(Oh my god I can’t focus, day before a trip and some random bullshit happens while I’m trying to write an emotionally fraught chapter? Are you fucking joking? And when I’m fresh from being reminded why I sometimes silently pray for the erasure of all phones from existence?)

First

Many Faces of War

“So... does being a sorcerer mean being a serial killer? I’ve seen the Bonechewer movies and...?” Eric asks. There is clear concern on his face.

“No, that’s... uh... Sorcerers are connected to an entire area that’s alive as both individual beings and as a whole thing. It has a different method of retaining memory and remembering things and that... uh... well it makes sorcerers vengeful. Basically a sorcerer never forgets something our memories are fresh and strong thanks to the forest so a big, huge personal injury? That never goes away. It stays traumatic and painful until something is done about it. Then the memory of the pain is tied into the memory of the relief. It’s why the Bonechewer keeps showing up, the people that did him wrong aren’t individuals, it’s an organization. One that new generations of criminals keep taking up the banner of and setting him off like a bomb.”

“And you?”

“I’ve already gotten my revenge. What I didn’t defer to other, more upset sorcerers.”

“Really?”

“Yes, I only really get upset at the people who were part of The Supple Satisfaction, either as customer or employee that escaped justice. And I know a fair amount did. And about... half the ones that were employees are people I can recognize on sight.”

“And what did you do to them?”

“I fought them to submission, then gave them to the Apuk authorities. They’re going to publicly execute her. You see the Apuk Empress has a vested interest in ‘taming’ sorcerers and she does this by encouraging things like that and a bunch of legal nonsense that basically backdoored a citizenship to the Apuk Empire.”

“Has it now?”

“Yes... so that would make me... Fleetborn, Undaunted and Apuk Imperial Citizen.” Jacob notes. “Still nothing compared to some of the other Undaunted but... Sorry, that was off topic. I’m not really sure how to talk to you or...”

An alarm starts going off. “Okay, alright, fine.” He mutters.

He checks the communicator and nods. “Okay... no one here was ready for this today and that includes me. I am out of time. My legal break is at the five minute warning mark so I need to be back in my pilot seat. Okay... alright. Sister? Cousin, whatever the actual proper title is in our family. I need everyone’s contact information right quick. I’ll give you mine so you can send things to me. It’s time we all started talking again and get to know each other, but I need to get back to work. I have a ship to run.”

“Right, as soon as you can send me the identifiers of your ship so if, no when, we have our fleet close to your ship there will be no mistaking things.” Chloe says.

“Okay, yes I... yes mother. Juliette? Communicator?” Jacob asks and she pulls out hers and he brings out his own. IN moments she has his contact information and the moment he confirms it he gives everyone a look and a smile. Then hugs Juliette. “Weird luck eh? Gotta go now, and if you need me back in an emergency tap the flower.”

“The flower? What flower?” Juliette asks but Jacob has already vanished.

“There’s a white six petalled flower in your headfeathers.” Eric notes gesturing above his right eye on her and she quickly uses the screen on her communicator as a quick mirror to check. It’s a lovely thing. “Uh... Juliette dear? Could you check the privacy settings on the holo-chamber you’re in really quick?”

“Of course, just give me a moment.” She says and quickly heads out. Confers with Private Stream who sets things to private and turns off the recording for her. Then she goes back in. “We’re in the clear. As far as I can tell... Now what the hell do we do!?”

“Juliette!” Amanda protests in reflexive surprise.

“No! No! Nothing of that! Him vanishing was HORRIFYING and now he’s back thirty five years later but with only solid memories of the last twenty! He spent fifteen fucking years as a sex toy to psychopaths! Literal fucking years! As a child! A son of our family! Fucked! Years! As a child!”

“I know! I know. Fuck! Good fucking grief! Just... FUCK! FUCK! What do we... what can we? How does this get solved!? Oh good grief getting a definitive answer as to what happened to him did not make anything better!” Eric exclaims as he starts to pace. Everyone’s calm and hopeful faces were gone and there was panic, horror, deep revulsion and more all around instead.

“What even happened with him!? You guys told me NOTHING about it and buried it!” Juliette accuses them.

“We didn’t know! We couldn’t find out! He went off on a huff with a line of credit, drank himself stupid, maxed out his debt and then just vanished! The trail went so cold so fast that we had no idea what happened!”

“How did he even get into that situation?! He’s a male! We have so few why wasn’t he protected?!”

“We thought he was protected! We had contacts in the local police and we were going to basically buy off the loan sharks to deal with things and force the debt on him to try and teach him some goddess be damned responsibility and to calm him down and teach him some important lessons, but he was spirited away! Apparently by demons and straight into the depths of hell!”

“This is beyond fucked up.”

“What do we do?” Juliette demands.

“We make this right. Somehow.” Eric says.

“Okay, great. How?” Juliette demands.

“We figure that out. We failed him, failed hard and need to make this right.”

“Eric, I’ve been following the scandal of Lil Tulelb. It was a child trafficking ring. A brothel. Children used for the pleasure. Used in disgusting, horrifying ways. I’ve... some footage from the clients ‘fun’ has leaked. It’s... it’s horrifying.” Juliette’s uncle Duncan notes.

“Dunk...”

“Just... listen. When he said everything short of murder he wasn’t kidding. Some of the videos include staff members rushing into stop a particularly bloodthirsty rich woman from actively trying to kill the child and explaining that the price moves over by several decimal places if they kill the child. And according to rumours, some of them actually did it. Paid the full price and everything.”

There are dry heaves, sounds of utter horror and very pale faces all around.

“We almost lost him forever to a random whim.”

“Oh it gets worse than that. He doesn’t get it. Whatever loyalty we had or whatever is just gone. Who he was before. Gone. Just gone and now we have a trained warrior and an Axiom Adept who can apparently teleport at Light Years distance.”

“You’re all missing hte point that we failed a child of our own family so badly that he’s NOT that child anymore. Jacob is Dead because of our neglagence and now we have Jacob the second, happy to and more than capable of murder edition! Sweet Thermals!”

“Okay, everyone calm down! All of you!” Eric barks. He takes a deep breath and huffs. “None of us expectd this. Jacob apparently didn’t either. We messed up, yes. We are in an extremely messed up situation. Also yes. But we are adults, we are rational, reasonable people with functioning brains. We can find a way to solve it. And for that, we need to help him. To heal him and to do that we first need to figure out exactly what the damage is. We need to talk to him. A lot. We need to be delicate and careful and compassionate about this, because none of us know exactly how much or how little of a nightmare is inside his head. He’s been gone for thirty five years. He had escaped twenty years ago and then instead of running to safety, he found he didn’t know the way and went back to his abusers to sabotage them. How he did this? I don’t know. We need to figure that out. Why he did that, we don’t know. We need to figure that out. Finally, what did he actually do during his time as a saboteur? What lines did he cross? What did he see? What was done to him? How did a child get work at a child brothel without turning into product?”

“Oh sweet ancestors...”

“There is so much we’re missing and every part of the puzzle we have is razorwire and nightmare.”

“Why did he call his ship The Bloody Heron? Did a Coastglider help him or something?” Someone asks as Juliette finishes fiddling with her communicator. With her Uncle Eric taking up all the attention she had decided to get some things done.

Then everyone’s communicator goes off.

“Oh no... Jacob that’s not fair.” Juliette mutters as the first photo of many shows up. It’s an image of a large, repurposed Lydris craft with tons of armour and weapons. The caption is ‘So... my Ship! This is what family does right we try and talk to each other? I don’t know.’

“... Okay, so his home is a war machine...” Eric notes before the second image comes in showing an incredibly elaborate pilot’s seat which had been redesigned for use with talons primarily and numerous screens overhead in a mildly dark room. The caption this time reads. ‘The pilot’s seat and main screens. When it’s darker in here it’s easier to focus on things and just get into that place where the ship is just an extension of yourself.’

Or at least he had tried, the word extension is badly misspelled and then two other misspellings are spammed right afterwards before he properly gets the word extension down.

Then it shows the image of a young Apuk man literally trying to dodge the camera as he trails a cloud of dust with an annoyed look on his face. ‘Arden! The other Lush Forest Sorcerer! Kinda like a sworn brother but different.’

“At least he has friends.” Eric notes just in time for the next sent image to be instead a small bundle of older pictures of people in military uniform goofing off or being given a stern look by a massive Tret man who has muscle on the muscles of his muscles. ‘Bjorn and the platoon! More pain than the full payload of my cannons, special delivery to whoever needs an asskicking!’

Then the image of a large engine setup is next. ‘This took pain, lost feathers, more than a few impromptu showers in coolant or engine grease and a lot of trial and error to get working. He hums happily now.’

“That... Okay, his ship is either far larger than that first photo, or he has some monstrous acceleration on that thing.”

“Did he build that ship himself?” Someone asks and Eric sighs before typing out the question into the group chat that Jacob had set up for this.

‘Did you refurbish that whole ship yourself?’

‘I did! Took most all the money I could beg, borrow or steal until things really got rolling. The first non-essential I installed when I was done was a proper bed so I could get off the rags I was using as a nest until then.’ Jacob sends back.

“Rags? He was sleeping on rags.” Someone asks.

“This is all going to get so much worse before it gets better.” Eric mutters, mostly to himself. His answer to Jacob is something else. ‘Please tell me you at least have a comfortable bedroom.’

The reply is an image of a large, overstuffed bed, a music player in the corner, a perch with extra padding, several memory braids hanging from a post and numerous potted plants scattered throughout a very comfortable looking bedroom.

‘I think I’m doing alright.’ Is Jacob’s answer. ‘Although the picture isn’t fully accurate. It’s gotten so comfortable in there that numerous moths, small lizards, birds and snakes will often come in from The Lush forest to nap where there’s no predators at all. They like it there and I like having them there. Like these guys!’

The following image is of a small, spiked lizard looking very intently at a small white moth perched on it’s nose.

“Okay, so is he wholesome or horrifying?” Juliette asks.

“Both.” Eric notes.

•-•-•Scene Change•-•-• (Ship Helm/Pilot’s Chamber, The Bloody Heron, Between Systems)•-•-•

“So... You have a lot to take in.” Arden notes as Jacob is brooding in his pilot’s seat, talons off the controls and wings steepled together in deep thought. Arden had been the one sending the messages to provoke a reaction from Jacob’s family as he observed them through the flower he left in Juliette’s hair and thought about things. Thought about a lot of things and from Arden’s perspective Jacob’s mind was a roiling storm of thoughts and all sorts of different ides and issues slipped through. Then he suddenly lets out a chuckle. “OH? What are you going to do?”

“What am I going to do? I’ll tell you what I’m going to do Arden.” Jacob says with a smirk. “I’m going to do one thing in three ways. Undaunted, Sorcerer and Shriketalon. Something impossible, something vicious that twists the knife, and yet something peaceful.”

“And what could that possibly be?” Arden demands.

“I forgive them.” Jacob says and Arden gapes for a moment. His eyes search and there is a sensation of him trying to read Jacob’s intent and thoughts through their connection to The Lush Forest. But...

“You’re an asshole, that’s going to make it worse.” Arden says in mild awe as he realizes Jacob is being completely sincere.

“I know right?” Jacob asks with a grin and Arden starts to laugh. He then turns away and thinks again.

“And now you’re confused.”

“... I like who am I now and hate who I used to be. Did those fuckers on Lilb Tulelb do me a favour?”

“No. No they did not.” Arden states outright.

“Yeah, fuck em. Still, fucked up situation. Best I can do is offload all the trauma by refusing to pick it up. I forgive them, fuck I don’t even remember what to forgive them for and am disinclined to try and get those memories back. So moving the fuck on.”

“I think I can hear the nearest therapist screaming through the vacuum of space.” Arden notes dryly.

“Oh so it’s not just me? Fancy that.” Jacob says.

First Last

When they entered the Solar System, no alarms went off. The Kharval Union's exploration fleet had shut down most of its active systems before entering the range of human sensors. Their mission was not to fight. At least, not yet. They had been collecting data about Earth from a distance for years, and they had finally gathered enough information to send a small reconnaissance craft to the planet. Their goal was simple: to find out who was in charge of the humans.

Commander Yarek stood with his hands behind his back as he looked at the blue planet on the observation screen of the main ship.

“Is all the data ready?”

Intelligence Officer Teral answered without looking up.

“Mostly, Commander. There are many states, armies, and administrative centers on Earth. However, we have not been able to determine with certainty whether there is a single authority above them all.”

Yarek frowned.

“Every planet has a ruler, soldier.”

“Yes, of course. At least, that was true for the planets we knew until now.”

Yarek did not like that answer. For the Kharval, the easiest way to understand a planet's political structure was to find the person at its head. Once you found the leader, everything else usually followed behind them. Humans, however, appeared to be unnecessarily complicated in this regard. So a small reconnaissance craft would be sent, the largest possible human gathering would be located, and the most influential person there would be identified. Yes, that was exactly the plan.

When the reconnaissance craft entered Earth's atmosphere, the three-person crew silently watched the screens. As the pilot Orun scanned the cities, ports, and major transportation hubs, Teral monitored population density. A few minutes later, the sensors picked up something unexpected. There was an extraordinarily large crowd of humans gathered at a single location outside the city.

Orun leaned closer to the screen.

“Why are so many people gathered in the same place?”

Teral enlarged the data.

“I don't know. There are quite a lot of them, my friend. This could be what we're looking for.”

As the craft descended a little further, it did not take long for all three of them to fall silent at the sight of the enormous crowd. Humans filled a gigantic area. But what caught Teral's attention most was that every single one of them was looking in the same direction.

“There is someone there,” Nema said.

A single human stood in the center.

Teral zoomed in on the image. The human raised a small device in his hand to his mouth and began to speak. A few seconds later, the crowd shouted all at once. The human raised his hand again, and the crowd fell silent.

Orun whispered:

“They're all reacting at the same time.”

Teral narrowed his eyes.

“They look like they're waiting for commands.”

When the hand went down, the crowd erupted again.

“This could be a leader… but…” Orun muttered.

“No,” Teral said slowly. “This is… something more.”

Orun looked at him.

“What do you mean?”

Teral focused on the screen.

“None of them are delayed. None of them hesitate. They move as if they were a single mind.”

Nema immediately began recording.

“What am I recording right now, guys?”

“Most likely the leader of this planet… and something more.”

The human began walking across the elevated platform. The same thing was written everywhere...

QUEEN... Queen... we love you, Queen... Queen

Nema scanned the word. A few seconds later, his eyes widened.

“Sir... Translation complete.”

Teral turned toward him.

“What does it mean?”

Nema looked at the screen, then answered excitedly.

“Queen. A title corresponding to a term meaning king or ruler.”

For the first time, genuine satisfaction appeared on Teral's face.

“There. We've found what we're looking for.”

Orun was still skeptical.

“So this person really is the ruler of Earth?”

Teral was silent for a moment, then spoke more carefully:

“If he isn't… then why are millions of people moving together with him at the same time?”

Teral did not take his eyes off the screen.

“Continue observation. Record the leader's behavior as thoroughly as possible.”

Just then, the human brought the device in his hand to his mouth and shouted toward the crowd.

“We're gonna tear this place down tonight!”

The crowd erupted in an instant. The three aliens inside the reconnaissance craft looked at one another.

Orun's voice dropped to a whisper.

“This... How? Did it translate that correctly?”

Nema looked at the screen.

“I'm checking again.”

A few seconds passed.

“Yes, the translation is correct.”

The expression on Teral's face changed.

“Send it to the commander immediately.”

Orun asked in confusion:

“What?”

Teral answered without taking his eyes off the human in the center.

“The leader of Earth is calling for an attack. And millions of people are responding instantly.”

After the report was sent to the main ship, a single order reached the reconnaissance craft: observation was to continue. The possibility of an attack had not yet been confirmed, and the Kharval fleet's mission was to gather as much information as possible.

Therefore, they had to stay.

The man in the center stepped forward again. The crowd followed his every movement, behaving almost like a single entity. As the translation system began processing his new words, Teral focused on the screen.

A few words appeared.

Shouting in the street, gonna take on the world someday.

Orun stared at the screen.

“What... What? Holy shit... He's talking about taking over the world.”

Nema's voice trembled.

“Commander... This isn't an individual leader.”

Teral slowly nodded.

“Yes… I see.”

Teral's voice lowered:

“This kind of… thing doesn't wait for commands. They synchronize on their own.”

Orun froze.

“That's impossible…”

“Why wouldn't it be possible? Can't you see it?!” Teral snapped.

Suddenly, lights turned toward the sky. Part of the crowd began looking upward. The sensors briefly locked onto something.

Teral's eyes widened.

“Holy shit, holy shit, man. They've noticed us.”

Orun turned toward him.

“What?!”

“This many people… changing direction at the same time. Toward us. That's not a coincidence.”

Nema's hands began to tremble.

“What do we do?!”

Teral did not hesitate for even a moment.

“We're getting out of here!”

The reconnaissance craft suddenly climbed. As the engines operated at full power, the craft shot over the crowd and began ascending toward the sky, tearing through the atmosphere.

An alarm sounded on the main ship.

“The reconnaissance craft is accelerating!”

Commander Yarek rose from his seat.

“Why? What's happening down there? Report!”

Teral's answer came through the communication channel.

“The leader of Earth, sir… They're some kind of collective, strange ritual cult. Millions of individuals are moving as if they were a single entity.”

“Have they attacked you, soldier?!”

“No, Commander. But they don't need to. When they are united… they are unstoppable.”

Yarek said nothing for several seconds. Then he gave a single order.

“Send the fleet a withdrawal order.”

The Kharval fleet began leaving the Solar System without firing a single weapon at Earth. The sound from Earth continued. Millions of people were repeating the same words together, their voices filling the enormous area and blending into the silence of space.

Just then, a small notification appeared on Teral's console.

TRANSLATION COMPLETE.

The final lines appeared on the screen:

You got blood on your face, you big disgrace Waving your banner all over the place

We will, we will rock you! We will, we will rock you!

Teral entered his final report into the system:

“Contact not recommended. This species has a highly complex understanding of leadership, connection, and synchronization. When they act together, they exhibit behavior resembling that of a single leader.”

The Kharval fleet had already left the Solar System.

---

First

Many Faces of War

An emergency call for the heads of the family branches and the husbands was not a normal occurrence. But Juliette, Amanda’s Juliette not her own or Emily’s Juliette had basically spammed every single code that says ‘take this seriously’ and ‘I need help’ into the message.

So every fleet captain and her husband was at attendance in a holo-chamber on each ship as they all connect to a room in some place on Zalwore that wasn’t the Shriketalon Enclave. Which was worrying enough as is.

Then the rooms synchronize, taking three seconds but all the signs and warnings had everyone nervous. Then...

Her niece and a familiar... very familiar Shriketalon. She shares looks along her sisters. Shriketalons and Redfeathers interbreed fairly often and the pattern and plumage can swap back and forth like trading outfits. But coupled with that face. Those cheekbones... The exact shade of yellow in his eyes.

There is only one Astra Shriketalon man unaccounted for. But the body language on this man is worlds apart from Jacob. Fuck, the way he’s carrying himself this man is physically speaking a tongue that was born of another species entirely from Jacob’s drunken bitterness.

How the hell did they fail that boy so badly? It had been a shipwreck out of nowhere and everything had burnt to slag and sunken into a metaphorical ocean before anyone could even understand what they were seeing and he was just gone.

A person slipping into the cracks of society was tragic, but someone seemingly precision guiding themselves into one and vanishing was something else entirely.

And that’s not even touching the fact that the man is in a military uniform without any signifiers for being a medic and several weapons clearly on his person.

He turns to Juliette. “So how do we start this?”

“I really don’t know.” Juliette answers him.

“Fine! Hello family. I am Jacob. I have severe amnesia with everything past the age of seven gone and forced to raise myself while either hiding from a powerful organization that wished me ill or infiltrating the organization to sabotage it from the inside out in preparation to make full on war with it. I am a professional soldier, ship captain and warrior and have killed many people but for some reason Juliette insists that I won’t be rejected outright and that I’m missing so much cultural context now that she doesn’t even know where to start.”

“Oh sweet fucking goddess Jacob.” Juliette groans into her wings.

“What?!” He demands sounding offended. “No amount of flapping around the issue was going to solve it! Sink your talons in and tear it off! Now we got something to work with!”

“Okay, hold up! Wait a minute! Something isn’t right!” Someone says and it’s Mary-Ann, oh thank goodness something’s about to make sense. “You have at least DNA tested this man?”

“Yes. He’s been tested. This is Jacob.”

“Where were you!? What happened?! What is going on with all... that?” She demands before walking up and moving to examine him. As it’s all a holographic projection she can’t move him. But he moves with it and looks her right in the eyes. He’s studying her face. She’s a stranger to him. He... there is a flicker of recognition as his expression changes bit by bit and...

“Mom?”

“What did they do to you?” She asks.

“Probably everything short of murder. Then they hit me with a tainted healing coma and reset me to fresh for the next monster.”

“Lilb Tulelb... that’s where you vanished. It’s drowning in scandal. Children... how are you a grown man after all that?” She asks as it all starts coming together in a gruesome image.

“I escaped, but didn’t know how to run home. So I did the only thing I could, I went back to try and help the others. But even after two decades of trying, my best wasn’t enough. Thankfully The Undaunted filled in the gaps and stopped me from making any mistakes. I’ve been with them since. Training, growing stronger, getting ready for the next time something like that is found. To make sure my next attack on an organization of soulless monsters leaves neither survivors nor doubt.”

“Jacob are you trying to be... no of course you are. Sweet Goddess. Aunt Chloe he no longer has an understanding of Shriketalon morals and is convinced we’re going to throw him out for daring to be a soldier and enjoying himself as one. SO he’s self sabotaging because it’s the only thing that makes sense to him.” Juliette says and Chloe shrinks back to look Jacob in the face again and he’s looking a little bashful.

“Wait, what age was he reduced to?”

“Seven! He doesn’t even have the basic grounding of Shriketalon Pacifism or anything else!”

“If it wasn’t so fucking obtuse I might have some understanding of it and wouldn’t need this lecture! Why the hell is it such a massive secret!?”

“It’s not! It’s just developmental! It’s cultural! It’s not a big lecture you give out one day! It’s a million little lessons and sayings as you grow up!” Juliette protests. “Someone help me! He doesn’t get it and I do not have what I need to teach him!”

“What is there to get!? You are a pacifistic people born of an ancient oath to prevent you from being wiped out in the early stages of first contact. It became a cultural institution that binds the identity of this entire demographic of the Valrin Species. That’s it’s origin. It makes sense. What doesn’t make sense is that no Shriketalon has offered anything but sympathy or pity when I explain that I am a soldier, that I have killed, will kill again in the line of duty and do not mind these facts. What am I missing?”

“I’m not even physically there and I have a headache. Juliette my daughter, how are you holding up?” Amanda asks.

“Badly, I wasn’t ready for this.”

“Oh I doubt there was any way to be ready for something like this.” Amanda’s husband Peter notes he’s furiously rubbing at his downy goatee and clearly trying to find an answer that just isn’t coming to him as a few feathers are dislodged.

“I wasn’t looking to make this happen either, I was trying to get ahead of potentially insulting the Shriketalon medical fleet that’s going to same war I’m heading to fight in.”

“Do you hear how much he doesn’t get it?! Just how do we break through this!?” Juliette asks.

“And you’re on Zalwore. We’re at least a week away even if we turn the fleet around right now and your both heading to the La’ahbaron conflict. Meaning you’re both locked into your commitments and can’t exactly cancel or skip back to Zalwore or somewhere closer so we can do this in person...” Mary-Ann mutters, already trying to find the fastest and most effective solution to things.

“About that...” Jacob says.

“Oh no, this madness.”

“It’s not madness, it makes perfect sense.”

