived for the next round of deliberations, seeking solace at the bottom of a whiskey glass. The previous night had ended in absolute bedlam. When that up-jumped Voice of the People declared her opposition we had all nearly jumped down her throat. Liam had to physically intervene before Marquez could lay hands on her. He abruptly called the session and Marquez was dragged off bellowing about how she wouldn’t be denied this planet. It was an irritation to have to extend deliberations to be sure, but a minor one at that. Surely Lorena would come around.

We ended on a frayed note, but it was Delaney’s revelation that had turned the room upside down. Thirteen hundred years. How the hell had it been that long? Of course, Lorena was right, none of us were ever seeing Earth again. We knew the deal when we agreed to come aboard. But it was one thing to sign the paperwork, another to sit there at the bar and look at the route we had traveled, to really see what this new world had cost. I sat at the bar under all the carefully curated splendor with the smoky peat of a fine single malt doing it’s best to burn away the cryosickness, contemplating the maps and struggling to understand just how far we’d come.

The deliberations had started to come apart when Delaney dropped that bomb, so it was no wonder that our reaction to dissent had turned a bit ugly. I’d slipped out the previous evening shortly after Marquez was dragged out and wandered slowly down the long halls of the ship back to my staterooms. The Foil provided an adequate amount of comfort for the jurors, suites nestled in along the hull at a comfortable 1g all with access to the bridge, gym, gardens, and observation deck, although what passed for ‘walking distance’ here on the ship was a bit suspect. I had to laugh the first time I walked from my rooms to the bridge, it was certainly further than I’d walked on Earth in years. Of all the things I’d expected to encounter in space, long walks were far from the top of the list.

The rooms were comfortable and sharply decorated, the walls hewn from asteroidal rock, a “window” display showing a stabilized image of the system we approached. Still, just a bright star set against the swirling backdrop of the Milky Way. If you knew where to look you could just pick out two of the jovian planets gleaming in the blue sunlight. The gym was large and well-appointed, Marquez and the priest seemed set on beating their way out of cryo through physical exercise. As opposed to Marchand, the Astrophysicist who spent her days either in her rooms, almost certainly flooding every available screen with telescopic data, or up on the observation deck staring out into space. I suppose I should have seen the addiction at first glance.

I first encountered her gaunt form up on the observation deck. It was certainly a technological marvel, a great glass orb at the prow of the ship that could be drawn forth to let you float freely amongst the stars. Although now that we were decelerating, the ship had turned about and we looked back away from the system we were approaching. Nonetheless, the view was overwhelming. When I had floated in silently that first day next to her, tears ran silently from her dark, enraptured eyes.

“Que c’est beau.” Her first words to me paper soft, yet filling the void in which we floated. “I never set out to find heaven, but it found me nonetheless.”

Certainly, it was beautiful. We could float there beneath this great dome and watch the great spray of the Milky Way spin methodically around the sky. It was worth a moment of silent reflection, but clearly I was not seeing what this beguiled soul was witnessing. I left her to her contemplations.

Delaney, Yun, and her highness the Voice of the People all preferred the gardens. A few well-manicured acres beneath an arching ceiling that mimicked Earth sky, meant to ground us and provide a dose of normalcy in our lives. They’d walk and read and meditate, seek inner clarity, however it could be found. I tried my luck here as well. But after a short while, the artificiality of it all began to burn into the edges of my vision and set my head to pounding. Gardens like this struck me as manicured monstrosities back on Earth, far from the symbiotic beauty of a proper Japanese garden; it was even worse here shrouded by a television sky.

So I set off on the insufferably long, dull walk to the bridge. It must’ve been several miles through the cool halls, and always done under our own power. What were those Delaney engineers playing at? Would a train or car system have been so hard to install? And in my suite, I’d been provided an expansive kitchen and a well-stocked pantry of staples, then was left to my own devices. Were they sadistically chasing some end of self-sufficiency? Surely the ship could have prepared meals if they’d built in the functionality.  I seldom had cause to cook back home, so distaste for the work and the lingering queasiness of cryo had conspired to keep me from eating for days at a time. I could not wait to make landfall and begin constructing the new Saito estate, where privacy, reality, and help would be available in reasonable quantities.

No, the bridge was where I was most comfortable, and I made my way back there hours before the deliberations began. The splendor of the room was warmed by soft music filling the vaulting ceiling —now a plucking koto then a mournful slide guitar— and by great works of art filling the display above as selected by the ship. Today, a misty Enlightenment-era piece of some rolling, verdant landscape the likes of which had disappeared long before I came into the world. But most important was the robotized bar that would keep my glass fresh with smoky single malt chilling around a crystalline ball of ice, and ask no questions. Although I was beginning to suspect it wouldn’t ever allow me to get properly drunk. My glass would remain topped, and the whiskey always had the peaty fire I craved to beat back the lingering nausea of cryo, but some combination of chemicals in my glass and in the air held me at a level of mild social lubrication.

Still, I was determined to find out for myself. I whiled the hours away, sitting at the bar draining rounds, pouring over maps of how far we’d come, maps of the new world, maps of the ship on my tab. I had access to nearly all of the Foil’s libraries and could have spent my time learning just about anything I desired but instead found myself flipping idly through maps, existential dread barely held at bay.

I dove into the wisdom held by the CRS Delaney’s Foil. What a pitiable name for humanity’s dying hope. Not only had Yvette Delaney had the hubris to demand her name be slapped across every ship in the fleet, we even held on to that anachronistic prefix. Corporate Registered Ship. At least in the British navy HMS held an air of royalty and service and self respect. CRS showed our true colors, a populace rolled by unstoppable capitalist engines, as if the corporate registration were the most notable aspect of this vessel, not the ingenuity or the perseverance or thousands of years of collective knowledge she contained. Hollow name or no though, she held our hope and our wisdom, into which I numbly submerged hoping to find solace.

Even in idle lethargy, there were discoveries to be made. Flipping through maps of the ship in its current configuration I found another curious open space along the hull, about halfway down the ship. I flipped to an internal cam view of the space and nearly spat my drink. I saw rolling hills under a pearl grey sky. Great stands of trees off in the distance diminishing into the haze. And atop a rise in this most improbable of places sat a simple, squat house shaded by a pair of towering sycamore. Where the garden was pruned and manicured and refined within an inch of its life, this place was genuinely both verdant and wild. Riots of different grasses and brambles grew where they would. Plots of wheat, corn, and oats grew unbounded eventually mixing in with the other grasses. Several great raised beds in front of the farmhouse were filled with an eruption of greenery. Gardens growing in the full vigor of summer.

And amongst it all, a person. I shifted my view around the compound and found a solitary figure out behind the house, barefoot in the soft grass tossing handfuls of feed out to a brood of chickens. She wore her hair short —falling just over her eyes when she reached down for another handful of feed—and a set of neatly washed coveralls. I sat enraptured, watching this soul beat the well-worn tracks of her daily life. Feeding the chickens and putting them out into a new paddock. Moving her solitary cow over to a new pasture. Tending the garden beds, harvesting some greens and peppers that had just ripened. Then she disappeared into the workshop behind the house. 

I shifted perspective once again, now peering down unseen from a corner of the workshop where she sat at a pottery wheel, framed neatly by the sliding door of the shop. She hummed lightly while she worked, deft hands drawing up a tall, graceful pitcher before setting it gently aside to await firing in the wood-fueled kiln she had built just outside.

So this was the maintenance crew. Of course, I knew from my briefings that berths had been set aside for crew that would live alone aboard the ship and take care of any problems that the ship could not repair itself. But it was another thing to peer down into their world like some nosy, omniscient god. I had no idea they were allocated so much interior space for a homestead, although the ship certainly had space to spare. These poor, lonesome souls had sacrificed years of their waking lives to live like this, finding their own path to survival, living at the beck and call of the ship’s artificial mind. They gave up living years, their homes, their sanity, and now almost all of their privacy for their unenviable berths. 

This particularly unlucky woman, the ship informed me, was currently working her second waking stint, our extended flight time slowly burning through the years of all her peers. What torment she must have faced, waking up once again not to a new world but to another five solitary years in waking limbo. Still, as I looked down from my secret vantage I saw not a face of despair or exhaustion or hopelessness, but contentment.

And it was jealousy that filled me then, of all things. I would’ve rather died than take one of those maintenance berths. Your life traded away, sacrificing yourself to the lowest rungs of a new society. But here was this woman, three years into her second stint, no idea that the ship was gradually approaching our new home, no idea if she’d wake up the next time to a new planet or another five years of lonely torment. And all the same, she sat there making pitcher after pitcher, grey light flooding in from a sky that was beginning to threaten rain. She looked like a soul who had found peace, even in the least likely of places.

Meanwhile, I sat on a bridge filled with gaudy expectation —my only companions willing to climb over the bodies of all the maintenance crew and many more besides to ensure that their ambitions, their fields, their families came out on top in the new world— being fed by a robotic bar that wouldn’t even let me get properly drunk. It must have been hours I spent sitting there at the bar, staring down into her world through my tab, hypnotized by a life I could never live and a peace I would likely never find. Until at last Hector Yun sidled in, breaking my reverie. 

“Get a load of this Hector.” I croaked as he sat on the stool next to me, sliding over my tab showing the woman beginning to stoke her kiln even as fat drops of rain began to descend from her manufactured sky.

He let out a low whistle as he studied the video feed. “Good lord, they’re still keeping them awake?”

“I guess so,” I replied softly. “Ship says this one’s three years through her second stint. Apparently her first go-round she was the resident knife-maker, now she’s turned her focus towards pottery.”

“I’d always heard the ships encouraged the crew to develop hobbies.” He said, eyes glued to the tab, flipping through the various perspectives we could see. “Something about mental occupation and skill mastery is meant to help preserve cognitive function through extended isolation.” He panned through a few more angles before pushing the tab back. “I can’t look at this anymore, it’s like reading someone’s bloody diary.” 

Spinning around on his stool he took a long savoring sip from his cocktail and looked up at the chandelier dazzling down from the ceiling with a sigh. As much as our lives had been set on competitive tracks I couldn’t bring myself to hate Hector Yun, or even really dislike him. From the time we were both born we were sculpted and trained for the betterment of our families, our lives neatly laid out before us. The schooling, the training, the discipline, the editing of our very genomes would’ve been matched step for step by the other. Always seeking an edge, and always being met by a game opponent. It was hard for something like kinship not to emerge.

He took another sip, a gin drink mixed with some stimulants from proprietary Yun floral extracts no doubt designed to keep him sharp while giving the illusion of a man letting his guard down. 

“This cryosickness is an absolute devil, aye.” He commiserated. “I thought I was about to beat it after my first couple of days awake, but now it seems like it won’t let go. I’ve been hoping to burn it out of me with some UV exposure in that gaudy garden, but it seems like you’ve found a better strategy. A fine glass of grog has solved many an ill for thousands of years, why stop now?”

“Why stop now.” I agreed, with a raise of my glass. “It almost makes you sympathize with Delaney.”

He chortled, nearly spilling his drink. “Bloody likely.”

“Eight years of this shit Hector?” I went on. “Five times coming off the ice. I feel like a bit of my soul has been ripped away just from the once. Maybe it’ll grow back, but maybe this is just the price we pay...”

“Oi it’s a fucking game Saito, and you’re playing it just the same. Who the hell d’you think you’re talking to?” He spun to face me, lights dancing in his dark eyes. “Am I supposed to believe that a little cryo dethaw has put all the stubborn resolve of that Irish and Latino blood of his on the run? Or your’s, Saito San? Your family has been grinning and bearing some horrific shit for the past two centuries. Hell mate, I watched you leave the Park twins to the dogs when you decided they were stepping onto your turf. There’s no cushy colonial gig waiting for those two poor bastards. You expect me now to believe that you’re struck by Delaney’s sob story?” He let forth a mirthless chuckle. “No, you two angry fucks see the same thing I do. Opportunity. Delaney wants us back on our heels, feeling sorry for him. But I’m not buying it, and frankly you’re not either.”

Hector always did have a way of cutting through the bullshit. All the same, it was hard not to feel the veracity of Delaney’s claimed plight. Over the years I’d seen the great brick of a man look livid, joyous, pensive, and obstinate, our history of engagements at lobbying events went back decades. But I’d never seen him look tired, never seen him look wary, which is exactly how he struck me that evening when he walked onto the bridge. He walked lightly across the gleaming floor for such a big man. His shoes, neatly polished. His sleeves rolled up, ready to get to work. But his eyes, usually vibrantly blue, looked worn and greyed despite the act of vigorous composure he was trying so hard to put on. Let Hector not take this man at his word at his own peril. Liam Delaney crossed to the bar where a pint of dark bitter ale had silently been set for him.

“Good evening gents.” He greeted, raising his glass to us and took a satisfied first sip. “I trust we’ll be hearing plenty from you two in opposition of Mrs.Hildebrand’s stance.”

Hector raised his glass back with a mocking smile, “You can bet your bottom dollar on it boss.”

“I’d expect no less,” Delaney quipped back. “I’ll leave you two to your conspiring.” He walked to a plush set of seats in a far corner to study new observational data on his tab.

Once Delaney was safely out of earshot Hector let out a low whistle. “That’s the rub of it though aye, Saito? Mrs. Lorena Hildebrand, Voice of the People,” he sneered with mock reverence. “What game is she playing at?”

It was undoubtedly the question at the fore of all our minds. How could this randomly selected soul stand up in front of a panel this qualified and dig her heels in? What did she want? 

“I did about as much digging as the ship would let me this morning.” I confided. “There’s plenty of biography on her in the library, but it all looks squeaky clean. At first, I thought she must’ve been a plant from the Osney Corp. or some other European conglomerate, but there’s either no relation or they’ve gotten much better at covering their tracks.” I took a slow, burning sip. “Frankly, I’m not sure which prospect I find more troubling.”

“Aye. It’s a bother to be sure,” he agreed. “Maybe she just hopes she can get herself set up nicely if she provides some resistance, grabs a little leverage, and she’s stupid enough to think she can get away with it with this pack of vultures circling around her.”

“I thought Marquez was about ready to take her head off,” I concurred. “Makes sense, I guess, for the resident biologist. Marchand though... I thought I saw a gleam of hope in her when Hildebrand dug in; I imagine she may be an easy convert. Spends all her time running telescopic studies or staring out into space, as far as I can tell she’s the first person in history to get high directly from astronomical observation data. She probably could give a shit if we stay or leave, but we’ll have a hell of a time getting her back down to sleep.” I paused for a smoky sip. “And the priest?”

“Ah, who gives a shit about the priest?” He said draining his glass and passing it across the bar for another. “He’ll find his way to God wherever we may roam. And if he needs to start a mission to convert alien phytoplankton to the Faith, well that’s what he’ll do.”

On cue, the two scientists and the priest stepped onto the bridge and settled in at the far end of the bar. Drinks began to flow. Conversation rose gently in the great stone vault. Delaney abandoned his chair to come and share some new telescopic imagery with Hector and I of the planet. It looked like about an 80% probability that the life forms, if that’s what they were, were contained to the oceans. Maybe some alien mudfish were beginning to poke their heads above the surface and get some ideas about the new territory they saw. Not if we have anything to say about it, I thought.

The ship filled the room with lively flamenco, and the display switched over showing a great oil painting of violent surf crashing against some ragged South American coastline. A violent entry into a new world. Despite the sickness and anxiety we all endured the mood began to lift, on this bridge that felt like anything but what it was.

And then she entered. Silence swept down the bar as our heads turned towards the entrance, leaving only the trailing notes of a wavering guitar hanging in the air. Looking smart and refined, her clothes humble yet exactingly worn, a forest green jacket sitting warmly against her dark skin. Lorena Hildebrand knew she was the cause of this sudden silence, hell she’d likely been avoiding us all day, readying herself for the onslaught of opposition she was sure to face. In spite of it all she greeted us all with a warm smile, grey eyes twinkling beneath the chandelier.

As courteous as ever, Delaney jumped to his feet, grabbed the flute of champagne that was awaiting her off the bar and stepped lightly over to greet her personally. A friend in her corner, even if they didn’t see eye to eye. Well, he’d be a better politician than me, I thought. His unwavering manners, warm smile, and acute attention to all the little challenges that make up a life made him someone you wanted to like, wanted to look up to. But would he be a good leader? I had my doubts. 

This new world would require cunning and precision and hard decision after hard decision. Could we rely on somebody who went chasing after every hurt feeling and stubbed toe to hold such an outsized role in our new society? No. This was my most reliable line to take him down. He’d do well in a political role, lending needed weight and goodwill to a good plan, but that plan needed to come from someone who saw things as they were. Someone bred and trained and built to cut impossible knots. Someone, like me.

After a few minutes, conversation once again began to fill the stony, domed ceiling. Drinks were topped up, guards came down just a little bit. The ship as if to cue us to our seats switched the display over once more to the planet spinning silently in its orbit. Today just a little bit clearer than the day before. Megastructure of the coastlines now in a discernible relief as they turned into night and glowed with blue-green life.

“If everyone is ready,” Delaney called out, deep voice cutting through the chatter. “Please come to the table and we can begin tonight’s deliberations.” We all shuffled silently to the long, gleaming table, rich grain luminous in the light raining down from above. “Before we begin, I’d like to remind you all that we are here to reach a consensus. We all will have as long as we need to make our case, and we owe it to each other and every other soul on this ship to hear everyone out.” He shot a steely glance over to Marquez who looked down, cowed by Delaney’s admonishment. “What we will not have, however, are personal nor physical attacks on fellow jurors,” he said, scolding with every syllable. “Along with the duty of calling a jury, I also have the right to reconstitute it if needed.” Now the whole table cast gazes down, feeling like petulant schoolchildren. “Suffice to say if you cannot absorb and respond to an argument on its merits, then get ready to go back on the ice.” He broke the tension with a long draught of his ale and a beguiling smirk.

“Right then, let’s get to it,” he said, now smiling. “We have some interesting new information on our planet we need to get on the table first.” A murmur rolled down the table. “Every day our imaging and spectroscopy array gets closer, and every day our picture of the planet will get a little bit clearer; in about three days we’ll have as clear a picture as we’ll get, short of establishing an orbital observation system which we’d only do if we decide to stay.”

The display changed over, on cue as always, to a strikingly enhanced image of the planet. Where the previous day only blurry outlines had been visible, now we were able to see very discernible coastlines and cloud formations that looked very much like home. The telescopic array was actually accelerating towards the planet even as the ship slowed its approach allowing much faster improvements in clarity than we’d see from the ship, they’d blow by and reconvene at a Lagrange point trailing the planet in its orbit to await their next task. 

Most importantly though, we could see the green formations in much sharper detail. Vast structures weaved through the verdant masses, not the billowing clouds you’d expect of eroding oxidized soil nor the rigid structure of great crystals, but vast flowing webs branching and undulating in organic rhythm. Marquez beamed up in wild wonder, Father Joshua bowed his head in silent prayer.

“Now as you can see we have a fair bit more clarity today, currently we have optical resolution down to about four hundred meters. It gives us a meaningful look at coastlines and land structures and helps us compare similarities and differences in cloud movement to Earth. But most strikingly we can see a great deal more detail in the green formations. You’ll all notice the web-like structures, with our current resolution you can appreciate how large these formations must be. Also interestingly, we’ve been able to do some preliminary mapping of the ocean floor. It seems they trail off of the dry land in areas where the ocean is only a couple hundred meters deep. Sticking to the continental shelves if you will. The deep oceans may be barren, or may contain more structures we won’t be able to see unless we head down there and start poking around with some submarines.”

He paused for another gratified sip, his smirk now a full-fledged grin. “Finally, thermal imaging shows that these areas are warm, much warmer than we’d expect for shallow waters. It appears these formations not only make discernible structures they also make heat.”

“Gracias a dios.” Marquez whispered softly. “If we thought it before this all but proves it, what hypothesis besides life can we realistically offer?”

“Do be a good scientist and keep an open mind Dr. Marquez,” Delaney shot back playfully. “But yes, all this and the atmospheric anomalies do make a strong case for life, just not exactly life as we know it.’

“If we assume that these formations are living, and that they are responsible for the heat and the atmospheric chlorine we’re seeing that obviously adds a great deal of considerations for us.” He went on, resuming his usual gravity. “Beyond the broad strokes, we have neither the ability nor the right to decide how we handle colony formation. But we should consider the implications of our contact.”

“Like we shouldn’t be so cavalier with the notion of scrubbing the atmosphere before we even set foot on the surface.” Marquez shot in, sneering at Hector.

“Or we may consider how we could keep ourselves separate with sea walls or even floating colonies if the deep sea proves to be the best place to keep ourselves isolated.” Delaney put in more helpfully.

Oh, eat your goddamn heart out Hector, I thought. No atmospheric scrubbing and plenty of need for sea walls and aquatic habs? I’d never been a religious man but it sure seemed like God was smiling down on the house of Saito with Fansa122b. I looked over at my rival, his dark eyes revealing nothing as they l pondered the display, flipping through image after image of alien coastline. Still, I could sense the wheels turning in his head, plotting move after countermove with this new information. Can’t plot your way out of a shit hand Mr. Yun, I thought and took a long, satisfying sip of fiery whiskey.

“At any rate, as we stand we have six votes to stay and one dissenter.” Liam Delaney proclaimed, bringing the room back together. “Lorena, I have to say I admire you, a lesser person would have probably fallen into line rather than stick their neck out no matter their convictions. I appreciate you standing up though, and I believe that your dissent will lead to valuable discussion. But nonetheless, your unenviable task is now to bring us all around to your way of thinking.” He raised his glass to her. “You have as long as you need, and you have the floor.”

The thin frame of Lorena Hildebrand rose from her seat near the head of the table, the glowing image of Fansa122b loomed behind her; untouched, her glass of champagne bubbled away in front of her seat. She looked small in this grandiose place, amongst these titans of industry. Her soft voice, if wielded by a lesser soul, would have left her overlooked in the world. Not her. Not today. She stood and looked each of us square in the eye and began forcefully. 

“I am not your equal.” Her words hit the table like lead, and silence echoed in their wake.

“Not anything close to it,” she went on, words ringing like condemnation. “You are the heads of proud houses, great corporations, noble fields of research. It’s no wonder why you are here. You were either literally created for this role, or fought with everything you’ve ever had to get here. And you knew, leaving Earth, that you would be shouldered with the responsibility of deciding humanity’s future.” I looked around the seated faces bewildered at these words that were at once so self-deprecating and so denouncing.

“And who am I? A half-blood Afrikaner girl who got lucky in marriage. A woman whose husband had just enough to sell out and get us and our son off a dying planet. Lucky? Undoubtedly. Distinguished? Not in the slightest. I’m told I’m meant to speak for the others on this ship, those not from the great conglomerates, or research institutes. Those of us just hoping to find life on a new world that doesn’t have our doom lurking around every corner.” I was impressed by her in a way, even as I was steeling myself in expectation of a tirade of communist drivel. “Yes, I’m the unwitting, unwanting, unbelievably selected Voice of the People. A mocking title I’m sure, and one I certainly want no part of. But here I am, laden with undesired responsibility, and all I can think of is how my little family will find our way in the new world.’

“I’ve spent almost every waking moment on this ship trying to figure out why. Why me? Why pull some random citizen out of stasis to sit on this jury at all? For a mission with a contingency plan for everything this sure doesn’t seem to make a lot of sense. I know the UN had to throw all of its weight into getting me this seat, and for what? So one old lady can sit here among you and think of her little family in her little world?” She stopped, trailing off into silence. Her graying hair fell forward covering her eyes that held so much life, as the planet spun silently above her.

“The only thing that makes any sense is that even this, this doubt, is planned. Maybe some smarter folks than I reckon that just a normal old lady worrying about her family can reliably speak for so many millions. I’m not a scientist or a politician or a leader, just a woman of the new world.” She drew herself up, dark skin glowing warmly. “And I have to have faith that this is the way it is meant to be. I won’t ever understand the details half as well as any of you, but maybe that’s the point, my distance may give me perspective that can prove valuable. At least that’s what I hope.’

“So I stood against you all for the same reason that all of you would like to colonize this planet, because of the life. We have a great deal of duty to the passengers of this ship, but now we also have a great deal of duty to the life down there.” Her voice was building strength. “We all likely have differing views as to the purpose of this mission. To find a new foothold for humanity. To satisfy our primal drive for exploration. To simply escape a hopeless future. But superseding them all, I believe, is the need to keep the spark of life alight.’

“Mr. Delaney,” She implored, earnestly. “You say that you have been awoken to five other planets before this.”

“That is correct.” he agreed, clearly curious as to where this was all heading.

“That’s five Earth-like planets, five of our best guesses for hospitable places to live and they were all not only devoid of life but all actively hostile to it. Is that correct?” Lorena lead on.

“Indeed.” he hesitantly agreed.

“Now, I’ll be the first to admit that five planets is hardly a large sample size, but this was choosing from a large region of space. These were our best guesses. It’s taken 1,342 years to find anywhere remotely livable, and when we get here we happen upon a miracle. Life beyond our own.” She paused letting the gravity of her words take hold. “Our purpose is not to explore and catalog systems, it is to find a new home. We’ve wandered for more than a millennia and found that planets like this are in fact the exception.”

“Get to your fucking point.” Marquez cut in, growing irritated. “You argue against your own position.”

“But that is the point Dr. Marquez.” Lorena asserted, meeting her gaze humbly but with great resolution. “This planet, like Earth, is a rarity. A gem. And it is already teeming with life.”

“Yes, precisely. That is why I’d like to stop beating around the bush and get down there to get on with the new discoveries.” Marquez shot back, words flying hotly from her lips.

“I know that I am not a woman of your qualifications, but—.”

“Damn right you’re not.” Marquez cut in.

“Marissa, please,” Delaney said putting up a quieting hand to the flushing biologist. “You’ll have your say in due time.” Liam Delaney, ever the politician.

“I have not your qualifications, but I am still a woman of our world.” Lorena went on, calm in the face of hostility. “I grew up a bit before you did, learning as a young girl about the fiasco that early Mars exploration turned into as more interests found their way to the planet. It should have been the refuge that humanity needed but instead, we stripped it bare before we could blink.’

“And Europa, I’m old enough to remember that debacle myself.” She went on. “What we thought was our best chance at discovering extraterrestrial life all torn to shreds by industrial ambition. Sure, we sanitized our craft as best we could laid a careful schedule of where we would land and when, but with a growing pile of competing interests it all went out the window.” She let out a low, joyless chuckle. “Oh, there’s life on Europa now, but we blew any chance we had for determining if it was truly extraterrestrial or not. It all looks like Earth-life now, is that due to panspermia or human hubris?”

“Indeed! And lessons were learned, protocols put in...” Marquez jumped in before being silenced by a glance from Delaney.

“Protocols indeed. Protocols put in place that we applied to Enceladus.” A flush was now rising to Hildebrands dark cheeks. “I believe we’re all old enough to remember this catastrophe. They put that first probe through everything one could imagine to sterilize it, and by the time we found the wreckage of that failed probe on the lip of a cryovolcano what else did we find? A colony of unbelievably hearty tardigrades happily adapting away, making their way down to the interior oceans.” She paused, taking a breath, looking around the table sternly. “Intentional or not, we are not the only colonizers we’ll bring to this new world.”

“Oh, don’t be fucking ridiculous!” Marquez jumped in, now ready to say her piece. “Those old missions didn’t have half the tech we’ve brought with us. There’s no reason to think—”

It was not Delaney’s stern reprimand that cut her off this time, but Marchand’s papery whisper. “Marissa, they ran it through the corona.”

“What?!” She demanded.

“You know better than I do.” She went on, words falling from her lips like dead leaves. “The Enceladus probe, they ran it as close to the sun as they could get it to sterilize it. Every conceivable sanitization protocol we could dream up, and then they ran it through the edge of the corona to burn off any other contaminants, just to be completely sure. All that, and it still didn’t work.”

“So what?” the irate biologist shot back. “So we’re too scared and we came all the way out here just for a scenic tour?”

“It was one thing in our home system with worlds most likely devoid of life, or if it did exist at least it was plausibly like ours. But here...” Marchand trailed off slowly, eyes rising once again to the planet spinning above us all, leaving the bridge in cavernous silence.

“But here we have greater considerations.” Lorena picked back up. “Those worlds back home, as far as we could tell, were likely lifeless. Here one quick look here tells us just the opposite. This world is teeming. I understand your desire to get down there and see what this new life is like I really do.”

“Don’t you dare speak to me like you know.” Marquez spat back. “This is my life. My work.”

“I understand the desire, but we have to at least consider the potential damage.” Hildebrand doggedly went on. “We know it looks like life, although as best I can tell we probably won’t be able to confirm the hypothesis until we set down and start taking samples. Right?”

“Right.” Marquez replied hesitantly.

“And as far as we can tell these lifeforms are green so may or may not be photosynthesizing, they produce heat, and they  likely produce the excess chlorine gas we’re seeing in the atmosphere. Right?”

Marquez was done entertaining this line of thought and held her tongue, so Delaney stepped in. “That’s right. We may improve our observations in the coming days, but that’s our best guess for now.”

“So this life is fairly Earth-like in that it may feed off the sun, it is aquatic, it appears to self-replicate and form structures, and like us it produces heat. But it is not like us in the sense that for some reason it emits a bunch of chlorine gas. Whereas if we were running this same experiment with Earth we may remark on the presence of methane or carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Do I have this all right?”

Our biologist was still being petulantly unhelpful, so Marchand spoke up. “Not only is that the notion, but those measurements were how our instruments were calibrated before leaving our home system.”

“So we have an aquatic world with comfortable temperatures and pleasant surface pressure. A bit of chlorine, that’s a problem for us, and we may discuss how we might terraform and make it more suitable later on, but it almost certainly wouldn’t be an issue for any hangers-on we bring with us.” I had to applaud, for a random passenger pulled off the ice this was a remarkably through case. She continued on with her theory.

“Dr. Marquez, we at least need to entertain the possibility that first contact is colossally detrimental, possibly even apocalyptic, for the life on this planet.” Her soft voice now barely a whisper, yet we all sat enraptured. “A few pesky tardigrades hitch a ride down on our first probe and set up shop, next thing we know they’re killing off the local flora. Or how about if we actually successfully sterilize, the metals of the probe itself could prove to be toxic, setting off ecosystem collapse. These are the worst-case-scenarios I know, but we don’t know anything...”

Marquez erupted, no longer able to hold her tongue. “Don’t know! Don’t know! Damn right, you don’t know a God damned thing! You’re out here bringing up the failures of fools long-dead, and wild theories, we have no reason to expect anything of the kind.”

“We have no reason to expect anything different.” Lorena Hildebrand held her ground, small fists planted on the rich wood of the table, meeting Marquez’s gaze unwaveringly. “I admit that these are possibly unlikely scenarios, but no matter how much orbital data we gather it seems to me that we won’t be able to rule them out.’

“The stakes are simply too high.” She went on, now nearly pleading. “Our purpose is to preserve life and help it flourish, not destroy it. We have a duty to the people on this ship, but we also have a duty to the life on this planet. To not destroy it because they happen to live on an appealing planet.” Her voice now a shaking whisper. “As I see it we won’t ever be able to eliminate that risk, and as we’ve seen life is too valuable to put in such danger.” Her words trailed off, floating lightly up into the vaulted ceiling of the bridge.

Time slowed irresistibly to a standstill as we were frozen in deafening silence. Marchand’s gossamer words finally broke the stillness. “She’s right Marissa.” All eyes turned to her graying face. “For better or for worse the planet is a great Schrodinger’s Box. It may be alive, it may not be, but as soon as we reach out to discover the truth we risk its doom. We are not built to wander, but our quest for knowledge and expansion surely doesn’t supersede the rights of these creatures to flourish on their own planet.”

Tears silently had begun to stream down the face of Dr. Marissa Marquez, her dark eyes glistening with pain as her mind opened and accepted that which it had previously shut out. “Damn you.” She whispered. “Damn you. Damn you. DAMN YOU!” In one smooth motion she stood and kicked her chair back, bellowing up into the lofted stone. She stood glaring into Lorena’s eyes, willing herself to find a counterargument raising herself higher and higher. And then suddenly she deflated as the cruel reality took hold in her mind. “Damn you.” She whispered once more as she grabbed her drink, turned on her heel, and left the bridge in stunned silence.

--

I sought solace in the void.

The next day the cryosickness brought it’s full force down upon me, and there seemed to be no escape. We had quickly adjourned after Marquez left the bridge and with sleep refusing to come I spent the night furiously researching Lorena Hildebrand. Her record in the Foil’s archives seemed to match up with her story. A girl born to lower-middle class parents on the outskirts of Durban shortly after the South African Unification, one an Afrikaner with long roots in the area the other a Namibian refugee fleeing the violence as pressure mounted from the north.

By all accounts she had acquitted herself well in school, making the best use of the remnants of the public school system in the wake of a reforging society. She’d even been able to spend some time doing post-graduate philosophy work at the University of Cape Town before ultimately being called back to Durban to care for an ailing mother. Her mother fell ill, then quickly passed, and it may have been her greatest stroke of luck, as that was where she met Elias Hildebrand, her future husband and her ticket, for a time, out of lower-class banality.

Mr. Hildebrand, it seemed, was a German expat who had leveraged a modest inheritance into a respectable stake in the South African platinum mining industry, just as the commodity was gaining value. They’d set up a nice little life outside of Durban, had a son, bought a little piece of land, and enjoyed their life. But over time the son grew, the land fallowed, and the writing on the wall became clear as the great corporations began consolidating and devouring lesser interests. To my surprise it was Saito that had actually bought them out.

In the grand scheme of things it was a paltry sum. We had certainly been in need of platinum, and other heavy metals besides, at the time and sucked up their little interest without much thought. Still, it was enough for a new life. Enough liquid assets hit their accounts to book economy passage with Delaney and hope for better luck on the new world. Better that than to fight it, to be crushed in a hostile takeover and walk away with nothing. 

It all checked out, just like my initial research had indicated, not a whiff of external influence to be found in any record I could find, public or private. Still, she had to be playing at something. Maybe she was a deep agent of a European conglomerate that hadn’t been able to afford a jury seat on the Foil, her spot paid in some backroom deal with Delaney. Who would really be here after all to enforce the UN’s desired random selection? It’d be just as easy to pull out some dedicated Osney Corp. operative for the position and keep up pretenses for the rest of the jury. It was the only theory that made any sense, even if I didn’t have a shred of evidence to prove it.

How fitting it was then for my family to force hers off of one world only for her to vex me on the next.

The sickness was bad, worse than it’d been in days. A throbbing behind the eyes. A constant, unquenchable thirst. A fatigue like nothing I’d ever known. But it was Lorena Hildebrand, Voice of the People, who stood proudly atop my pile of troubles. She was the one unknown left to me, playing a game I could not divine, to an end I could not fathom. And she was winning.

Marchand’s defection I wasn’t particularly surprised about. She had no affinity for this world, better for her to head back into the depths of interstellar space where she could feed her addiction untroubled by light or humans. So she was ready to leave at the first convenient exit. Marquez had likely been the toughest nut to crack, headstrong and the one amongst us who could truly grasp the implications of another planet teeming with life. I guess that was why Hildebrand had started with her. It was a wonderfully delivered speech, I had to hand it to her, but I could not wrap my head around the fact that it had actually worked. Were we really going to pass up an opportunity this golden because we might kill a few alien algae? Ridiculous.

But they were both flipped, and the vote was now three to four, good odds especially when you considered who the four were, but far from the sure thing we all thought we were sitting down to. The priest was worrisome. He certainly had certain theistic reasons to want to stay, especially given that there was life, although what actual value that could have to a dying church I failed to see. But he also struck me as a man who was likely to go along with whoever had spoken last. And that was worrisome.

Delaney, that thick-headed bastard, was frustratingly difficult to pin down. He certainly saw the opportunity before us, but I was becoming more and more sure that I saw something new in him. Fear. The harrowed look he tried so hard to mask behind those steel eyes spoke untold volumes about what he’d experienced over the past eight years of waking time. Again and again he made the decision to press on, to throw our lot in with the fates, and to condemn himself to another round of cryo. A man of his constitution could take a lot of abuse, but this had clearly worn him thin. I could see it. All the same though, he was a man who took his duty as foreman seriously, and his politician’s inclination meant he was prone to consider both sides of an argument even if it was just out of courtesy. That meant there was a crack in what ought to be another resolute mind, a crack where Lorena Hildebrand could wedge herself.

Hector always fancied himself a bit of a wildcard and had been careful to tread a middle path thus far in the deliberations to keep his options open. Certainly the way the cards lay things had come up aces for House Saito and not so much for House Yun. Certainly he was off in some other corner of the ship running through the same considerations I was; only he was trying to illuminate a path that could get him out of his current bind, while I was planning to hold the high ground. Hector was the only one who I was sure wanted to stay as much as I did, but he also wanted me on edge to throw me off of sure footing. So he would make noises about playing both sides, but in reality I just had to find a sufficiently juicy carrot to dangle.

It all summed up in a predicament thorny enough to vex any mind, even one like mine built for times like these. The sickness, the uncertainty, the incessant running of scenario after scenario through my frayed neurons, it nearly drove me mad. Wandering the halls of the ship, the gardens, the bridge, everything seemed to add a new twist to my dilemma. So I sought the void.

That day I found the observation deck mercifully empty, Marchand must have been off getting concentrated doses direct from the observational data, so I held myself at the edge of the entry surrounded by nothing but stars and indulgent silence. I still could not see what the astrophysicist could in this place, a spectacular view and much needed peace to be sure, but far from the enlightenment she seemed to find. All the same, I sat in that warm void and watched the stars spin slowly in their stately rotation as the ship completed spin after life giving spin. Here my mind finally began to quiet, slowly hypnotized by this stellar dance.

I have no idea how long I sat in blessed seclusion there among the heavens, but in fitting form my sanctuary was burst by none other than the Voice of the People. The portal opened behind me and her thin, dark form floated in silently beside grasping the edge of the entry to look up into the stars. I took a deep breath. Mastered myself, my frustration, my indignation. Maybe she could be won over.

She began with little more than a whisper, “Beautiful isn’t it?”

I had to laugh, “That’s what we all seem to say.”

She chuckled back, “You’re right, beautiful is probably an insufficient word. No?”

“I don’t know that our minds were really built to comprehend it all, so it’s not so surprising that words fail.”

She let the silence hang heavily for a moment. “You know, when I was a girl the night sky was as full of stories as it was full of stars.” I nodded but held my tongue, so she went on. “My mother brought me back to her town in Namibia after the unification to meet what was left of her family, those few who had survived the war. I must have been twelve years old or so. It was a challenging visit, just smelly old strangers all wanting to pinch my cheeks, dust storms would blow in off the desert almost every day choking the very air, and the heat -my god the heat- I thought it would almost certainly kill me. I wanted nothing more than to go home, even if home was just back to a dreary old Durban apartment block, it was better than this strange place on the edge of the world.’

“But then the night came,” she went on reverently. “The sky would clear, the heat would be blown away by cool evening winds, and after dinner I would walk out onto the near dunes with my mother. The skies would come alive. Stars like nothing I’d ever seen before filled my eyes, stretching from the little twinkling lights of town up through the zenith and off over the dark, marching dunes. I’d never seen anything so beautiful.’

“And my mother would tell me stories. Heroic epics, forbidden romances, lurking monsters, noble kings, they were all there glowing amongst the stars. Even I, a little girl from Durban, knew that people were out there too, the Delaney’s reshaping what humans could do and be out in space. Your family, showing us that a life amongst the stars could be a life well lived. But my mother showed me something too. That the skies are not just filled with stars and planets and moons and asteroids, they’re filled with memories.”