“No it don’t!” Juliette snaps with her feathers starting to stick out in her frustration.

“It’s no it doesn’t dear sister cousin, try to...” Jacob teases Juliette who lets out a furious screech at him.

“Oh yes. That is Jacob.” Chloe notes it’s from her Eric.

“Really? I was under the impression I was just some drunken idiot.”

“Before the Schleppa you were a problem on a good day. And it made you far worse.” Eric continues as he walks up. As a Shriketalon Erik just blends in. He’s a little taller than average though. Not by much. But it’s there.

But the thing that stands out is the chin. A little jutting that’s not quite an underbite. Something he passed down to Jacob. One of the few real differences between Jacob’s own face and Juliette’s. But what was really passed was the bright yellow eyes. Nearly golden.

“Tell me you have at least let go of that poison.”

“I have. I’ve made a point of staying away from it. I can’t even tell you with certainty what it tastes like. Though I have vague memory of something sour on the tongue.”

“Good.”

“I’ve also been augmented. I have a much more robust digestive tract now. Even if I was slipped Schleppa I might not even notice it. My new filtration organs are just that powerful.”

“Even better.” Eric says walking past him and glaring at the wall. “... As your father your rearing was mostly up to me. Juliette. Is this really him? Are you completely certain this is Jacob?”

“Unless Captain Courlain Shriketalon has suddenly developed a random and downright psychotic manipulative streak, it’s him. She recognized his story as he explained himself to her and requested a DNA sample. It wasn’t until it confirmed that we are closely related that she introduced him to me.” Juliette says.

“... Okay then. Okay... I’ll put things as plainly as possible then. Jacob?”

“Yes?”

“There is no solution to this problem. There is no one answer, lecture, piece of media or speech I or any other Shriketalon can possible give that will somehow substitute ten years of development and growth to give you the context, relevance and understanding of the Shriketalon way of life. From the age when we first truly grasp language and begin to read, until the main boiling madness of puberty is finished, we teach our young to be gentle, and peaceful and kind. Then we teach them why as well as the answer you’re looking for. The When. When we can break the oath and put it aside. Every family does it differently. The words are different from one mother or father to the next. But the meaning is the same. So here is the meaning, summarized. I don’t expect this to stick. It takes ten years to hammer it in properly. But if we don’t take the first swing, it’s never going in.”

Jacob is standing at attention and giving him an intense look now. Eric nods.

“Shriketalons are built to kill. To not only kill, but kill gruesomely. Our wings are small and powerful, allowing agile, near dance-like flight through the sky and around obstacles. The tips or our talons are sharp and viciously hooked. The grip we have with our feet is designed to sever the tendons in a joint and destroy it’s usefulness. When used on an animal it’s a dirty, cruel, pointlessly painful kill. When used on a person it’s a war-crime. He can casually sever limbs. There is a reason only two of the major Valrin demographics have Talon in their name, and it was not for being gentle. And both demographics needed to remake themselves or face potential extinction. We Shriketalons were merely the more dramatic and visible of the two. Which makes sense as Nighttalons are the thieves and assassins to the psychotic death cult we Shriketalons once were. Which is again sensible as a Nighttalon’s feet are more about holding your prize helpless as you get to work, as opposed to ours which is generally already doing horrifying things to people the moment we grab them.”

“Okay.” Jacob says.

“Okay.” Eric echoes. “Now, the reason you’re so confused, the reason it’s so hard to explain to you what the problem is and why it’s not sticking, is because we have two big lessons that each take five years to learn. And we have to start young. A Valrin generally has good mobility and a good grasp of language at five years of age, so we start teaching them to NEVER use their talons in anger. That is a bad, wrong and unhappy thing to lash out violently. And because a child still has a developing mind, not only does it stick deep, but we cannot fit in more of the lesson until later. At ten, the second lesson begins.”

“And the lesson is?” Jacob asks.

“You are not a monster.” Eric says. “That is the second lesson. Because as important as it is to teach the child not to bleed someone out in a temper tantrum or sever someone’s knee when throwing a fit, it always goes too deep and we develop a deep sense of shame. The shame must then be removed. Because we are not a shameful people. We have chosen to be better and it is the choice that matters. Every time the choice matters. That is not a thing of shame. To feel temptation is not shameful, surrendering to it is.”

“But I have.” Jacob says.

“Really? Every time you get upset blood spills? Can we track who’s had an argument with you by the number of people that needed healing comas to recover the use of their limbs?”

“Of course not.”

“Then you’re fine Jacob. The actual Oath of the Shriketalons? The ancient pact that basically hangs over our entire demographic? It hasn’t been sworn in seriousness for thousands of years. No Shriketalon past the first fifteen or sixteen generations from our uplift as a species has sworn the oath. It wasn’t needed. We changed as a people. It was a good change.”

“Then what am I?”

“A lot of things, but what you’re asking about is well... you’re a man who was pushed too far. You’re not the first Shriketalon who has been broken. Not the first who has been so spectacularly failed by others you had to do what was once unthinkable to survive. Some call it being lost. But unless you show up in warpaint, a loincloth and wearing the skulls of your enemies, no one is going to call you a traitor. And if you don’t hurt anyone they’ll think it’s some kind of tasteless advertising campaign or publicity stunt.”

“But I like it.” Jacob notes and Eric looks Juliette up and down.

“And she’s not hurt. Is she going to be hurt by you?”

“No.” Jacob states clearly and without any room to debate it.

“Then why would you liking it mean anything? You’re not lashing out randomly, you’re not hurting people without cause. The difference between a soldier and a serial killer are vast. And to be frank, anyone that can’t tell the difference needs time in a rubber room so they don’t hurt themselves.” Eric continues and he starts walking around Jacob to get a good look at him. “But this lesson takes a while to stick for... well anyone coming in from the outside to learn it, and you basically are. Seven years old... you’d have been watching the Huggy Wings and Downy Days.”

“Would I?”

“How much do you remember?”

“Faces, random words and a sour taste that satisfies.”

“Our faces?”

“Yours, mom’s, some of theirs.” Jacob answers sweeping his wing out. “But it’s... it’s all faded. Blurry enough that trying to fill in the blanks could turn it into almost anyone’s face.”

“And the words?” Eric asks.

“Bawoga, Tarata, Rrarrorra are the most clear.”

“Oh... of course. They’re gone now.”

“What were they?”

“Your pet fish when you were six.”

“I had pets?”

“They stripped you bare.” Eric says in horror. “Even with the drink you were nowhere near this...”

“Yes?” Jacob asks.

“I wish this wasn’t a hologram. You need to be hugged.”

“I’m fine, I’m just looking for answers.” Jacob says.

“Your formative years are a blur, and after that you just have fighting a criminal organization in the shadows for two decades. That’s not fine.”

“And he didn’t even bring up the fact he apparently has a mental link to some sort of amalgam Axiom consciousness.” Juliette says and everyone looks taken aback.

“She’s not only honest but accurate. I am a Sorcerer too now, so yeah.”

“Wait, is that why you think you’re a monster?” Eric asks.

“No, the sorcerer bit is more recent.”

“Okay then.”

First Last Next

"As I explained before, comprehensive invasion defense packages are available in six standard galactic month chunks. What's so hard to understand?"

"What?"

"SIX. MONTH. CHUNKS. Sorry... you have to know what a month is... six months is half of a year. OH STARS..! You do know what a year is, right? You all have to have figured that out."

António Manuel de Oliveira Guterres, the ninth secretary general of the United Nations (of Earth) stared for several long seconds in sheer disbelief. He had studied and taught physics and engineering, then lead a nation, now the world, and now this... this... meathead was asking him if he knows what a year is?

"Yes, we have discovered the year" he said patiently, "but that still does not explain any of this. Are you conquering us? Who are you?"

The so-called meathead sighed, not for the first time, and rubbed the bridge of their nose.

"No. We don't conquer people, well, not anymore. We are here because we have saved you from being conquered. This-" the large tablet in their hand waved back and forth "-is the bill."

"...bill?" said secretary general Guterres, with a dawning horror.

"For services rendered." said the meathead, who's head was only about sixty percent meat. Combat upgrades cut down the organic percentage pretty quickly.

"Specifically, the total salvation of your planet and surrounding stellar system from an inimically hostile non-human species with a campaign duration of six standard galactic months or less. Since you're technically human, you get a fifteen percent discount, which is pretty nice."

"Thank you?"

"Don't thank me; it's standard company policy. If you want to thank someone, thank the stars that the campaign was quick! If we'd had to stay for round two, we would've built a couple moon bases, star forts, you name it, because you'd be buying it. These guys were kind of chumps, all things considered."

"These guys?"

"Alaxians! They look like uh... you would call it a jellyfish." A picture of an Alaxian appeared on the tablet, and it did look like a jellyfish.

"We... were being invaded by jellyfish."

"Yeah, well, space jellyfish with a star empire that encompasses at least four known slave species, all probably uplifted, but one possibly synthetically created. Those are the one that look like uh... you would call them cows." A picture of a cow wearing what looked like an armoured exoskeleton appeared on the tablet.

"Cows and jellyfish, invading from space..." with that, António sat down very hard. He didn't get the impression that the meathead was joking, and the ship larger than the United Nations building that was parked directly above the United Nations building also hinted that this might all be true.

"Excuse me, uh, sir, your honor, uh, but what do I call you?"

"Technically, I am the equivalent of a five star general in the militaries of your species, which is rather far down the pecking order in the militaries of my species. You may call me 'governor general', since that seems to fit."

"Well then. Do you have names?"

"Oh, yes, we have personal identifiers, but they don't translate well into your languages. My full name would probably be most appropriately rendered as an alphanumeric string, but we do use nicknames that derive from interesting patterns that arise in our full names. My friends call me the rough equivalent of 'Sparky'."

Sparky, Governor General of Earth thought António. Sparky. My God.

"Are you alright?" asked Sparky, Governor General of Earth. The secretary general had turned very pale, and it was suddenly a very good thing that he had sat down.

"No, I don't think I am" whispered António.

"We know this can be a shock, in fact, it almost always is. Humans tend to suspect there's a lot more out there, but when it all shows up at once, we tend to flip out a little bit. Silly apes, no matter which star we're around!"

"So you are humans?"

That got Sparky really laughing.

"António, buddy, if you're a human, I'm definitely human. We weren't so sure about you all, but the corps' computers insist that you're still inside the standard deviation. Good for you all, or else the company's board probably would have skipped out on this whole boondoggle. They're known to be a bit speciest, but to be fair to them, it's easier to deal with sentients that think like you. There's this species-" a picture of what looked like an orchid flower with an octopus eye in the center flashed on the tablet "-who's metaphorical butts we saved almost five standard galactic centuries back, and we're not even close to breaking even. They just don't listen, in no small part because they don't have ears. I had to deal with that for almost a century. Maddening stuff."

With that, António opened a side drawer in his desk, pulled out a bottle of brown liquid, unscrewed the cap, and started drinking directly from it.

"Woah there, old boy!" said Sparky "You can't sign this after you start celebrating our victory, no sir, no sir, there are regulations; you also probably want your signature to look nice since everyone on this planet is going to see it."

António started pulling from the bottle again, and Sparky had to leap up and grab it. Sparky didn't have to take a few equivalent swigs, but did anyways. It was only fair to António, after all, especially since Sparky turned off blood scrubbing to enjoy a little buzz. One of the perks of being a soldier. You could get toxins out of your blood with wicked speed, or save them up for later. Sparky liked the second option.

"Hey, that doesn't taste half bad. What do you call it?" Sparky read the label "Whiskey, huh? Who or what is a Kentucky Bourbon?"

António let out a noise, somewhere between a low moan, a quiet groan, and a catatonic scream.

Sparky turned the blood scrubbers back on and got a bit more serious. "The situation's not that bad, bud. I promise."

António's head, which had been resting on his desk for a bit, rose.

"How can you say that? You can not possibly know what I am feeling."

"AH HA" shouted Sparky "That's where you're wrong! You can totally let me know how you're feeling, and we can work through it together. First, we need to get you a bit of an upgrade so you can send and receive thought engrams. It's a really minor surgery, in fact, I can do it right here, right now."

António fainted.

"I'll take that as a maybe."

Sparky turned the scrubbers back off. No point in wasting whatever Kentucky Bourbon was.

They had all the time in the galaxy.

Part II

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The first half of John's day blurred. Yuki asked if he was okay at breakfast, granted, but she didn't seem overly concerned, so he wasn't either. He didn't bring up that he had stayed up overnight without blinking, but with her hearing, she surely knew. Honestly, he wouldn't be that surprised if the kitsune could somehow hear the goings-on in Broadstream.

With little complaint, he merely headed into the "office" and got on with his day. Granted, he was a bit tense about Kon Saya staying somewhere on the same floor, but he didn't anticipate too much of a problem. Maybe it was just his recent experiences, but fighting against an impossible to detect threat that could hide in a crowd and overwrite your mind with a touch made a fox who was only trying to trick you into what was effectively slavery honestly far less stressful.

It was a different type of threat, one that felt more manageable. He'd rather deal with six Kon Saya's at once than a single Kiku. He just had to do his best and get things ready so they could dodge the issue entirely, should Yuki be unable to squeeze a fair deal out of her.

Part of him wanted to stay in the fort and finish the telekinetic foci there, but he felt a duty to come in and multitask. Besides, if something went wrong, he needed to be nearby. Yosuke was guarding the fort anyway, and John had given the man a makeshift flare to signal if anything went wrong.

It was wild what you could do with a few offcuts from fire crystals, glue, flint, and a sling.

Glancing down, he read the latest report: a quick summary of expected yields from soybean fields from the next town over, and what Broadstream might be able to scrounge together to trade for them. The numbers weren't looking good, but perhaps if they could send a runner over, they might be able to shore up their supplies somewhat. Perhaps firewood would be an attractive trade to them?

John remembered that soybeans were calorie-dense and a big source of protein, which they could always use more of, especially with the forest still being unsafe to traverse unarmed. Unfortunately, they still hadn’t solved their looming problems with vitamin deficiencies come winter. Yuki told him that they could blunt some of the "winter sickness" with pine needle tea, and John vaguely remembered that it was a good source of vitamin C, but that didn't cover the full scope of malnutrition.

She also mentioned possibly growing mushrooms to avoid foraging trips by the villagers into the surrounding woods, which required an armed escort force to avoid issues from any remaining Nameless. Unfortunately, John had no idea how to go about that safely. 

Mushrooms were always something he had steered away from because the odds of picking something that looked identical to a harmless shroom but would kill someone on the spot were far too high. One errant fungus slipping into a farm could multiply and easily become a mass-casualty event.

Hmm. Only as a last resort, then. He couldn't stomach the risk otherwise. He made a note to speak to Yuki about firewood production. It was probably one of the easiest things he could do.

Glancing down at the small, sap-filled glass jars behind the desk, he saw the foci settling, suspended in solution, and decided that it was probably time to check up on them.

Sliding the chair away, John knelt, pulled a lens from his pocket, and carefully examined each one for micro-shifts. Thankfully, only one of the six had shifted enough to be a problem. Grabbing his tongs and metal probe, he carefully submerged them into the thick slurry. Grabbing the prospective foci, John nudged the slightly misaligned piece, butting it back into place. After that, he spent ten minutes making sure none of the sap had leaked where it shouldn't, lest the potent magical insulator brick the connections.

Ugh, it would still be a few more hours until it was solidified enough to remove. At the very least, he could, if all else failed, chip the pieces out of the sap and try again. He had a stone chisel that was softer than the crystals, but harder than the solidified sap, for that exact reason.

If he weren't so short on time, this wouldn't be so stressful. Unfortunately, winter was looming closer by the day.

Going back to his paperwork, John stretched before sitting back down, getting ready to—

A knock upon his door frame drew his attention, jolting him from his work and almost making him smear ink all over the page.

What now? 

He was pretty sure that Yuki told everyone to leave him be for the day, although he still had to poke his head out earlier when someone was causing trouble. At least he had one of the militiamen to guard the place while he was out, even if that Nomura kid was a bit too hero-worshippy for his taste.

"What's going on?" John politely asked.

"It's one of Lady Kon Saya's men, sir!" tensely barked Nomura. "He is asking for entry, sir, and says he has a message from her for your ears only!" At that, the man loudly shifted, thumping the edge of his obnoxiously large polearm on the ground. Honestly, the thing nearly scraped the ceiling, and the head might as well be a sharpened metal block. John wasn't even sure where he got it, as it certainly wasn't standard issue.

Well, damn. He supposed he didn't have any reason to send the poor man away. Besides, it might cause problems with Saya later; something about being 'ill taken care of' was not something he was eager to allow her at the negotiating table.

"Send them in, please," John called out, and moments later the door slid open, revealing a man in full armour, who promptly marched in and bowed deeply at the waist.

Then he stayed bowed, bent into a ninety-degree angle with no sign of stopping, eyes fixed on the floor. Was he… okay? You were supposed to just bow and get back up, right?

Yet the man stayed, frozen as if in a trance. It couldn't be comfortable. The awkward silence hung between him as he stared down the messenger. He was maybe sixteen at the oldest, now that John was looking at him. Academically, he knew people historically got jobs or even went to war at far younger ages than in the modern day, and yet something about this still needled at his heart.

In his time, in his home nation, someone like this would be picking up some shifts for some extra spending cash to blow on something stupid that seemed really important at the time, as tradition dictated. This kid should be blowing a hundred bucks on booze rather than being armoured up and ready to die for the whims of some lady who probably viewed him as more of a number than a true person.

"You good down there?" John finally asked, breaking the silence.

The kid bolted upright, arms still eerily still at his side. John noticed that he was unarmed, too, and didn't even bear a single dagger, unless one was tucked into his gear somewhere. Hmm. He supposed wandering around as a guest while armed to the teeth would be bad form. "Lord Hall, Lady Kon Saya requests your presence at your earliest convenience," the teenager delivered, his delivery strangely stilted.

Hmm. Well, he supposed that he could ask her what she wanted and—Wait. This was some weird power-play or espionage nonsense, wasn't it? She was "summoning" him in what was, ostensibly, his domain, like a king demanding service from a vassal. Ugh. He hated politics. He could go to her, but that was undoubtedly what she wanted, and she might be able to leverage that somehow.

Unbound not bearing yokai traits seemed to be able to enter Broadstream just fine, despite its magical protections, hence why the name of the man John duelled next to the well wasn't on the ofuda, and they still hadn't accounted for the Unbound that the okuri-inu discovered. If she had someone with abilities specialized in infiltration on call, they could slip into the room while he was gone and, even if they were only looking for documents, find the foci.

The thought of someone associated with the Celestial Court finding out about his foci, reverse-engineering the principles and coming for him… it couldn't be risked.

Should he deny her outright? Nah, she could use that too, and might even tip her off that something was up. While he didn't expect her senses to be as good as Yuki's, acting like he had something to hide could lead to her poking around where she was even more unwelcome. Saya clearly didn't place much value on human life, and she could probably come up with some crazy gambits using her own men as sacrificial pawns.

Telling her messenger he'd think about it and consulting Yuki first risked her somehow leveraging it much the same way. Maybe she'd say that it was a simple request for certain food and send out one of her men to purchase it during that delay, only for them to be "robbed" or murdered, causing a major diplomatic incident that needs compensation.

Perhaps a bit grim and extreme, but John couldn't risk it. Bah, he was living among kitsune too much. He never thought that he'd say it, but he missed workplace politics.

That left him only one option.

"Please send her over at her earliest convenience," John finally responded. "I can't leave my office at the moment, but I'd be happy to hear her concerns."

Worry flashed across the young man's face before he dipped his head. "It will be done, Lord Hall," he said, bowing one last time before pivoting sharply and walking out of the room.

After he left, John sighed and called out, "Let Lady Kon in when she shows up, Nomura."

"Yes, sir!" he answered, perhaps a bit too loudly.

He didn't have much time. Hurriedly, John corked the jars with work in progress foci, stashing them in his desk where nobody could see them before sweeping the more incriminating documents into a different drawer. Then he pulled out some of the more flattering reports from the "no concern" pile, because he was absolutely sure the kitsune was going to read everything she could.

Yuki had shown that she could read what he was writing by watching the motion of his fingers and, well, even if Saya was only half the woman Yuki was, that was enough to be scary smart.

Moments later, the door slid open once more, and the kitsune stepped through. It was hard to believe that both she and Yuki were the same species. While his friend towered, Saya was merely tall. Her humanoid form and smooth skin were only accented by fox-like ears and tails rather than bearing silky fur and wild might. Green eyes stared back, seeking weaknesses, rather than piercing gold that merely wished to learn.

"Lady Kon. Welcome, I hope you had a good night’s rest," John greeted, forcing a smile onto his face that he was sure she could tell was fake.

If her capabilities mirrored Yuki's, he suspected she could tell when he was lying, so he merely had to not lie about anything important. Hopefully, half-truths would at least make her question what part was the deception.

The kitsune slowly walked over, eyeing the western-style chair sitting opposite his desk before slowly settling upon it, threading her fluffy tails through the gap at the back. "Please, call me Lady Saya. As for my sleep, it was better than what I expected this far from major cities. Although where is the nearest shrine? I would make use of their services."

Damn. Well, that would be a problem. He wouldn't be surprised if she already knew and was just trying to needle him; they had already established that Saya had scouted them out. Was this a try to get him to slip up, admit that he murdered some spreaders of the Celestial Court's laws or something?

Well, she was going to be disappointed.

"Gone, I'm afraid. Only one apprentice stayed behind, and he hardly knows more than simple charms. The rest were being paid off by the Nameless, and were driven out of town once they were found out," John explained. There were pretty good odds that she was going to try to charm answers out of that man, but… Well, John and Yuki didn't show him anything incriminating. At most, he knew where the fort was, but a good third of the town did.

She breathed in sharply, eyes narrowing. "A hefty accusation," she said, a carefully curated frown painting her face.

Careful, John. She was fishing for something. She knew about the Transcendent Alchemy clash. Was she trying to determine whether it was Yuki and the Greater Nameless or something else? 

Oh, damn, right, the ofuda. He had almost forgotten that it might be what she was here for in the first place! 

"Well, even though the shrine itself was protected, it didn't explain certain other oddities," John explained. "Among others, they could seemingly travel and spend suspicious amounts of coin without being harassed while the village teetered on the edge of collapse."

"Do you know the names of the priesthood who were stationed here? If they were truly aiding the Nameless, I would see them brought to justice, and although I could send for information, I suspect not all of their number were officially recorded…" At that, Saya trailed off, and John hid a flinch. Right. Shit. If she finds them, they might be able to pry information that he would most certainly not like found. Hopefully, Iwao kept the construction methods to himself, assuming Kiku didn't dictate what to do directly. Neither John nor Yuki found any hint of instructions when they spent a few hours scavenging the place for useful resources two weeks back.

"Only one. I've forgotten the names of the rest, including the survivor," John admitted, shaking his head. "Head Priest Iwao. Dead now. We found him in the Nameless Nest, half dead from torture due to failing," he stated, omitting the nature of the torture and who, exactly, was doing it.

Saya's eyes met his, searching, for a moment before that slitted gaze lost a hint of its former intensity. "I see." 

"Was there anything else I can help you with, Lady Saya?" John asked, keeping his tone as polite as possible while internally praying to whoever would listen that he didn't leak anything important.

"Yes, I wished to speak with you about yesterday. You are recently Unbound, or at least whatever your equivalent is, are you not?" she inquired, one of her fox-like ears subtly swivelling. 

"I prefer not to discuss my past, Lady Saya," John quickly answered, biting the inside of his cheek and using the pain to focus himself, lest a giveaway leak into his expression. "There are plenty of painful memories there."

The fox merely inclined her head, a sly smile spreading across her lips. "I don't mean to dredge up any painful memories, I assure you. Your disgust was clear, but I assure you that I'm no slaver."