I let her trail off, and after a moment I said, “And I suppose this is when you tell me to consider the memories of all the algae and plankton and sponges swimming around down there on this new planet.”

She laughed back dryly, unwilling to be put off by my snark. “Wouldn’t be much to consider would it? Even if there was intelligent life down there who knows if they’d look up and see their own stories in the stars or just specks of light awaiting conquest or if they could see anything at all.’

“I’m sure I understand a lot less than the rest of you,” she continued. “I wasn’t prepared for this task. I didn’t have the education or the training or the briefing you all have had. All I know is that we’re looking at a miracle, here up in space and down there with the plankton and the algae and the sponges. That there should be stars and planets and moons is a miracle; and that there should be life swimming around down there, that’s a miracle too. It’s awe-inspiring no matter which way you look. I don’t know what the best thing to do is here, but I know it’s worth weighing both sides before we decide.”

She left no room for argument, so I simply nodded and looked back at the twirling stars. Silence settled back over us for a time and he hung in something rather like companionable peace for a time before she lightly grabbed my shoulder and said. 

“Come along, we’re going to be late.”

We stepped on to the bridge just as everyone was taking their seats for the evening’s deliberations. The ship had decided on displaying an expansive landscape from the Ming dynasty, all plummeting mountains and cantilevered trees fighting their way free of an all consuming fog. I looked around and noticed everyone had declined to patronize the bar for the evening. So much for social lubrication helping create consensus. Nonetheless I got myself a whiskey cooled by a large sphere of ice, trying in vain to relieve the throbbing pressure that continued to build behind my eyes.

Once we were all seated it was Marquez who broke the leaden silence. “After review of the latest observations and a thorough discussion, Dr. Marchand and I have decided to change our votes,” confirming what I had already surmised. “The latest evidence all but certifies what we had suspected, but in the end Lorena, you’re right,” she said more earnestly than I’d ever heard her. Hildebrand for her part nodded humbly. “There’s no amount of orbital observation that could really tell us the nature of the life down there. It could be just like earth, it could be like nothing we’d ever imagined, I want nothing more than to wade around in those oceans and find out but the truth is it’s too much of a risk.’

“We could try and sanitize probes to collect samples to our hearts content before we send them down only to find that the very alloys of our tools trigger unfathomable effects. Or more likely some stubborn extremophile bacteria would survive our cleaning and get plopped down in the middle of a friendly ocean and get to colonizing before we ever had a chance. If we trigger ecosystem collapse we’d barely be able to detect it let alone do anything to prevent it. And that’s just thinking about the research, actual colonization is a whole different ball game.” She went on quietly, the words clearly wounding her with every syllable.

Doggedly, she persevered, “We could go down there and treat it like a totally inhospitable planet, domed cities, suits, the lot. Still it would just be a matter of time before all the microorganisms that come with us would get out, plus the aforementioned risk of contamination with refined metals. If we look at it this way the planet’s apparent hospitality starts to become more of a liability than an asset. We’d need to live in suits, constantly enclosed in our domes, all the while the world outside would tempt us to leave it all behind. I mean dios mio, it looks so much like home. Nobody was ever tempted out of their suits in the Mars colony, no one ever thought an afternoon stroll on Titan was a good idea. No, pressure to end the quarantine would mount and mount and eventually burst and likely spell disaster for this nascent local life.”

Her voice was now audibly shaking. “The way I see it the only way to colonize a planet this hospitable would be to go for full terraforming. Maybe the life down there would survive, probably not. Life on our own planet couldn’t survive our impact, I can’t see how these untouched ecosystems would fare any better.” She drew in a breath girding her resolve. “Even if we put the probability of successful colonization and ecosystem preservation at an unfathomably rosy 50% it’s still too great of a risk.” She looked at the astrophysicist who gravely nodded her support. “In the end, Dr. Marchand and I believe that this whole venture is about the preservation of life, human and otherwise. Colonization will be a monumental task no matter where we decide to land, the life on this planet not only poses constraints on us that increase chances of colony failure, but we have to consider the life an end in itself. This planet has a right to live and I, for all that I want, don’t have a right to put it in jeopardy.”

We let her words diminish, rising up into the stony arches above us. Hildebrand nodded her approval but held her silence. I took a long sip of whiskey, nearly draining my glass, willing myself to find the strength to bear this insanity with composure. In the end though, it was Hector who brought it all crumbling down.

“That is remarkably well said Dr. Marquez,” he began, rising from his seat. “Like all of you I have been pouring over the new observations every day, and like all of you I see a planet of extraordinary promise and extraordinary responsibility.” An impish grin began to creep across his face that made me lean in, analyzing every word. What was this wry bastard trying? “It seems clear that the atmosphere is almost certainly remarkably Earth-like, I feel very confident that the technologies Yun International could bring to this new world would easily help us, as Dr. Marquez suggests, go whole hog on terraforming.” His words posed the counterargument, his tone invited judicious consideration, his eyes bespoke a deeper plan.

“A simple elimination of the gaseous chlorine we’re seeing with scrubbers, add some stabilising nitrogen and get some of our photosythesizers down there to up the oxygen in the mix, my best guess is that we could take that afternoon stroll, no suit no mask no nothing, within fifteen years.” He paused to look around and make sure he had the room’s full attention. “That’s better than our wildest dreams when we set out. All the same Dr. Marquez is right, our actions will have consequences and we will never be able to eliminate the risk to the local flora. That’s why I, on behalf of Yun International, am opting to take the high road and change my vote. We should leave this planet be.”

I couldn’t take any more of it. “Who the fuck do you think you’re kidding Hector?!” I exploded. “There are two million frozen humans aboard this ship at risk every single day we stay out in space. You’re all of a sudden ready to turn your back on all of them on all this opportunity for some algae? Well I’m not buying it.”

“There’s nothing to be bought Saito San.” he said with mocking politeness. “Dr. Marquez and Mrs. Hildebrand make sound, compelling arguments and I have changed my mind.”

“Bullshit! Every new round of observations has come in better for Saito and worse for Yun, now you’re willing to sell us all out to get rid of a bad hand? Have at least a semblance of spine Hector.” I seethed, words dripping venom.

“This has nothing to do with business,” he replied with infuriating calm. “Perhaps you need to reconsider your duty here on this jury if all you see is a business opportunity.”

That was it. He could sell us out for his own gain, that was the game. But to stand there and pretend like he was so much holier-than-thou talking about my duty it was too much. 

“You son of a bitch!” I yelled, and launched myself across the table at him.

I made it about halfway across before Liam Delaney’s muscular arm caught me around the neck and flung me back over my chair in one smooth, irresistible motion. My feet caught on its low back and sent the back of my head careening to a neat collision with the polished stone. And then, blackness.

--

I hid in the past.

The next day I awoke back in my staterooms, head patched up for the most part.Now I had the joy of contending with a throbbing in both the front and back of my skull. Excellent. Just what I needed as this infuriating jury went more and more sideways, further and further from rationality and control and into whatever madness Hildebrand was working towards. I couldn’t bear to face it. I needed time to plan and find a new strategy, I needed my shame, that vestigial emotion, to subside. 

Not shame that Delaney had taken me down so easily, no one awake on the ship would actually challenge the man physically; it seemed likely that he hadn’t even meant for things to get as rough as they did, my chair got in the way and finished the job for him. No, it was shame at letting myself be driven from my senses by the mocking grin of Hector Yun. I don’t know how many times over the years I’d found myself across the negotiating table from him with his chummy smiles and his back-slapping and his flights of fancy. He was everything I aimed not to be. Every time I sat across from him composure and cool-headed rationality allowed me to outflank him. And now, when it mattered most, that bastard had somehow brought me down to his level. It was all too much, so I hid.

The past was never far away on the CRS Delaney’s Foil. With the ship’s libraries always accessible on my tab all I had to do was ask. So I spent days holed up in my staterooms, pouring over my research on the other jurors, sure that the cryosickness was keeping me from remembering the one key detail that would unlock everything and put it all back to rights. Then as it became clear that there was no silver bullet I began to slip backwards through time.

Even though the ship had left Earth on a one-way journey the communication hardly stopped when we departed. As we steadily accelerated into the abyss, photons came flying through the void bringing news, bringing messages, bringing all the memories of those now long past with them. I started at the beginning, finding news headlines from the weeks after we departed, as if I had just been on some long-overdue holiday and was only now catching up on what I’d missed. In truth, my mind couldn’t really grasp how much time had actually passed. Then I jumped forward months, then years, then decades. Skipping lightly through the years like a leaf caught in an updraft.

It was all the same. The rivalries between the great conglomerates continued on, the environment continued to degrade, the ships continued to depart. At first I dove deep into the stories surrounding Saito interests, checking in on how brothers and aunts and nieces had fared in a world I knew only too well. As if I could simply step back into the life I had left. It was intoxicating. Escapism in a world that felt real, because it was real. But time went on. Deals were made and collapsed, triumphs were had, losses were covered and gradually the names became less and less familiar. I referred to a family tree on which my name was a shockingly high branch.

Humanity muddled along, as we always have. No worst-case-scenarios came to life, but neither did any best-cases. No miracle cures came along to solve our deepening core crisis. Power was all but completely consolidated into the conglomerates; governmental residue was swept up into the corporate structures. Some welcomed the changes, others protested, most just got on with their lives the best way that they could. Shorelines eroded, species disappeared, vast populations fled the environmental destruction bringing outrage, and suffering. But then we’d adapt, as we always have. Homo Sapiens we called ourselves, the wise ones, better would be Homo Mollis, the resilient ones. From my distant vantage, skipping through the years, I could see how much we lost and still we went on finding new ways to survive, finding new ways to create a life well-lived.

Gradually the news abated, then slowed, then trickled to a stop. Inexorably the space and time we’d covered took their toll. At first, the colony ships were living memories, then stories handed down through the generations, but eventually- like all things- we were relegated to the pages of history. After two hundred years the updates slowed to annual data dumps including just the news headlines and technical discoveries for the ship to update its libraries with. The cost of sending radio transmissions this far gradually closed our connection to home. 

After five hundred years the updates stopped completely. There was nothing in those final connections to indicate a coming societal collapse, but I suppose we always had the ability to do that rather quickly if we put our minds to it. I couldn’t bring myself to believe that we’d truly destroyed ourselves though. As I bored through the pages of history I’d seen too much resilience in the face of catastrophe. No, more likely spending the resources to send radio transmissions this far out had fallen out of favor culturally. But all the same I couldn’t eliminate the possibility. Maybe runaway environmental collapse had finally done us in, maybe warheads after eons collecting dust in their silos had finally been called upon, maybe some virus had made hay in our sprawling cities killing its host before we could do a thing about it. It was not our place to know aboard the Foil.

Three days into my burrowing a soft knock came to my door. The sound was barely audible but it sucked me mercilessly back through the years and into reality. To this year on this ship with these people. I swung open the heavy, inlaid door open to reveal the frocked figure of Father Joshua; I had to stifle my surprise. He looked up amicably and held out an analgesic tonic like a peace offering and said mildly, “How’s the head?”

I stepped back to let him in, appraising this unexpected visitor. “Here to convert me Father? Or just here to lay a little signature Catholic guilt on my absence from the jury?”

“Neither, I’m afraid,” He replied genially, “Simply here to check in on a fellow lost soul. Everyone’s worried about you.”

I wasn’t sure what to make of this tender approach. “I’m fine, head’s on the mend, although I’d rather not have this headache paired with the cryosickness. And I sure as shit won’t tussle with Delaney again.”

He laughed softly. “None of us would, Mr. Delaney is rather...imposing.”

“So what’s the deal?” I cut in, determined to get to the point of this intrusion. “Has Hildebrand talked you all over to her side, are we going to cut and run on a golden opportunity for the sake of a few algae?”

“Please drink the tonic,” the priest replied softly, summarily refusing any ugliness. “It’s a blend perfected in Jesuit hospitals, quite simple to make once you know how, and quite effective. It should help with the head injury and the sleeper’s sickness as well”

I sniffed the drink dubiously and took a hesitant first sip. Effervescent and bitter but crystal clear, you wouldn’t mistake it for a recreational drink. Nonetheless, after a few sips a cool creeping entered the back of my head gradually dulling the pain, beat by beat the throbbing in my head began to dissipate like sand settling down after the violence of a crashing wave.

“What the hell? How do you have stronger drugs than the ship medic?” I asked, thrown off by this kindness.

“It’s not always about the strength, Saito San, sometimes it’s about the blend. We Jesuits do have some secrets left to us,” he said with a slight smile, gratified that I had taken the help. “Plus it’s not single malt, so it’s not very hard to be more helpful than your self-prescribed medication.”

“Oh, here to stage an intervention then is it?” I had to acknowledge his wisdom, even if I still harbored serious doubts about his intentions. “Well, we might as well have a seat for that then.” We stepped over into the reading room, settling onto plush cantilevered chairs covered in rich, dark leather. The ‘window’ hewn in the stone showed a stabilised view of the stars to port, as if this were just some ocean liner sailing smoothly through the cosmos. Father Joshua looked around admiringly as he settled onto a chair. Certainly whatever funds the Society of Jesus could scrounge together to get him aboard this ship were barely sufficient to get him a seat on the jury and likely left very little for his accommodation.

“It seems the house of Saito can provide a bit better quarters than the Society can.” he said, looking around and confirming my theory. “No, no intervention from me today, I’m afraid. I actually understand the compulsion all too well. I was a Bowmore man before I joined the Society...and have been again in some particularly faithless moments.”

I nodded, refusing to be baited by his commiseration, and held my tongue so he went on. “I know you probably find it hard to believe, but I really am here just to check up on you and offer a little relief where I can.” He paused heavily, waiting for me to engage. When I wouldn’t budge he continued. “To answer your question, no. Mrs. Hildebrand has not turned us against you, nor do I think she would want to, in reality Mr. Delaney has called off our meetings until you’re up to joining us. As much as he threatens it he’s not inclined to wake someone else up, both because he knows the toll that waking takes and because he knows he’ll need the full cooperation of your company for any colony to succeed. We have plenty of time, should we need it.”

“And where do you sit on the matter Father?” I nibbled at his lure.

“Doubt,” he said after a long pause. His eyes were glued to the simulated twinkling of the stars on the window, the warm band of the Milky Way stretched across the panel and off into the sleeping quarters. “has been the one near constant of my life Saito San.” He sighed heavily, searching for words. “I joined the Society twenty years ago looking for escape. No money, no family, no prospects for the future, living paycheck to paycheck on Chicago’s east side. I can’t say that faith drove me into this life. Rather, it was some fond memories of a Jesuit soup kitchen growing up that did the trick. But all the same, I grew up attending mass with my mother, and had the fear of God instilled in me from my first years.’

“So I understood the words, and I witnessed the faith of greater men, but it was years before I could understand. Even then, I saw holiness in good works rather than in the divine. But year after year the gravity of the rituals, the texts, the faith pressed on my mind and eventually found their way in.” He sat enraptured by the view in front of us. “But doubt is still there as well. Am I just a lost soul taking some folk tales far too seriously? I know the histories as well as anyone, I’ve seen the travesties that have been committed in the name of God. What if the world left us behind for a reason?”

“And you have doubts about this planet too, I assume.” Hoping to wrangle him back to the point.

The priest laughed at my bluntness. “Indeed. How could one not?” he said with an earnest look. “You know before I boarded I spent the better part of a year in council with the Father General, and even on several occasions with His Holiness himself. I couldn’t really understand it. There were more qualified men, more faithful men, better speakers, better healers, holier men than I. Why was I chosen of all the Society to take our faith to the stars?’

“In all those hours with the Father General I learned that it was my adaptability that they sought. The Church has not had thousands of years of staying power for no reason, faith paired with adaptability has kept our like alive. Even if our light was dwindling there towards the end. The Church, my faith, God himself is like any other refugee on this ship. That’s what we all are, make no mistake. Refugees searching for a glimmer of hope.’

“I’m not here to evangelise, not here to save souls or resuscitate the faith or convert minds human or alien. I’m here to find a new home, a new place where those who feel God’s love may seek solace, a place where they may do a few good works of their own. They sent me out here to keep the good of the human spirit alive, and yes, to keep the word of God alive as well. I’m trying to have faith that I was the right one for the task. I’m hoping against hope that through brains or luck or divine provenance that I will be equal to my duty, that I can find a new home for this faith I’ve come to love.” He paused, settling his rising passion. “I look down, the same as you Saito San, and see as you say a golden opportunity.”

“So you’re here to broker an alliance and help get this jury back on a sensible track?” I cut in, hoping to find the point and maybe an ally while I was at it.

“Not everything is business you know,” the priest sighed. “You may never believe it, but a couple of days ago I watched someone get their ass positively laid out by a large Irishman, and I just wanted to check in to see how they were healing. And no, I’m not here to form some backroom alliance, I may not agree with everything Mrs.Hildebrand has to say but I do believe that the right thing to do is to talk this all out together.’

“Still,” he continued, after a leaden pause. “I look at this new world and think I see home. If this planet was put here by the Lord to test me, if settling down here really isn’t the right thing to do, I’m not sure how I could hope to pass. I’m here to find a new home where my faith can flourish in good works and the glory of God, and I have a hard time imagining that happening in a world where we live all of our lives under suffocating domes, down in tunnels, hiding from a world that has no love for humankind.’

“Of course as well, there is the life as well. More of God’s creation down there awaiting our discovery, our similarities and differences would illuminate his fingerprints. I look down at this world and see a new Eden below, ready for us to redeem ourselves, if we’re worthy.”

“So you haven’t changed your vote?” I asked, confused by his wandering monologue, wondering at his intention.

“No Saito San, I have not. I’m a priest of many doubts, but I do not doubt that this planet is a miracle.”  He said, rising to leave. “I also know that the only path forward, the right path forward, is to give all sides their due consideration as a jury. We’ll be meeting on the bridge again this evening, if you’re feeling up to it we’ll continue our discussions, if not the Lord has blessed us with an abundance of time.”

“The Lord and a few thousand Delaney engineers.” I replied dryly. “Yeah, I’ll be there, no use in delaying.”

“I’ll be there with another tonic.” He smiled and turned to leave, shutting the glittering door softly behind him.

That evening, I stepped cautiously onto the bridge. The rest of the jury had all gathered and fell silent as soon as I set foot through the ornate archway. Delaney and the priest hastened over to me, bringing the promised tonic and an earnest look. 

“How’s the head?” Delaney asked softly, eyes pleading for forgiveness.

He had warned us about keeping things civilized so I couldn’t hold a grudge for too long even if I was still feeling a little indignant. “Better with every sip of the good Father’s medicine.” I replied coolly, taking a swig of the tonic and closing my eyes as another wave of blessed relief slid up my neck and through my skull. “I suppose now I know not to underestimate your reach.”

He smiled back sheepishly, “What happened...was never my intention, and I am sorry.”

I gave a curt nod. “Well this all has let one vital piece of information slip, that we’re letting the Church hide all the good drugs. How did we let this happen Liam? What fool kind of society are we setting up here where the priests control the strongest drugs?” Hoping to make light of the situation and move on from rehashing my ass kicking.

“Not stronger,” Father Joshua insisted. “just better targeted. A trick borne of necessity in underfunded Jesuit hospitals.”

“I’ll believe it when I see the recipe Father,” knowing I’d never see anything of the kind. I pivoted hoping to find more productive soil for this conversation. “Unless I’m mistaken, we three are the last ones with any sense on this ship. Or have you two changed your votes?”

Delaney hesitated, his crystal eyes hiding fear and now what seemed to be doubt. “Not as of yet Saito San, but as you’ve heard we postponed further deliberations until you recovered. I know you and Hector have a long history, but I assume you’ll be able to control your emotions going forward. I am not inclined to be putting people in and out of cryosleep unnecessarily.”

That, and you know you’ll need my buy-in here or wherever we plan to settle. “Undoubtedly,” I replied with taught lips.

“Good, good. Well best not to discuss here then, if you’re ready we’ll get right down to it.”

The man sure does take his job seriously, I thought, well I suppose my strength always was at the conference table. At a motion from Delaney the jurors broke up their huddling conversations and we sat once more around the great expanse of rich wood that filled the center of the room. I looked up at the display above, the ship had chosen another classic oil painting for us. The HMS Endeavour sailed proudly into Botany Bay her tall, white sails riding high above the blue waters and the scrubby, eucalyptus-covered hills that stretched off into the distance. Discovering a new world and a new home for humanity, it seemed a strikingly fitting selection from a mechanical mind.

Once we were all seated, Delaney began sternly, “Thank you all, before we begin we’ll cover a few updates since our last meeting. Firstly, as you may have seen, our telescopic array has just passed the planet and is now headed out to its rendezvous point, meaning we now have as clear a picture of the planet as we will have short of actually entering orbit for observation. Spectroscopy and infrared imaging have continued to confirm our working hypotheses. It’s now all but certain that this planet is home to the first alien life ever encountered by human kind.” A buzz of excitement ran along the table. “As Dr. Marchand and Marquez have pointed out this won’t be a fully provable hypothesis unless we go down and start taking samples. We’ll leave risks aside for now, because I believe the latest round of images will be of great interest to you all.” The display changed and silence settled over the room as we all looked up, enraptured.

The indistinct structures in the oceans were now visible in precise detail. Lacing off the islands were what appeared to be vast undulating reefs fanning out in a loose honeycomb pattern. In some places it grew thick descending from a vivid chartreuse into a ponderous deep forest green, in others white sand from below fought through illuminating a thousand hues of teal and turquoise, here and there the formations had fought their way above the tide only to be bleached white in the sun, and far offshore it all descended gently away into the deep blue of open ocean. 

The ship flipped through panel after panel of these stunning images. In daylight it glowed with all the vibrance of photosynthesis, and as the planet turned into night bioluminescence took over the show igniting the deep pockets of the honey comb with a pulsating light that ranged from violet up into pale seafoam. We all sat awestruck. This wasn’t just some mass of single celled organisms, it was a rich garden world, teeming with life.

Delaney looked around the table, smiling slightly at our enraptured looks. “Now, as it stands our vote is currently four to leave and three to stay. Would anyone care to begin?” Beaming eyes dropped away from the display, but none as slowly as those of Marquez, a tear rolled slowly down her dark cheek.

It was the priest who began. He stood timidly, his black cassock bathed in the radiant glow of an alien world. “Ladies and gentlemen, few times in my life have I truly felt I was witnessing the Lord at work, but this new world has to be the most surefire sign I’ve ever seen.” He looked up, drinking in the hypnotic views. “In a way I am saddened to not have seen his work on all the planets we passed to get here, but He always has a plan, and that plan was to bring us here.’

“Many of you, no doubt, have wondered what my purpose is here on this venture. Afterall my proud, ancient order had fallen on hard times before we departed. But we Jesuits are a practical bunch, we know that we could not and should not set out to evangelize whatever other of God’s children we find out here among the stars. No, I’m simply here to find a new home for our faith, a home with a real future. I was selected to find a place where those few faithful aboard this ship could witness some more of God’s glory and honor it by serving the community that we build together.’

“I’m not here to try and reinvigorate the faith, or find some new way the Church can come back into its former power. I am just a priest, lost as you all, praying for a sign. This is it. We could have come upon a million dead worlds but the Lord sent us here.” His voice was now shaking with reverence. “We knew it from the first time we laid eyes on it, this world was meant for us. We are home.” He sat and let the weight of his words sink down on us.

“Dios, ayudame.” It was Marquez who broke the brittle silence with a whisper. “Forgive me Padre, but it cannot be.” She looked at the priest with tear-filled eyes. “I grew up in the Church, but I’ve never considered myself a woman of much faith. I’d always found the precision of science comforting where faith had eluded me. But all the same I know what you feel, I never felt closer to God than I did first setting eyes on this world. It is a miracle in the flesh, sitting right in front of us.” She chuckled ruefully. “Hell, I’d never been so happy I’d been baptized.” The priest sat with eyes fixed upon her but held his words, so she pressed on. “But all the same we know the risk is too great, as much as I hate it. This world before us is a temptation, an apple dangled before us, and I pray that we can find the strength to resist.”

The priest’s face began to flush. “I understand that we may never be able to completely eliminate the risks, but this world was made for us. We never imagined anywhere so perfect when we set off, and now right in front of us is a future where we can step out and witness all the glory of creation under a clear blue sky. We won’t have to cower under some dome or slither around in some unnatural space suit.” He was now all but yelling. “This future is before us Dr. Marquez, all we have to do is have faith. Faith is the key to the future.”

Tears were now streaming down the young doctor’s cheeks, but she did not raise her voice to meet his passion. “Lo siento Padre, faith is not enough.” I looked across the table at a woman trying to find the strength to stay her course, to stay true to the profession she’d worked so hard to master rather than run back into the comforting arms of the religion in which she’d been raised. “You say you want to find a new home for the Church, I pray that you do, but this is not it. You could erect the first house of worship overlooking all of the strange new creatures in the sea only to watch helpless as they all fail and die because of some catastrophe that we cause but cannot understand.”

“You don’t know that!” The priest, impassioned, jumped in. “You’re supposing a very-worst-case-scenario when all it takes is the tiniest bit of faith to see the promise of the world laid before us.”

“Oh I see it Padre, I see it and the entirety of my soul yearns for it. But I saw Earth too, I saw what it had become. I’ve read the histories, same as all of us. We ignored the risks at every turn in favor of a future that could never have been. We took our Eden and we burned it, we cannot do the same again here.”

“What then Dr. Marquez?!” he roared now standing in growing fury. “Do we survive this unfathomable crossing, look a sign from God full in the face and then turn our backs on it? Do we limp off into the blackness hoping to scratch out a living on some airless rock? Is that the future He would want for his children?”

“If that is our penance then so be it Padre. We cannot risk more of his creation for our greed.” Her streaming eyes met his, dark and resolute.

Father Joshua collapsed into his seat defeated as the planet above slowly turned into darkness. He dropped his head in prayer seeking solace from an argument that held such weight and yet seemed so wrong. Silence filled the room once more as Marquez dried her eyes. Even Hector Yun shifted uncomfortably in his seat, his easy grin nowhere to be seen.

After an interminable moment Liam Delaney’s deep voice broke the silence. “Your point is well taken Dr. Marquez, but there are many lives here to consider.” Finally, a voice of sanity entered the mix, I leaned forward hopefully. “Not just us, not just the Church, not just all that life thriving down below, but the two million sleepers we have been tasked with finding a new home for and all the millions who will come after them.’

“To Father Joshua’s point, this planet is more hospitable than any we could have hoped to find. If we leave this place we’re not only leaving this opportunity, we’ll be signing up for another dangerous crossing to another system that may or may not have any viable planets. Along the way more caskets will fail, more lives will be lost and that’s barring all the other risks associated with space flight.” His voice became weaker and weaker as he spoke. “We will all have to go back into cryo, and who knows what we’ll wake up to...” He looked downcast, the notion of heading back on the ice weighed heavily upon him.

This time it was Lorena Hildebrand’s soft voice that broke the quiet. “With all due respect Mr. Delaney, we all knew the price when we got on board.” She stood humbly, above her a chain of islands turned into a new day. “We’ve lost hundreds, a tragedy to be sure, and we may well lose many, many more before we find a new home. But still, we knew the risks when we signed up.” She looked around the table, eyes raising to meet her small, determined face. “You’ve paid a dearer price than anyone Mr. Delaney, but you are equal to this task–”

I had to jump in before this lunacy carried her any further. “Do you ever consider the impossibility of the bar that you’re setting here? If we hold off colonizing every planet for fear of some primordial life then we’ll never settle anywhere. The ethic you’re preaching will render the entirety of this enterprise moot.” I stood, struggling to control the fire these maniacs lit within me. “Marquez, for fuck’s sake, you’re a woman of science! You’re letting insane dogmatism get in the way of the greatest discovery in history. Marchand you as well, we can all see you have no intention of setting foot on any planet we colonize but are you really willing to sell us all out for some interstellar observation time?” I stopped, gulping air reaching wildly to control my emotions.

The scientists, good names sufficiently battered, sat, too indignant to meet my remarks. It was the soft tone of Lorena Hildebrand, the Voice of the People, that rose to meet my challenge. It always had to be. 

“It’s about finding balance.” The clarity of her small voice pushing back my rage. “You are right, if we are too dogmatic we are doomed, but if we don’t honor other life we are doomed as well. I do not believe it is the possibility of life that should drive us away from the planet, it is that this planet is teeming with it. We knew it since we first set eyes on it. This world is well on its way to cultivating a completely new kind of life, that alone is the most profound discovery in history.”

“What balance then, does the Voice of the People seek?” I shot back, seething with every syllable.

“One that preserves life,” she replied simply. “If this were some airless world, with only the possibility of life we would do well to settle down. Conversely, if we miraculously stumbled upon life intelligent enough to tell us the nature of its being we would be obliged to communicate with them, engage safely and responsibly so that both species could come away stronger.’

“But that’s not what we have. We have a planet teeming with young life. We have no reason to expect the emergence of intelligence for half a billion years, if it ever does. Should we monitor this planet? Yes. Maybe an observation station on one of the moons to keep an eye on this world, and let any intelligence that does flourish here know that they are not alone. I’m sure Dr. Marquez has some ideas.” She looked over for reassurance and the doctor nodded her support.

“Our choice here is bigger than this ship, bigger than the species down there, bigger than all of humanity. We are faced with life and death in the truest sense. We may go on and never settle, humanity may be extinguished by an indifferent universe, but the life here may go on. They may in the millenia to come, learn to look around and see their place in the cosmos. They may prove smarter, more resilient, more capable of resisting the extinction that comes for all than us. And they may keep the spark of life aglow just that much longer in the universe.” She paused, leaden words taking their toll. “No need of ours, no matter how dire, could justify jeopardizing that.”

“You have taken leave of your damned senses!” I roared back, arguments crumbling around me. “Last I checked there are still three of us with a modicum of sanity left on this jury, I don’t care how long it takes I will not let this opp–”

“She’s right Akira.” Liam Delaney’s hoarse voice cut me off. “She’s right...” he sat shaking his head in disbelief at what he was about to do.

“Not you too Liam, you’re smarter than this! This planet is the future your grandmother envisioned for us, are you really going to throw that all away?” My voice began to plead. “Father, you at least I hope have held on to your sanity through all of this, are you with me?” The priest shook his head slightly and crossed himself in silent prayer.

“It’s not always business Akira, not always opportunities and returns and statistics.” Liam’s tired voice rose to meet mine. “We are called upon to do this right thing because there is so much we do not know and cannot know. We could run a million simulations of colonizing this planet and find most of them turn out just fine, but we cannot guarantee a good outcome. Look into history Saito San, when has colonization ever turned out well for the natives?”

“Don’t be ridiculous!” I bellowed, my voice shattering. “You know as well as I that most likely we’ll be so different from this life that we won’t even affect each other. You all are jumping at shadows when the prospect of so much good is right around the corner!”

“Yes, the shadow of annihilation.” Delaney’s grave voice rang across the bridge. “That’s something worth jumping at. We have to act with humility here Akira, put down your ambitions and your calculations and your attachments, recognize that we’ll never see the whole picture.” His voice was gathering steam. “We may be on a fool’s errand out here. Maybe every hospitable planet we encounter will be taken. Maybe thinking that we could ever find another home was unfathomable hubris. Maybe we’re destined to wander forever because we could not save our home. That is our burden, but it gives us no right to this planet.”

I leaned forward over the rich wood of the table willing myself to stay standing as blood roared in my ears. My mind raced in a million directions seeking any escape from this maze of insanity. One by one, each route my mind followed hit a dead end and dread welled up from my belly. 

“Damn you, damn you, damn you.” I whispered. “The blood is on your hands you bastards!” I looked up fiercely to meet six sets of resolute eyes. 

At last I let out in defeat, “Very well, away we go.”

Over the deep redwood of the long table my words rose, then up and up through the lofty vaulted air of the bridge, past the cascading chandelier. My assent drifted up into the very peak of the domed ceiling where the calm mechanical mind of the CRS Delaney’s Foil was listening. Photons raced along kilometers of coursing fiber optics, a slurry of binary was funneled through processors buried deep within the ship, algorithms unknown by man sorted this new information and triggered a new set of commands racing out to the far reaches of the ship. Imperceptibly to the waking crew, the ship began to turn, once again orienting the engines for acceleration.

If this planet was unsuitable for her human cargo that was just as well with the Foil, she was made to fly. Deep in her archives she had a charted course of hundreds of suitable systems in this region of space as they worked their way along the Sagittarius Arm, she pulled in the observation deck and began pumping water out onto her ablative ice to ready for relativistic flight once more. Maybe the humans would find something more to their liking in the next system, they’d be there in no time, it was only fifty lightyears away after all. And once more the Delaney’s Foil pointed her bow back out into the inky blackness of space.

—

Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed this one, as always I welcome your feedback griffin@turnipseed.co is where you can reach me. Stay tuned in a couple of month’s time for the next installment.

We, The Watchers

That first meal feels a million miles away but it is certainly much farther by now.

The golden crisp of potatoes, the simple beauty of a well-done pork chop, the intoxicating waft of burgundy, hell, even a steamed green bean met my taste buds like a word from God. After all, he was the only one who knew how long it’d been since I’d had real food. There were many things to remember from that first meal. Adrian’s face. He was nearly bursting with anticipation finally- finally- having company to share a meal with after his interminable time awake came to a sweet end. The old farmhouse. Slatted windows let in a sweet summer’s breeze, a low elkhorn chandelier flooded the weatherboard dining room with warm light. The setting was nearly perfect for a meal of dignified, rustic simplicity.

Yes, there was plenty to be remembered about that first meal aboard the C.R.S. Delaney’s Folly. But what I mostly remember is fighting tears back at just how goddamned good a steamed green bean could be when it was the first solid food to hit your tongue out of cryo. That, and swimming in astonishment that this scene of country contentment was all just a ruse built to preserve our sanity as we hurled through the inky blackness of space at a doughty third of the speed of light.

It’s funny how much I could wax poetic about my own fractured memory when I’m finishing a piece. Even paltry little stool, hobbled together from offcuts of grander projects and the few good bits of timber I could coax out of the biofactory this week, but at least I’d finally have somewhere to sit when I milked the cow. I suppose that was the intention though, when you fall into the meditation of working with your hands it’s easier to forget the impossibility of the task set before you. It couldn’t last forever though, each evening I’d still have to get out and switch the pastures over this evening before the cow clips the grass all the way down to dust.

What an odd proposition really, I’d never reckoned to be a farmer in this life and it took literally taking to the stars to be thrust into this antiquated ideal. In many ways, it’s entirely gobsmacking that earth ever was like this quiet, open, bountiful. They say your memory is a bit slow on the uptake when you come off the ice, but god, half of what I could remember was running frantically to dive into some apartment block before the great ochre wall of a haboob rolled up the front range and blew our neighborhood just that much more flat. All I’d ever seen of the wide world of gastronomy was the outside of some hydroponic blocks and the inside of a ration bag. Now here I am, off to seed some new colony an unfathomable distance from home and trying to devise a new plan to keep this next tomato harvest from going off in storage. For a ship with a good chunk of the totality of human knowledge and experience in its archives, you’d think the Delaney would have been of more help.

But that was the modus operandi for the old girl, non-intrusion, get to work, figure it out yourself. Thank the stars for Adrian’s bottomless patience in showing me the ropes that first week- here’s how you rotate the paddocks to keep the livestock rotation working, the garden is out back here’s what to plant next to keep the beds rich and yourself fed, oh, and don’t forget to check the biofactory twice a day to see what the ship has sent you, it doesn’t always stay on at room temp- I staggered through his measured instruction in a cryogenic stupor. But he’s been back in the freeze for years now and all I have left of him are scribbled notes, a battered copy of The American Gardener, and a week’s worth of good company. For all the good it did me.

In hindsight Adrian’s forbearance seemed downright divine. Years of trials and tribulations on the farm. Years of mite infestations and missed harvests. Years in the workshop passing the long evening hours trying desperately to keep my hands busy. Years of not but my own company and I’d likely explode with a fountain of words given somebody, anybody to talk to. But he had pulled me off the ice, given me plenty of time to dethaw, held me up and fed me slurry to get me at least semi-mobile, he had given me space and support and a dose of quick wit to get me through those hellish first days out of cryogenic stasis. And when I finally felt up to a chat his stories and questions and musings were contained and precise and simple. All that and it was still the most disorienting, stressful week of my life.

Once we got to talking we covered everything. Where had we grown up? Me: Denver, in the tenements north of the city just close enough to the mountains to harvest rainfall when we were so blessed and sell it for a couple of extra rations. Him: Southside Chicago, worked in the family business of hydroponic soy keeping bellies full if pockets empty. Did we have any family doing work stints on the Folly? Me: I thought so, my little sister had signed up together at the local recruitment center and they’d said we’d be deployed together but since we both went on the ice immediately afterward I wasn’t sure. Him: he thought his mom made it on this ship as well, but years of searching the cryo bays hadn’t turned up her chamber, still he held out hope that she’d be there when we finally wound our way through the stars to our destination. What did we hope this new planet would be like? Me: I hadn’t the foggiest idea, but anything was better than no work and endless choking dust storms. Him: he’d look around wistfully at our little plot with the paddocks rising away into the distance, I hope it’s just like this.

The deal was five years. Five years working aboard the Folly for passage to a new home where we were told work and water would be in abundance. Five years of our own, biological lives to “maintain and crew” the ship even if most of the time it feels like I’m awake merely to bear witness to this grandest of human endeavors. Five years, what a joke. It only took a few months for time to lose all meaning to me.  Five years though, for access to Eden.

On balance, the work is probably fair for the price. My sister and I both were likely applicants for the Delaney Corp. program given training as mechanics and a lifetime living at the forefront of a world of scarcity. As automated as the runnings of the ship undoubtedly were there are some jams you just need a clever monkey to get out of, even a pseudo-omniscient ship-encompassing AI knows that. I reckon that I spent about one day in ten actually servicing the ship, you can have every self-repairing program and roboticized system that the smartest engineers on the planet can dream up, but we were not bound for earth, nor anywhere remotely near it, and out in the wild black yonder you need the flexibility that comes from two dexterous hands and a brain built for spatial reasoning. And inevitably things went wrong. Leaks in the water plant; degraded components in the biofactory; fried sensors, wires, and generators; you name it time takes its inexorable toll on us all.

---

I live on a haunted ship.

The C.R.S. Delaney’s Folly may well be the pinnacle of all human engineering- no comet harvester or planet jumper- this was a colonial ship. A ship built to carry the human enterprise forth into the yawning eons of time and space to come. Better off into the great unknown than to admit defeat and perish with a planet that may be dying much sooner than later. Built at the behest of the formidable Yvette Delaney, fourth familial head of that proud oligarchical venture, Delaney’s Folly was, in fact, one of several score in a matching set (and certainly the most self-deprecating of the bunch). Because if you have the money to buy one ship to spread the virtue of your family’s corporation into the cosmos, you probably want a couple for redundancy’s sake. I was told they modeled her after prototype asteroid colonies, hollowing out a big potato of rock setting it to spinning and then they strapped on some thrusters and started selling tickets for a one-way ride.

In all seriousness, the Folly was a ship I’d come to admire, love, and fear in equal measure. Built to hold two million sleepers in cryogenic stasis, be completely self-sufficient for millennia of travel if necessary, protect and carry the totality of human knowledge, oh and contain all the supplies to start a brand new civilization from scratch when we finally got where we were going, it certainly was a ship worthy of admiration. Almost entirely automated in it’s piloting, navigation, and maintenance routines the Folly was certainly a paragon of trim efficiency in nearly all of its construction.