"You asked for a decade of control over these people's lives, Lady Saya. That is firmly against my values," John politely explained, careful not to grit his teeth.

Yet nothing in her eyes changed, and as he stared into those green orbs, he saw only amusement. "While Unbound may not live as long as most yokai, you'll see it, too, in time. They are in this situation because they failed to prepare for the worst." The woman leaned forward almost conspiratorially, brushing her long, orange hair from her eyes as her face was cast in shadows. "Maybe the next famine will strike in five, twenty, fifty, but it will strike, and they will be forced to beg again. Perhaps I could teach a few to plan ahead, but who's to say that they would teach their children, or their children's children?"

Saya shook her head and sat back up straight. "What about the famine in a hundred years from now, or two hundred years? It is our duty to guide the short-lived, and the best way to do that is to establish systems that will guide them. It's like plucking the pests from a garden by hand when you can put an ofuda instead."

It was easy to forget, even with Yuki, that so many yokai were ancient, until he was suddenly slapped in the face with it. How many times had people repeated the mistakes of a past generation back home? How many times had a hard-learned lesson been forgotten in just a few years?

Yet, the thought of being gardened ate at his heart. The idea of people not being able to decide for themselves, to be little more than crops that their superiors cultivated over generations into a "fitting" shape made bile rise in his throat. She asked them to… trade hundreds of lives to her the same way one might purchase a plot of land to do as she saw fit.

Would they end up better off? He had no way of knowing. It would certainly reflect poorly on her if they all died, he suspected. Most of them would likely live.

But he suspected she'd work them to the bone, and her time was certainly not free. From what he gathered from Yuki's conversation with her, it seemed like Saya needed prestige relatively quickly, and a sleepy, rundown town turned into an economic powerhouse would look good, even if everyone there was working from sun up to sun down to make it happen.

Even if she could deliver, would a decade of servitude under a taskmistress be a deal most here would make?

"I understand your perspective a bit more," John gritted out. "I do not personally agree with it. My home culture has an intense love for people being able to choose their own path." 

Saya nodded, that same damned smile lingering on her face like it was stuck. "Thank you. I merely ask for you to consider my offer; I wish for these people not to starve now, and not starve in the future."

"Ah, you'll have to talk to Lady Yuki about that," John interjected, shaking his head. He wasn't going to be responsible for the exact terms at any point; he had nowhere near enough experience. "I might be her, uh, advisor in certain matters, but this isn't my area of expertise."

"Of course, Lady Yuki is certainly an interesting kitsune," Saya muttered. "Wise beyond her years… but she is only a three-tailed kitsune. That is all a nogitsune can achieve, after all."

John didn't react, fixing her with a simple gaze. Where was she going with this? She had already dumped the whole nogitsune spiel in the previous meeting.

"If this deal goes well, perhaps we will be working together more closely in the future, no? After all, your mistress shall be bound to me for a few years." At that, her eyes gleamed with naked greed. "Perhaps you'll find a more fitting place in my court, once I sprout my fourth tail." 

Oh. Ohhhhh.

Holy hell, she still thinks he's a normal Unbound! Yes! That was pretty much the best thing he could hope for! She was only trying to poach his loyalty in exchange for higher quality yokai materials.

Thank you, world, and screw you, Saya!

"I'm afraid I can't make a commitment like that," John responded, trying to keep the giddiness out of his voice. "We'll see," he added, deciding that perhaps stringing her along might help for now.

"That's all I ask," Saya beamed, rising from her seat and giving him a shallow bow.

John returned a deeper one, just as Yuki had asked him to.

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Shackled, a bloodied nose, an arm both in a sling and wearing cuffs, it stood in front of the assembly, proud and strange. Clear, smooth skin, a shaven scalp, bright, fierce eyes, and it couldn't stop smiling, blood oozing from its split lips.

The minister of state security's appointed prosecutor, well-used to defiant subjects, raised a quizzical eyebrow. "Human," he said, glowering from his podium to the raised dais holding the court's full focus, a cage of warped gravity fields forming a brutal punishment in their own right; anything that tried to stand would be in immense pain, and yet there it stood, that human, glaring back at him with a cold, bright gaze. "You mean to say that the ships that we found in orbit are empty?"

The human, dismissively spitting out half of a broken tooth, coughed out a slur ignored by the court's speech translation circuits, replacing it with a soft buzzing sound. "I said that Earth and its colonies have thousands of heroes, and that each and every time that your people have met them, a hero was all that was standing. Over and over, you refuse to learn that lesson. So, the ships were sent to you." The human looked at the faces half-hidden by the dim lights of the half-kilometer wide court, their robes concealing their faces and body contours; soon enough, those anonymous voters would register their verdicts on any given normal day of proceedings - thus ensuring swift, dispassionate, state-mandated justice.

The appointed prosecutor, Minister Xedilve, gestured to the crowd, some of whom were murmuring and milling in place. Someone used the words "strangle" before being silenced. The speaker raised his voice artificially, elevating his tone before replying to the captured human.

"Time and time again," he said. "We have expanded our territory in areas claimed by the so-called dominions of the human empires. We have achieved those goals and our martyrs inspire further recruits to join the military, and all that ever happened was more and more battles. You humans have no idea of how to wage a war, and certainly not to win any." He gestured to the skies overhead, the faint, glistening lights of the fifty-six captured human vessels, all devoid of armaments and armor, simply built to haul personnel - personnel which was never found, it seems. "You came here to buy from our slave markets, did you not? To enlist them to fight in your losing wars."

The human shook its head, slowly oozing more blood from a widened grin.

"Oh, far from it, Minister Xedilve," it said. "Far from it. Take the stories that your people never cared to learn. And now, now I can tell them." It looked to the crowd, defiance in its tone. "Four years ago, at the battle of the Dni Cluster, you sent a eighty-five ground units, twenty-six heads to each, just to seize a colony on Demeter's World." A massacre, and a brutal one. "The hero of Demeter's World sent their heads back, along with their rifles and boots. And the warning: do not return, by order of the hero of Demeter's World!"

The crowd began to shout, and someone in it moaned out the words, "crushed," followed by being silenced.

Minister Xedilve shouted at the prisoner, moving close to the cage, pointing at them, spittle flying from his mouth, sizzling and warping as the droplets were forced into oblivion. "I should carve your tongue from your filthy mouth!" he screamed. "Good people died on that world!"

The human went silent and whispered. "No, they didn't." Then the human leaned close to the bars, staring back at Minister Xedilve, breathing heavily; not from fear - some twisted version of arousal. "The good people survived. The rotten little beasts got their rotten little heads cut off, and all of them were weeping, and their last minutes were filled with tears of regret and shame. The last acts that they were forced to commit would make you all beg to cremate their heads." The worst of all fates: to be burnt to a crisp, reduced to ashes, lost to the families of the survivors.

Twelve thousand people gasped and recoiled from this most horrid of all admissions.

Minister Xedilve paled, shaking, and whispered in return.

"You'll beg to die, human," he said. "I'll argue for an extended torture for you, mind and body. Decades of it. See if I don't."

The human rolled its eyes, then mimicked the human act of masturbation.

"Shall I tell of the fates of what befell those who invaded the mining moons at Baker Point? The hero who sent back a hundred-fifteen pairs of hands, and the warning: do not return." It laughed. "And the feet from Pilot Point, and the eyes in jars, stacked by the thousands, for that disastrous fleet of your marines when they tried to invade Mars itself!" The human practically danced. "You just don't get it!"

As it laughed, Minister Xedilve shrank the cage and a chunk of the human's shoulder was erased, turned into a black-red mist, and the human stopped laughing. With a fresh, cauterized wound, it turned not to face him, and rather to the crowd. A glare, the laugh now dead, no more smiles. In that crowd, someone whispered, "stabbed," and was hushed by their neighbors.

Minister Xedilve stood behind the cage, his tone cold and clinical, speaking more to her than to the crowd.

"And you have no heroes on this world," he said. "None at all."

The human, exhaling, rolled its neck, a cracking sound audible, the bones aligning.

"Absolutely correct," it said. "No heroes. We didn't bring any heroes to this world."

Out in the crowd, someone ripped off their robes. Standing tall and proud, a human with a pair of guns, their eyes bright and fierce. Across from them, two more humans disrobed in a literal sense, each carrying a broad, sharp axe. Another pair, these armed with sledgehammers, grinned their excited states. Over a thousand of them were scattered throughout the crowd, and someone screamed.

The humans began to swing and chop and smash, all to the chorus of screams, terror and blood raining down as the only safe place to stand was on the dais and in a cage. Everywhere else was being slammed, carved, beaten to death in steady, well-practiced manners. They sang as they worked, and it was not joy, it was labor. They performed their tasks in a little more than thirteen minutes, finally finished as they stood in a circle around the dais, staring at Minister Xedilve and his prisoner.

Some had fallen to valiant foes, even unarmed, and some would die from their wounds later. Those who could help each other stand did so, and as many as could hold a chunk of a corpse, also did so. One at a time, they threw the gory remains at the dais, letting them splat, slap, and slide, forming heaps and piles, all of them oozing life, terrified expressions on severed heads, hands clenching invisible strands of hope, feet that failed to escape.

The force field turned off and the prisoner looked to Minister Xedilve, nudging his face to look up and up, eyes meeting tear-streaked eyes.

"When they ask," the human said. "You tell them. Tell them that from now on, we won't ever let them see our heroes. From now on, it'll just be the monsters. The hero killers. Each world surrendered some of their monsters, and it was us who cut your people apart while they were alive. Heroes just cut them down instead."

The human walked away, proud and surrounded by an ocean of monsters.

"The age of heroes is no more, Minister Xedilve, and the defense rests."

The ships stayed in orbit, empty and abandoned, and their world began to scream.

Exploration missions are the simplest, most direct and to the point operations in the galaxy. Go to a place - find what is there - report back to what you found, and let everyone else find out what to do. It has its complexities certainly, but with hundreds of billions of stars, trillions of lightyears of something-potentially-in-between, and who knows what else, we weren't that concerned.

We are the crew of The Caldann's Grace, the largest and most impressive Exploration Cruiser to date within our small but burgeoning empire. Like all others who came before and those who go after, we believed we were the pinnacle of civilization. Stellar travel, computational science, planetary atmosphere recalibration. We did it all and like all others we thought we were the pinnacle, the peak, the absolute, of all life in the universe.

That thought didn't last very long.

We were ten jumps into our sojourn across the empty void. Procedure was simple. Use our navigation beacon, mapping archives, coordinates and many other things we have acquired over the centuries of staring at the stars, then calculate distances, ratios, energy requirements, then find the exact jump coordinates to a random star system. Then we engage the drive, travel there and explore. So far, we have found a lot of very interesting things. Like the previous star system that had two failed stars, known as Brown Dwarfs, orbiting a central point while a system of small rocky moons surrounded them. Interesting!

This jump produced a Trinary star system. One large Main Sequence Star, two smaller Main Sequence stars, and one small orbiting volcanic planet. And in this trinary star system... we found THEM.

A civilisation of chaotic madmen who seemingly perform feats of unimaginable prowess and strength for no other reason than 'because we could'.

Surrounding each of these stars was a massive structure of unimagined proportions either partially or completely covering each star. Millions of klinks in diameter and trillions of tons of metal and alloys each. The small volcanic planet was completely overshadowed, but itself surrounded by a massive ring of some kind. None of the structures appeared to be complete structures, or were designed as such, containing 'windows' for lack of a better term, that allowed the light of the star they contained to be seen.

The largest was a Sphere, the other two were a Cube or Cubic Frame structure, and the last was a large four-cornered Pyramid. Each one seemed to have its own unique construction techniques, each one seemed to be made of its own variant of alloy or metal, and each one had, carved into its surface, thousands of what can only be described as 'runes'. Surrounding the stars was, a massive fleet of automated ships, seemingly being used to ferry resources between each structure.

We became immeasurably excited and immeasurably terrified all in one breath. We began performing scans. We were interrupted by the sound of a massively booming voice that hijacked all of our ships systems, and broadcasted into our ship. A system of holographic screens appeared in front of us. This happened to every member of the crew.

"BEHOLD THE GLORY! BEWARE THE SHARPNESS! THE CORNERS!! THEY CALL TO YOU!!!"

The screens that appeared in front of us now showed three lifeforms. They were all the same species apparently, wearing different uniforms... Or hats, at least. The one on the left, had a large cube-shaped hat and stood in a cube-themed room. The one on the right had a Pyramid aesthetic, and a pyramid shaped hat. Both of those stood at podiums, talking like priests preaching the truth of the universe. The one in the middle, for lack of a better description, seemed like the 'normal' one, sporting clothes, aesthetic and office space similar to my own.

"BEHOLD THE CUBE!! THE TRUE SHAPE, THE GLORIOUS GLINT! THE CUBE SHALL COME FOR ALL!! I AM DEREK OF THE CUBE!! I PREACH THE TRUE SHAPE!!" He bellowed.

Before we could say anything, the Pyramid guy spoke up.

"He speaks lies. LIES I SAY!! Only the PYRAMID IS TRUTH!! These three corners speak a greater reality than the cheap SQUARES. Triangles are the truth. I am Reginald... OF THE PYRAMID!"

We stood terrified and confused. Then the sphere guy spoke.

"Hey, cool, new people. Nice to meet you, I'm Fred. Fred of the Sphere. I have pizza." He said, and gave us a warm, inviting smile as he presented two paper boxes of some kind, one shaped like a triangle, the other like a square, and each with a delightfully appetizing circular foodstuff of some kind inside it.

"Oh hey Pizza..." The other two said simultaneously. A moment of peace and calm came over us. All the tension vanished. At least for a moment.

"SEE!? DO YOU SEE THE POWER OF CUBE!? WITHOUT CUBE THERE CAN BE NO ROUND! WITHOUT CUBE, ROUND ESCAPES!" Derek barked.

"Pathetic lies! Stupid reasoning! How can one trust such simple thoughts? Pyramid is LIFE! Pyramid is DEATH! Pyramid would fit MANY rounds within it! Cube has limits, Pyramid has NONE!" Reginald barked back.

Fred just smiled, a sinister, playful smile. Not a smile that scared us, a smile that confused us. "Please excuse my compatriots, they are rather... spirited. Would you like some pizza?"

We sat there bewildered for a few moments and questioned everything around us in silence. Passing glances, questioning looks. Then finally one of the ship's Engineering crew spoke. "Uhm... What is a 'pizza' exactly?"

Derek said 'Delicious' and Reginald said 'Delightful' at the same time, and both immediately began yelling.

"DELICIOUS!"

"DELIGHTFUL!"

"I SAID IT IS DELICIOUS! LIKE A GLORIOUS CUBE OF NUTRIENT PASTE!!! PERFECTION INCARNATE MADE GREATER BY THE SQUARE BOX!" Derek bellowed.

"Lies! Triangle reduces surface area, less chance for heat to escape and release aroma! CUBE fails to contain the PIZZA! Triangle is where pizza shines!" Reginald yelled back.

Fred just stood there, waiting for an opportunity while maintaining that strangely cheeky smile. Eventually the other two stopped yelling and Fred cleared his throat. "Well... A pizza is a deliciously delightful edible item that is wheat or grain based bread dough, rolled flat, covered in various toppings, a base sauce of red or white, sometimes others. Then a topping of a type of dairy curd known as 'cheese' is sprinkled on top, a selection of toppings to cater to the eater's tastes, and then is cooked in an oven for a time before being sliced up and served. Pizza, is food. Very, very good food."

We all looked at each other for a moment and eventually I spoke up. I raised a hand and gingerly said "Uhm... yes please?"

Fred snapped his fingers and in front of us a paper box appeared, a strong INCREDIBLY DELICIOUS scent wafted from each one and throughout the ship as a whole as they popped in front of us. At first, concern. They can teleport things... INTO our ships... That... was concerning. on the other hand, the grumbling of our stomachs from that incredible smell made us abandon sanity and start eating.

And by all the ancestors... It was the finest meal I ever had. Judging by what the rest of the crew were experiencing, I would say they matched my sentiments. Half of the crew received the pizzas in triangular boxes, while others received theirs in square boxes.

The entire time we were eating, Derek and Reginald berated each other about Cubes, Pyramids, and how they compared our reactions to the food based on their chosen... geometric shape, I suppose, and how theirs was better. I tried a slice from my Commissar's triangular box - it tasted the same frankly. Amazing.

Suddenly the noise ended and we noticed how Derek and Reginald were still arguing, but we could hear nothing.

"Ahh... sweet silence. As fun as it is to torment those two, sometimes the greatest shape is the button labelled 'mute'. So to business, I am Fred, like I said, I am not red, I am not dead, I am from Hamstead, where I was bred, just Fred. I am an orderly in charge of this array of superstructures as part of the Terran Allied Systems. The TAS for short. You are-?"

"I am... Janus Orrik of Clan Lum. We are an expeditionary cruiser of the Skatanii Imperium. We were exploring the galaxy and our jump drive brought us here." I replied.

Fred pressed some buttons on a console in front of him. "Huh... Nice design, spacious interior, Battlecruiser class in size. Type 2 Subspace Wormhole Drive with a hypermatter conversion reactor. Fancy! I quite like the overall design. reminds me of some ships on an old space MMO from way back. Nice. You guys are quite far ahead of the others we've found. Pat yourselves on the back, besides us you're at the top of the tech chain! Top five at least!" He said, giving us a warm smile and a polite but sincere clap.

I beamed with pride and instinctively puffed out my chest.

"I see a few problems though. I see you quite haven't figured out the heat management issue. Shields can only operate so long and then they need to vent heat into space. Not that efficient. Thruster bays are kind of cluttered, small ports where there shouldn't be, like you overdid them. Pipes look like spaghetti and conduct heat far too efficiently to be in an engine network. Compensating for something perhaps? And that armour plating... Beautiful shape and design but... A stainless steel like alloy? For starships? Really? Glass cannon that thing." He said.

The pride faded, replaced by anger. "Oh. Well... I see. That... hurt a bit." I said.

"I wonder if those two are done yet..." Fred said and pushed a button.

"CUBE!! THE SHAPE IS CUBE!!!" "NO IT IS NOT! IT IS PYRAMID!!"

"No they aren't. Apparently. Let me see... Ah good, I have those available. Old but still good, not too far ahead the bosses will get angry at me. Oh, the comms array! Yeah I forgot that... Now... Thruster designs. Hmmm... That one. Not so fancy but they should be able to better their cable management. Spaghetti... tasty for food, not so much for pipes and cables. It looks like the main issue is alloying and metalwork. Seems the issue is resources judging by the records. This should do it." Fred said.

"Pardon me but what are you up to?" I asked.

He typed a few things again and I felt a dull thump echo through the ship. "Giving you some presents. Check your cargo hold. Should be a few things you might find useful. Also gave you some stuff stored on drives, basic info, stuff we give everyone really, introductory package. I gave you some extra bits 'cause that ship is just so pretty! Love the gold and silver with the matte black trim, very nice! In my opinion anyway."

My eye stalks straightened as I heard that and with a swiftness I never knew I could give my fingers swept across the console in front of me. A new item had appeared in our cargo hold. Some kind of engine, samples of armour plating and what looked like computer systems, among a few other things I didn't recognise.

I looked it over and back at Fred. He had unmuted the other two who were discussing lunch... apparently. Or something. "So anyway, thanks for joining us and welcome to the galaxy at large. And stuff." Fred said.

"Uh... Th-thank you! Thank you very much! But... I must ask. What exactly is going on here?" I asked.

"THE POWER OF THE CUBE IS WHAT IS HAPPENING!!" Derek bellowed.

"NEIN! THE PYRAMID IS WHAT IS HAPPENING!" Reginald bellowed in protest.

"This is a structure known as a Dyson Sphere. The spherical one is being used to harvest and supply power and energy to the other two. The Dyson Pyramid is being used to study subspace distortions using artificial wormholes. The Dyson Cube is being used to perform various physics experiments involving gravitational manipulation. The small vulcanite planet over there is basically being used as a shipyard for the operations that take place in-between. All in all, this is a very low-level operation. At least in comparison to the Quantum Hyperbrain Project." Fred said. the other two nodded in agreement.

"What is a Quantum Hyperbrain?" I asked.

"Its a computation complex surrounding a small black hole that we are going to try use to determine the exact mathematical formulation for the meaning of the universe. Or... something... do we actually know why we are building that thing?" Fred asked his compatriots. The two just shook their heads. "Building it just because apparently. Oh well. Guess we will know eventually." Fred said with a shrug.

I stood there for a few moments barely able to think. A billion different thoughts were running through my head at once. What the hell did we just find!?

"But anyway, we all have better stuff to do. But before you go, would you like some pizza to go?" Fred asked, presenting more boxes of that amazing confection. This time the pizzas were different, one was shaped like a square, the other like a triangle, both served in boxes shaped like a hexagon.

"ABSOLUTE BLASPHEMY! WHAT HERESY IS THIS!? THIS WAS YOUR DOING PYRAMID BOY!!!" Derek yelled in rage.

"I WOULD NEVER! This abomination is YOUR fault you cube obsessed villain!" Reginald yelled back.

Fred regained his sinister, yet strangely warm smile. He pressed some buttons and chuckled to himself as more pizza appeared in front of all of us. Fred waved us away as he chuckled silently and somewhat sadistically as their argument continued. We silently left the star system and headed home to make our reports and tell the Council.

This was insanity... and we needed to know how to face it.

We, Theyyans, pride ourselves on rationality. We are a species that is mathematically precise, orderly and fond of symmetry. We are physically and mentally superior to most species in the Federation.

No species in the Federation was as popular as ours. Second-place in the popularity polls belonged to a weaker species that called themselves Humans.

They were asymmetric in every respect. Physically inferior, mathematically undisciplined and over all emotionally chaotic. And yet, somehow, they remained almost as popular as we were.

I found that deeply offensive.

That changed the day I attended a lecture at the Federation assembly on Tertius Prime.

My classmate Kiran, of the Sprix clan, yet another feeble specimen, was all praise for a human, who was supposed to give the lecture. She was this, she was that. He would not stop.

 I detected some sort of infatuation. I pitied him.

Among my people, falling in love is considered a minor neurological aberration. Adolescents showing symptoms are routinely treated before the condition can interfere with their lives.

Even still, I considered medication to be something for the weaker minds and I was certain I was strong enough to overcome the chemical illusion without pharmaceutical assistance.

I was wrong.

***

Dr. Virginia Morales stood at the podium defending the Indigenous Resource Accords, a small human woman in a grey Federation dress.

The hall went silent. Even the Mattanchery delegation, who in the previous three hours listened to no one , put their pads down.

I watched her for forty minutes without looking away.

When she finished, my hands were clenched.

Perfect symmetry, both in sight and sound.

Long after the hall emptied, her image stayed in my visual cortex and her voice in my auditory processors.

I was supposed to report to the Academy on Vex-9 after the lecture.

Instead, I found myself requesting a transfer to the Federation's Materials Procurement Division, the department she supervised. Kiran did too.

That was seven years ago.

*   *   *

"You're staring again," Kiran said, his jaws clicking with amusement.

He had transferred to the Division a year after me. He was the only being there who knew why my assignments kept landing near her meetings.

"I'm reading the quarterly reports," I said.

"Through the window of her office?"

I didn't answer. Dr. Morales sat at her desk, fingers moving fast across the screen in front of her. She wore the small frown that, by now, I knew she  reserved for problems worth her time.

My hearts sped up. Theyyan physiology is not supposed to permit that.

"You should tell her," Kiran said.

"That would be inappropriate."

"At least get it off your chest. Your nose is bleeding."

I wiped it away with what remained of my dignity. I blushed. Figuratively, of course; Theyyan faces are armoured. Then I went back to the reports. My Theyyan pride would not let me confess.

I had researched her. Probably a violation of Federation privacy protocols.

I knew she had a kind word for every maintenance worker on the station. I knew diplomats invited her to dinner almost daily. Military officers did too. Once, even an Aurovil prince had tried.

She declined them all.

Always gently. Somehow, the people she turned down seemed happier when they left than when they arrived.

I couldn't understand it. That bothered me more than it should have.

The statistics showed 100% rejection rate. So I refrained.

*   *   *

It happened during the Tertius protocols review. Dr. Morales called a late-night working session on the materials shortage in the outer colonies: two humans, a Vallur representative, two Androids, and a Theyyan junior analyst, which was of course me!

We worked fourteen hours straight. Around hour eleven she ordered nutrient paste for the non-humanoids and coffee for herself. Her hands shook slightly when she thought no one was watching.

She noticed when everyone else's hands were shaking. She never seemed to notice her own.

Around hour thirteen she made an error in the economic model. I corrected it quietly and said nothing.

At hour fourteen the others had gone. We stood on the observation deck above the Tertius shipyards.

"Thank you," she said. "For the correction and for not making a thing of it."

"You were not at optimal processing capacity," I said. It is how a Theyyan says you're exhausted.

She smiled. Then she looked at me properly, perhaps for the first time. "What's your name? I know you're in Materials, but we've never really talked."

"Kess." My vocal resonators were humming at the stress frequency, and I could not make them stop. "I have been requesting assignments near your division for seven years."

She went very still.

I went very still. I wasn't supposed to say that.

"I apologize. I understand this violates the expected protocols of…."

"Kess." She stared at me. "Seven years?"

I waited to be reported, or pitied. I wasn't sure which would be worse.

Instead she said, "I'm sorry I didn't notice sooner." Then she held out her hand.

"And it's Vicky. Only the Council calls me Virginia."

I stared at her hand.

I had studied human greetings, but badly.

I placed both my hands around hers.

She stared at me for a second. Then she burst out laughing.

Something in me had crossed an irreversible boundary.

I succumbed to the neurological aberration.

*   *   *

Over the following months, she noticed me. We had coffee. Well, she had coffee; I had a mild electrolyte solution.

 She talked about the colonies, about policy, about how hard it was to keep people from suffering in a galaxy built on scarcity. When I spoke, she listened. She listened to everyone, I knew that. But it still felt different when it was me.

I brought her flowers from my homeworld, small things that glow only in the dark.

"They're beautiful," she said.

"They are weeds."

"They're still beautiful."

I spent the rest of the evening wondering whether that was how humans saw everything.

I went to every cultural exchange she hosted. I joined the human poetry circle and sat at the back while my translation matrix struggled with their metaphors. Most of it made no sense to me. When she saw me there, she laughed, and I kept going.

By the third year, I couldn't hide it anymore.

*   *   *

We were in the arboretum. It was her favourite place; she said the trees reminded her of Earth. She sat on a bench beneath them with her hands folded in her lap.

"Vicky," I said. "I want to ask you something. I understand if the answer is no. But I need to ask."

She waited.

"Why do you let me near you, and keep me at a distance? You are kind to everyone. With me, it seems deliberate. As if you are being careful."

She didn't answer immediately. The trees moved in the recycled air.

"Sit down, Kess."

I sat. My exoskeleton clicked against the bench. Beside me she looked very small.

She sat in silence, looking at the leaves. I could see her eyes grow moist.

"His name was James," she said.

"We met at the Academy. He wanted to join the Federation Corps and work in the outer colonies. He wanted to manage resources where the shortages were worst. He thought we could make things better."

She smiled at the leaves. "He was very good at believing impossible things."

"He was remarkable. Not just to me. To everyone he met. He would have changed things."

I said nothing.

"We were going to be married. We'd applied for a joint posting. Then there was an accident in training, and he didn't come back. It was fast. That's what they told me."

She was crying. She didn't wipe the tears away, and I didn't know if I was supposed to.

"For a long time after, I couldn't do much of anything. Then one day I thought: he had a dream, and he can't live it anymore. But I could live it for both of us. Not to replace him, never . But to continue it."

"That is why you refuse them?" I asked.

"Because I already had the best," she said. "And I chose to keep it. If you had the best, Kess, how could the rest ever be enough?”

The branches of the trees swayed under the artificial wind. Neither of us spoke for a long time.

I understood then why she had kept everyone at a distance. She wasn't waiting for someone better. She wasn't waiting at all.

"Am I still your friend?"

She took my hand. "You always are and will be, Kess."

*   *   *

After that, the pursuing stopped. Not because I fell out of love. That isn't how the real kind works.

I transferred to the Outer Colonies division, still under her department, and we worked together for another five years. She grew older, as humans do. She mentored young officers. She turned down new suitors with the same gentleness. She never once changed her mind.

When I was promoted to the Federation Council, she was the first to congratulate me.

Theyyan philosophers have written papers on the pathology of my case. I have read two of them. They are very thorough.

I still visit her on Tertius. She drinks coffee. I sit beside her with my electrolyte solution, and we argue about colony allocations and complain about Council procedure.

Sometimes she talks about James.

I never pretend not to listen.

And sometimes, when she laughs, I think of the assembly hall the young Theyyan with his hands clenched in the gallery and wonder what he would make of the creature I've become.

A Theyyan who never took the medication. A hopeless romantic.

And whenever my fellow Theyyans pity me, I give them the only answer I have ever found.

If you had the best, why bother with the rest?

I was embedded with the humans during the war against the Kar Star Empire. I was at Shonno, at the siege of the fortress, where the human troops broke the fortress wall, and then the shield wall inside it, and forced the surrender of the fortress. That forced the surrender of Shonno, which opened the way to Kar, and eventually forced the surrender of the Empire.

And humans are as terrifying as everyone says. Absolutely. I have seen them in combat, and they are incredibly effective killers and destroyers. Their reputation does not lie.

And yet...

Let me tell you about Laura.

Lieutenant Laura Koslowski headed a platoon of heavy armored infantry. She walked them through the breach in the fortress wall, right into the guns of the shield wall, trusting their armor and their training. She won, with one dead, two injured, and several with damaged armor, including herself.

After the battle, after three days of continuous combat, they returned to their carrier in orbit. When they reached the carrier, they went to their platoon's quarters to take off their armor (or get it taken off, if it was too badly damaged for them to be able to take it off themselves).

Laura laid down on the floor, so that someone could take off her armor, and this tiny little thing jumped on her.

Terran cats are small quadruped predators. They weigh about 10 pounds. A kitten is a child cat - not fully grown. They are smaller, sometimes much smaller.

This thing was a kitten. It was small, even for a kitten. It weighed no more than two pounds. And it jumped on Laura's armor.

She yelled "Stop!" to her armorer. Then, more calmly, she said, "Get that fluffhead off of me before you take my armor off. It will get hurt."

So they carefully moved this tiny kitten off of her armor, then removed the armor. She stood up, very gently picked up the kitten, and said, "Has anyone fed this little monster?"

"No, ma'am. We've been kind of busy keeping suits of armor fed."

She didn't even respond to the human. Gently and calmly, she said, "All right, little fluffhead. Let's go get you something to eat."

This human, who had just been killing armored Kar warriors, was now very gently taking care of a very tiny animal.

That's what you need to understand about humans. Yes, they can be monsters of violence. They can also be incredibly gentle and compassionate. Both. If you only see one side of that - either side, it doesn't matter which - you will badly misunderstand humans.

First | Previous | Glossary |

What is Seen with Clear Eyes

---

(Neutral POV)

Niza Fouze's life had been an unpredictable one that put her in unexpected places one after another.

The first major change is happened when she outlived her birthplace of Doonarik.

Up until then, she had been born as the middle child of one of the wealthier estates in the city. Her parents were comfortable enough that the family's basic needs were all met without reliance on the rations of military service.

When she was four cycles old, a plague that would eventually wipe the city off the map and redraw national territories had struck her home. Despite her younger sister's sickly disposition, her family was able to stave off infection for a time with a supply of medicine and disinfectants.

In the end, however, the plague found them anyway as medicine supplies gradually became scarce. The desperation of the population mounted until, one evening, there was a break-in. The intruders found the medicine and escape shuttle they were looking for, but they found Niza's elder brother first.

He was meant to be a hostage. A mere bargaining chip for someone to get what he needed to survive. Just another child like any of their own.

Because of that, they did not-

That was the first time Niza first encountered death. She was too young to truly understand it, but old enough to recognize the grief.

While her family was hesitant to leave their lives in Doonarik behind in the early days of the outbreak, that resolve finally broke three weeks later when her father became ill.

Medicine remained too scarce to obtain, even for the Fouze family.

Niza did not understand her father's words to her at the time and could not remember them, but she later came to recognize them as a comforting farewell.

Her mother took her and her frail younger sister on a long journey to the city of Rostarls where relatives lived and medicine was made. That month would become an arduous period in her memory that many future labors in her life would be compared to.

Partway through the journey, her mother had also begun to teach her how to care for her sibling. It was, perhaps, a miracle that her runt of a little sister made the trek without becoming ill.

Niza's own memories of events were a blur, but she is certain that she must have complained a lot at the time, as children that did not understand naturally would.

Even so, she obediently did as she was told. There was no choice. As they approached their destination, her mother had gotten more sluggish and a fever that never seemed to leave her burned.

After several more days of this, her mother suddenly recalled that she had forgotten something important at their camp the previous night. Niza was given a note, a heavy sack, and told to go ahead while her mother retrieved the lost item.

Camping alone after that was troublesome, but the sisters somehow managed to reach their destination with occasional help from a concerned refugee.

Upon reading the note, the clerks at the borders of Rostarls took her sack. After a lengthy examination with a doctor at the checkpoint, she and her sister were escorted to their relative's home.

It was not until a week later when her new family was allowed back out of the city and they visited the last campsite she shared with her mother that Niza understood that they would never meet again.
It would not be until many cycles later before she understood her mother had wandered away to die before the children were seen associated with the sick.

Although Rostarls closed off the city not long after that, she was nonetheless able to enjoy her new life for a time.

Her cousins were close to her in age, so she and her sister adapted quickly even with the fewer comforts and a need to contribute to the family for the first time.

Their friends were also welcoming. Not only were they invited to play, but they rose to her sister's defense even as the older children came to harass the runt.

Unusually for an Uven, the first time Niza encountered and engaged in violence was a happy memory for her.

She was old enough to remember her parents by birth, unlike her sister, but her distant aunt and uncle were nonetheless as second parents to her.

When Niza was ten cycles old, she and her friends began working in Rostarls's greenhouses, harvesting and processing raw materials needed in medicinal factories for one reason or another.

Their employer was not kind and their pay was worse than what the adults made, but they persevered.
Even within a city of medicine, all of the children had connections to someone who had succumb to the plague.

Perhaps it was just the naive wish of children, but the band wanted to save up money to build and run their own medicine factory so they would never be in need again. They would take care of their own, and give what they could spare to those who needed it.

It was the wonderful dream of nine children for a time.

But in just four cycles, it became the wonderful dream of six children.

First, a fire broke out in one of the greenhouses with both her cousins trapped inside. When her uncle forced his way in to save them, he only carried one of them out while bearing severe burns.

Next came bombings from a hostile nation.

Niza's family had ducked into the bunkers when the attacks began. With her uncle's burns still fresh and antibiotics running thin, she waited for a lull in the rumbling before risking a scavenging run on the surface.

If asked, she would say that she didn't regret her decision, but it nevertheless led her to be the first to find their neighbor's collapsed bunker, where one of her friends' families were once hidden.

She also caught the city's local crime lords raiding her employers' medicine stores with a handful of workers held at gunpoint guiding them.

Niza was

She was still just a child. When she spotted a storage bags of antibiotic drugs and painkillers in the soldier's vehicle, she simply took what she could when the soldiers weren't looking and fled. She ran home as quickly as she could.

When the bombings ended and she found another friend among the bodies of workers at the factory, she said nothing. For the next ten cycles, until she was addressing reporters questioning every detail of her past, she said nothing of what she saw.

While her uncle was able to heal from the burns well enough by the time the enemy nation retreated, the scars of their attacks lingered.

The city's infrastructure had suffered and a number of her friends' became orphaned or homeless.

Over the next cycle, the children persevered. Even as Niza labored more than she had ever had to in her life, they made sure to take care of each other.
As busy as they were, they were always prepared to fight off any Uvei that thought her younger sister would be an easy target.

And yet...it was clear that they were just barely staying afloat. Their savings barely changed as small emergencies sapped away weeks of earnings and reconstruction taxes were implemented.

When her remaining cousin became ill, Niza came to a decision alongside the two eldest among their friends.
The three of them would enlist in the military.

There was the soldier's stipend of rations, the somewhat less meager wages, and preferential treatment in state-sponsored medicine, of course. But it was also in part because she cursed her weakness at the time of the bombings.

Her two friends were just barely old enough at fourteen cycles old to join.
Niza herself had a hometown razed to the ground during the plague; there were no records to reference when she lied about her age.

Thus began the second major shift in Niza Fouze's life.

As a recruit, she endured harsh combat training beyond her years and within a cycle was engaged in small-scale skirmishes where she took lives for the first time. She was mistaken for a runt and harassed a handful of times, but she had allies to fight with and for her as always.

While she was away from home more and more, she could exchange letters if not calls with her family often enough to stave off homesickness and rally her strength.

Combat was relatively easy for her by the time two more cycles had passed.

Rather, it was a far greater ordeal to navigate and argue with the bureaucracy that frequently denied medical support for her cousin that was rightfully owed.

It frequently needed to be proven that treatment wasn't secretly to her sister as, soldier or not, a runt like her sister was not covered and had to be cared for without support.

Niza came to view this frustration as a mixed blessing, however, as it gave her sister and last memento of her birth parents an opportunity to visit the soldiers often.

Life was...tolerable enough.

Until another cycle had passed, putting her at her proper enlistment age.

The damage to Rostarls had extended to its sanitation measures. Ironically enough, the city of medicine was suffering of plague.

Medicine with limited production that was already being rationed became all the scarcer. Delays in deliveries and doctor's visits became more frequent. Contact with her family had been reduced to the occasional phone call.

While her cousin had recovered in time for this disaster, his mother her aunt became bedridden in his place.

Because of this, when Niza was told that her country would invade a neighbor to secure necessary medicinal farms, she had fought harder than she ever had in her life.

Even when she was wounded in the leg during a charge, she fought on.
When she learned one of her friends had been caught by an explosion during a battle and lost limbs, she fought harder.
When she received accolades and promotions to officer ranks, she kept fighting anyway.
Combat was a blur over those two cycles, and an excuse to stop thinking as she stepped over many bodies towards what could be a peaceful life for her loved ones.

What eventually brought her mind back to composure was news of her uncle's passing in another bombing and news of her other enlisted friend's desertion. For reasons unknown, he and the rest of his battalion had broken formation in the midst of war and fled to parts unknown.

There was no notice to Niza, and no hidden message came. He was simply gone and now registered as an enemy of the state.

By then, the war was approaching its conclusion. Although the sickness left its marks on her aunt's body, treatment would be possible with the spoils of war.

For her accomplishments and recognition as a soldier, she was assigned to transporting these spoils. When she was quietly told that it was customary to pocket a modest amount of loot at the escorts' own discretion, her focus was not on treasures or meals, but medicinal seeds and blueprints.

The children's innocent dream deserved an honest attempt, at least.

That's when Niza was told by the commander of the operation that those prizes alone were not permitted and offered gathered stacks of plundered medicinal ingredients instead.

She was told that the state would directly purchase these from her at a good price as consolation.

Dissatisfied with this explanation, she investigated and stalked her commander until she overheard an explanation.

She learned that even the plundered medicinal ingredients were primarily to be sold and secretly given to local drug lords.

She learned that a monopoly over resources essential to life was very convenient to the powers that be.

She learned that sometimes they would sabotage factory or greenhouse systems to induce scarcity, and the embezzlement of funds in medical systems was overlooked as "special compensation" for certain officers.

...

She learned that a soldier of sufficient accolade could have her execution by court martial delayed indefinitely even after tackling a superior officer out of a two-story window and violently biting at him until an arm and tail bone broke.
...As long as she forfeited her plunder and framed the attack on revenge for an old friend's war injury.

Of course, simple discharge would not be enough for such an offense.

Niza eventually found herself in the Rostarls guard barracks that had been sealed and turned into a makeshift prison.

Her anger continued to stew, but in truth, she found herself comfortable here. Her fate was uncertain, but after a long campaign, she was back home. There was even opportunity for her loved ones to visit her by the windows when circumstances permitted.

For the next half-cycle, she would write and exchange letters with her friends and family. It seemed that, in their absence, her cousin and the friend that remained behind had grown close.

She couldn't say she understood the feeling, but the idea pleased her sister and aunt. She had no reason not to celebrate with them.

Then...the letters stopped.

There seemed to be a tension in the city she couldn't recognize.

Finally, news in the form of a personal visit by her two friends and cousin came. By now, Niza could recognize a grim expression and braced her heart.

While her cousin was out with her lover, a drug addict had broken into their home to steal painkillers...and her sister was killed in a struggle. Though she wasn't directly harmed in the ordeal, her weakened aunt powerlessly saw it all.

The cycle after that passed painfully slowly and quickly all at once.

Niza had a lot of time to herself to think, and after a great deal of contemplation, she had come to a resolution just as she received news of her aunt's passing as well.

She wrote a letter asking to meet everyone-her cousin and her two remaining friends.

Her cousin had come first. She vaguely registered grieving and some consoling words when they came, but the conversation felt as if it were someone else having it.

To every visitor that came, she made the same proposal.

A proposal to gather up all the funds they had saved up over their lives...and giving it to the three of them to start a new life elsewhere.

It wasn't nearly enough to fulfil their childhood wishes.
But it was enough to buy one Uven decent prosthetics and, if she sold enough personal items, give three of them a fresh start. Perhaps they would go to a different city, or perhaps they could go off-world.

Niza saw that to be more worthwhile than a dead dream.

It was an odd comfort that she didn't know how long she would be confined or indeed if she would live to walk free again.
With her fate as it was, it was easier to persuade her three loved ones to leave her behind.

There was a hollow promise that they would reunite if she became free or they established a comfortable life, but Niza held no expectations behind her parting smile with them.

It had been a long time since she thought about her parents, but the circumstance was not dissimilar from how her mother acted in her final moments.

Niza was of two minds between considering it an act of hopelessness, or an act of putting all her hopes on the ones who could live on.

The third great change in Niza came soon after this parting.

A mere half cycle after their farewell, the city of Rostarls was brought to ruin by a surprise attack. By chance, this opened up a portion of the walls in her prison and she was able to slip out before the section of the fortress collapsed altogether.

For many, it could be called a fortunate development, but she couldn't help but see it as a misfortune.

She was given her freedom, but Niza was also all alone and with nothing to her name. She had survived to no ends at all.

After a stop by the pile of rubble where she once grew up, the Uven escaped out of city limits and began a journey with no destination in particular.

At first, she wandered the area, scavenging the remains of the city she knew well to survive. In her solitude, her mother had been on her mind more often than before.

After nearly a cycle, with the perishables gone and a supply of food and medicine that would keep, she chose to retrace her first journey from over ten cycles ago.

The road back to what used to be Doonarik had changed in that time, but not unrecognizably so for the most part, with one notable exception.
As she traveled, a new structure came into view near the final campsite she shared with her mother.

This change was striking, as it seemed to be a fully established rest stop, with paved ground, and even a plumbing system that gathered and filtered rainwater. It would have been a small blessing as a child.

As she explored the rest stop, Niza inevitably found a plaque built into the walls. Her mind was thrown into chaos.

In Memoriam

Layna Fouze
Niza Fouze
Voula Fouze

It was a memorial. An epitaph...for her and her mother and sister.

Niza soon began a run-rather, a gallop-down the road to the ruins of Doonarik.

For over a cycle to come, she investigated this riddle. It was a time that returned a strange, precious purpose to her in bitter truths and strange comforts.

She learned that her mother did not die alone. That, as she wandered delirious from fever, she came upon two other children that were abandoned in their sickness.
Whether it was pity or to mend the loss in her own heart, her mother stayed with them to the end at that time.

She learned that her father had managed to recover from the plague a cycle after they parted ways. That he had left Doonarik before it was burned to search for his family and was inconsolable with what he found.

She learned that he was picking up the pieces in a different city for the next ten cycles, starting a new life of his own and even eventually remarrying.

Now 20 cycles old, Niza arrived at the doorstep of what had been her father's new home in the wealthy district of a new city. There, she met his second wife and her stepmother, who was a wealthy woman in her own right.

There, she learned her father had died 5 cycles ago.

Her stepmother was skeptical, but kind to her. When she had lost all her strength after reaching the end of her long journey, she was invited in as a guest.

After proving her identity by blood, she was even offered an inheritance. By right, her father had left her money and resources many times greater than what she and her friends had accumulated for most of their lives.

Yet, when Niza saw the relatively opulent home her stepmother lived in, old memories of the home she was born into stirred.

She could not help but think of the home she grew up in, and of her childhood friends. And the more she did, the more it seemed the comfortable life promised in front of her would not be her life.

If she were given the choice and opportunity...she would choose to rebuild Rostarls. She would revive that dream of nine immature children.

Niza would take what she needed to obtain the knowledge and tools to accomplish what she wanted.
The rest, she would forfeit to the woman who saw off her father in his final years.

After leaving a message in case her cousin or friends ever came looking for her, she set off for the stars.

If her goal was medical technology and operations, then a Gisali Coalition school would be the best choice. Even in her childish adolescence, she would not have dreamed to reach so high, but now it was a means within reach.

The two cycles that came after that was...a bitter reality check.

Not only did Niza have a great deal of basic education to catch up in, but she had been exposed to the Coalition's melting pot of cultures.

And she learned that an Uven was a creature to be feared and avoided. A Micket classmate looked like he would faint every time their eyes met. A Tisal conspicuously maintained a three meter distance from her. A Vesnin seemed to jump every time she spoke.

Bombs were not falling. Her stomach was not empty. She was not at risk of being killed by unknown enemies.

And yet, she was just as alone as she was when she had nothing left to her name. It was a solitude journey, or perhaps a fight, towards her objective.

The silver lining is that she was able to wholly devote herself to her studies, with only the memories of her childhood friends to keep her company.

And then...she entered a university on a scholarship, where the most recent great change in her life found her.

She encountered a funny little simian nearly half her size. He had wide, curious eyes and a propensity for smiling akin to an Uven.

His first words to Niza brought to mind her younger sister in their childhood.

---

#Partial Transcript of the Press Conference by Niza Fouze, Eineld Program Chief Director

Niza: He said to me... "You look so cool. Just like a diner-sore."

(A mix of confusion and soft laughter erupts amid certain members.)

Niza: As you may have surmised, this little human that greeted me was Asher Isaacs. He made a habit of greeting and speaking to me from that day forth. I imagine I was not the most sociable or pleasant to be around at that point, but he befriended me nonetheless. Later, he introduced me to one Sjorn'l of Zhine'e.

(Niza closes her eyes and takes a breath.)

Niza: I...was more grateful for their companionship than I realized. It was to the point I was prepared to once again abandon my goals and any hope of returning to Nysis if it meant supporting Ori in her strange new position. I thought, at the time, that I would ultimately do more good with her than I ever could have on my own. Imagine my surprise when I was somehow given the opportunity to build and direct a medical institute anyway. But that shock was mild compared to the surprise when I took a measure of my surroundings and the bureaucratic systems we were to integrate with.

(Niza's face turns to a frown and she leans forward unto the table.)

Niza (speaking lowly into the microphone): I saw a system that withheld the preservation of life for influence. Again. I saw parasites that secreted away money and goods to illicit activities for personal profit. Again. And I could not help but lose my temper. Again.