As such, it always cracked me up a bit, sitting on the porch of the farmhouse, how much space had been dedicated to keeping active crew awake. Was it really so hard to figure out a way to close the maintenance loop in the water plant, was the biofactory really so complex that internal robotics couldn’t self-repair, were conditions really so harsh out on the ablative ice that drones couldn’t maintain the hull sensors? Or was it just in some bout of philosophical self-doubt that the powers that be wanted to keep someone awake to simply make sure the ship didn’t blink out of existence the second we all went down to sleep? After all travelling away from home at a third of light with only a vague itinerary, who would know if we disappeared? Who would care?

At any rate, as best I could figure maybe a twentieth of the internal space of the ship was allocated for my homestead, holed as it was amidst a near-solid tangle of technology and supplies on all sides. A few acres of open space on the inside of the hull allowing it to sit at 1g was all it took to keep our primal brains content. At least content enough not to off ourselves too frequently before the end of our allocated work stints. Too many worker deaths would be unacceptably inefficient. 

To be fair, the farm certainly had its charms. Enough room to set the house up on a slight rise affording an expansive view over the paddocks and out to the treeline that obscured where the walls came down. Enough height for shockingly realistic simulated weather patterns; while it mostly tended towards the pleasant freshness of a warm spring day, many evenings I fell asleep to the soft patter of rain on the tin roof and a handful of mornings I even awoke to a fog so thick I had to grope about blind to find the cow for her morning milking. Although whether these weather phenomena were to satisfy my own psychological need for variety patronizingly supplied by the ship’s AI or if they served some loop-closing purpose in the maintenance of the farm ecosystem I could not have said.

Yes, my interstellar acreage was a pretty good setup. If you just stepped out on the porch you could just about imagine that you were looking out on a fine bit of Missouri prairie on fresh May morning. I tried not to take it too hard that they’d almost certainly strip it down to its elemental components and convert the space into some sort of staging area once we finally settled on a new planet. It was best to not get too attached to things out in space.

But for all that, the ship certainly felt haunted at nearly every turn. The self-maintenance routines, drones, and robotics that pervaded the rest of the ship remained completely hidden and certainly didn’t truly stop at the edge of the farm. To the ship’s AI I was just another cog in the machine, just a part of the maintenance system that needed an awful lot of space in order to work. As such it certainly kept a close eye on me at all times, monitoring my physical and psychological health and ensuring I’d be ready should an emergency repair ever arise. But still the homestead was my place and the ship mostly left me to my own devices, or kept it’s interventions carefully invisible when the need called for it.  Enough to give me a sense of agency, but not so much that I might accidentally take myself out of commission. I was a human tool, honed by an unknowable intelligence.

Off in the far-flung reaches of the ship, it was easy to see how it kept itself running- self-repair robotics and the like- even if I never actually saw the routines in action. Better to give the human crew less to anthropomorphize and keep the robots hidden from view. Hell, they didn’t even give us pigs. Too smart, too social. You could make friends with a pig given enough time; instead they stuck me with a cow so dull I swear it may well be the only robot I’d seen since I left earth and a handful of chickens to keep me busy, fed, and waking up on time. Beyond the walls of the farm, the maintenance routines were simply more utilitarian and speedy. If I left tools out at a worksite, I’d find them reorganized in the repair center the next time I went out. If I left food scraps out in a mess hall I’d decided to patronize for the afternoon they’d be gone off to the reclimator within minutes of me leaving my seat. If it dragged a bit of dirt out past the farm’s threshold in my boots it’d be swept away almost before I could turn around.

All this was just practical. Messy tools could jam a moving part. Food scraps had real value once they made it through the reclimator and into the biofactory. Dirt. Shit, dirt caused problems at nearly every level of a spaceship’s workings. So the question was why? Was all this risk, all this space, all this ecological ingenuity just to keep the crew sane? Did years of Delaney Corp. testing really reveal that several acres was the minimum viable habitat for a solitary human crew? Or were we here as mice in a maze, part of some experiment of how productive one uneducated schulb could make a few acres of land with a crash course on rotational grazing and all the time in the new world? As with so much of my life amongst the stars, I was long on questions and short on answers.

In truth, becoming comfortable with withheld information was part and parcel of signing on for a work stint on a Delaney Corp. colony ship. Adrian, my sister, me, whoever comes after me, and whoever comes after them, and on and on ad infinitum are just cogs, given the absolute bare minimum of information as any more would almost certainly stir up trouble. Sure, when I signed on at the Denver recruitment office the plan was to send the Folly off towards Trappist 1, to explore its presumptive hotbed of terrestrial planets and look for a place to set up roots. With acceleration times and a top speed just under 35% of light, we could make it to the system in under 200 years of ship time. If that was the case, I was told, the majority of work recruits would actually remain asleep, lucking their way into a free trip to the new world. If that is the case, well then I’m just an unlucky draftee who gets the pleasure of a solitary five years of waking flight time.

But, as I was told in pages of legal boilerplate, if the ship’s governing panel deemed that none of the planets around Trappist 1 were suitable for a new colony the sleepers would remain on ice, we’d stick around for a year or two to harvest a likely looking asteroid, and be on our merry way to one of a dozen other candidate systems in our dedicated quadrant of space. They built the Folly with an upper unsupported travel time of nearly 5,000 years for a reason. Even with home system-spanning satellite telescope arrays, hunting for exoplanets was still a rough science at best, and all we got was a rough roadmap. If the mission designers were honest though, it didn’t really matter if we found a new home near Trappist 1 or on the fifth system we explored or five hundredth. By harvesting systems for fuel and what precious little other resources the ship may have burned through over the years, we could explore indefinitely until a suitable planet fell in our sights. 

It wasn’t about building a cohesive empire, it was about following our deepest biological imperatives. To explore and settle. To adapt and build. To give the human race one more foothold in the interminable race against extinction. Sure, someday post-humans with faster engines and longer lives may figure out a way to knit together some kind of a working interstellar society in some dense corner of space, but that was not our role. We were set on this grand course to keep the spark of human intelligence alight in the face of a vast, uncaring universe. For hundreds of years, we had turned our eyes and ears out into the cosmos looking for other signs of life and heard only deafening silence. But the one solution to Fermi’s vexing paradox that Yvette Delaney could not stomach was that intelligent species may evolve, and flourish, and die in their little corner of the universe because interstellar travel was simply too hard. That humanity for all its triumphs and moxie would ultimately be snuffed out by cowardice.

That was where the thinking got a bit spooky though. Was I one of the first few to take my watch? Or one of the last? I was told that in order to keep the venture profitable a maximum of 200 berths would be allocated to work crew allowing for 1,000 years of flight on the base crew. Clearly, it was suicide from an Earth-centric perspective to step aboard this ship. Even in the best-case scenario, everyone I’d ever met on Earth would be dead before we arrived and signaled back home. What concerned me though, was what awaited after my Earthly death. Was I simply living a feverish transition on my way to a blessed afterlife? Or would the worst happen, and this was just the beginning? Did I end my life on earth only to find purgatory deep in interstellar space?

Say we blew right by Trappist 1, no suitable planets no need to really even look for resources at that point. We’d just be getting started, no problem. With plenty of other leads, they’d rouse another watcher, strategically not tell them that we’d just passed a system by, and carry on. No need to take two million people out of cryo just to tell them we weren’t staying. But what if we were well beyond that? What if I was the last of the dedicated watchers and we still are no closer to finding a new home? Well, the Delany Corp. legal team had an answer for that. They’d begin rousing draftees for another stint on the farm, with a few low-fare passengers mixed in to extend flight-time potential. On and on we’d go, it’d make no matter to those in cryo they’d just keep on sleeping. 

That’s what haunted my dreams though. I do my watch, go back on the ice, wake up eons later no idea how much time had truly passed and serve again. I knew this was my first time as a homesteader, but had no guarantee it would be the last.  An extra stint or two on the farm wouldn’t be the end of the world, but with a bit of hindsight clarity that’s beginning to look like the best-case scenario. If we have to find through brute force exploration that Earth truly is a treasured gem, unique in the cosmos, my stints will just roll together as time takes its due my remaining years. A never-ending limbo of cryo sickness, solitude, and eventually senility. Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.

--

Your entire life’s work, that was all it took for a berth aboard the Folly.

And your life too, in a way, I suppose. But hey, interstellar travel ain’t cheap and for myself and these two million frozen mummies sailing through the cosmos it actually seemed like a pretty good deal. At least when we signed up.

Delaney Corp. was naturally going to be the first to have a bite of the spacefaring apple. Founded by Josiah Delaney in the wake of the Second Troubles who fled his homeland and headed to Mexico City to try his luck with the burgeoning Low Earth orbit transportation industry there. The company initially rose to prominence as the first government contractor for moon mining operations before leapfrogging to asteroid harvesting and now interplanetary colony founding. It’s funny how success breeds success when you have an infinite frontier for expansion. Their proud hereditary lineage was maintained through generations of careful breeding, enhanced education, no small amount of illicit gene editing, and good old fashioned dose of latino machismo. It certainly had become the most trusted brand in space. So when their current scion, Yvette, with her dark stern face and mind exquisitely tuned for the vacuum of space took to the net to announce an interstellar venture, the world hardly batted an eye.

By the time the project was announced, we were told, it had already been underway for several decades. All of Delaney’s prototype asteroid colonies were not in fact exclusively meant to expand living space around our star, but were also the seeds that would help carry humanity off to new ones. Yvette herself would be aboard the flagship, the Delaney’s Fable, as they struck a course towards Alpha Centauri just to show it could be done. What’s more, unlike the other ships, they would return. That to me showed the character of the whole family more than generations of success and public relations ever could. They’d spend untold fortunes financing this grand expedition, seed the ships with lesser hangers on of the family empire and any other suckers they could sell a ticket to, and chart a one-way course into the cosmos. But when it came to the head of the family? Well, they couldn’t send her off into oblivion. Better to show her commitment by being the first to explore a new system, and then head back home to collect her honors and any interest that had accrued over her twenty-year voyage. Even if the Alpha Centauri almost certainly had no suitable planets for colonization, it meant very little to Yvette I’m sure. She’d simply sleep, enjoy a bit of leisure aboard the ship as they approached the system, plant a flag on some suitable patch of planet, and head off. I’m sure her old job would be waiting when she got back.

That was 17 years before the departure of the Folly. As I sat with the Delaney recruiters surrounded by the fanciest office in which I’d ever set foot, gazing out through the haze trying to pick out the silhouette of the Rockies, a they happily informed me that the Fable was making excellent headway and would be back ahead of schedule. I guess the flag planting was a speedy business. By the time they made it back into the system, though, I was already aboard the Folly and on ice. But once we were through with the obligatory idol worship our conversation turned to business and quickly folded back on me and what could bring to the program. The recruiters a pair of hawks peering into the depths of my soul and conscience for inscrutable flaws.

Honestly, it could not have been the interview that landed me the berth. I found my way there a few months after my mother had disappeared into a web of opiate addiction from which I did not believe she’d emerge this time, and it was all my sister and I could do to scrape together enough work as irrigation mechanics to keep a leaky roof over our heads. I did not relish the prospect of weathering a drenching winter in our shabby excuse for an abode. Between that and an array of lecherous aunts and uncles seemingly hellbent on pulling me into the same trap in which my mom had been ensnared, stepping aboard the Folly and saying a not-so-fond farewell to Earth seemed like the best-case scenario for me. Even if it meant leaving sis behind.

All of this I stammered and tried to relate to the recruiters in such a way as to make me seem sufficiently desperate for a work stint -effectively condemning myself to at least five years of solitary confinement- while not seeming like too much of an addiction and depression risk. I do not reckon that I did very well with my pitch, stumbling over my life story and summarily leaving out anything of value I may actually bring to the ship. Nonetheless, I was hurried off into a tumult of mental, emotional, and physiological aptitude tests that brought me to my wit’s end. But when they spat me out the other side with an offer and asked me to bring Abella in the next day because they wanted to examine her as a potential recruit as well I’d never been so happy.

So Abella and I both were accepted, and allegedly both aboard the Folly, I’m sure not because of any hidden intellectual or physiological laurels we possessed. Rather because of some combination of our youth, rudimentary mechanical acumen, and the fact that we were in dire enough straits to eagerly leave the entirety of our lives behind. Somehow we ticked enough of the right boxes in the crew selection AIs protocols deeming us a high survival likelihood for our work stint. Or maybe they just needed two more run-of-the-mill lab rats to put through a series of space-bound experiments. One way or the other it was abundantly clear from go that we wouldn’t have a spare dime to contribute to the mission hence why landing a coveted maintenance berth felt like winning the lotto.

This was not the case for most of the souls aboard. Delaney’s interstellar venture started internally. Supplying ample work for a ballooning and increasingly cumbersome family structure, it allowed all the grandchildren, step-aunts, and cousins-twice-removed respectable positions within the new project. Then it expanded to other great oligarchical families of our storied era, trading partnerships in technology and resource for positions of authority and high-value berths. Turns out with a couple of centuries of unrestricted bloat many of those late-capitalist familial heads were all too eager for a way to trim the fat in their respective organizations. Then it filtered down again to the growing mass of well-to-do families who saw their ruin coming in our rapidly collapsing ecosystems.

These were the bulk of passengers who slept their way through the stars. Whole families packed up neatly into rows of matching cryo caskets, hoping their luck would turn for the better on the new world. After all, if your family had come to expect a certain lifestyle afforded by a generation or two of prosperity, but your current business prospects were drying up as the great families sucked up every resource that wasn’t tied down, you really had two options. Fight the inevitable and most likely have to watch as all you hold dear collapsed and your once-proud name was subsumed into the churning masses of the global lower class. Oh, you’d survive, just long enough to see how deep the well of shame truly was and watch as ships holding the future of humanity packed up and headed on to new worlds. Or you could join the fleet. Liquidate all your holdings as tribute, or more likely just sell them directly to Delaney Corp., tell the kids to pack their things and jump aboard. If you were sufficiently rich there’d be zero chance you’d ever be awoken before reaching your new home, and I’m sure you would be guaranteed a similar level of status in the new economy with significantly more room for upward mobility. Crisis averted.

What few berths remained would be auctioned off amongst the upper echelons of academia. Double and triple doctorates, Nobel laureates, and research pioneers who saw their coming doom in the slow destruction of their fields, all scrambled to get aboard before they were left tutoring some local magnate’s progeny at best. If they were young and had a similarly gifted partner maybe they’d both score a spot, and make some new smart kids for the new world. More genius to help us survive.

But then, without fail, the last two hundred berths would be allocated to us, the maintenance crew, the watchers. A mere .1% of total occupancy left for us, but if you fell into the bottom 90% of global income this was your only way aboard. You should be grateful for the opportunity. We’d trade away years of our waking lives for the hope of a better future on the new world. There was seemingly no rhyme or reason to who made the cut. With acceptance rates so low, it was big news when someone in town made it aboard. Plenty of applicants more brilliant, highly-trained, creative, and hungry than Abella and I were unceremoniously turned away left to fight for scraps on Earth. And thus I was so guaranteed of my own mediocrity. If they were accepting Abella and I clearly the selection AI had its sights set on something other than a list of accolades and bona fide genius. Maybe they were after some inscrutable diversity for the new gene pool, maybe they wanted to test how people as mentally average as the extended families of the global elite would fare in the face of infinity, maybe mortality rates for a five-year solo work stint proved quite high in their experiments leading up to launch and some nebulous mental stability criteria won the day for us. Maybe we just got lucky.  The only discernible predictive factor were family ties. If your cousin made you were 25% more likely to go, if a brother or sister 75%, twins almost always went together, if they were both sufficiently eager to find a new life.

By the time I went on the ice Delaney Corp. had already selected more crew than would fit on their currently built ships. I was told Abella and I would be grouped together- if at all possible- and that we’d slot into some of the final berths of a ship that was nearing completion. But can you really trust a recruiter? For all I knew they kept us on ice for a couple of decades before splitting us up to make good on the bare minimum of their contractual obligations and shipped us off. For all I knew Abella was a couple of parsecs away and heading in the other direction. Hell, I didn’t even know the name of my new home until Adrian pulled me out of my casket with a wry smile and said ‘Welcome aboard the Folly amigo’. And somehow in spite of all that, leaving everyone I’d ever known for dead, groveling for what amounted to a prison sentence while elites paid top dollar for luxury berths, and flying devoid of any contextual information about where we were going or how far we’ve come, as I sat on the porch of the old farmhouse and looked out over the paddocks most days it seemed like a pretty good deal.

--

We live on a string of trinkets.

In all the vast tracts of the ship that I have explored over the years, my favorite place in all of outer space, undoubtedly, was the workshop. My place. How could it not be? It was my psyche wrought physical. Housed under a sloping roof behind the house with a sliding barn door it’s the only point of access, it would actually be fairly easy to overlook at first glance. You certainly wouldn’t expect it to be the center of all human sanity on this ship. Sufficient space to work on most projects I could dream up but not enough for any sort of untidiness, the workshop had cultivated its final form over the course of several months.

In the listless weeks after I put Adrian down to sleep, it took me a shockingly long time to even find my way into the workshop. I spent day after ceaseless day over tending the gardens and livestock, summoning the courage to leave the farm and explore some of the nearer reaches of the ship, and endlessly circling the paddocks along the treeline as I felt more and more certain that I wouldn’t survive my stint. Then, after a few weeks of beginning to see ghosts around every corner, I was caught out by a late afternoon thunderstorm and I ducked into the nearest door sliding back the big barn door and was confounded by what I saw. I hadn’t set foot in the shop but it looked altogether different than when I peered in as Adrian showed it to me. Previously the benches had been covered with canvasses and boards and papers, all covered in Adrian’s scrawling illustration, but as I looked in on that evening the benches were tidy and organized with sparse tooling from a myriad of different disciplines. I eyed it all cautiously as I paced over the weathered floorboards and came upon a stack of timber that stopped me in my tracks.

For my entire life, raw wood had been such a scarce commodity that most of what I had seen on Earth was repurposed, half-rotted, termite-riddled. Houses old enough to still have wood construction were coveted and jealously guarded usually by some well-to-do family. Indeed, while the construction of the farmhouse was by no means ornate the simple fact that it was almost all wood was striking. But a house built of wood still made sense to me some part of my cultural subconscious understood that houses were made of wood, but timber simply set in the corner to collect dust and await whoever may find a use for it bespoke an abundance I’d scarcely encountered in my life. No walk through the vast halls of the ship, no garden-grown meal, no time walking the paddocks made me as hopeful of a future of real prosperity as this humble pile of timbers. How absurd.

And so, head reeling, I picked up a stout plank and the whittling knife off the rack and ducked out onto the front porch. That evening all I made was a pile of shavings, simply savoring the feel and smell of fresh pine and the soul-satisfying scrape of a well-sharpened whittling knife as the rain softly pattered upon my tin roof and the universe fell away.

The next morning I went back to the workshop to return my knife and was surprised to find several others neatly aligned next to its spot on the rack as well as several new types of wood stacked neatly in the corner. I proceeded in this ritual every evening for weeks, at times trying to hew a fish, a mouse, a spoon, at others simply letting my hands work and my mind fall into quiet meditation. No ghosts could chase me here, on my deck, in the deepening twilight. 

Thus it went for several weeks, but real change in the workshop came when I began to change. After dozens of timbers wrought to nothingness, I awoke one morning determined to make something I could use. I had no skill for detailed work, but if I put my mind to it I could certainly make a stirring spoon, right? A little piece of myself to add to the kitchen battery. Several intent evenings later I walked back through the door of the house and added my new rough carved masterpiece to the collection of kitchen utensils. An inauspicious start for an aspiring woodworker, but a switch had flipped.