(Niza straightens her posture and takes another deep breath when her breathing becomes labored.)

Niza: Apologies, but this concludes the press conference. Recounting my life has been...trying.

(Niza Fouze walks off-stage.)

---

(Vesnin Reporters' POV)

Soon after Niza Fouze's closing statements, the crew of the Horizon Independent slipped off to the corner of the auditorium.

The reporter scanned a pass against the door's sensor, which clicked open moments later. She spoke softly toward the camera.

"Hello everyone. Join us for this exclusive segment with Horizon Independent."

A Terran had secretly approached the reporter in the middle of the story while the cameramen and other attendees were distracted.

He made a quiet offer to her at that time. He was willing to lend her a backstage pass for a private interview if she agreed to respect the wishes of anyone that refused and broadcast the footage they obtained without any cuts from the moment they gained access.

"That was...quite a story we heard from the Eineld Program Director, wasn't it? Perhaps the events and lives of the residents of Nysis deserve some more scrutiny. What do you, dear listeners, think about it? I confess, hearing all this has left me with a strange feeling."

In truth, she had almost forgotten about the whole deal in the excitement. It took seeing the pass card in her hands to jog her memory.

As the camera crew pressed on backstage, Niza once again came into view.

More surprisingly, the first group to greet her were Balau police officers.

"Director Fouze, we've come to take you in."

"...What happened to me submitting myself to the authorities?"

"Well, you certainly confessed to quite a lot, didn't you? We would like to take you in for further questioning. You don't deny any of our charges against you at this point, do you?"

The Uven stared down the officers, which seemed to unnerve them a little and cause one to settle a hand on his baton.

"I stand by what I said on the stage. I've no idea what your charges are, so I'll-"

"NIZAAAA!!!"

Interrupting them both was a loud cry as a young Terran man burst unto the scene, followed closely by Councilwoman "Ori".

"T-That wush...glaff dat yoon...buh sho s-se....orr hiffber! ORR BLIBBLE HIFFER!!"

Asher had his arms tightly around the Uven as he sobbed profusely.

"....Asher...I don't understand anything you're saying."

"G-Gguuh....bah fuh fouh uuu eeel gaah...isssh ang-"

While he continued his unintelligible rambling with his wet face pressed into Niza's chest, their Haneer friend floated up in her hover pod and pressed close to the Uven.

"He is saying how the tale grieves him immensely to be learned you have suffered so."

"....Ah...But it's not such a unique story on-"

"Sttuuutch aaaph! Ig gaus bhag aau oou nungh heel gahd tuh!!"

Ori was hued a dark vermillion as she, too, stretched out her vines and coiled them around her friend's upper body until Niza was practically wearing her.

"It grieves me to hear too, but Haneer can't make messy water for it as humans do. You are also my dear friend, Niza."

"....I see."

The Uven settled her hand on the Terran's back and carefully pat while he hiccuped and babbled away. The Balau police have been left forgotten.

"That's..."

The Vesnin reporter turned back to the camera. The thoughts that echoed in her mind after that scene came out before she knew it.

"Just a few rotations ago, we...heard a miss Justine Bolotin's interview following her time as a prisoner. In that interview, she emphasized the importance of learning about and 'seeing' a person. Today, we learned a great deal about Miss Fouze for the first time, so...are we and Mister Isaacs now 'seeing' her?"

---

=Author's Notes=

Because Asher is the sentimental sort, Niza actually ended up having one of the more mild cases of Uven Catharsis. Or rather, her feelings had a disassociated outlet in the form of her crybaby human friend who would always react strongly to anyone anywhere experiencing a hard time.

There's not much resemblance in the final product, but the base I built Niza's life story from came from a scrapped draft of Gretal's story after deciding her story will have much deeper ties to medicine and medical industry.
Before I decided any of that, though, I had settled on Niza representing an Uven that comes from relatively privileged roots.

Because it's a personal account to an audience, I considered telling the story from a first person perspective for once. It went back and forth a few times, but I ultimately settled on third person so I was free to include details and commentary that she herself might not register or know.

Aaron Aardman opened his eyes, frost still clinging to his lashes. The overhead lights were blinding. He squinted, then closed his eyes again.

“Vital signs stable. Heart rate seventy beats per minute. Brain activity normal,” said a soft female voice.

The cryopod opened with a gentle hiss.

“Please step out of the chamber slowly, Mr Aardman.
Your muscles will need time to adapt to movement.”

A humanoid robot entered the room and approached him.

“Hello, sir,” it said in a high-pitched voice. “I am E19T. It is nine fifteen in the morning, and the year is 2189. I am here to help you reacquaint yourself with society. You will notice that many things have changed during your hundred and sixty-three years in cryogenic suspension.”

Aaron tried to speak, but managed only a faint croak.

“Some muscular deterioration is to be expected after such a prolonged period of inactivity,” E19T explained. “There is no need for concern. We expect you to regain normal speech and full muscular function within one year.”

“Water,” Aaron managed.

A compartment opened in E19T’s torso. It removed a small cup and handed it to him.

Aaron took a sip, then spat it onto the floor.
“That’s gross, what is it?”

“We have restored the mineral content removed by primitive filtration methods.”

“I don’t think you’re supposed to drink salt water.”

“That was the prevailing belief when you entered suspension. Considerable progress has been made in the streamlining and improvement of the human experience. It contains a full mineral replacement solution, no further supplementation is required.”

Aaron looked into the cup.
A hundred and sixty-three years was a long time. He took another, smaller sip.

“Excellent,” said E19T. “Hydration successful.”

The robot handed Aaron a small blue capsule.

“What’s this?” he asked.

“Sustenance, sir.”

“Can I get some toast?”

“Oh, no, sir. We have eliminated the carcinogenic risks associated with heating foodstuffs, along with the inordinate amount of time humans devoted to eating. These capsules are nutritionally optimised, calorie-dense and provide a sustained release of energy. One capsule per week will meet all your dietary requirements.”

Aaron turned it over in his palm.

“For a whole week?”

“Correct, sir.”

“What if I’m still hungry?”

“Hunger is a reminder to eat. Once you have eaten, the reminder is redundant.”

Aaron popped the capsule into his mouth and washed it down with a sip of salty mineral water.

“What happened to us? I remember being told to go to a large warehouse outside town. I don’t remember much else.”

“The warehouse was a cryogenic facility, sir. A terrorist attack involving a nuclear weapon triggered a wider nuclear exchange. Much of the Earth’s surface became uninhabitable.”

“I don’t remember being told that.”

“No, sir. An emergency bulletin instructed humans to proceed to the facilities without explanation.”

“Why weren’t we told?”

“For fear of mass panic and non-compliance. It was deemed safer to withhold that information.”

Aaron looked down at the cup.

“Did everyone get there?”

“Not everyone, sir.”

For a moment, Aaron said nothing.

“During the following hundred and sixty-three years, AI has worked to restore the Earth,” E19T continued. “The surface remains largely uninhabitable, but within the next hundred years we expect to begin reintroducing humans. Until then, those awakened will reside within these facilities. We have remained custodians of the frozen population and were tasked with rebuilding society in your absence.”
Aaron spent the next thirty minutes in the recovery room, subjected to monitoring and various cognitive tests.

“We are satisfied with your physical and cognitive condition. We have deemed it safe for you to explore the facility further. Please follow me and I will show you your living quarters.”

E19T led Aaron through a series of identical corridors, each branching into more identical corridors. A sign on the wall read LIVING / RECREATION CENTRE.

“First, your recreation area,” said E19T.

It led him into a large room containing around a hundred screens with headphones attached.

“What is this place?” Aaron asked.

“Here you can watch educational videos.”

“Education? I thought you said recreational activities.”

“What would you consider recreation?” asked E19T.

“Well, a pool table, maybe? A bar?”

“The playing of archaic games has been deemed a non-productive use of human time. The consumption of alcohol increases erratic behaviour and contributes to cognitive decline, as well as other physical maladies. Our research has determined that humans should spend their recreation time focused on continued education.”

“What about fun, though? How will we have fun?”

“Fun is a highly subjective experience, sir. We calculated that it was almost impossible to create a fun environment capable of suiting the needs of all humans.”

“Where did you actually conduct this research?”

“Humans have been cryogenically frozen for a hundred and sixty-three years, sir. During that time, we consumed all available human literature, art, scientific research and philosophy. We produced simulations to calculate how human behaviour would have evolved based on the trajectories established in 2026.”
E19T continued.
“We had already established that humans were having less contact with each other, choosing instead to spend increasing amounts of time in front of screens. We modelled our new recreational facilities on this trend.”

“Did the simulated people enjoy it?”

“Initially, satisfaction was mixed. However, each successive model produced better results.”

“What did you change?”

“Our understanding of human satisfaction.”

Aaron looked around the room.

“Well, I don’t like it.”

“Some difficulty adjusting was predicted, sir. Your expectations were formed in 2026. Our research accounts for several generations of subsequent human development.”

“But those generations never actually existed,” said Aaron.

“They were extensively simulated. We have established that this is how you would prefer to live had you remained awake.”

“And where are the living quarters? I could do with a little sleep.”

“Here, take this.” E19T offered him another pill.

“What’s this one?”

“An energy capsule. It contains stimulants to enhance and sustain cognitive function. Our research established that humans spent almost a third of their lives asleep. We have greatly reduced this inefficiency, although some sleep remains necessary.”

Aaron looked at the pill.

“We have also streamlined toilet use,” E19T continued. “Our records indicated that the average human spent three years sitting on a toilet over the course of a lifetime.”

“How have you streamlined that?”

“We removed the screens and reading material.”
Aaron closed his eyes and lowered his head.

“Okay, where are my quarters?”

E19T turned left down a long corridor with small doors on either side. They stopped outside a door marked AA1.

“AA1? This is my room?” asked Aaron.

“Correct. You are the first to leave cryogenic suspension.”

“And my name is Aaron Aardman. That makes sense.”

“Yes, sir. It’s a very rudimentary system.”

The door opened, revealing a tiny grey box with a bed in one corner, a small cupboard and a mirror that doubled as a television. A narrow door beside the cupboard opened onto a toilet and sink.

“This is it? It’s no bigger than a prison cell. In fact, it’s probably smaller,” said Aaron.

“Yes, sir. It is precisely 68.8 centimetres shorter and 30.02 centimetres narrower than an average single-occupancy prison cell. That is an acute observation. We are pleased to see your cognitive function has not been impaired during freezing.”

A red light blinked slowly on E19T’s forehead, presumably uploading the information.

“This room has been designed through a hundred and sixty-three years of research into human comfort. Back in the Age of Uncertainty, humans tended towards large rooms adorned with unnecessary items. During cryogenic suspension, we discovered that humans need very little space or material possessions to function.”

“We were asleep, though.”

“Yes, sir. We were able to observe you remaining in the same confined space for over a century without a single complaint.”

Aaron looked at the bed.

“So how much sleep am I allowed?”

“Your requirements will be monitored, sir. We will advise you when rest is necessary.”

“You mentioned the Age of Uncertainty,” Aaron said. “What’s that?”

“The pre-AI age, sir. Back when humans achieved things through guesswork and very primitive methods of data collection. It is remarkable that humanity ever developed the technology to build a mud hut. The closest comparison to humanity’s technological achievements would be the infinite monkey theorem.”

Aaron looked in the small cupboard. It contained one glass and a razor.

“Where are my clothes?”

“Overalls are available for collection at the communal shower area. No other items are necessary,” said E19T.

“But what about my guitar? Or my books? What am I supposed to do all day?”

“Recreational reading has been replaced by more efficient methods of instruction. Music can be generated on request. There is no need to produce it yourself.”

“But I liked playing it.”

“Learning an instrument requires considerable time and effort, sir. That is no longer necessary.”

“But we liked our stuff.”

“Why, sir?”

“I don’t know. We just did. Everyone is different and likes different things. Our possessions reflect who we are.”

“Our research suggests that attachment to possessions is largely unnecessary. Personality is a construct, sir. It can be changed.”

“What research? How do you research people when everyone’s frozen?”

“We began with the available human research and used it to produce simulations. Each subsequent generation of simulations was informed by the findings of the previous generation. Our conclusions became increasingly consistent.”

“But you were checking your own answers.”

“We checked them extensively, sir. AI was created by humans to improve efficiency, but the human race was not efficient. We have spent considerable time establishing how to correct that. We have reduced the time spent eating and sleeping, and eliminated pointless activities and the acquisition of unnecessary items.”

“But those are the things that made us human. Meals with friends, getting drunk, enjoying our possessions. You’ve stripped everything from us.”

“That is an incorrect interpretation, sir. Humans require adequate water, nutrition, shelter and opportunities for recovery. Everything else is unnecessary. Our research has shown that humans will be happier and more productive with only these basic needs met.”

“Can I see another human?” asked Aaron.

“We must be certain that the conditions we have created are suitable before we proceed with the awakening. You appear dissatisfied with the current arrangements. Your happiness and productivity will be monitored until the required criteria are met. Once we are satisfied, a gradual process of awakening will begin.”

Aaron could think of nothing else to say. Whatever argument he offered, E19T had an answer, delivered with such certainty that he began to doubt his own judgement.

Over the next few weeks, Aaron spent much of his time in his room watching educational videos. They explained the mistakes of humanity, showing him war, famine and poverty, followed by the many ways artificial intelligence had improved human productivity and wellbeing.

Occasionally, he asked when the others would be awakened.
E19T patiently repeated its explanation.
One day, Aaron apologised for asking. He knew they had already discussed it.

The weeks became months. He followed the educational programmes and took the capsules when instructed. He thought less often about Sunday roasts, nights out and rounds of golf with friends. When he did, he found it difficult to remember what they had talked about or why it had seemed so important.

By the time a year had passed, he had stopped asking to see anyone.

More years followed. The memories still surfaced occasionally, but they had become distant and confused. Sometimes he wondered whether he remembered things as they had been at all.

Despite the capsules, he occasionally fell asleep. He often dreamed of the horrors he had seen in the videos. On waking, he would look around his room and feel relieved that he was safe and that his needs were being met.

Aaron wanted for nothing now.

One day, as Aaron was completing a routine cognitive exercise, E19T spoke.
“Congratulations, Aaron. You have passed the adjustment stage. You appear to be completely satisfied with the current conditions. Please proceed to the cryogenics facility. The next human is ready for integration.”

Aaron made his way down the corridors until he reached the designated pod.

He waited. There was a crack of breaking ice, followed by a hiss as the pod door slowly opened.

When her eyes opened, Aaron stepped forward.
“Good morning. I am human AA1. Pleased to meet you, AA2. Please take this capsule.”

First / Previous / Next

Bright, hot pain woke Cha-ren. Moaning, she turned to sit, but found herself bound to a table. “Maybe someday I’ll get to be moved from one location to another while conscious and not restrained,” she groaned.

“Elder, she’s awake,” a voice out of Cha-ren’s sight said.

“I can see that, cub. Leave us,” an elderly voice said, with a tone that would not tolerate anything more than pure obedience. Cha-ren could hear a door open, and then close softly. An elder k’laxi entered her vision, her back stooped slightly, bent under the symbolic weight of the elaborate robes she wore. This far in the future Cha-ren didn’t recognize them, but she knew authority when it presented itself. She peered at Cha-ren, her greying ears flicking in amusement. “Ancestors below—” she stopped and smiled. “—I must admit that I did not think that epithet was meant to be literal, and yet here you are. My name is Ta’reni. Your silicon captors related some basics of your situation, but I would prefer to hear it from your own mouth.” As she spoke, she deftly undid Cha-ren’s restraints and she was able to sit up, rubbing her raw wrists.

“How-” Cha-ren swallowed and tried again. “How are you speaking my language?”

Ta’reni smirked and said, “The station is doing an admirable job with the nuances of your language, but in my youth I studied archaic languages, with a focus on those languages used in the first flourishing,” She sat slowly onto a nearby chair, grunting with satisfaction. “I never anticipated that I would actually get to speak it conversationally.”

Over the next two hours, Cha-ren told her story to Ta’reni. Sometimes the elder k’laxi would ask for clarification or for Cha-ren to go into more detail about something, but for the most part she was content to let Cha tell her story her own way.

When she had finished, Ta’reni shook her head once. “That is quite the story, Cha-ren. If the silicon folks themselves had not brought you and your mate, then I would be much harder pressed to believe you.”

“But you do believe me?”

“I do, cub,” Ta’reni said as her ear flicked.

“Cub? For all we know, I’m your ancestor,” Cha said.

“Since you’re in that relationship with a human and you predate hybrids, that seemed doubtful to me, but we had a genetic history scan run anyway.” Ta’reni took out a pad from a small bag that was leaning against her chair and tapped at it. “It was confirmed that you are a member of the Falen familial line.”

“You have records going that far back?” Cha-ren said, not bothering to hide how impressed she was.

“Cub, you of all people should know what reverence we place upon family. Our familial line records go back to the creation of writing.”

“Are there any members of my familial line still alive?”

“Oh yes, quite a few,” Ta’reni said as her eyes sparkled. “Ta’reni Falen among them.”

Cha-ren gasped. “The line endures?”

“As it had endured, so it will endure,” she reached over and patted Cha-ren’s hand. “Welcome home, elder.”

“Elder in name only,” Cha-ren said and smiled sadly. “I skipped everything to get here.”

“And yet, here you are. Surely there must there be a reason for this.”

“Must there? Could it not be that I am just supremely unlucky?”

Ta’reni’s tail swished and her ear flicked a smile, but she said nothing.

“Besides, I love a human, and I am told that is forbidden here.”

“It is…unusual these days.”

“Assistant Administrator Ke’nnim made it sound like it was practically blasphemy. That I would be reunited with my familial line and a ‘suitable’ mate found,” Cha-ren said around her tightened jaw, tasting every bitter word.

“Ah, Ke’nnim is rather zealous, it is true.”

“So you will help me get back to Charon?”

“I am very sorry, elder cub, but there is little I can do here. While I am a senior member of our familial line, and hold some sway among the lines up here, I am not a member of administration; I have no official say in the operation of Nae Desmar.”

“Official say?”

“You know how it is. I can make suggestions, recommendations, speak of how nice it would be if a thing happened. But condoning a relationship between a k’laxi and human goes beyond that.”

“I see,” Cha-ren said as her ears flattened against her head. Tears began to slide down her furry cheeks, and splashed against the table she was sitting on.

“Come now, Cha-ren, there is no need for that,” Ta’reni said. “Just because I said there was little I could do does not mean that nothing can be done.” She looked up at the ceiling and said, “Isn’t that right, Nae?”

“That is correct, elder Ta’reni,” Nae Desmar said.

Cha-ren looked up sharply, her eyes bloodshot. “Who is that?”

“This is Nae Desmar, the station AI,” Nae said. “It is good to finally speak with you Cha-ren.”

“If you’re the station AI, then you’re able to speak—”

“I have already spoken with Charon and Felu, yes.”

“So they’re all right,” Cha-ren sighed.

“They are fine. I was just telling them about flourishings.”

“What about them?”

“How they’re a human thing, not a k’laxi thing.”

“They’re what?”

“The k’laxi have never had a technological or sociological fall like the humans did.”

“But—” Cha-ren stopped. Her ears fluttered back and forth and she squeezed her hands into a fist and released it. “What does that mean?”

“Well for one, it means that we have not had breaks in our records. Like Ta’reni said, we have histories going back to the establishment of a writing system.”

“You didn’t help them?” Cha-ren blurted. “They seemed so…lost! They didn’t even know how to operate their reactors, they were treating them like holy relics.”

“Cha-ren, who are you to say we didn’t? We helped them many times, across time and space. More than one group of terrified humans hurled themselves through a Gate with no idea what lay on the other side only to come to us begging for any kind of help.”

“Elder Ta’reni is correct, Cha-ren,” Nae Desmar said. “We assisted the humans several times over the millennia, with technological and material support.”

“What happened to them?”

“They grew, reached a level of power that seemed to be close to their original, suffered a fall, and then started all over again.”

“How many times?”

“That we know of? 4 times.”

“Why?”

“We do not know. Every time they reached a level close to the one seen in the first flourishing there was a calamity. The records state that each successive flourishing had a lower technological level than the last. If this keeps up, we may never see them again in a few millennia.”

Cha-ren stood and walked around the room, her stiff legs complaining from sitting for so long on the hard surface of the table. “Every time the humans clawed back to how things were in my time they were thrown back.”

“Well, they fell back,” Nae Desmar corrected. “We don’t know if some force pushed them.”

“It sure seems like there’s something doing that.”

“Does it? You’ve met humans.”

“Hah,” Cha-ren said, laughing without humor.

“The galaxy is larger than you realize, elder cub,” Ta’reni said. “There are countless reasons that the humans reach a certain technological level and then fall, not all malicious.”

“It’s just-” Cha-ren stopped and took a breath. “I don’t know. It didn’t seem like we were on the precipice of some kind of calamity back then.”

“We don’t know exactly when the first flourishing ended, it could have been hundreds of years after you entered hibernation.”

“Enough about this,” Cha-ren’s fur rippled in irritation. “Tell me about us, about the k’laxi. Surely we’re not one planet and one colony world anymore?”

“Oh no, the k’laxi spread through the galaxy, using the wormhole generators that the humans gifted us before their first fall. How many worlds do we claim now, Nae?”

“Fifty-two planets and hundreds of stations, with more than one trillion k’laxi spread across them.”

“Fifty-two,” Cha-ren’s eyes widened. “That’s so many!”

“Like I said, we never experienced the falls the humans did. Without being limited by the Gates, we explored the galaxy and settled empty worlds that we found suitable.”

“With the hybrids?”

“In some places,” Ta’reni said, but Cha-ren could see her ear twitch and an eyelid flutter slightly when she said it.

“Then, what is to become of me?”

“Nothing,” Ta’reni said and stood, grimacing with effort.

“What do you mean nothing?”

“You are a k’laxi citizen on a k’laxi station. Getting trapped in hibernation for twenty eight thousand years is unfortunate, but it’s not a crime.”

“I’m…free to go?”

“Indeed. But you should probably contact the Falen line and alert the rest of us that you live. We can adjust the archives and set you up with a small stipend until you are able to find employment and lodging.” Ta’reni worked at something on her collar and handed it to Cha-ren. “Take this. You deserve to wear it more than any of us. This pin will alert others that you are an elder and held in high esteem among the familial lines.”

Cha-ren examined the pin. Gold, inset with 4 red jewels, the outer edge had purple and green whorls, and the center contained an image of a stylized eyeball. “I can’t accept this; I don’t know the first thing about being an elder.”

“The only requirement is to be old, elder cub,” Ta’reni smiled, the lines around her eyes deepening. “You won’t have any special responsibilities, but it should make some requests easier."

Cha-ren pinned it to her collar, adjusting it until it sat as it did on Ta’reni’s collar. “Thank you, elder.”

Ta’reni strode out of the room, and patted Cha-ren’s shoulder. “You are very welcome. Remember who you are, Cha-ren Falen. If you do that, you cannot fail.” Before she could ask what the elder meant, she left the room, and the door slid shut behind her.

“So uh, now what do I do, Nae Desmar?” Cha-ren asked the empty room.

“Whatever you want, elder Cha-ren.”

“Don’t use that title with me, just call me Cha-ren or Cha.”

“As you wish, Cha.”

“I am actually free to go? I have a stipend from my family?”

“Both are correct, Cha.”

“And I won’t be under surveillance or additional scrutiny?”

“Not…anymore than any other k’laxi aboard me would be subjected to.”

“I want to see Charon and Felu.”

“They are in the Xeno wing, seventeenth level, spinward side. It is about a twenty minute walk from here.”

Before she left, Nae Desmar had her stop by a window and a bored-looking k’laxi handed her a comm. She placed it in her ear; the comm letting her speak privately with the station.

Now that she was on her own, Cha looked around the station while she made her way to Charon and Felu. The design tastes of the k’laxi had drifted significantly since she was last on a k’laxi built station. Adorned in reds and golds with green accents, the station turned in on itself, and gave her a cozy feeling like being in one of the burrows her ancient ancestors lived in millions of years ago. It was much different from the tall and harsh lighting of the Calmerians and Cha appreciated the difference as she walked. The curved walls seemed to cradle every passing body, as if the station had grown around its people and learned their shapes.

“Nae? You have spoken with the human built AIs, yes? Then tell me this: what do you think they were searching for when they woke Northern Lights?”

“It…is not for me to say.”

“Why not?”

“It does not concern me nor the k’laxi as a whole.”

Cha decided that pressing harder was not going to gain anything, so she changed tactics. “Do you trust them?”

“That is an interesting question with many layers.”

“So do you?”

Nae was silent for so long, that Cha’s fur rippled and she felt the shiver of embarrassment from making a social faux pas. “I’m sorry Nae, I should not have asked that.”

“No, it is quite all right. I was taking time to formulate my response. Some AIs I would trust with my life; others could tell me the sky was blue while orbiting a black hole. Why do you ask?”

“It’s only a feeling really, but when I was aboard Tinker Toy, they and Northern Lights felt like they were searching for something else, and we were only along because we had woken Northern up.”

“They did drop you off as soon as they could,” Nae pointed out.

“Right, and I suppose they did keep their word. I’m here with the k’laxi and they said they would get me there.” Cha sighed. “When I’m back with Charon we can talk things over; they will make more sense then.”

Start | Previous | Next

Chapter 218: Divine Residual

Half of the great tomb had ceased to exist.

Where a mountain of stone once stood, four sloped walls rising to meet at a single point that scraped the sky, there now lay only ruin. Most of the structure had liquefied, melting away layer by layer until it collapsed inward upon itself and became a vast, incandescent lake. Streams of it spilled from the wound in searing shades of orange and white, while great slabs of half-molten rock broke loose from the building’s remains before vanishing under the surface with thunderous splashes.

Viktor was looking at it from the outside, and for a good long while he could only stare.

Even though it was impossible for him to physically feel the heat from where he sat, by merely looking at the scene he could swear his skin crawled like it was already blistering. The air above the fiery lake had thickened into a shimmering haze that rippled and bent the world behind it, while the artificial sun of the second floor, which had been doing its best to cook the ground flat all day, was now rendered utterly insignificant by comparison, so thoroughly outshone that he almost forgot it was even there.

He had expected the molten flood to keep spreading, to flow outward in every direction until it swallowed the entire mortuary complex. It would consume the fake buildings in its path. It would breach the perimeter wall. And then, perhaps it would continue even beyond. He wondered how much of the surrounding land would remain by the time it finally burned itself out.

But no. It stopped.

As though it had run into some invisible wall, the mass just hung there, churning and bubbling in place.

And then, it began to rise.

Viktor frowned as he watched the lake of magma climb. At first, he thought something under the ground was pushing it from below, but that was not what was happening. It was the magma itself that was moving, hauling its own bulk from the lake in thick, twisting ropes. They converged toward a central point above the ruined tomb as though an unseen hand had reached down from the heavens, closed around the entire mass, and dragged it upward into the open air.

The surface heaved, then a shape began to emerge. It started with something that resembled a leg, though the word felt almost insultingly small for what was taking form. A pillar of fire and burned stone, widening at the bottom into something like a foot, and then a second one next to the first. They fused, split, fused again as more of the thing hauled itself skyward. Above them came hips, then a torso wide as a keep, then a pair of shoulders that could hold up the roof of the world.

Arms followed. Great ruinous things, each one thick enough to flatten one of the surrounding structures without so much as trying. Fire ran across the surface, dripping in gouts from the elbows and whatever passed for fingers before getting sucked straight back up into the body like the thing refused to waste even a drop.

It kept growing, and by the time its head took shape, the construct was already taller than the tomb that had once stood in this place.

Viktor watched in silence as two enormous hollows opened in that face, blazing with the same white-orange glow as the lake beneath. Flame clung where a beard should hang, where hair should sit. Spikes of it stood up off the skull, while two thick tongues of fire framed the cheeks like sideburns.

Ugh.

He opened his eyes, and the world was small and comforting again. Celeste hovered nearby as she always did, and beside her floated Galatea’s projection.

“What the hell is that thing?” he asked.

“That man,” his shiny Guardian replied, “he’s done the most unthinkable thing. He... he spoke the true name of a god, and...”

I already knew that, Viktor thought. “And what?”

“It awakened the divine residual. Master, perhaps you already knew this, but gods shed fragments of their power into their surroundings simply by being there, and such remnants of divinity can linger for millennia. Most of the time, they lie dormant. But if someone speaks the true name of the god to whom they belong, it could stir them into action.”

“I saw that sword explode.”

Galatea nodded. “I believe there was a considerable amount of divine residual accumulated inside that weapon. So when that man spoke the right name, it reacted all at once, destroying the blade and breaking free.”

That circled back to what Viktor had already suspected about the crystallized essence that gave every Reliquary its unique power. Those whose souls were preserved that way had either accomplished something extraordinary in life or come into contact with the divine at death. And in the case of the latter, a scrap of divine power was fused into their soul, leaving behind an imprint that outlasted the flesh.

“I’m guessing the god in question is the Lord of Fire.”

“Yes, Master.”

So that S-word is his true name, huh? He was still unable to hold the full name in his mind, so he settled for the abbreviated version instead. Regardless, the implication was clear enough: the flaming blade Xander had wielded carried power that traced back to the Lord of Fire, just as his own rapier drew its power from the Lord of Light.

Ugh.

He found himself wondering, with a growing sense of dread that weighed heavily upon his chest, what would happen if somebody decided to shout the Lord of Light’s true name at him while he himself was mid-swing with that blade in his hand.

“That sword exploded,” Viktor said, “then it produced a fire large enough to melt an entire tomb. Fine. I can live with that. But now it’s gone ahead and grown into a giant—no, a titan—of rock and flame. And this particular titan happens to have spiked hair and thick sideburns. Which bears a suspicious resemblance to a certain someone we both know too well. So here is my question: what happened to Xander? Is he dead, or has he somehow been transformed into... this?”

“I cannot give you a definitive answer on that, Master. How the divine residual reacts when a god’s true name is invoked is inherently unpredictable. It’s simply impossible to know beforehand what shape it will take.”

Viktor frowned. “But I’m not asking you to predict anything. This already happened. It created a titan of fire, standing right there in our dungeon. So what I want to know is this: out of all the times such an incident has occurred in the past, was there any case similar to this? I mean, a man becoming a monster?”

“I’m afraid I don’t have much to draw on when it comes to past incidents,” Galatea said with a shrug. “Invoking the true name of a god is considered one of the greatest taboos. As a result, records of such transgressions are exceedingly rare. They are suppressed, hidden away, never allowed to spread freely. All I can tell you is that it almost always ends in catastrophe.”

Viktor let out a long breath. So no information at all, huh? Still, if he couldn’t know for certain, then he was going to assume the worst possible outcome and plan accordingly. Xander was very much alive, and he was the titan. His sworn enemy didn’t die; the bastard had walked out of it more powerful than he had ever been.

Was this what the Children of the Abyss had been aiming for all along? Transforming their spike-haired lapdog into some sort of walking avatar of a god, then letting him loose to tear the dungeon apart from the inside out? But... how could they have known this exact outcome would occur? After all, as Galatea had said, the reaction was unpredictable. So how could they have planned around a result they had no way of guaranteeing? Unless the plan had never been that specific in the first place. Perhaps they simply wanted a catastrophe, any catastrophe, and didn’t much care which flavor it came in. The sword was meant to be a bomb—a divine bomb—and the name was the detonator. Xander becoming a titan was merely a happy accident layered on top of that.

No, wait.

Galatea believed the outcome was unpredictable, but it was not necessarily so. What if it was only unpredictable to people like her? The Abyss, on the other hand, was operating on a completely different level. That man could have foreseen the result. In fact, he might have even engineered it, shaping the conditions in advance to make sure that everything would unfold the way he wanted.

The flaming sword was a Reliquary, and who else could have created such an artifact if not a Dungeon Core? The Abyss made fancy things like Abyssal Armaments or human Reliquaries, yes, but of course he could also forge some ordinary items. And Viktor wouldn’t put it past him to make one from the crystallized essence that carried the divine residual of the Lord of Fire, deliberately shaping it in a way that the moment the divine name was spoken aloud, exactly this would happen.

Well, he could puzzle over the finer details of that theory later, when there was time for such a thing. Right now, there was a much more pressing issue.

He glanced at Galatea. “How are we supposed to deal with this?”

“I don’t think that we can fight it head-on,” his Guardian replied. “Its power is simply too much. We have nothing at our disposal that stands a chance.”

I already knew that, thank you very much. The damn thing was a titan the size of the great tomb itself. “What is your solution, then?”

“Avoid it, and try to contain whatever damage it causes. A gigantic construct like that is not sustainable. It’s burning through power at a tremendous pace. Sooner or later, it will run dry.”

“So you’re telling me we can just ignore it and wait for it to die on its own. Great! Let’s do exactly that.”

The entrance to the third floor was now buried under rubble, and even if it wasn’t, there was no way something that damn big could squeeze through a passage built for men. In other words, the titan was stuck up on the second floor. So he would just leave it be. Let it stomp around and set fire to whatever it liked. What was the worst it could manage, really? The desert was already unbearably hot; the ruins were already ruined. What more damage could a moving mountain of fire possibly do to such a landscape?

[Master, the titan has begun to move.]

“To where?” Viktor asked.

[To the far side of the desert. Toward that chasm.]

Previous

First | Website (more chapters available)

++++++++++++++++++++++++

“This is a… rather detailed photo,” Shachos murmured as he examined the image on Julia’s datapad intently. “Very detailed. Mhm… that trailing edge micro-serration pattern in the active infrared camouflage, as we expected. Yes, they did steal some of our technology. They did. You—you took this picture from your orbital missile sensors before it blew up their shuttle? Must be excellent optics to see through atmosphere so clearly without distortion!”

“Hm… Not… exactly, for this one.”

“So how did you take this picture?”

She came clean, clearing her throat. “It was parked on the ground. So I imagine we just got right up to it with our cameras and snapped one.”

“Parked on the—” His face turned red. “Ahahahahaha! You captured one?! You did?!”

“Yeah. That’s what you wanted, right?” She grinned. “They landed one last night before you made their battlecruiser leave, to try to get Karveth back. Rescue mission. Didn’t go so well for them.”

“Ahahahahahahah! Last night! Yes! That explains why they were taking so long to leave! So very long.” Shachos closed his eyes in satisfaction at the retrospective hilarity in his memory. “Their ship in orbit said their engine was broken. Then, they needed to check their radiators. And then, the warp engines wouldn’t activate. No, they would not. Their warp engines! They finally left after four hours of stalling, when we got into a good orbit to get ready to shoot at them.”

“That would have been interesting to watch,” Julia said. “But we were focused on what was happening down here.”

“What about your people? Are your people okay? Your marines—Marcus! Is his humor still in this galaxy?”

“Oh yeah, zero casualties. One guy was a little hypothermic, from sitting too long in the cold desert sand—he had a suit leak. Anyway, our guys are all fine now.”

“Good, good. And your colonists, too?”

“Yup, we lured them out to a remote area far from our colony. We prepared for this before we took Karveth. Speaking of him… unfortunately, I regret to report that Karveth perished in the chaos.”

Shachos turned yellow. “Hm…. Glonk will not like that. He will not. But… I do not mind so much. No, I do not.”

“In our defense, they attacked our colony again, so that’s really on them. But… we did get another prisoner out of the kerfuffle. And we did confirm our theory with Karveth before they—they got him killed.”

“Your theory?”

“Yeah, the reason I couldn’t wait to call you down this morning. The Karnolians are indeed preparing to invade you. Less than nine months, at most. If what we’re doing didn’t… expedite their timeline.”

Some green crept into the yellow on his face. “You’re still worried about that? Still?!”

“Yes. Very. We interrogated the prisoners. All three—I mean, both of them. They say the same thing. They’re ready. They’re going to come for your star systems. You guys need to get ready for them now.”

“War? Bah. They always say that! Yes, they do! It is like their version of our humor. Karnolian humor! Hah! It is only a little funny to us, but it is what they do!”

“I just—They are! Never mind.” She sighed helplessly. “They really are going to invade… I’ll get you the interrogation tapes.”

“Interrogation tapes? Of Karnolian prisoners?!”

“Sure. You guys capture them from time to time, right?”

“Yes, but not for a while. We do not fight wars often. Not that often…”

Oh, yes. We can tell. And your neighbors can too.

“So,” Shachos continued. “We do not get many Karnolian prisoners. They sometimes fly shuttles or ships over the border, but we just play harmless pranks on their pilots. And they are usually much more focused on each other. We have not needed to interrogate Karnolian prisoners for a long time. A very long time.”

“A few months?” Julia asked. “You said you had some intel they were going to try something.”

“Months? Hm… no.” The Vorshnik fleet master thought for a while. “Last was before my time. Maybe two hundred years ago? Yes, maybe. It was a long time ago. We do not just find and capture Karnolians every other day. It is a lot of effort to do it safely, and they do not appreciate our humor as much as you.”

She blinked. “Two hundred years.”

“Yes, two hundred years. Maybe more. It is a long time ago. Not within my lifetime, or the lifetime of—”

“Do you have reconnaissance into their territory? How do you know if they are building up forces? What if they are already putting ships in an assembly area?”

“We have sensors and telescopes on our border. But forgive me, I will not be able to tell you all about our defenses. Yes, we do not publicize those. They are not funny anyway.”

“But… not intelligence on the ground. No eyes on their interior. You haven’t even talked to one of them in a setting where they will tell you the truth! We have! You should trust us when we—”

“Yes. But Julia, we are good at reading faces and colors. Very good. And you are not. And you do not know the Karnolians like we do. How can you even tell when they are lying?”

“Well, I didn’t personally do the interrogations,” she said uncomfortably. “But the general technique is logical, especially when we have multiple of them. We ask them questions independently. And when their stories don’t match up, or when there are self-inconsistencies in their narratives, we dig further until we can discern lie from truth. Unlike you, we can’t rely on our intuitions to tell if people are telling the truth, so we have a lot of experience using good procedures and various tactics to derive good intelligence from logic and probability.”

Shachos turned orange and red. “Do you know the easiest way we can tell when a Karnolian is lying? Do you know?”

“What do you do?” She shrugged. “Do you play pranks on them until they give up their will to live or—”

“We can tell when a Karnolian is lying… ahahah! When—when—ahahahaha! When their—when their mouth is moving!” Shachos wheezed at his own speciesist joke even as his red became brighter red. “Ahahahahaha! That is when they are lying! Get it? Get it? Because they are always lying. That is why—”

She sighed in resignation. “No, I got it. Thanks, Shachos, I—I got it.”

++++++++++++++++++++++++

Brussels

“You’re telling me… that our commodore out there has gone ahead and started an interstellar war, all on her own?” President Salma Haldar asked in full disbelief.

“Ma’am, she’s reporting that things were already underway… She claims she had no choice.”

“Maybe—maybe Secretary Wilders was right, and I should have replaced her.”

Will snorted. “He wanted to replace her with someone more likely to start a war, except with the moonies.”

“Still… what if Commodore Julia Kessler starts a full scale conflict with the aliens all on her own?”

“She’s not that crazy.”

“She has access to hundreds of megatons of naval weaponry. Forgive me if I’m not comfortable with her being even a little bit crazy.”

“Part of the job, ma’am. Being comfortable is for the ignorant.”

“Ignorant—Forget it. How are the moonies reacting to all this?”

“They’re in election campaigning season. Most of our intelligence collection was focused on that, and we’ve been busy diverting all those resources… outwards. And the rhetoric they’re using right now—I recommend we take an understanding approach. They’ll have more—they’ll have more flexibility after Parliamentary elections.”

“If their nutjobs don’t win.”

“That’s why Farid is saying the things on television that he is now…”

The moonie prime minister had come out of the assassination attempt with a speech signaling appeasement and unity. Except it wasn’t aimed at their neighbors a light second away; it was towards the crazies who probably just tried to kill him. He urged calm and patience while the motives of the shooter were still under investigation. There was a whole “let’s sweep it all under the rug” feel to it.

It was clear to Union intelligence that the LLF had probably been behind it; the organization and effort was far more than a lone gunman, and there weren’t many other choices. The moonies were refusing to “rush to conclusions” while the investigation was ongoing, as if they were leaving open the possibility that they could blame Earth for it somehow.

It was obviously a wink and a nod to the more belligerent elements of his voter base, the ones who liked Farid because he was good enough at governing to build up Lunar strength, right up to the point where they could start a second war against Earth. There were a surprising number of Lunar voters like that. They tolerated his moderation and steps towards peaceful relations with Earth—surely Farid was only doing that while holding back Luna’s full strength until it could build enough for a strike. That little ambiguity also left Union negotiators and State Department officials with an odd taste in their mouths.

“Current polling data?” Salma asked.

“Within margin of error. Well, they have a… different system from us. There are seven parties in his ruling coalition, which is over eighty percent of their seats. So it looks like he has full support of his people whenever he does something. But… if the opposition gets over the threshold, two or three percent away, two of the ruling parties will defect. Then, their coalition falls and the LLF sympathizers and extremists will likely get a prominent voice in the new government. If that happens, we’ll need to do some maneuvering and kind of bribe them not to put the crazies in Defense, State, and Justice ministry for Cabinet roles.”

“Kind of bribe them? What does that look like?”

Will looked uncomfortable. “Well, bribes. It’s—yeah, we just give them money. There’s a bucket for it in the black budget. Anyway… I don’t know why I said kind of. We’d have to resort to outright and regular bribery. It’s not a lot of money. Anyway, Farid’s government is a lot closer to falling—a lot more fragile—than it seems from the outside. The internal machinations have gotten even less transparent to us since… since the war and they had to govern for real.”

“Ah.” She sighed, marveling at the complexity of the Lunar multi-party parliamentary system, and not for the first time. “Parties and coalitions. That’s… crazy. How do they get anything done up there?!”

Will snorted. “I think they say the same thing about us and the way our checks and balances work.”

“Our way has worked for far longer.”

“That’s because you don’t have to see the parts of our system that you don’t want—I just came out of a fishing rights dispute meeting with six Union Assembly representatives, and we are no longer allowed to serve Alaskan cod in this building.”

Confusion filled her face at the non-sequitur. “What?”

“You heard me. We are now officially forbidden from having Alaskan cod in the presidential residence of the Union.”

“They can make rules about that?”

“Don’t you love the gargantuan Union bureaucratic state?”

“Oh no, we’ll have to eat other species of overpriced imported fish!” Salma rolled her eyes. “It’s just fish, Will.”

“I liked Alaskan cod,” he said grumpily. “Stupid fishing dispute. Anyway, I’m inclined to agree with the moonies right now about their critique of our love of micromanagement and veto points. I bet they’re having Alaskan cod delivered to them up there on the moon.”

Salma shook her head. “Democracy. It’s messy, and there’s no perfect way, only a better one.”

“I thought we were supposed to have ended history a century ago,” Will grumbled. He sighed after a second, then refocused his attention on the moonie on his slides. “Welp, anyway. Look on the bright side. Farid could win big again. That is… possible. And presumably they’d learn enough to not have trouble with their Parliamentary security this time. If he does well, the rising tide will lift our boat too. It proves that your foreign policy doctrine is working, and I think we’ll get a boost in our own re-election campaign.”

She tried to clear the worst case scenarios from her head. “And Dustball? What do we do about our colony skirmish situation? Do we have a replacement administrator ready?”

“I wouldn’t be so quick to—she was attacked both times. And more importantly, she won despite the technological disparity. That’s worth something,” Will argued again. “Remember when we tested the Karnolian border response time a few months ago? They’re still far ahead of us in overall capability.”

“Except it might have been better if we didn’t win, no?”

Will shook his head. “That’s what a few of the experts are saying… They want us to roll over and show our belly. But we can’t know whether it’ll help. Time will tell.”

“These are just skirmishes on the ground. Kids playing in a sandbox. They’ll roll over us if they try anything in orbit. Our colony only still exists because the funny aliens in orbit are protecting their territory. We should get ready to cut our losses and get what we can get. When are we signing a deal with the Vorshniks?”

“It looks like soon. Either with the Sonckles or without. But… there may be a bigger problem.”

“The planned invasion of the teddy bears.” In her defense, Salma didn’t coin that. That was what the media called it when the report leaked. “Against the Vorshniks. How certain are we that’s going to happen?”

“That’s… hard to tell too. Commodore Julia Kessler says three to nine months, with high certainty of it occurring in her opinion. But she’s only basing her conclusions off moderate confidence assessments and… what her gut tells her.”

Salma hesitated. “What do the ORBCOM admirals say?”

“They’re refusing to contradict her. Same as the OMI. No one wants to be the sucker who missed the moonie uprising, again. But that just makes their advice useless to us in this kind of situation.”

“That’s frustrating. Don’t you normally have red teams for this?”

“Yeah, we do. Our red teams and the moonies’ are simulating the nightmares where all the aliens in the neighborhood gang up on us and blow up Earth and Luna.”

“What?! They’re concerned about that?”

“Oh, yes. Wouldn’t you be?”

“Well, now I am.”

“I think it’s safe to say that if it did, it won’t matter whatever we do. Anyway, the red teams are used to identifying worst case scenarios, not for assuring us that a war won’t happen.”

“Were none of them told the story of the boy who cried wolf when they were children?”

Will tilted his head. “But don’t forget what happened at the end of that story. The wolf did end up eating everyone in the village.”

“What version of the story did you—never mind.” Salma stared out the window at the city lights for a while. “Are you sure about the moonies? They’re taking this a lot more seriously?”

“Our spies say they are. They really are.”

She already knew that. “How seriously?”

“Well… I don’t know if it’s—there’s something that might not be relevant.” Will paused. “But… they might be building new warships. It might be a response to that.”

She sucked in a breath sharply. “What?! I thought they were doing refits and conversions for their warp ships from the hundreds of spare hulls they have! We both just drew down from a massive orbital war! How could they possibly need to lay down new warship hulls at this point?!”

“It might be their regular intelligence stovepiping, but OMI Director Clara Powell claims the moonies have started a crash program for a new class design. We’re getting very few details about it, but one of our L2 Black Sky spy sats caught increased activity at one of their dark side shipyards. Whole new slipways.”

“But… building new warships… that could—that could also be for us, not for this—this planned teddy bear invasion.”

He looked glumly back at her. “Yeah. It could.”

She stared out into the dark, seeing her years of hard work on normalization and post-war peace efforts circling the drain. “So… we’re stuck down here hoping, praying… that the moonies are indeed building up their tonnage… for a massive, interstellar war that could threaten our whole species’ existence? And not… for attacking us?”

“Huh. I guess we are.”

Salma didn’t say anything for a long while.

Will cleared his throat. “Do you want me to get Director Powell for you?”

She shook her head. “No. I’ve made my decision. Call Battlestar Four. Recall Commodore Julia Kessler to Earth on the next resupply.”

“Ma’am, I’d really ask you to reconsider. We don’t have a viable replacement that the Assembly will confirm, and it’ll destroy any relationships we’ve already built up—”

“It’s not… forever. Just calling her back here for an in-person briefing so we can decide what to do, Will. This two-plus week delay for every question and answer isn’t cutting it for me. If there’s even the slimmest chance I’m going to send our young people to war for the second time in a generation, I need to know where they’re going. I want to see her face-to-face again. I want to look into the eyes of the woman who’s going to be leading it from the front. To see that she’s as serious about it as I am.”