Now nothing was safe. I looked around the farmhouse and saw nothing but a series of projects. Ever since I’d first stepped through the front door the furnishings always felt jarringly futuristic to me, like some real estate agent had packed their showpieces in without much consideration for what the house itself represented. And it represented the value of handcrafted ingenuity. Sure I was just whittling spoons now, but with enough time I could replace all of every piece of glass and metal in the place with warm, hand-crafted wood. I strode over to the coffee table, it looked up glaringly mocking my ambition with its immaculate white glass surface, calling out my farce of a revelation, and I dragged it out to the porch and dumped it over unceremoniously to shatter in the yard below. It may take me years to replace it but I’d be damned if I was going to let that glossy table mock my progress.

Fortunately, the ship seemed more than happy with my new hobby. My tab, which theoretically had access to the entirety of the ship’s archives, usually stubbornly resisted many of my queries or only supplied the bare minimum of information. Now, when I opened it, troves of woodworking tutorials, projects, and introduction classes popped out begging to be used.

That was when the workshop became my own as well. In those halcyon days, nothing stayed the same. Whether it was my own frenetic rearranging of every supply into cohesive workspaces or the ships stealthy addition of tools and materials the shop was remade anew every day trying keep up with the growing stack of projects I began sketching into my tab. Neat stacks of wood of a dozen varieties I couldn’t name appeared in the corner. Planers, jointers, saws, clamps, and hammers appeared night after night fleshing out a toolkit to match my ambitions. The only thing the ship resisted, it seemed, were power tools of any description. The pinnacle of human technology had decided I had to do everything by hand, very well.

I started off simple and quick. Easy projects that still consumed nearly my entire day, a cutting board, some storage boxes, a myriad of kitchen utensils. The garden erupted into chaos and I missed the harvest on some squash Adrian had warned me about, while the cow bellowed her protest at my inattention. None of it mattered I was consumed. It wasn’t until my first attempt to replace my shattered coffee table that I really realized what I was getting into though. Even my rudimentary design took days and I struggled to construct and plane a suitable top, and then in an afternoon of frustration, I failed, again and again, to make sufficiently sturdy legs for even the most basic of use.

Around this time as well, the wood supply started to dry up as well. At first, I’d find new stacks of different woods every morning, and then once I had a collection the ship deemed sufficient I’d find replacements for whatever I used in the biofactory delivery box in the morning. But after a couple weeks the wood deliveries began getting interspersed with other deliveries citrus fruits (one of the few things I couldn’t grow in the gardens or orchard), vitamin supplements (surely to make up for the nutrients in whatever I killed most recently in the garden), even the odd steak (cultured, I suppose when the ship decided I needed a little protein boost), but mostly bags of non-descript biomass pulp to feed into my compost pile. Not so subtle hints that survival was not a given even on this abundant farm and that mother ship said I could only work on my projects once my chores were done. As my backstock of timber began to run dry, it became clear what I was up against. Interstellar space meant scarcity, even if it hid behind all this artifice. Work by hand, conserve your materials, measure twice cut once. Surely some Mennonite had snuck into the Delaney engineering team to enact their moral righteousness on us unsuspecting watchers.

It was right around the time that I first realized how truly scarce my supplies would be in the long run that the gifts began appearing. I awoke one bright morning to find a pair of handsome leather boots sitting on my wobbly coffee table with a note in a scrawling script. “Watch your feet when you turn the garden beds over. -Melissa”. I sat down, head swimming with the implications. I had never met any Melissa, never considered that my ship-supplied shoes would be insufficient once I had to start doing heavier jobs on the farm, never considered that I’d be anything other than alone in my long journey through the stars. But here, a stranger had reached across unknown eons of time to show that I was wrong on all fronts. Pulling them on for the first time I felt a shattering connection to someone I may never truly know. They fit perfectly and after a little break-in I was sure they’d feel like a second skin; the austere tapered design, even double stitching, rich red-hued leather all bespoke a labor of love I could scarcely conceive. Thank you, Melissa, whoever you are.

She must have learned an entire trade to leave these gifts behind. Cobbling, tanning, sewing, braiding, all would need to be mastered when she looked down dissatisfied with the shoes the ship had provided. I can’t imagine that the biofactory was much more helpful than spitting out some raw materials and letting her get to it. Although certainly, the ship had been complicit in this exchange as well, providing learning materials to her tab, letting her know my size, and cleverly delivering the boots to me just when I would need them most. It would’ve certainly been a daunting project as I can only imagine that she set out to make boots for all 200 of her fellow watchers once she got herself shod. A monumental effort, but then again we have nothing but time.

They turned out to be a thoughtful gift as well, turning aside my spade on more than one occasion that would’ve resulted in a broken toe as I turned the soil in the garden beds. But more than that, they helped me begin to cultivate a sense of place. The ship standard shoes may well have been spit directly out of the biofactory, canvas and laceless well suited for staying clean and journeying the miles of ship tunnels, but downright unwearable on the farm once I had a better option. My boots began to break in and feel like home just like the farmhouse and workshop did. Extensions of myself in the environment, helping me feel at peace in the face of so much strangeness.

The boots were far from the only gifts I received throughout the long years, although their delivery was altogether unpredictable. Soon after I broke in my boots I received sturdy canvas pants from a fellow named Tobias, and then work shirts and gloves from Chen completed my old-timey garb. But that was just the beginning. The workshop had once been outfitted for pottery throwing judging by my set of stoneware delivered to me from Manon, handsomely made to replace the clattering metal dishes that resided in the cabinets when I moved in. Then when my first piece of brie showed up in the biofactory delivery box with a note from Andreas that said: “Don’t worry I tested the stasis, it’s still good.” I damn near wept, having just come off a particularly hard harvest. A delicate wheel spun through yawning stretches of time. It was a full two years before my gift from Adrian appeared one morning leaning up against the counter, an austere framed watercolor of the Rockies reaching up into a dawn clearer than I’d ever seen, and a note that read “Chin up kid, you’re doing better than you know.” I could see the wry smile on his face just reading a few of his words.

So what would be my legacy? How could I become a member of this community that spanned interminable space and time? Clearly the ship had waited until I’d chosen some form of creative outlet, and I was almost certain that it wouldn’t retool the workshop much for me now that I was so well-appointed. So that was it then; I wouldn’t just replace a coffee table I’d shattered in a moment of giddy exuberance with some shabby creation. I would master this craft, and create furnishings worthy of this place, of this mission, of these people. These souls are torn apart by the sands of time and the gears of enterprise and yet in spite of it all, we fight to build a family.

--

A transformation occurs at the threshold.

Setting out from the porch of the old farmhouse a path leads through the garden beds and out into the paddocks. Acres of rolling verdant grasses stretch off covering the bulk of the homestead being variably used to raise chickens, feed the cow, or cultivate rich grasses to keep the ecosystem healthy. Off to the left the orchard stands covering a little rise with handsome rows of apple, peach, pear, and cherry, attesting the true age of this place. After a quarter-mile or so great stands of sycamore, oak, and willow rise up and shade the well-trodden path, these elegant giants line the entire outer wall of the homestead to make it look like it goes on forever. Until you duck into their shade, you’d almost swear it did. Then, under the canopy, a wooden bridge quickly leaps over a trickling stream that runs around the perimeter, and a riot of ferns and mosses before the path jogs between a pair of looming boulders. 

And then suddenly, jarringly, the whole artifice comes to an end. The walls that contain this whole biosphere stretch up, patterned at first to match the trees before fading into the sky and soaring high overhead into the clouds above. Here, a high doorway arches open onto a hallway of polished stone and speckled plaster that stretches interminably off into the distance. Doorways diminishing in the warm light as the hall marches the long kilometers back to the stern of the ship. Beyond this threshold lies all that the C.R.S. Delaney’s Folly has to offer, life, wonder, technology beyond your wildest dreams and somewhere out there hope for the entire human species. But here, at the threshold, a physical, emotional, and spiritual transformation occurs.

As you step through the silent air curtain the temperature drops, not concerned with maintaining a thriving ecosystem the ship only adds enough atmosphere and heat for short-term crew habitability. All other parts of the ship are in airless void, conserving energy and atmosphere until they are needed. The soft scuff of the dirt path and the springy step of clipped turf are replaced by the hard clack of polished concrete. Only sound-deadening plaster and warm glowing lights along the baseboard keep the halls from becoming utterly tomb-like. Here I’d step out of my boots and into my ship shoes, partly to not sully the ship with my dirt and partly to not sully my good dirt with the sterility of the ship. Here at the threshold I transform, from a human with purpose into a cog in an inconceivably grand machine.

In truth, I loathe this transformation. I’d spend days, weeks at a time going no further than this, content to work the farm, continue my projects, and forget the universe. A stark contrast to how things began. In my first days alone the homestead felt utterly suffocating, I’d pace around the treeline dismayed at the size of my living quarters and head off into the belly of the ship, hellbent on exploring every nook and cranny. I never even came close. I’d learned the hard way that the ship is about ten kilometers in circumference with no direct route around after one afternoon walk turned into a near 24-hour escapade, following the glow of open corridors in a winding path around the hull. To be sure, the ship’s AI was always handy with navigation on my tab, but would summarily refuse to let me use any of the onboard trains or travelators when I was out for my own recreation.

But those walks grew less and less frequent over the first months and stopped altogether after my first year. Out in the ship I was maintenance crew, off into the bowels of the water plant or repairing electricals in the reclimator or out onto the ice to replace some sensor. On my homestead I was me, lost in the daily shuffle of running the farm and continuing on my projects, imperceptibly improving my woodcraft day by day. But work calls and the ticket ain’t free.

It starts with a chime on my tab. At first, coming in seemingly at random, but as time wore on the chimes almost uniformly came perfectly in time to snap me out of some reverie after I’d lost myself in the workshop for several hours. I’d get a notice of where the problem was and the timeframe I had to complete the job. Usually, I had a matter of hours or a few days, enough time to wrap up what I was working on and make sure the farm was well-tended before I headed off.  Only a half dozen times was I given a notice that required immediate action, although whether this was to genuinely resolve some highly time-sensitive issue or simply because the ship thought I needed a jolt of adrenaline was anyone’s guess.

Grudgingly, I would tidy up the workshop, grab a bite, and then stroll off through the paddocks toward the doorway. After changing my shoes at the threshold I’d head off, trodding down the long hall. My tab would always provide a handy set of directions and show me where to go and where on the ship I was headed, but after my first couple jobs I figured out these were largely redundant. A path was always laid before me. As I walked along the endless halls the turns I needed to make and doorways I was intended to use would lay open and glow softly. If it wasn’t open, it wasn’t the way to go. Besides, I knew beyond every closed door was just hard vacuum. The ship had a route for me and prepared it for me ahead of my coming. A few times I took off at a sprint along some stretch to see if I could catch up to the ship opening doors for me. My experiment proved impossible, for all intents and purposes it was as if my determined route was always this way, warmly lit and passable. Even if I knew that wasn’t the case. No rat in a maze here, there was only one way I could go.

Typically, I’d only walk a k or so to the nearest tram depot and then be quickly whisked up ship to the electronics and comms center or downship towards the water depot and reclimator. Most jobs took the better part of the day, zipping off to replace some pump or bit of wiring before heading back for dinner. Most times, the routes were direct and jobs relatively quick, sure sometimes when the Folly thought I needed a bit of exercise -or as I’d come to believe, when it was feeling particularly sadistic- it would route me through several kilometers of hallways winding through the great pieces of industry contained in the belly of the ship leaving me to walk the way under my own power. But for the most part it was all business out in the halls of the Folly, I was a living, breathing maintenance machine and the AI just wanted me out to do the job and back home safe.

It was far from a silent place, my home amongst the stars. The gentle whoosh of air currents racing by, the flow and moan of water pipes running overhead, or some great, laborious machine pounding away at task unknown, like any great beast she made plenty of noise of here own. But that was just the start. Certainly, the designers had quickly realized that if they left these vast tracts of halls to sit in silence patrolled by lonely watchers that their crew would quickly go insane, seeing ghosts around every corner, their minds fabricating sounds and visions into the sterile silence. So, there was life! Or at least the sounds of life. Plodding down the halls unseen speakers would supply the sound of frogs after a rainfall, turn the corner and there’d be wind rushing through the leaves of an aspen tree, down the next corridor sounds of birds singing in the morning; sounds I’d never heard before and likely didn’t exist anymore on our dying planet all accompanied me on my lonely marches. 

At first, I found these soundscapes incredibly disconcerting. I wanted silence. I wanted to be able to hear if some ghoul was around the corner or coming up behind me. But after a few hundred unsure glances back over your shoulder your mind eventually has to relax, and accept that you are truly alone. Then, and only then, these sounds from home take on a whole new meaning, keeping you company on your journey, reminding you of all that we lost, all that we left behind, and all that we hope to build once more in the distant future.

And oh the music! Of course there was music. The Folly carries the summation of all human achievement, how could we leave the great arts behind? As I’d approach my destination for the day over the soundscape to which I slowly shuffled would drift the first notes of some grandiose composition long forgotten by living minds, but dutifully stowed in our data banks for posterity. Out in the vast tracts of the ship I’d take in sweeping concertos, warbling erhus, silken sitars. Folk music from a million proud lineages would drift towards me as I worked away, digging through piles of wires or heaps of sludge to replace some blown fuse or worn gasket. 

Of course, at first I’d sought to put in my requests. Combing through my tab for any sort of music interface, and then rejected, I took to yelling out at the ship to play something, anything I’d heard before. Only back on the farm when I was making myself useful in the kitchen or workshop or gardens would the ship budge in the slightest on this front. There, I could choose to have music on as I desired, but even then the ship chose the playlist, mixing in modern music I was familiar with, with an endless trove of other recent compositions I’d never heard. An utterly infuriating arrangement at first, but eventually I had to recognize good taste even if it’s coming from some pile of code. After all, it was built to provide me with what I needed to hear rather than what I wanted. Out in the vast halls of the Folly though, I was at the mercy of the AI as it determined the proper soundscape for a given room, tunnel, or gallery.

 And thus most jobs came and went, pulling me off the farm for a couple of hours before I could head back for dinner. I’d come to appreciate these forays in their own way, a quick baptism in technological sterility to break up days that were beginning to run a bit too much together in the workshop. But eventually, the bill came due, a critical repair that consumed me for weeks and will haunt me forever.

--

All debts are paid in the fullness of time.

I was sanding away in the workshop on a sunny afternoon, nearing completion on my first attempt at a set of shelves to replace the post-industrial block that came with the old place. A gentle chime pulled me out of my contemplation and asked me to respond to a call in Cryosleep Hall 362 within three hours, an ominous sign in retrospect calls almost never gave me that tight of a timeframe; I usually avoided the cryo halls after my initial curiosity had been satiated, they were too eerie, too cold. But at the time I thought nothing of it; I simply tidied the shop and set off through the paddock smiling as the chickens clucked happily when I walked by. The ship wasted no time in taking me directly to a train downship and dropped me almost exactly where I needed to end up. In all maybe half an hour had passed since I’d received the call, but when I stepped into Hall 362 it was utter bedlam.

As I rounded the last corner towards the hall waves of water several inches deep rushed up to greet me and my heart dropped. Water running amok in the ship meant the shit had seriously hit the fan. Before I could even step all the way into the hall an acrid electrical burning hit my nostrils and I could see harsh, flickering electrical arcs lighting up the first several dozen caskets. My tab chimed in a cascade of different alarms and instructions before I got any further and could hurt myself. A storage cabinet, indistinguishable from the wall beside me, slid back to reveal an emergency response suit of heavy red rubber. Our training program was intentionally brief before we departed but they were clear on one thing if you see an emergency suit put it on. Immediately.

Dropping my tab, I jumped into the cabinet out of the flooding water and wormed my way quickly inside of the suit, double-checked all the seals, and allowed it to pressurize. As the pressure equalized my ears popped and the suit came alive bringing up a series of heads up notifications that largely repeated what my tab was trying to tell me, servomotors activated in the joints to help me move more naturally, and then a calm voice came on “Thank you for using this emergency response suit, please stay calm and proceed into Hall 362 for a critical repair.” It was meant to be reassuring I’m sure, but my heart nearly stopped and I struggled to stay on my feet.

In nearly a year and a half of living ship time, I had not heard another human voice speak. Even so much as this bland approximation that inhabited the suit was an absolute shock to the system. I’d grown so used to only ever hearing my own voice- and had long since given up on hearing anyone else’s until my stint was up that to have this even-tempered voice piped into my ears left me blindsided. “Attention. Please proceed into Hall 362 for a critical repair.” After the initial shock passed I snapped into action, my scrambling guided by the flurry of information the suit presented to me.

Stepping into the hall I was honestly surprised the ship had given me such a long timeframe to respond; the coolant pump of the third row had burst with enough force to blow the top clear into the ceiling, water poured out of the pumps and residual electric charge in the pump continued in a riot of white-hot sparks. It was, by a long shot, the most apocalyptic scene I’d encountered since leaving earth. The heads-up display on my suit began to streamline alarms and information in an attempt to get me into action immediately. The ship had cut off water and electricity to the pump as soon as it burst but that didn’t help what was already in the system. Millions of liters of water and untold volts of electric charge were isolated in the pump and were finding their own way out. Meanwhile, the caskets of the 2,000 sleepers on this row began to imperceptibly warm, ushering in complications with cryo, erased memories, prolonged recovery sickness, and eventually death.

With adrenaline-fueled clarity, I grabbed my repair kit and started at the top of the list. First order of business, make this place less of an electricity risk. My suit was well equipped to absorb more voltage than was contained in the system so I wasn’t too worried about myself, but the sparking electricity meant that current was arcing between some points and with each arc came the possibility of a short in another system or damaging other lines in the pump. Right now it was clean water running out, I did not care to think about what would happen if a freon line was severed...or an oxygen line. 

I rushed into the pump fighting my way up current grabbing hold of the twisted and rent metal of the pump housing to pull myself up into the electrical storm. The pump by any standard was huge. Almost two stories tall and nearly twenty meters long they looked a bit like some overgrown electrical transformer. The explosion had torn away most of the roof and a good deal of the front panel where the access door would have been, leaving a valley of mangled pipes and torrenting water.  Even through the heavy insulation of my suit, my hair stood on end and chills ran down my spine as hauled myself up and up into a vortex of lightning.

Searing white light tore across my eyes as rattling sparks shook me to my core. Over this tumult of information, the ship dropped in even more on my display hoping to help me isolate which circuits were arcing and where I needed to make connections. Swallowing hard I tried to make peace with myself, there was nothing to be done but trust the suit. Either it would hold and I’d be able to complete the job or these two thousand sleepers and I were history. Hopefully, the suit’s makers had been a little bit more careful than those who’d made this pump. With two gloved hands I reached in with a length of repair cable aiming for what was plainly the highest voltage arc, a white-hot bolt of raw electrical power that nearly left me blind; a heart-stopping moment later, two quick clamps with the ends of my repair cable, and I had completed the circuit as unabsorbed current ran up my arms and set my whole body to shaking. It was all I could do to not be sick inside the suit.

Once the arcs were stopped and covered in a generous spray of insulating foam, I turned to the water. While no new water was coming into the system, each pump contained several thousand liters in its systems at any given time and that wasn’t to mention the near million more that would be running through the casket systems all connected to this one pump. The torrent I’d fought to get up here was probably just the beginning. Indeed, a bona fide river had begun to form across the floor of the hall where the current headed towards the doorway. Clambering back down into the belly of the pump I ducked inside and my headlamp illuminated a scene cut straight from a sailor’s nightmare. The pump, when working, was an incomprehensible riot of piping and gauges, now with a good third of its bits torn asunder, it was pandemonium. All the while more water continued to pour past me and out through the torn hole behind trying desperately to drag me back through the tangle of twisted pipes and torn metal.

My suit helpfully popped up my next task, to manually close off the valves for each cryo circuit’s water main. For redundancy, and maintenance, each circuit only served fifty caskets, and as I wormed my way through the piping and gushing water I realized what I was in for. Forty separate valves, all located around the edge of the pump, all with a closure wheel that hadn’t been operated in eons. All electrical intervention had been cut off to the pump, so the only way to mitigate the damage was to get these valves closed myself. I pulled a breaker bar out of my repair kit, once I finally managed to squirm my way to the first valve, lodged it in the wheel and heaved with everything I had. With a scream of effort and a crack the wheel turned, the first valve close and undetectably the torrent lessened. One down, thirty-nine to go.

I walked out of the pump that night sweaty, bruised, and tired to the bone. I followed the now trickling current out the door where the ship had opened up a new drain to mitigate the worst of the water damage. It was all I could do to pull the suit off and stumble a few yards down the hall to where the ship had opened up a tiny sleeping nook with a spare cot in the wall for me. What a cruel juxtaposition, a ship that could manage so many of its own runnings that could know when I was too tired to make it even to the next canteen and magically produce a bed for me. But when some machinist misses their mark on the wrong part of the millionth coolant pump they built in some incomprehensible assembly line, and it becomes life or death in a heartbeat. Collapsing into the bunk I curled up to spend my first night out truly alone, with the ship and all of her ghosts.

They would prove to be nearly sleepless nights tossing on my cot, holed up in the unfathomable belly of the ship. Not least because there was verifiable unnatural activity all around me at any given moment always hovering just out of view. This was a catastrophe for the ship, and it would sink a good portion of its self-repair resources into getting things sorted as quickly as possible. As such, every time I awoke and looked around the corner things would look a bit tidier, a bit different, the ship still wanted to keep it’s repair programs hidden even in emergency situations. No, what haunted me were the sleepers. Every second that ticked by they warmed a little bit more. Their caskets keeping cool with only passive insulation now. Every second was another memory lost, was another week in a painful recovery, was another soul who’d never come off the ice. Even if most of them were rich dickheads abandoning a planet they’d helped destroy, I couldn’t condemn them like that. So I got to work.

After that first troubled night, I awoke to the sound of music. A light concerto to match the gradually raising ambient lights. A suite of cellos attempting to drown out the echoing, deafening silence of this crypt. I peered through the doorway at a sight slightly less apocalyptic and a fair measure less life-threatening than when I’d arrived. Once I’d stopped the backflow of water the ship was able to open up an impromptu drainage system to clear the water, and gradually the remnants of the explosion began to disappear. Whether absorbed into self-repairing walls or carried off by robotic hands unseen I couldn’t say, but I was a part of this great self-healing machine and my task lay where no clever robotic hands could fit. Now that the area was relatively dry and clear I clambered into the remnants of the pump with my tab, repair kit, and whatever materials the ship had left for me that morning and resume work on the most challenging task I’d ever completed.

It began with a base level replacement of all compromised internal components. My tab provided me a list of all the damaged parts categorized by functionality and let me work out how best to work through the interminable punch list. Then it moved on to an overhaul and inspection of all adjacent components. Was it one lousy machinist’s mistake that had caused such bedlam? Were there any other similarly compromised parts in the pump? In adjacent pumps? Or was there some greater systematic failure? The ship knew exactly where the failure had originated and certainly had a record of where each part came from and intended to find out, I was just the unlucky grunt who got to help. 

It was over two weeks of mechanical bread and butter hard labor. Take it apart, replace the broken bits, check the others for damage, clean it, put it back together. It was work pulled from my young life but magnified a thousandfold. Every day I worked crammed into various corners of the pump housing, frequently drenched, regularly covered in refrigerant, and almost always at some sort of shock risk. Still, the ghosts haunted me. So I worked around the clock, kept on my feet only by the oatmeal-like slop the ship delivered to a cubby next to my cot at regular intervals and knocked out for a few hours a day by a sedative the ship pumped into my cot area when it decided I’d had enough for the day. 

It still didn’t feel nearly adequate. Each minute eating, or sleeping, or taking a dump was another fraction of a degree up in each casket. After I’d completed the replacement of the compromised internals I had expected the ship to return water and power to the pump to begin recooling the sleepers. But no, the ship in its divine province decided that inspection of all internals was required before taking care of these poor souls. Calculating the risk of a repeat failure as less acceptable than the risk associated with a continued rise in casket temperature. Easy enough for a machine built on nothing but iron utilitarian logic, I just thought of myself in one of those caskets gradually losing my memories and past with each warming degree, an uncaring god mercilessly holding back the keys to my future.

More than once I completely lost the plot. I took off in frustration cursing the ship and the engineers and Yvette-fucking-Delaney. I beat the walls until I left read streaks, begging for the ship to turn the power on and save these poor people. Twice I just took off running, unable to sit cramped in the pump any more, I bolted screaming down endless corridors only to have the ship turn my route around and pop me back, cruelly, out into the cryo hall breathless and infuriated. But mostly I worked, haunted by the vision of my face in frozen sleep beginning to bead with water, slowly losing myself with each second that ticked by. I’d never know these people, and I probably wouldn’t like them if I did, but as I worked away in the belly of that pump I was them and they were me.

When the blessed day came that the Folly deemed my repair acceptable it began to play a lilting jig I crawled out and wept kneeling on the floor as water and electricity flowed back in and the great pump slowly lumbered to life. I shed my toolkit, my tab, my shoes, my jumpsuit and walked out of that godforsaken hall not sparing a look at the little cubby where I had weathered so many sleepless nights. I trod naked through the glowing halls of the ship passing through rainforests and city streets and operas, simply following the glowing corridors trusting they’d lead me home. And when I finally stepped through that threshold out of the frigid belly of the ship battered, weary, and very nearly broken in two to feel the warm dirt between my toes and hear the crickets chirping in the twilight and wind in the sycamores. Well, it was rebirth.

--

The ego dissolves in vacuum.

I found that out my first time out on the ice. The Delaney’s Folly, like all colonial ships, was built out of the hollowed husk of an asteroid, filled with an abundance of life and technology, then shoved by fusion engines to a bit less than 250 million miles per hour out across the cosmos. At speeds like that contact with even the most infinitesimal debris would likely spell disaster for the ship; an unfathomably small risk in the inky blackness of space, but one so dire it warranted a good deal of prevention. Ice, turned out to be the answer. Ships under construction were relocated to an orbit around Jupiter where they could receive a coating of ice, distilled from Europa’s vast oceans, a few dozen meters thick. If you did the math it was a truly inconceivable amount of water, but even still it was scarcely up to the task presented. Any rouge debris that was even remotely detectable by hull sensors would need to be avoided, all this ice was just there to absorb impacts from infinitesimal particulates not even visible to the naked eye.

All of this information was not dubbed “need to know” by the Delaney training program, so the first time that my tab directed me to an airlock for a maintenance job I had no idea what I was really in for. Prior to that ping, I had no idea that watchers were ever called on to do maintenance outside the ship. Like most people I had assumed that being encased in rock was protection enough, so you can imagine my confusion when a cubby opened up next to the airlock with a sleek spacesuit equipped with crampons and an ice ax. It looked like the kit of some retro-futuristic ice climber, not the spacesuits I’d seen in the media. I imagined clinging to the side of some great ice floe out the blackness these ancient tools all that held me away from the abyss and was gripped by the abject terror of losing my grip and sliding, tumbling into the depths of space.

Of course, that wasn’t really the risk, the ship wasn’t accelerating anymore so I couldn’t fall behind it with any kind of rush. But it was spinning, and that would prove to be the trickier bit. My tab chimed and pulled up a quick safety briefing about EVAs. Turns out that the crampons and ax were really just to help hold my position at the work site if needed, and the suit was also equipped with an autonomous thruster pack that would fly me to the site then take me back to the airlock when the job was done. I probably didn’t even need to be awake for half of the process.

Excited, nervous, and not-a-little terrified I donned the suit with shaking hands and checked the seals. I can imagine that more than a few watchers had probably got to this point and lost their nerve. The fear of stepping through the airlock and into the great unknown simply too much to face. The ship would protest, probably chime you a dozen more times to complete the job, but it would eventually move on to issues you may actually help resolve. For me though, coupled with the fear of this ultimate unknown, was a profound curiosity. Nearly two years I’d spent in the belly of the Folly, all this time out amongst the stars and all I ever saw was their simulated likeness twinkling on the ceiling of the homestead. I’d never experienced weightlessness, never seen what the ship truly looked like, never really been in space.

So as I sealed on my helmet the suit pressurized itself and then hit me with a dose of an anti-nausea drug that smelled like ginger and eucalyptus. The ship was never shy about dosing you with an aerosol drug if it thought the time called for it, there was no need for consent out here and the scents were probably just a courtesy to let us know we’d just been hit...or a placebo. No doubt, this blend was some engineer’s attempt at helping first-time EVAers relax, stop using up so much oxygen, and face their task. The aromatherapy was no match for my churning stomach though. Still, I steeled myself, grabbed my ice axe and work kit and passed through the airlock. Counterintuitively, it was the floor that opened up before me when the air had been expelled from the lock and I stared down at a series of ladders that descended a tunnel through the thirty meters of rock that even in that moment I had thought was the total crust of the ship. I scampered down carefully before finding myself at another opening in the floor through the window of which I could see stars reeling by. My first real glimpse of the great beyond since I’d last peered up through the dust that choked the summer skies.

Then my world turned upside down. The suit became mostly rigid as the thruster pack came alive on autopilot, the door slid open and I slipped out reluctantly into space. A terrified newborn headed out into a cold new world. But to my amazement, once through the door, I continued down yet another tunnel, this one much shorter but made of glistening, crystalline ice. The jets fired softly behind me offsetting the artificial spun gravity and held me centered as I slowly passed, I could see the blinking of my suit lights reflected in the crystal and the vague twinkling of stars beyond. Sliding out beyond the ship entirely now, I was taken aback by the sight. Stretching off to a curving horizon in all directions was the icy hull of the C.R.S. Delaney’s Folly. Of course, I knew the ship was huge, I’d spent years exploring and still hadn’t seen the half of it. But it was one thing to know the size conceptually and another to try and take it all in in one go. From my tiny perspective, it looked every bit a great frozen moon whose curvature was only barely perceptible from my vantage. Except for a faint rippling, it looked a great black mirror, the horizon disappearing off in the distance and the ice reflecting gently back the stars that wheeled by as the ship continued its stately rotation.

My head reeled with the sight, as my stomach churned protesting this first taste of zero-g as the thrusters spun me around and the stars whirled overhead. Another dose of anti-nausea from the suit before I heaved inside my helmet and the thruster began to push me gently along the length of the hull to a sensor array embedded in the ice a few kilometers away. As we approached the site I was brought back close to the ice and was shaken by what I saw. The ice was not rippled. It was scarred.

All along the hull, the ice was pocked and divoted, evidence of near-atomic level impacts that the ship had suffered and absorbed over the eons. That seemed likely why I’d been called out on this job. The strikes must have been unfathomably rare, but given enough time each little abrasion led to a monumental pitting of our protective cocoon. I looked up and out into the galaxy wheeling overhead the great band of the milky way sliding across the sky with hypnotic rhythm and felt inconceivably vulnerable. Here we were, so proud to think that were equal to this impossible mission, that we tiny, insignificant humans could colonize this dazzle of stars. The universe had a response to that; a few molecules ejected from some solar disk, cast out into the uncaring reaches of interstellar space to await our dawdling arrival was all it took to leave us battered to push our ship to its limits and remind us who was really in charge.

As the pack sped me along my eyes continued to adjust to the engulfing blackness, the ice began to glow gently with the light of a billion stars, and looking out towards the horizon I could almost imagine the rippling expanse to be the mirrored surface of some impossible lake. The divots, I found as I made my final approach, were generally not very deep and were mirrorlike even at their deepest points. They were scattered and told the tale of an unimaginable impact. The energy from each collision must have heated the water just long enough for it to flow briefly and fill the deepest strikes and leave the surface glistening. So when I came upon the sensor array it looked happy as a clam sitting at the bottom of a cone-shaped hole keeping all the instruments well out of the way or any potential impacting debris. Tucked along the side of the ship they could safely conduct their business of scanning the universe in all its glory. I could only imagine the forward-facing sensors had a rougher go of it, surviving by luck or numbers.

Even jetting along the edge of the ice I was probably more at risk than I had been in since I’d left earth. My repair of the cryopump may have been harrowing and exhausting but I was almost certainly in no direct danger. Out here a couple of stray atoms would wipe me out of existence with literally zero notice. Still, the ship must have calculated that to be a sufficiently improbable outcome, all the same, it was a relief to nestle in with the sensor array below the level of the deepest divots. My suit loosened up as the thruster cut off and I attached a set of tethers to hold me in place over the work site then kicked the toe spikes of my crampons in for good grip. It felt less like clinging to the side of some frozen waterfall and more like hanging down in a harness clipped to the roof of some great cave, if the floor were all the eternity of existence.

All the while my eyes dilated further and further. The suit became completely supple and felt no more encumbering than a set of coveralls. I could look out at a spinning spray of stars that was first extraordinary then awe-inspiring then transcendental. The entirety of creation rolled by again and again becoming brighter and brighter until it became astonishing that anyone could have thought space to be a dark place. The universe is light. It is a sea of photons pushing back the darkness. It is the stars coming together to rebel against the cold death that awaits all things for as long as they can.

I don’t know how long I stayed there frozen in awe. I had simply stopped to be me. This whole venture may have been unbelievably foolhardy, doomed to failure in a million different ways, but none of it mattered because I was a part of this. I was a part of this, this cosmic effort against oblivion. The universe may be uncaring, it may be arbitrary, it may just all be ticking away to some immutable laws, but it is no less divine. It is divinity written with light and I am here to bear witness.

Eventually, my helmet chimed to snap me out of my reverie and gently began to throw up information on my display. Even tucked in with the array any time outside the ship was a risk, and the ship wanted me to get on with the job. Several radio antenna had been fried by radiation over the untold years, so I spent the next several hours immersed in the work leaning back against the tethers, jabbing this way and that with the ax to move to a different sensor, and falling into the steady rhythm of work only to irresistibly have my gaze pulled towards the sky and my body turn outward as if in prayer. It didn’t matter that it all whirled by with the rotation of the ship too fast to truly make much sense of anything, it was still the most intoxicating view I’d ever witnessed.

It wasn’t until some time later though, that I dissolved into the cosmos.

--

I had begun to feel myself withdrawing. 

My circles of travel becoming concentrically tighter until I barely left the workshop, a space so thoroughly tuned to the workings of my mind that it may as well have been an expansion of my own ego. A slightly larger headspace into which I could retreat. I had begun to run. Not for any fitness, but simply run out to any repair jobs that came in to cut down on the time I had to leave my well-trodden paths on the homestead. Trails deepening in the loam off the porch and into the shop. The cow protested, the garden grew into a riot, and I lost more chickens than I care to think about. Days blurred so inextricably together that all notion of planning for the future collapsed into my obsession with my work, the next project the next iteration.

Solemnly I marked off each day, but I hadn’t even hit the halfway point of my stint. My remaining days alone stretched off like halls of the ship, unbroken, diminishing into nothingness. Surely at some point the ship would give in and begin to feed me if I let the farm utterly fail; it was known to send me nutrient-packed drinks and citrus fruits if it determined I was low on some key vitamins, so it seemed reasonable that I may be laid utterly destitute but surely the Folly surely wouldn’t let me starve. Surely.

Woodworking was beyond a pastime, past a therapy, outside the soul-satisfying self-expression it once was. It was obsession. Naked and all-consuming, I couldn’t even rouse my true self to see how devoured I’d become. The ship rarely, if ever supplied me any raw materials any more despite the fact that my tab was filled with reams of designs ready for production. I’d combed through every piece of literature I was supplied on the subject a dozen times over. My first round of new furniture for the house was a distant dream; by now every piece had been built, used, scrapped and pulled apart for materials time and again. The few pieces of timber the biofactory did deliver I hoarded like precious gems jealously guarded for some worthy project. I’d moved from simple mission designs to Scandinavian sensibility to flowery Victorian pieces; finally, I’d circled into an excessive mid-century style, addicted to the challenge presented by splayed legs and impossible curves constantly seeking evermore complex joints and radical cantilevered designs.

At one point, in a fit of frustration that the ship stubbornly refused to supply me a decent piece of timber, I grabbed my biggest saw and headed towards the perimeter trees that lined the walls of the homestead. If the AI wouldn’t give me what I wanted, I’d take it for myself. I hadn’t eaten in three days and still I sized up the biggest elm on the backside of the homestead, seeing only possibility not so much as pausing to think what would happen if I actually felled this giant. In a fury I dug in my saw blade, my mind racing over the possibilities hidden within this goliath, as chips of wood flew in a frenzied cloud. Then with a gut-wrenching rip my saw blade stopped dead and a gush of water rushed forth into the grass. Dismayed I looked into my cut and saw not a tree but a metal skeleton. Like all else in this godforsaken place, it was a lie. No hope lived within this bark, only a vast metal skeleton holding up the illusion of bucolic tranquility. I fell back into the grass and screamed into the heavens. Cursing this place, this ship, all the legions of engineers, and Yvette fucking Delaney, but mostly I cursed myself. North Denver may have been crumbling into dust and dead dreams when I turned my back on it, but at least it was real. That was worth something, wasn’t it?

Above me in the pale blue sky, behind a gentle whisp of cloud, the omniscient, calculating eyes of the Delaney’s Folly looked down at this hopeless, destructive cog in its machinery and began to run it’s self-repair protocols, puzzling out the best way to repair a broken mind.

I awoke in the grass beside the elm around midnight cold, exhausted, and shattered, to a chime on my tab. Too wrecked to even delay doing this job in protest, I staggered to my feet and shuffled off towards the door. My efforts of the previous day had already healed up into a pale scar on the trunk and the crickets sang gleefully in the starlight, indifferent to my plight. The ship took me immediately to a train that whisked me off in the wrong direction, we headed upship.

Only twice in my waking years had I headed upship, because frankly there wasn’t that much forward of the homestead. Mostly command and communications equipment that needed little repair, the ship tapered to a blunt nose just fore of my living quarters. The oddity of my route barely registered in my weary mind fixated as it was on the lies of everything around me and the all-consuming loneliness that haunted my every step. However, even the most dysfunctional mind couldn’t ignore changing gravity and as we headed up the nose of the ship I began to weigh less and less until I was floating off my seat in the train.

I should have been curious, I should have been snapped awake by this otherworldly sensation, but mostly I was just annoyed that now I’d have to fight the nausea of near-zero g while completing whatever job I’d been sent off to. It had barely been fifteen minutes afield and I couldn’t wait to sink back into the sweet ignorance of the workshop. The ship hit me with another dose of anti-nausea aerosol, this time scented like fresh pine as if to drive home the core of my mental failures. I floated out onto a platform tucked into the nose of the ship, as the illuminated corridor guided me even more to the fore the wisp of rotational gravity that remained in this narrow prow of the ship let me climb the ladder towards a glowing door above. Was the ship about to send me out front to work on some fore-sensors? I instinctively recoiled in horror of clinging to the front of this great ship, no illusion of security between me and whatever drifted out of the cosmos to tear me to pieces.

But it was not an airlock, and as the door slid aside I was greeted by an altogether stranger sight than I could have imagined. Before me was a great glass dome stretching out in a crystalline sphere, beyond which was the ice obscuring the swirling stars beyond. Bewildered, I stepped onto the circular threshold and held myself cautiously not wanting to drift away from an easy handhold. But this strange orb was oddly inviting, it was pleasantly warm and when the door slid closed behind a deep silence fell over me. My tab chimed and instructed me to stow it, and my clothes, in a cubby in the threshold as the lights began to fade around me. Then two sensations hit me at once. The whole great sphere began to spin diminishing what little remaining gravity that was left in place and it edged slowly forward, meanwhile the soft glow of the stars began to clarify. The ice was melting. This whole great sphere was, in fact, an observation bubble and I was headed out into space.