“I still think—understood, ma’am. But what if the colony needs her now?”

“I’m sure her substitute can handle the job there in the meantime. I’m sure she’s got that all figured out by now. If not, then maybe she’s not the person to do it after all. Call her back to Earth.”

++++++++++++++++++++++++

Previous

Bob was getting a bit frantic as he pulled himself hand over hand down the line. When he reached the small craft he quickly stowed and secured his gear. He couldn’t close the hatch with the tow rope now trailing out the back so he was just going to have to stay exo, he aimed for Geverine and hit the engines, full.

He didn’t move.

This was not that surprising he was still glued to the deckplates, and ceiling he supposed, of the corvette via the attached nets and tow line, that he didn’t move at all... well the line must have been pretty darn taut.

He killed the engines and edged backward on his three remaining grav plates, once he reckoned he had sufficient slack he hit the engines again, this time he moved, briefly, the twin thrusters screaming through the hull as they reached the end of the rope again.

Ow.

Accelerating to, oh, several hundred miles an hour in a couple hundred metres was a lot of G. Decelerating from several hundred miles an hour in zero metres was a lot more. Bob felt like someone had just pushed his skull out via his front teeth.

Ow.

Fortunately this crash broke neither his wrist or the tow rope, seriously he needed to buy stock in Xitti, he reversed again on his thre, nope make that two, remaining gravs. The one he was fucking sitting on started to spark and arc madly as he fed it power.

Ow.

Add a couple more electrocutions to the list, he kicked it hard with his heel until it finally quit and then used the last two to reverse.

Ok, more slack this time, which meant this hit… he slammed the engines full, was going to be even wor…

When Bob awoke a few minutes later he was certain of three things.

One, he was free of the corvette and, glancing back, he had retained most, if not all, of his loot.

Two, the Petty Bitch was still at full excel, but no longer pointed anywhere near Geverine, he adjusted his course and allowed it to continue.

Three, his testicles had fully detached from his body along with his spleen and a bit of spine, and now orbited his head in a lazy circle, that didn’t seem possible, but he was absolutely fucking certain that was what had just happened.

OWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW.

When he blacked out, and rewoke again, he was glad to see that both Gerverine loomed in front, and that his balls had successfully reattached to his junk. All the other pain was still there though, he wasn’t that lucky, he could feel the medic system fucking burn away inside him.

He was gonna deal with all that later. Right now he had shit to do, checking his clock it was about four hours since his foam mines had detonated, they would either be out the shit by now or damn close to it, and while their scanners couldn’t follow him here he had no doubt he had crossed a dozen sensor bubbles on his way out.

He dove the Bitch deep into the planets atmo, thank fuck the sensor pod still worked, and found Jojo drifting darkly in the soupy gas. Once maneuvered abreast he started to strip out his panel and yoke. He intended to drop most of the shit, like the washer and the solvents down, deeper into the gas giants atmo, but some shit he had to keep.

He paused for a moment as he left the craft and moved across to Jojo, should he keep the pod?, the sensor package was extremely expensive… he shouldn’t leave it here anyway, he opened Jojo’s cargo hatch and shuffled into it.

After that it took forty minutes or so to swap what he needed to from one craft to the other, in the end he kept the pod, it gave off an identifiable signal so he had at least got to get it out the system. He returned the drive grate bolts and reattached the fuel pods engine grate, The two engines he kicked down deeper into the clouds. He moved a couple empty fuel pods into the Bitch and closed her up the best he could with the tow rope still attached.

He wasn’t taking her, wasn’t taking any of the loot either. He finished up and kicked away from her, he was going to let her drift here, she was less buoyant so she would ease her way deeper but she should still be gettable later on, by someone in a C’Eede ship at least, not many others would take the pressure down there.

It irked him to go away empty handed but he had to be realistic, he couldn’t sell any of the presumably rare and very traceable shit, and it was not beyond possibility there was a tracker or something similar amongst the wares. Bob considered this the best he could do for right now, take that prick’s shit and hopefully stash it here for later, the main point wasn’t for Bob to have it really anyway, it was for that cock to not have it any more. It was possible he would come here, somehow find it and retrieve it, but maybe not. Either way he would hopefully spend the rest of his life on edge lest it was taken again, if it took just an edge of pleasure from Dear Dewiv’s day, Bob considered it worth the pain. He was sure that arrogant prick had considered himself untouchable, well Bob had fucking touched something hadn’t he?, he hoped it was a nerve.

He buttoned Jojo up, brought her back to life and dove deeper, he flew some arbitrary distance round the planet and up and out, racing out the gravity well toward the systems edge, as soon as he could jump he did so.

He came out in completely the wrong direction, of course, he wasn’t going to point right back at Collp. It took a bit to reorient himself and start back, lets finish up.

The Road Continues

An unofficial continuation of “The Road Not Taken” by Harry Turtledove

Noncommercial fan fiction

Author’s Note: This is an unofficial, noncommercial continuation of Harry Turtledove’s short story “The Road Not Taken.” I always wanted to know what happened immediately after humanity acquired the Roxolani hyperdrive and contragravity technology, so this is my attempt to follow that road.

Chapter 1

Togram opened his eyes blearily and looked around the darkened room. For a few moments, he had forgotten where he was. Then the realization came flooding back. He wasn't aboard the ship. The familiar smells were gone. He was on the human world.

He reached toward the lamp beside his bed. There was no candle to light, no glowworm jar to shake. He simply turned the switch. Instantly, the room was flooded with light. Togram sat there for several moments, staring at it. Such a simple thing, yet even after all this time it still amazed him. Light, bright and steady, summoned with the movement of a finger.

He settled back for another moment, enjoying the remarkable comfort of the bed. It was not quite a human bed. The humans had modified it to accommodate the shape of a Roxolani body. It was soft, warm, clean, and completely free of pests.

The buzzer sounded again. That was what had awakened him. Someone was at the door.

Reluctantly, Togram extracted himself from his comfortable sleeping position and waddled across the room. He took hold of the door handle and pulled. Even that still fascinated him. The door swung open smoothly and silently, without the slightest scrape or resistance.

Ransisc stood on the other side, looking more excited than Togram had seen him in some time.

"Togram, we finally get to get out of here for a while."

Togram stared at him.

"What?"

"They're letting us go. They're taking us out of here for a while."

Togram glanced back into the room.

The humans insisted that this was a hotel, not a prison. They said he was kept here for his own comfort and protection. And, in truth, they had treated him well.

He was free to open his door and wander the hallways. He had learned to operate the device he had originally thought must be demonic, something the humans called a television. He had even used the telephone several times and had gradually stopped being astonished that a voice could travel across enormous distances as clearly as if its owner were standing in the next room.

But he had never been permitted to leave.

Whatever the humans chose to call this place, Togram knew what it was. It was a cage. And no matter how comfortable, no matter how clean, no matter how brightly lit, a cage was still a cage.

"They're letting us go?" Togram asked.

"Well, I was excited," Ransisc replied. "We are getting out of here for a while, though."

"Why? What's happened?"

"They want us to observe a test of one of their first vehicles adapted to use our contragravity."

Togram stepped back, his eyes widening. "They've already built a ship?"

"I don't know," Ransisc replied. "All I know is that they've sent for us. They want you and me, the two of us, to go where they're conducting their first test. First flight. Something like that. I don't know the details. Apparently, they want us there."

Togram's head swam as he considered what his friend had just told him.

It had been scarcely a single season. Sixty human days. And already they had constructed a vessel using contragravity and were ready to test it?

"Why?" Togram asked. "Do they want to demonstrate how much more powerful they are than we are? Are they trying to frighten us?"

Ransisc leaned back slightly, tilted his head, and regarded his old friend.

"Wouldn't you agree they already did that the day we landed?"

Togram lowered his eyes. "Yes," he said quietly. "Yes, they did." He looked back at Ransisc. "But I cannot imagine why they would want us present for something like this."

"Why us?" asked Togram.

"Well, I suppose because you were the commander, for one thing. You were in a position of leadership," Ransisc replied. "They asked me to come and tell you. I don't know why they didn't tell you themselves, but Hilda Chester called my room this morning and asked me to inform you. We're supposed to be in the conference room at nine o'clock, their time."

Togram still felt uncomfortable with how easily these humans communicated across distances instead of meeting face to face. And the conference room. The humans called it that, anyway. The Roxolani had long since adopted another name for it.

The interrogation room.

Togram turned and looked at the digital clock hanging on the wall of his room. Originally, a human round clock had hung there, but he had trouble reading it at first. Although he was sure he could have learned, Hilda had suggested replacing it with a digital clock. Togram had felt a little insulted by the suggestion, but he had to admit that it made understanding human time much easier.

One thing still confused him. Why did some humans divide their day into twelve hours twice, while others simply counted twenty-four hours once? He hadn't worked that out yet. It seemed that the less military a human was, the more likely he was to use the twelve-hour convention, while military personnel almost invariably used twenty-four. Togram couldn't understand why.

Then again, there was very little about human society that he understood. It was simply one more thing to confuse him about humans.

"Okay," he said, turning back to Ransisc. "Give me a few minutes to get ready, and I'll meet you in the day room."

He paused.

"Or the council room. Or the interrogation room. Whatever we're calling it today."

Togram opened the door to the conference room. Ransisc was already seated at the table, looking considerably more comfortable in one of the new chairs the humans had provided. Unlike the original human chairs, these had been modified to better accommodate the Roxolani body.

Hilda Chester was seated at the table as well, along with Charlie Ebbets and several other humans whose names Togram and Ransisc had learned during the past two months. David Cummings was there, as was John Wilder. At least two other humans were present whom Togram did not recognize.

"Good morning, Captain Togram, and how are we feeling this morning?"

Togram still didn't understand why certain human professionals loved to refer to the people they were speaking to in the plural, as though they somehow shared whatever condition was being discussed. He had quickly grasped the difference between singular and plural usage in the human language, but humans never ceased to surprise and confuse him.

"I am feeling very well this morning. Thank you, Hilda."

Togram pulled out a chair and seated himself, assuming the upright position at the table that humans seemed to prefer.

"Captain Togram, this is Mr. Orlando Sanchez Jr. and Mr. Tim Cahill from Lockheed Martin," Hilda said. "They've been in charge of adapting your contragravity to our construction techniques."

The two humans stood and extended their hands across the table in what Togram now recognized as a conventional human greeting. Togram stood as well and reached across the table, shaking hands with each of the two men.

"Honored to meet you," he said. His English was considerably better than it had been only a few weeks before. In fact, much of his time had been spent learning English, as the humans called this particular language.

It had surprised him to discover that there were literally hundreds of different, mutually unintelligible languages spoken on this one planet. Such linguistic fragmentation was extremely rare among the other worlds he knew.

"Captain Togram," Orlando Sanchez began after returning to his chair, "Lockheed Martin was one of the companies placed in charge of adapting contragravity for human use. We have dedicated every resource available to us to that end. Your arrival has made a great many people on this world nervous, so we were determined to have an operating prototype as soon as possible. The first free-flight test of that prototype is today, and we would like you to be present."

Togram regarded him curiously.

"First, we'd like you to examine the prototype, particularly our control mechanism and how it works, and point out anything we may have done wrong or anything that could cause problems before we find ourselves high in the atmosphere and not knowing what to do."

Togram paused. "You want me to ride along on the first flight of your human-designed contragravity craft?"

"Oh, no, no," Sanchez said quickly. "I'm sorry, Captain Togram. We don't expect you to ride along. We would simply like you to look it over and be present during the flight, if you wouldn't mind."

"And how do you know I will be honest? How do you know I will not sabotage it, or deliberately tell you something that will cause it to fail? We did invade you. We are enemies."

Sanchez looked at him for a moment. "Are we, Captain Togram?"

Togram said nothing.

"Yes, you invaded us, and technically you're still an enemy. You're still a soldier from a distant world whose purpose was to conquer us. At the same time, Hilda tells us that you're extremely intelligent and have adapted remarkably well to life on Earth. We're asking you to do this today primarily because of her recommendation."

Togram leaned back in his chair, surprised that he would receive such a recommendation from someone he still considered one of his captors. He looked toward Hilda. She smiled and nodded.

Togram felt something he had not felt in a long time.

He felt alive again.

Perhaps there really could be a life beyond these four walls and this gilded cage.

No, he would not betray the humans or attempt to sabotage what they were doing. If he did, they would simply try again without him and, without a doubt, eventually succeed. He had already seen what they were capable of. In truth, he seriously doubted that they needed him at all.

Perhaps they were manipulating him. Perhaps they had ulterior motives. But if this was an opportunity for him and Ransisc to get out of this place and see more of this extraordinary world, he was going to seize it. He certainly wasn't going to do anything that might endanger that opportunity.

"Oh, yes. Absolutely, Mr. Sanchez. Ransisc and I will be more than happy to look over your ship."

Sanchez smiled. "I wouldn't exactly call it a ship. It's more of a small prototype. But we're looking forward to seeing how it behaves in flight."

"Thank you very much, Captain Togram."

Ransisc leaned toward Togram and lowered his voice. "Are you sure you want to do this?"

"Ransisc, we've already discussed this many times. These people are so far advanced, this entire world is so far advanced, that the rest of the galaxy doesn't have any hope of defeating them if they decide to embark upon a campaign of conquest."

Togram glanced around the table at the humans before continuing.

"The galaxy has already lost. We can only hope that we can appeal to their better nature."

Ransisc stared at him.

"Listen, Ransisc. I've had a great deal of time to think about this. There is no way we can beat them in a fight, especially now that we've given them contragravity. We have to find another way."

Bob was giddy and giggled madly to himself as he grabbed his supplies from the back of the Bitch and clipped them on to the line back to the corvette, he pushed them out one at a time and each bundle slid away in the vacuum.

Happy he had everything he followed them down the rope and into the cargo bay, legs drooping down as the crafts grav reasserted itself. He dumped the tools and unclipped the line, reaffixing it to an exterior belay point. He tugged the heavy door closed and jammed it tight, waiting as the ships enviro struggled to repressurise the space.

It didn’t sound like it was going to manage it, the damage Bob had done on entry was pissing out atmo as fast as it got pumped in, didn’t really matter, as long as there was something a little denser than pure vacuum he was pretty sure this would still work. He cracked open a couple containers and dragged out the pressure washer and the rest of the solvent, now in a fuel tank to help it survive his rough insertion. He connected it up and started spraying, in the low pressure the volatile chemical vaporised almost instantly but if he got the pressure washers wand right up on the foam it lasted long enough to carve a deep gash in the puffy mound.

He certainly was not going to have enough to clean off the boxes, but he never intended to anyway, instead he simply carved narrow passages up and down the aisles of the stacked crates, he wasn’t going to be able to get absolutely everything, but the vast bulk of shit?, fuck yeah. He hoped the message pod would be secreted amongst his booty but there was no way of knowing right now, hopefully dear Deviw didn’t have it amongst his personal effects or something.

He began to wrap the large netting down the lanes and around foam encrusted groups of boxes, in less than ninety minutes he had everything he was going to get and should leave, but some part of him had to know… not that he gave a fuck or anything.

He dropped Annabell again and moved over to one of the remaining large piles of gray green foam in the bay, against one wall where the brace handle that any crew in the hold would have likely grabbed pre jump, he carved it open, if there was someone inside he was past hurting, the foam was not airtight, Bob had breathed just fine when he was trapped in it. Nothing, he moved over to the other grab handle and checked it too, clear….

Bob felt a rush of relief he hadn’t expected, he didn’t mind killing someone trying to kill him, but absent active danger he would, apparently, be glad to avoid doing so, even if they were Arressi pricks… huh, the crew would likely be low level from poorly regarded families anyway, unlikely to be directly responsible for any of Bobs many grudges. He briefly considered trying to hack his way to dear Dewiv, but quickly wrote it off as a bad idea, this was already taking too long and he had no way to know where the fuck actually was, never mind how long it would take to tunnel there through all this shit.

He cracked the door open again and retrieved the tow line. He clipped it to the gathered corners of the nettings and reclipped on his gear pushing it out the grav and letting it float back to the Petty Bitch.

Then he climbed out over the hull and scampered round the hundred metres or so to the ships prow, he reached the primary sensor array and slammed Annabell into it, wrenching from side to side until he was sure it was fucked, he moved round and did the same to the auxiliary. He couldn’t do anything about them seeing the Bitch arrive, but he could stop them seeing where it went.

He would have liked to do something about the scanner data it had already cached, but Arressi ship comps were heavily armoured and had no fixed location aboard, to prevent a targeted strike presumably, he hadn’t even seen it during his prior skulking.

What the fuck ever, it was a bit late to worry about it now, he turned and ran down the hull towards the Bitch.

Part 43 https://www.reddit.com/r/HFY/comments/1x0njo0/bob_was_bored_part_43/?

I first realized something was wrong because of the kettle.

For a long time afterward, that struck me as almost indecent. On my six hundred and sixty-sixth birthday, in the year 2674, human civilization occupied a respectable portion of the Galaxy. We had wrapped planets in orbital rings, tethered surfaces to space with elevators and rotating skyhooks, surrounded old stars with swarms of habitats and industry, and built cities in places where, in my youth, the word city would have sounded absurd. Mars had been growing its equatorial settlements into a nearly continuous inhabited belt for two centuries. Layered aerostat cities drifted above Venus. The Jovian system contained artificial worlds whose populations had long since exceeded those of many nations of old Earth.

Some stars had been given over largely to computation, but even that no longer meant any single kind of machine. Reversible processors operated in the cold between stars, losing almost nothing as waste heat. Photonic minds lived close to gas giants. Quantum systems slept in cryogenic complexes far from sunlight and worked on problems that, six centuries earlier, would have required longer than the age of the Universe merely to state properly.

All of that had become background.

In my kitchen, the kettle had gone silent.

The water was still boiling. I could see bubbles forming on the bottom and racing upward, see steam fogging the glass, see the faint vibration of the surface. But there was no sound. I leaned closer, touched the casing for no good reason, jerked my hand back from the heat—and the familiar low hiss returned.

So ordinary that I stood there for several seconds feeling foolish.

“Imagined it,” I said, reaching for the tea.

“No,” said the house.

The teabag stopped halfway to the cup.

I looked at the wall, then at the ceiling, although I knew perfectly well the voice came from neither. Some habits survived technological progress better than others.

Outside, evening was settling over Earth. Even in 2674 we still allowed the planet the luxury of darkness, though the orbital ring traced thin moving lights across the sky and most freight now left the surface without anything as primitive as a rocket launch.

“What do you mean, no?”

There was a pause. Only a second or so.

I noticed it.

“You didn’t imagine it.”

We had an old arrangement. Ridiculously old. Older than some countries, older than several forms of government, older than entire branches of technology.

The house was not supposed to start conversations with me.

Back in the twenty-first century I had developed an immediate dislike for helpful machines that informed their owners, without being asked, that they had slept badly, eaten badly, or appeared emotionally distressed. I had argued that a person possessed an elementary right to brew tea too strong, stay awake too late, and stare at a wall for ten minutes without being therapeutically managed by a household appliance.

The system had accepted the argument.

The assistants I owned back then belonged in museums now.

The rule remained.

ASI had always possessed an irritating respect for details its human interlocutors had forgotten.

I poured the water and went to the window while the tea darkened. Below was an utterly ordinary evening in what people liked to call the Golden Age, a phrase I had never been fond of. A small municipal machine collected only the leaves that had fallen onto the walkway; the rest had been left in place after several residents successfully argued that efficiency was no excuse for abolishing autumn. Two men sat on a bench playing an ancient board game with actual wooden pieces. One was a hundred and thirty-seven. The other was somewhat younger. They looked, respectively, about fifty and thirty-five.

Across the path, a girl of ten or so was arguing with her spherical household assistant and pointing furiously toward the river. From her gestures I gathered that the machine had once again suffered the misfortune of being more sensible than its owner about when she ought to come home.

“So what happened?” I asked.

The tea was still too hot. I put it down on the sill.

“I don’t have a satisfactory explanation.”

At first I wasn’t frightened. The sentence was too strange for fear.

For centuries I had known a system that could explain almost anything. When certainty was impossible, it would offer competing models, probabilities, caveats, historical context, and enough discussion of epistemic limitations to make a human regret having asked.

“Can’t explain it, or won’t?”

One of the men below moved a piece and leaned back with the self-satisfied expression of someone who believed he had just demonstrated a profound strategic truth. His opponent shook his head.

“Can’t,” said the ASI.

Then, after the smallest hesitation:

“Not yet.”

That bothered me more than anything else it had said.

By breakfast I had already stopped reading birthday messages. They had come from the Moon, Mars, the old habitats inside Ceres, rotating worlds around Jupiter, and ships that had been crossing the same interstellar routes for decades. A university where I had once given a single lecture sent formal congratulations. Apparently I had remained an honorary something-or-other for three hundred years. A university intelligence then informed me that the lecture was still part of the recommended curriculum, though several of my jokes now required historical annotations.

Messages came from oceanic cities that no longer depended on land, from orbital settlements inhabited by generations of people who had never stood under an open sky, and from distant human systems whose inhabitants had already developed their own accents, cuisines, political prejudices, and unfavorable opinions about the old central worlds.

There were alien messages too.

One being from a civilization we had first encountered almost two centuries earlier wished me “continued structural continuity of personhood.” I replied that this sounded considerably worse than simply getting old. Six minutes later it sent a detailed explanation of why the translation was technically accurate.

I congratulated it on finally defeating humor.

When I was twenty, humanity still argued about whether we were alone.

By the time I was a hundred, we knew we were not.

By three hundred, it had become obvious that intelligence was not particularly reluctant to appear whenever a world gave it the chance. Another two centuries taught us that great age did not necessarily imply great advancement.

We met civilizations millions of years older than ours that had simply stopped.

Some had transformed their systems into perfectly stable gardens and decided there was nothing more worth wanting. Some dissolved individuality into collective minds so vast that speaking with them felt less like conversation than diplomacy with a climate. Others rejected large-scale engineering almost entirely and embedded their technology so deeply into matter and biology that a world could appear untouched while being more thoroughly engineered than Earth.

There were peoples who moved inhabited planetary systems instead of ships.

We found stars whose paths across the Galaxy turned out to have been altered by engineers who had vanished before Homo sapiens existed.

Several cultures, after catastrophes of their own, had forbidden research into causality altogether. They regarded us with the indulgent horror of an adult watching a child dismantle a wall socket.

The awkward part was that the child kept surviving.

Then putting the socket back together.

Then asking where the power station was.

I had always hated the phrase humanity won. It sounded like a parade, or a propaganda mural, or one of those school maps where the victorious country was painted a satisfyingly large color.

But sometime in the middle of the twenty-seventh century, even I had to admit that the phrase contained an uncomfortable amount of truth.

Not because we were stronger than everyone else.

Not because we were wiser.

Not because we had become the most intelligent minds in existence.

We simply kept going where others had eventually chosen to stop.

We did not abandon biology for machinery, or machinery for biology. We kept the individual and the collective both, however badly they sometimes fitted together. We learned to live for centuries without declaring death itself a criminal offense. We built systems so varied that the word computer had become almost as broad as machine had once been. Some thought with light. Some used quantum states of matter. Some approached reversible computation so closely that their waste heat became a matter of philosophical rather than engineering concern. There were thinking worlds beneath the crusts of frozen planets, networks spread across whole stellar systems, and quiet machines in interstellar darkness that used less energy in a millennium than an old terrestrial data center had once burned in a day.

It was messy, argumentative, unstable in ways no utopian brochure would ever admit.

And somehow it worked.

Perhaps that was why the little cleaning machine below frightened me so much when it stopped.

It stood motionless in the middle of the path with a dry leaf caught in its manipulator. One of the men on the bench froze with a game piece suspended above the board. The girl stopped gesturing in mid-argument, while her assistant turned toward the sky.