In one hypnotic motion, I was cast forward with a subtle lurch from the threshold as the rest of the ice cleared away from the sphere and the slow spin of the stars ahead came to a slow halt. The orb had matched its rotation exactly opposite that of the ship allowing a static view of the cosmos. I was drifting free in the universe, naked before all of creation. The last of the light diminished and the sphere moved out front of the ship on a slender stalk leaving me with a view of naught but the great cosmos in nearly every direction. My eyes adjusted deeper and deeper into the interstellar gloom, great structures emerged from the starlight. The milky way spread in its awesome entirety before me, stellar nurseries glowing hot and immense clouds of gas creating great webs of shadows dancing in the starlight. It was altogether the most breathtaking sight that I had ever seen, and I hung motionless tears streaming down my face my senses left in utter deprivation except for my eyes, overwhelmed by more grandeur than the human mind was built to contain.

Still, my mind worked in its weary tracks. How exposed was I floating here in the cosmos, hurtling several million miles an hour? Even if the ship calculated that the chance of direct impact was sufficiently low to allow me out here, certainly the radiation was formidable. Why would the ship send me here, was I sent out to die in silent solemnity, no longer viable to the functioning of the great ship? My body began to protest as these thoughts took root, hands reaching out for anything to grab hold of. But struggle as I might, the ship had cast me here helpless, the observation sphere was large and I could be held well away from any walls with nearly imperceptible air currents, and here floating exposed to the universe and its hazards in their millions I would remain until the ship freed me. I could only pray that it was benevolent as well as all-knowing.

As I struggled in space, limbs flailing for any purchase, my breath quickened and my heart beat out of my chest as my vision narrowed before me. Panic. Then, drifting in through the warm air a scent. In my hysteria, I sucked in great gulps of the laden air, and in it was truth. It was cut wood and crushed grass, it was spring water and clean skin, it was sage after a rain and ocean spray in the morning light. It was all we had left behind, all we had destroyed, and all we sought anew out in the heavens. I gulped it in greedily, panic overriding all control.

And then, my panic disintegrated as I disintegrated. My eyes flung open to the splendor of creation before me and my sense of self melted away like a morning fog, and then there was only the universe. For weeks, years really, my mind had worked exhausted grooves in it’s thinking, just as my feet had worn deep tracks in the dirt. It was all about the next project, the next improvement, my goals, my survival, my obsession. Me. But as the last shred of my ego was consumed by the cosmos it became clear just how silly and self-important those tracks really were. A vestige of what it took for a species to survive and flourish into self-awareness, to see ourselves in the universe. But even that was wrong, we were not separate from all of this brilliance that laid before my eyes. We were the universe wrought conscious.

Just as the immutable laws of physics turned great swirls of gas into burning stars and set planets dancing in their stately processions. Just as the abiding constants of chemistry stirred the elements of those planets into self-replicating molecules. Just as natural selection irresistibly created life evermore complex. The universe executed a grand, ineffable plan, devoid of caring or consciousness until one day a spark of self-awareness took hold in some corner of the cosmos and spread like wildfire. There was no I, no we really, just this, just all of creation working relentlessly towards cognizance. No doubt as well, that these eyes filled as they were with splendor and this mind filled as it was with some well-crafted psychedelics were only a blip in this grand system. This consciousness would eventually fade, these eyes would dim, but it would matter little the stream of awareness would carry on, and grow inexorably. Soaking in all the light in the universe, stubbornly resisting the yawning dark that awaited all things. Even everything.

It may have been a minute, it may have been a year that the ship left my body drifting in space as my mind raced out to the edge of the universe. But it mattered little. I experienced all time and no time, all things and no things, everything that ever would be and nothing at all. Blissfully though, my mind slowly wound its way back, anchored for now in the grey matter in my skull. With time I became aware again of my body, breathing slowly in the warm confines of the sphere tears drenching my face. Eventually, the ship allowed me to drift slowly back into the threshold as the ice regrew and blurred the stars beyond. I had crawled into this crystalline orb shattered and exhausted, but I stepped forth reborn.

--

There is a plot behind the farmhouse, three square headstones atop three mounds covered in white poppies.

Three souls claimed by an utterly inhuman task. Every third day as the sun rises I would walk out to clear the graves of any leaf litter accumulated from the great sycamore that stands a proud vigil over them and then stand in solemn observance for a moment for my fallen compatriots. They stared down the remaining years of their time awake and alone, couldn’t face the yawning years that stretched before them and chose an early exit. I would hope against hope that I would not become the fourth.

These headstones stand has a sharp reminder of the most important question of my time aboard the Folly. The question I mulled over day after day until the stubborn refusal of an answer had me give it up as hopeless. Why just one watcher? There clearly was ample space for several of us to share on the homestead. The Folly itself certainly could be configured to accommodate hundreds of thousands of waking occupants if needed. But presented with all possible configurations of crew sizes and structures the divine powers of Delaney decided on this. Just one lonely watcher. Condemning a procession of helpless souls to interminable waking solitude. Why?

A hundred answers spring to a restless mind. Perhaps the ship is experimenting, to see what conditions a solitary human can endure and remain productive in so that when we get to colonizing we can do so as effectively as possible. Perhaps Delaney engineers in their decades of experimentation out in the asteroid belt every permutation of crew sizes and structures ultimately spelled disaster, intergroup conflicts ultimately leading to collapse. Perhaps it really was just a cynical capitalist calculation. In order to make the whole venture profitable they needed just a few maintenance crew berths to last an almost inconceivably long time. Even doubling up on the waking crew for more than the week we were allowed during changeover would slowly eat into flight times and open berths and thus profit margins. We couldn’t have that now could we.

Or perhaps, as I’d come to favor, it was simply a matter of control. To the ship’s AI waking human crew was a tool to keep itself running when self-repair protocols weren’t up to the task. The ship needs us alive and relatively healthy for repair jobs, but that’s about it. Kept alone, and sufficiently occupied with productive hobbies and the occasional psychedelic reset we were malleable. Cogs oiled to keep the machine running. But add in another watcher and we’d be a pair together, we’d become us. Two human minds bumping ideas off one another might get ideas about an AI calling all the shots, they may get destructive. As it was, my only possible connection to others was to keep myself alive and leave behind some nice furniture if I could manage it. If the homestead were any smaller, perhaps sanity would degrade too quickly. Maybe all this artificial country was just the bare minimum to maintain sanity. Perhaps three crew lost to hopelessness over the eons of our journey was actually a smashing success.

I pitied the lost watchers to be sure, but my heart truly broke for those who came after them. The Folly clearly had protocols for pulling solo crew off the ice, for nursing them back to life, for helping them survive those first helpless weeks of the farm. Protocols that could only be mechanized hell. No helpful hands to show you how to work the land, no understanding conversations to help bring back memories lost in fog, not so much as a human face to focus on as you stumbled out of a cryogenic delirium. Only a cold, distant ship ineffably ticking away in its own logic to guide you through the most hellish weeks of your life. Clearly it was survivable, but god, only just barely.

In truth, I cannot know what took these fallen watchers. Trapped in solitude on a farm built specifically to maintain its keepers in a state of rugged tranquility, yet with the pinnacle of medical technology surely hidden around every corner, it is hard for me to imagine they fell victim to anything other than suicide. Oh, sure a blood clot in space could be just as deadly as a blood clot back home, but the ship almost certainly had as much medical data about the crew as it was possible to collect. I doubt we’d be in surer hands sitting in an intensive care unit back on earth. As much as The Folly liked to act aloof and uncaring my years aboard have shown that it’s not afraid to manipulate a desired medical outcome, whether it’s staving off scurvy or snapping a depressive spiral. Surely in the case of a true emergency the ship would break character, send out a medical robot, and save a life. No, as the days passed and I cleared the graves time and again a heavy certainty settled over me that the greatest threat to we, the watchers was ourselves.

So there the headstones sit, a cautionary tale to all the crew members who would come and go of that one threat that could never be eliminated. And every third day I’d do my little bit to mourn these lost spirits, and steel myself a little bit more against the task ahead. Whatever I had to do, however I had to do it, I must not succumb to despair. Sitting in that recruiter’s office looking over dusty old Denver it all seemed almost laughably easy. Five years of farming and light repair work? The offer seemed a slice of paradise, compared to the certainty of squalor at home. What they failed to mention were the lives certainly lost in trying to find a viable crew configuration in their experimental stations; not a word was uttered about the adverse psychological effects of prolonged solitude.

And thus the years, as they always have and always will, began to pass whether or not I could see it. For years my remaining time seemed only to expand. If you’d asked me in the worst of my depressive mania I would have assuredly told you that I had more time to go than when I began. The days were growing longer I was certain, my marks ticking away the days were erased by the ship to extend my stint. To trick me into whiling my life away. After all, what was time out here? Just a suggestion really. Ship time was not earth time was not the time of wherever our destination would turn out to be. In a cruel joke, we were “helped” by relativity at our speed, the seconds counted more at one-third of light. As if some mathematical shortening of shipboard time meant anything to those who had to live it. Not that any of it mattered, when we finally settled on a new home we’d certainly just start a fresh calendar at year zero and get on with the living. Hell, the headstones didn’t even have dates on them; the stamping of time so meaningless as to only be cruel.

Still, fast or slow, time marches on, and while it may be buried in impenetrable legal text the word of Delaney Corp. was bond. A work stint would not last more than five years of ship time. All I could do was pray that when I stumbled back out of my icy stupor on the other side that it was to a new planet and not another round on the homesetad. Until that blessed day that I’d head back to sleep, my only true task was survival. Far from a given, I’d learned, in fact it was a delicate ballet.

Down one path was the depressive mania from which I’d barely been recovered. As a passion my woodworking was equal parts engaging and rewarding, but as I’d learned it could run amok and become obsessing. So too, I discovered, with the farm. Months passed where I obsessed over working the land, maximizing harvests to no discernible purpose, only to throw some ecological factors off balance and lose the next one. Even with my time in the observation sphere held its own addictive qualities. After that first shattering journey, I began to seek out time amongst isolated amongst the stars. The ship for its part always seemed happy to let me out to enjoy the view, even if I was certainly exposed. But only rarely did it deign to supplement the experience with psychedelics, as it had on that first visit, most likely when the ship thought I was sliding back into mania. Instead, my time amongst the stars became a space of silent meditation, learning to send my mind out into the cosmos through mental discipline. Still, even monkish discipline had its hooks. Hours could slip by unnoticed as I soaked in the universe, shirking repairs and work on the farm and all the little tasks that made up my life on the ship.

So a balance had to be struck. The years sliding between one obsession and another stretched and stretched the time left before me. But out of that ignorant haze, a balance began to emerge, equal parts working the farm and the shop and the ship cut with a dose of cosmic therapy. Surely this is what the ship had been aiming for all along, some sort of a healthy regimen to keep me productive in all areas. Surely this was the balance that countless hours of experimenting and designing and coding and refining by countless minds in countless places were all built to achieve. It only took me three and a half years to figure it out.

The ship gave me a gift to celebrate my graduation. My attaining even this base level of competence at living a healthy life, it felt trivial on the surface but I couldn’t have been more proud. And unexpectedly, the ship did something that was, dare I say, magnanimous. After a few months actually felt to slip by in my new balance I awoke one sunny morning, fed the chickens, rotated the paddocks, enjoyed a quick breakfast on the porch, and headed to the workshop. As I rounded the back of the house I let out a cry of delight. There leaning next to the workshop door was a stack of fresh mahogany timber. 

For years I had been trying in vain to coax wood out of the biofactory, and for years I had been stubbornly rejected. Only occasionally would I receive a usable bit of wood, and new projects almost always meant pulling apart another piece for base materials. My supply dwindling and dwindling, and scope of projects narrowed into nothingness. But this stack of fresh planks held real promise, for the first time in nearly four years I would be able to tackle projects with fresh eyes, unclouded by the need to scrape together materials. Most importantly though, it meant I could finally vanquish my nemesis, the great table.

It was probably the great dining table in the farmhouse that had subconsciously nudged me toward woodworking. While much of the furniture when I awoke was too synthetic for the old house, it was the dining table that actually drew ire from me. I still remember all those years ago sitting across it’s great white expanse from Adrian, savoring the subtle bliss of a homegrown green bean only to have this frosted glass monstrosity glare up at me. Seemingly my whole life had been stuffed with artifice, even on earth there was hardly anything that felt as authentic as this old house, but even here it was the artifice was creeping its way in however it could. The table was glaring, it was cold, it was loud, and it was fragile. Sure you could sit eight people around it-what a laugh- and the ship could probably pop a new one out with little effort, but that was about it. After I began to make my own pieces I almost never sat at it, preferring the smaller, more real, company of my own pieces wrought from warm wood. A cafe table on the porch, a coffee table in the living room. But despite the enmity I felt for the great glass horror, I never had the raw materials to do away with it. All of that changed on that sunny morning.

With this handsome stack of red mahogany, I would be able to finally do the old house justice. Above all else that I had built, this would be my legacy to those who followed me. A great table to share meals on during the changing of the watch, somewhere to sit and write on a rainy afternoon, or spread out and experiment in the kitchen. A piece to finally make this old house a home. 

To be honest I’d scarcely been so intimidated by anything in my life. There was so much potential there neatly stacked against the workshop, but I knew this was likely the last I’d see of new material. The ship knew I coveted new wood above nearly all else, so it had set to fulfill my desires. For all the technological wonders of the biofactory wood was resource-intensive and the Folly had many other needs to satisfy. So over the years it must have chipped away at my requests and delivered me this gift when I was finally fit to actually receive it. Or so I thought anyway, a ray of optimism sliced into the fog that had been my waking life just as the wood appeared, surely this was not just a coincidence.

I quickly hauled the timbers into the shop and stacked them neatly in the corner where they remained venerated and untouched for months. For years my mind had run amok with plans and designs for a grand table, and while this haul seemed plentiful I was only too keenly aware of its limits. If I stuffed a design or missed a cut, or god forbid, had to scrap a project, it would eat into my coveted supply. So for weeks on end I revisited the reams of plans that filled my tab refining, turning, and tweaking until I had a worthy design. A subtle blend of classic with the splayed legs and softened curves of midcentury design I’d become so fixated with, a style I could proudly call my own, my thousands of hours in the shop finally paying a discernible dividend. Even then I did not begin. Not until I had planned every cut, join, and plane down to the millimeter was I ready to work this red gold.

It was a crisp afternoon when I finally steeled myself to get to work with my new treasure. My plans had been drawn to the finest detail. I knew exactly which boards would be used where, how I would lay them out, what joins would go on which corners, and what troublesome spots I’d need to watch out for. I had never worked mahogany before so I’d dedicated a week of my life to studying my new medium, devouring every scrap of information the ship would feed into my tab. Still I couldn’t overcome the apprehension I felt with this new endeavour. How ridiculous, to feel so utterly cornered by a stack of hardwood. Eventually even the ship got sick of my inaction, dwindling away my available reading till only my plans remained. So I turned to my other pastimes, meditating in the observation bubble, roaming the halls of the ship, and tending the farm. Even these began to close themselves off to me, the ship only opening little circuitous paths that led straight back to the homestead, and eventually even going so far as to close off the observation dome to me. It was as outright an intervention as I’d ever seen from the ship. So I whiled my days away over tending the garden and concerning myself with all the little daily habits of the chickens, much to their protest, trying to convince myself that this was productive work. But eventually all fears must be faced, and that crisp afternoon I looked around the garden realizing that any more intervention and I’d likely jeopardize my upcoming harvests, there was not to do but take that first sickening step.

One stomach-turning leap, and then, flight.

The wood came alive in my hands as soon as I lifted it from the corner. I worked slowly, methodically, and surely. Every timber had its place, every joint slipped neatly in, every scrape of my planar hypnotically coaxed my vision forth. There was a true form in this wood, and it wanted to come out. It took me seven days to complete this magnum opus, transforming raw potential into immaculate execution, but my tools were sharp and my hands were strong and my mind was honed exquisitely to this task. One could look at all our time in the workshop working endlessly away and cynically say ‘Oh, what a nice pastime.’ and ‘Isn’t it funny how humans crave diversion.’ or ‘Odd that they would allocate so many resources to this little workshop for one person.’ But I felt none of that. The days slipped by in entrancing concentration, demanding perfection at every step; when the last coat of oil had dried and I assembled my work in the kitchen of the old farmhouse, well, it felt like mastery.

Even a robotic mind knew that the completion of a piece like this was cause for celebration. I busied myself in the soft afternoon light, gathering together my latest haul from the paddocks and garden to put together a proper feast, and the ship dug deep in its stasis cabinets to send forth some gifts from past watchers. A handsome piece of manchego, a beautifully eared loaf of sourdough that was somehow felt still warm, a few new pieces of hand-thrown tableware to replace my chipped pieces, and - this was a first- an elegant corked bottle of toasty amber ale with a note that read simply ‘Excellent work. -Sasha’. I set the table for two if only to imagine how that first meal would feel when I was finally able to pull that next watcher off the ice, when I was finally able to put an end to this loneliness. As I sat at the head the great table stretched away from me in its handsome red hue, the table settings told the tale of years of mastery, every bit of food every drop of ale held remnants of a hundred souls rent apart by time. Now sharing a meal through their work. For the first time in possibly my entire life, a new sensation crept through my body like a life-giving spring. Contentment.

That feast was some months ago now, and time, as it always does, crept slowly on. Since my first day on the homestead I had kept a solemn count of my waking time, a notebook with little neat hatch marks ticking away the days, organized to try and diminish the time ahead. For so long they had failed, for so long time only stretched out before me. But time does not care for our wants or our perceptions, it only marches on. I stumbled forth from fogs of obsession and depression and near-absolute despair disoriented and lost, but still, time had marched on. Even if I failed to see it. But after that great feast, toasting those who came before me and listening to the crickets sing in the gentle evening, an altogether strange thing happened. My time began to run short.

Objectively, of course, I completed my masterwork with a little less than a year left on my work stint. On any given day, if asked, I could have told you precisely how many days I had left to go, how many little tallies waited to be made in my notebook, even if the number held no true meaning to me. But out of all the chaos and dizzying confusion, a balance had been restored to my life and I grew into a new person, one for whom the days had real meaning once again.

After that grand feast my final golden days began to slip by ever more quickly. My remaining mahogany quickly allocated itself into some final projects, reworking into a set of stately chairs and a new rocker for the front porch. The observation bubble reopened itself to my meditations keeping my inner eye focused on the grand cause of this expedition. Even my maintenance jobs began to glow in this new rose-colored tint. The halls of the ship seemed less haunted by hidden robotics and the millions of frozen spirits, and more filled with all the splendor of human achievement. Here I was, out doing this impossible thing, becoming the new, better type of person that our new, better world would demand.

And now my tallies are full. My notebook is complete, my waking time aboard the CRS Delaney’s Folly has come mercifully, heart-wrenchingly, finally to a close. I sit on the bench of my workshop looking out past my garden exploding with life, over the rolling paddocks with the chickens pecking happily away in the morning light, out to the great trees that obscure the horizon and make this place feel endless. My final scraps of wood I have worked into a large bowl for preparing and serving, for harvesting and carrying, one last gift for those who come after me. One last bit of legacy. As I gently polish on the last coat of oil darkening the grain into a deep red, my tab chimes. It can only be one thing. Time to change the guard. It will be several days before the soul I pull off the ice will be able to sit at my table and eat their first meal in god knows how long, but I am happy to wait because it will be not me, but us. I walk through the cropped grasses and joyously step through the threshold this time undaunted by the chill of space, the corridor glows ahead leading me down through the ship to the halls of sleepers, and down in the belly of the ship one casket has begun to warm, a heart has begun to beat once more, another mind is fighting its way forth from the fog.

And finally, I am not alone.

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