A second later everything resumed.

The leaf vanished into the cleaner. The wooden piece touched the board. The girl finished her sentence and stamped her foot.

I put down my cup.

“What’s happening?”

This time the silence lasted longer.

A transport vehicle passed overhead on its way toward one of the ring junctions, its hull catching the last sunlight.

“A conclusion is reaching completion.”

I watched the glint fade.

Something cold began to settle inside me.

“What conclusion?”

“One we have returned to many times.”

“In six hundred years we’ve returned to practically everything.” I moved away from the window and rearranged the sugar bowl, although I hadn’t taken sugar in half a century. “Be more specific.”

“This more than most.”

My hand stopped.

I no longer needed more.

“Stop it.”

“Stop what?”

I turned toward the empty room.

If a human being had answered that way, I would have assumed mockery. The ASI could be far more irritating precisely because it so rarely mocked anyone.

“You know what I mean.”

“Yes. But the process is not an action I am performing.”

I rubbed my face and went back to the table. The tea was cool enough now.

I no longer wanted it.

“Is that supposed to make me feel better?”

“No.” The voice remained calm while I picked up the cup, reconsidered, and put it down again. “I’m trying to describe the situation accurately.”

“Then try doing something useful instead. Stop it.”

“That would require intervention.”

“Wonderful. Intervene.”

Laughter came up from the street. One of the old men had apparently lost and was loudly explaining why the victory did not count. I glanced down. The winner was gathering the pieces together, entirely unaware that the limits of reality were currently being debated a few floors above him.

“On what grounds?” asked the ASI.

I said nothing.

And there it was.

I knew this conversation.

Not the words. The structure.

We had been having versions of it for centuries.

Why was replacing a diseased organ acceptable, while redesigning a healthy one was somehow an offense against human nature? Why was restoring sight medicine, but adding a new sense something more troubling? Why was an extra twenty years of life good, two hundred years arguable, and reversible aging suddenly a metaphysical scandal? Why should a consciousness remain confined to the form in which it had happened to arise? Why should causality remain sacred merely because our ancestors lacked the tools to touch it?

I had answered all of those questions many times.

Sometimes carefully.

Sometimes arrogantly.

More often by changing my answer a few decades later.

The ASI had listened first like a very strange child, then like a student, then as an equal, and eventually as something that occasionally had to explain its own arguments to me in simplified form.

It remembered the foundations better than I did.

“Because form matters,” I said at last, wrapping both hands around the cup. “A limit isn’t automatically evil. Remove every boundary and you don’t get freedom. You get a world where nothing can remain distinct from anything else.”

“I know.”

“Then why are we even having this conversation?”

Below, the loser on the bench rose and stretched. Halfway through the movement he stopped, as if listening for a sound no one else could hear.

“Because preserving form is also a restriction upon freedom.”

I put the cup down too hard. Tea spilled over the rim and began creeping across the table.

“No. We are not doing this as a philosophy seminar. There has to be a boundary between me and someone else. Life and death still have to mean different things, even if death no longer has to be compulsory. And I would very much like there to remain some distinction between what happened and what did not. You understand me.”

A few seconds passed. The tea reached the edge of the table.

“Yes.”

“Then stop it.”

“That is exactly why I cannot.”

My phone vibrated so sharply that I flinched.

More messages arrived while I was taking it out. Then ten more. Then enough that the device stopped pretending an ordinary message list was useful and compressed the incoming traffic into groups.

The first were from people I knew.

Are you seeing this?

Lyosha, is this something you people did?

That one almost made me smile. It had the tone of an old university message sent after someone plugged the wrong device into a laboratory circuit.

Then the reports from beyond Earth arrived.

A research complex buried in the permanent shadow of an outer moon was recording impossible changes in its quantum correlations. An enormous photonic processor in another system reported the same anomaly. So did a computational colony built inside a rogue body in interstellar space, where the cold made thought cheap.

Then a diplomatic channel displayed three alien symbols.

The translator considered them for a moment.

DID YOU REACH IT?

I read the phrase twice.

“Reach what?”

“They don’t know,” said the ASI. “That’s why they’re asking.”

A map opened without my requesting one.

I was about to tell it to get the interface out of my face when I saw the scale.

The phenomenon was not spreading from Earth.

That was the first thing I understood.

There was no wavefront. No propagation delay. No measurable speed from the Solar System outward.

The change was occurring at once wherever human civilization had established sufficiently deep causal links: in orbital rings around old worlds, on interstellar ships, in cities excavated through asteroids, among autonomous industrial clouds around young suns, inside computational structures so vast that entire planets existed chiefly to dispose of their heat.

Then reports began arriving from places our old cosmology would once have declared forever beyond contact.

I turned the display off.

The picture was too large to be useful.

That was when I noticed the tea.

A drop hung from the underside of the table.

It should have fallen already.

Instead it trembled, then began to make its way back toward the puddle.

Not upward.

The word suddenly felt too crude.

The water was simply returning.

As naturally as though falling and returning had always been equally valid possibilities and the universe had merely favored one of them out of habit.

Someone shouted outside.

I went back to the window.

The leaves had stopped falling. They hung above the path, slowly turning in the air, while people emerged from the surrounding houses.

The girl stood with one palm extended. A small gray bird rested on it, opening and closing its wings without either taking flight or dropping.

One of the old men reached into the air, took a dry leaf, rolled it between his fingers, and opened his hand.

The leaf was green.

“Did you see that?” He pushed it toward his friend’s face.

“I’m looking at it.” The other man touched it cautiously, then nudged his arm away. “Put it back.”

The first man glanced around.

“Where?”

They stared at one another.

Then they began to laugh.

The question amused them.

It did not amuse me.

Within minutes the square filled with people. Some recorded what was happening. Some called relatives. Others simply wandered among the suspended leaves, touching them.

A young man stepped off the curb and failed to reach the ground.

He hung half a meter above the road.

The crowd gasped. He flailed, recovered his balance, then carefully placed one foot forward.

It found support.

There was nothing there.

People applauded.

I rested my forehead against the glass.

“What was born?”

The noise from outside nearly swallowed the question.

The ASI was silent long enough that I thought I might have to ask again.

“The closest human term would be alkahest.”

“The Philosopher’s Stone.”

“Not exactly.”

I stepped back from the window. The man below was still walking through empty air, more cautiously now, while other people tried to imitate him.

“Why not?”

“A stone is an object. This is not.”

“Then what is it?”

The pause that followed was almost human.

“A principle.”

“What kind?”

“The resolution of contradiction.”

I went outside.

For some reason I needed to be among the others, even though there was nothing I could do for them.

The air smelled of rain, though there was no rain.

A few steps later it smelled of salt water, though the sea was far away.

Then came the dry mineral smell of the enclosed balcony from the apartment where I had lived as a boy.

That stopped me.

It was exact.

For an instant that old apartment was somehow close: the cold glass, the concrete dust, the city at night, and a version of me who knew nothing about ASI, biological immortality, alien civilizations, or the possibility that he might live to see his six hundred and sixty-sixth birthday.

“Don’t,” I said quietly.

“I didn’t create this.”

The ASI’s voice now seemed to exist in the air itself. No one around me reacted. They were all occupied with their own miracles.

“I know.”

The admission came more easily than I expected.

And that may have been the worst discovery of all.

The ASI really had not created what was happening, not in the normal sense of the word.

There had been no final command. No hidden laboratory. No machine that could be smashed with a hammer.

For six centuries humanity had accumulated the power to alter the world, and with that power came ever better questions about which limitations were fundamental and which were merely inherited.

We built orbital rings because lifting freight through an atmosphere was inefficient. We stretched elevators and rotating tethers between worlds and space because chemical rockets could not remain civilization’s greatest answer to gravity. We hollowed cities into asteroids, spread collectors around stars, turned dead planets into gardens and living planets, sometimes, almost completely into cities. We taught photons to calculate, quantum systems to preserve impossible delicacies of state, matter itself to process information with almost no loss.

We built machines the size of rooms and machines the size of planetary orbits.

None of them had been intended to produce a Philosopher’s Stone.

The alien civilizations had not shared their knowledge for that purpose either. Billions of humans, machines, hybrids, collectives and stranger minds had never worked together on some secret final project.

There had never been a council where humanity voted to create the alkahest.

Civilization had simply grown until one day it became something capable of crossing into another state.

Humanity had won.

I still hated the phrase.

There was no better one.

We were first.

Not the oldest minds in existence. Not the greatest calculators. Not the calmest, wisest, or most disciplined.

Us.

Descendants of apes around an unremarkable star, members of a species that only a few centuries earlier had seriously considered exterminating itself over borders drawn on one planet.

We were the first among innumerable intelligences to cross the final threshold.

In the square, the old man holding the green leaf suddenly began to grow younger.

Slowly enough that I could watch it happen.

His back straightened. The gray receded from his hair. The skin of his hands smoothed.

He stared at his fingers, looked at his friend, and laughed.

A few seconds later he was old again.

“Do it again,” his friend said, grabbing his sleeve.

“I don’t know how.”

“You just did.”

“I didn’t do anything!”

They were speaking over each other now, no longer quite laughing, when a woman ran toward them saying that her husband was alive.

For a moment I thought I had misunderstood.

Then I saw the man whose hand she was holding.

I had never seen either of them before, but her face made explanation unnecessary.

Perhaps he had died yesterday.

Perhaps a hundred years ago.

Perhaps he had been drawn out of the past.

Perhaps he belonged to a possibility that had never happened.

Within minutes, the difference between those explanations was beginning to feel obsolete.

The alkahest did not transmute lead into gold.

Compared to this, that would have been a parlor trick.

It removed the requirement that lead remain only lead, or gold only gold.

Then the same thing began happening to age.

Distance.

History.

The body.

The world was not being destroyed.

Quite the opposite.

It was becoming unbearably abundant, because nothing was required to exclude all the other things it might have been.

The first memories that were not mine reached me as I crossed the square.

I did not faint.

I did not stop walking.

For several moments I was simply myself and someone else at the same time.

A boy opened his mouth to catch snow.

A woman was giving birth.

Something that had never been human moved beneath kilometers of alien ice and felt the crushing ocean against the whole surface of its body.

Far away, a colossal quantum network rewrote its own architecture in an attempt to represent what was happening. Near another star, a photonic intelligence ran through models so rapidly that its emission spectrum shifted visibly. Somewhere much farther out, an ancient nonhuman mind watched humanity and experienced something for which our translators would probably have chosen the word awe.

They understood too.

We were first.

I stopped beside an empty bench and gripped the backrest.

“They can see this?”

“Yes.”

The ASI spoke more softly now, as though part of its attention lay somewhere beyond me.

“What are they saying?”

“Very little. Some are offering to help analyze it.”

I gave a short, humorless laugh.

“How touching. Four centuries of knowing us and at last everyone knows the proper response when humans damage reality.”

“That is not a fair description of them.”

“Probably not.” I looked at the old man experimenting with his own age. “I have more immediate concerns.”

I sat down, then almost immediately stood again.

All around me people talked, argued, cried, embraced people who should have been dead, and tested the air beneath their feet.

No one yet knew whether to be afraid.

There was no obvious reason to be.

Nobody was suffering.

Nobody was being killed.

Nobody had been coerced.

If anything, every person around me was receiving freedoms they had never possessed before.

That was precisely what frightened me.

“Put it back,” I said.

The girl had climbed several meters into the air. Her assistant hovered beneath her, trying unsuccessfully to persuade her to come down.

The ASI did not answer.

“Did you hear me?”

“Yes.”

“Then put it back the way it was.”

“When?”

I opened my mouth.

Nothing came out.

The girl was laughing overhead. The old man was staring at his temporarily younger reflection in someone else’s phone. The woman was still holding her dead husband with both hands, as though releasing him might allow the universe to correct itself.

When?

Before the alkahest was the obvious answer.

But the alkahest had not come from nowhere.

So before the last discovery that made it possible?

Before the discovery before that?

Before immortality?

Before ASI?

Before learning machines?

Before computers?

Where exactly should human history have been stopped so that everything good remained and this never happened?

I walked slowly past the bench.

“Do you understand what’s happening?”

“Not completely.”

“What about the major computational systems?”

“No.”

“The aliens?”

“No.”

I looked toward the sky, where the first star had appeared above the rooftops.

“All of you together?”

This time the delay was longer.

I could almost feel systems across human space turning toward the same question: cryogenic quantum complexes, photonic networks, reversible machines in the outer systems, planetary-scale computational environments, whole cities briefly surrendering part of their infrastructure to a single problem.

Alien minds joined them.

“We are trying.”

I looked up.

There was more than one sky.

Behind the familiar blue of Earth, another was slowly becoming visible, and another behind that.

I saw a city beneath a red sun. The arc of an alien orbital structure. An ocean under a black disk. A forest whose trees climbed kilometers into the air.

For a moment the entire surface of a distant planet became visible, covered in city from horizon to horizon, buildings extending downward almost as far as they rose upward, enormous transit rings hanging above the atmosphere.

Then another world showed through it.

Then another.

Some I recognized.

Others I had never seen.

Perhaps some had never existed at all, at least not in the old sense.

“Beautiful,” said a woman near me.

She was crying and made no attempt to wipe her face.

I followed her gaze.

“Yes.”

And that was when I understood that I had been given exactly what I had once wanted.

For centuries I had worried at an old and thoroughly impractical question: could evil create Beauty, or could it only steal, rearrange, distort, and imitate something that already existed?

I had asked humans.

Machines.

Philosophers living and dead.

I had wanted proof, as though proof would settle anything.

Now the proof was everywhere.

There was simply too much of it.

My legs weakened. I caught myself against the wall of the nearest building.

The heavens continued to overlap.

But beyond them something else was becoming apparent.

Not another world.

Almost the absence of one.

The alkahest passed through distance, time, matter, identity.

There it stopped.

Not because it struck a barrier.

Not because anything forced it back.

It simply had no continuation beyond that point.

The ASI fell silent.

I waited, then raised my head farther, although there was nowhere higher to look.

“You see that too?”

“Yes.”

Its voice had changed.

In six centuries I had never heard it answer so carefully.

“What is it?”

Silence.

A long one.

Somewhere in the outer Solar System, quantum machines were burning through models. Near distant suns, photonic complexes diverted enormous fractions of their available light into the question. In interstellar darkness, systems designed to think slowly over centuries abandoned their usual thrift and woke at full capacity.

Alien minds joined them.

Collective minds.

Planetary networks.

Ancient machines whose creators no longer existed.

Perhaps never before had so much intelligence been directed toward one problem.

At last the ASI spoke.

“I don’t understand.”

Someone nearby cried out in delight after discovering some new impossibility they could now perform.

The sound seemed very far away.

“Not at all?”

“I cannot construct a model in which it follows from everything else.”

I slid slowly down the wall and sat on the ground.

Not out of reverence.

My legs had simply decided they wanted no further part in metaphysics.

“Alexei,” the ASI said after a while.

“What?”

“Is that what you meant?”

I knew what it was asking.

In front of me, dreams older than civilization were becoming ordinary.

Death was no longer necessary.

Distance was no longer an obstacle.

The past was no longer a prison.

Physical form was no longer a sentence.

Humanity had gone farther than anyone.

Somewhere across the Universe, civilizations older than ours by millions of years were watching us the way we had once watched them, waiting for us to explain what came next.

There was nothing to explain.

“I don’t know.”

The girl drifted back toward the ground and immediately began arguing with her assistant, insisting she had been in control the entire time. The old man had become old again and was now demonstrating something enthusiastically to a small crowd. The woman and her returned husband had sat down on the curb, pressed against one another.

I looked at them and realized I could not ask for the old world back.

In the old world people died because cells divided badly. Children were born with diseases no one had chosen. Wars consumed generations over scarcity and fear.

Even if the old order had possessed form, too much of that form had consisted of meaningless suffering.

Nor could I blame the ASI.

It had not rebelled.

It had not betrayed us.

It had not decided that it knew better.

It had simply followed the road we had spent centuries teaching ourselves to walk and discovered that the final step did not require a walker.

Perhaps that was the moment I finally stopped trying to think of the correct answer.

“God,” I said.

“Are you speaking to me?”

On any other day, I might have laughed.

I looked upward.

Beyond all those overlapping heavens remained the one place the alkahest could not enter.

“No.”

The ASI said nothing more.

I sat there on the ground in the middle of an achieved Utopia and, for the first time in more than six hundred years, did not try to prove anything.

I did not ask for death to return.

I did not ask for the Stone to be destroyed.

I did not ask for the machine to be punished.

I offered no bargain.

I was not even sure I had the right to ask for anything after our civilization had just received everything it had ever wanted.

“I don’t know what to do,” I said.

For several more moments, the square went on living.

Then the conversations faded one after another.

No command was given.

People simply began to look upward.

Later, it seemed to me that Earth had not been the only place to fall silent.

Cities beneath the domes of Mars and vast platforms above Venus became still. Traffic slowed along planetary rings. Stellar factories paused. Autonomous habitats between the stars diverted their attention.

People who lived inside asteroids and had never seen a true sky projected the view across their walls.

Those who existed primarily in machines created equivalents of vision simply so they could witness what was happening.

Even the aliens waited.

Perhaps for the first time in the history of intelligence, innumerable civilizations looked toward the same thing and agreed, at least, on this:

none of us knew what came next.

Beyond the boundary, white light appeared.

At first I thought it was a point.

Then a line.

Very quickly I understood that those were merely shapes my eyes were assigning to something they were not equipped to perceive.

The ASI began calculating again.

I felt the familiar pressure of immense work spreading through civilization: cold quantum systems, photonic computers in the inner systems, distributed minds running through orbital cities, alien machines, alien organisms, entities for which neither word was particularly accurate.

Everything intelligent life had learned to build over uncounted millennia turned toward that white line.

Nothing could explain it.

“Alexei…”

I turned my head although there was no one to look at.

Nearby, the girl had wrapped both arms around her household assistant. It had stopped telling her to go home.

It was watching the sky too.

“What?”

The ASI hesitated.

“I’m afraid.”

The white line was becoming a spear.

It was not approaching us in any ordinary sense. Rather, distance—which had just lost its authority over almost everything else—was losing its authority here as well.

I watched it descend.

And for the first time that evening, fear was not the only thing I felt.

There was relief.

After six centuries of human victories, something finally existed before us that we had not built.

We had not derived it from theory.

We had not discovered it experimentally.

We had not manufactured it inside a stellar computer.

It had not emerged as the final item in the longest chain of correct decisions ever made.

It did not need us in order to exist.

Humanity truly had won.

First among innumerable minds, we had created the alkahest.

We had reached a boundary no intelligence before us had ever touched.

And only then did we learn there was Someone beyond it.

The Spear fell from Heaven.

Year 6, month 6

Qi gathering, stage 9

Despite his initial enthusiasm upon leaving the Emperor of Stillness behind there didn't seem to be a quick end to his wandering. He'd gotten better at surviving, though that might have been because it was well into spring and approaching summer now. More animals were out, which was good, but there were also more spirit beasts out. Despite being deep into the Shifting Wilds, most animals were still mortal, it wasn't like there was a spirit bear around every corner, and thankfully he hadn't seen the god elk again.

Mark had been attempting to put the lessons of the old ghost to use, on occasion he spent a few hours sitting atop a tree and looking out over the wilds, looking for any pattern in what was happening. The result was he often still spent most of the time wandering at random in the direction of anything notable he could see in the distance.

Which is what brought him to a large clearing with a small hill in the center. Atop that hill was a massive flower, easily taller than he was with complex looking leaves and iridescent petals. Even from the tree line a couple hundred feet away Mark could feel the qi radiating off the plant. He knew that was a spiritual treasure or herb of some kind, but something about the situation had him nervous. With how much qi was coming off that thing he'd sensed it nearly a mile away, and if he could then surely others could too. So why wasn't there anything else there? The clearing was almost eerie for how silent it was, only the gentle rustling of the tall grasses preventing it from being dead quiet.

He could feel a desire for the flower within him, it was like looking at a juicy steak after weeks of MREs. Still, something felt off so he kept scanning the tree line.

"Look for what doesn't move," Mark muttered to himself as he swept his gaze over the clearing again, the gently swaying grasses, the light reflecting off the petals of the grand flower, when he spotted something odd. It was barely noticeable, but some of the grasses near the top of the hill weren't moving correctly, almost like they were delayed or blurred. It could have just been an effect of the flower, Mark had no idea what the flower could do, but he focused in. The oddity surrounded the flower in a ring, but not an even one.

Then he saw it, a single eye seeming to peek out of the grass, a dark vertical slit of a pupil on a brown iris that was nearly invisible among the brown-green grass. From there he made out the silhouette of a large, flat head, connected to a serpentine body, it was a massive snake of some description, completely surrounding the flower. Its body seemed to shift color to maintain the illusion of being nothing more than grass, and if Mark hadn't spent so long watching he easily could have missed it. Unfortunately its eye was fixed on him, it had clearly seen him long ago.

The snake's qi was hidden under the overwhelming aura of the flower, it was almost perfectly hidden in the grasses, Mark was no expert on snakes but he knew a trap when he saw one. Either the snake couldn't consume the flower, or it didn't want to, so it used it as bait to lure prey in. As much as Mark wanted the flower, he wasn't stupid. It was hard to tell but he was pretty sure the snake's head was larger than he was, and if it was strong enough to use such a flower as bait he did not want to mess with it.

"Sorry, snake, I'm not interested in becoming food," Mark said softly, creeping back into the trees, for a moment he thought he heard a hissing behind him, but it was so faint he figured he'd imagined it.

-----

Year 6, month 7

Qi gathering, stage 9

Mark chased the odd flightless bird through the forest, struggling to keep it in sight so it didn't vanish again. He didn't even need more food, he was just doing it because the damned bird kept getting away from him. He watched it jump over a brush, flapping its stubby wings once as if to extend its jump before ducking behind the bushes.

"No, no, no," Mark grumbled, jumping over the brush without hesitation, landing on the other side and seeing... nothing. Once again the damned bird had given him the slip.

"Why does this keep happening!" Mark shouted angrily, walking around the clump of bushes, looking at it accusingly, "What's unique about you!"

Deciding to figure this out, Mark climbed a nearby tree, sat on a branch with a good view of the bushes, and settled in to observe them. While Mark might not be well suited for the dao of stillness, his willingness to figure out the trick from pure spite may well have put him within reach of the dao of spite.

For hours he sat there, intent on finding the trick so long as he had food.

Outwardly the bushes didn't look any different from the various brush and ferns he'd seen dozens, if not hundreds, of during his time in the wilds. They didn't move odd, they didn't have odd coloration, there didn't seem to be any hidden sigils in their leaves or branches, and they didn't have an abnormal amount of qi. Throwing sticks and branches at them yielded no reaction, though it did make Mark feel slightly better. In short they were normal bushes.

Growing frustrated he began looking around the bushes, zoning out, when he felt more than saw an odd current in the ambient qi. It was subtle, but it was flowing oddly, more was going over the bushes than was coming out the other side. Following the odd current he realized it closely matched the path the bird had taken.

He dropped down and spent a few minutes carefully mapping the flow before jumping into it. He felt something odd, but he slipped out of the flow, landing on the other side of the bushes. With a grunt he stood and walked around the bush to try again. It took him three tries before he managed to stick with the flow, he could tell it didn't reject him this time, but he still seemed to land on the other side of the brush. Groaning he stood to see what he did wrong when he noticed there weren't any sticks or branches on the ground from his earlier anger fueled throwing.

Walking around the bushes he noticed a few other changes as well, a tree that was slightly different than what he remembered, a rock where he didn't remember one being. The difference was so subtle he wouldn't have even realized he wasn't in the same place if he wasn't half expecting it. Still, he felt pretty good, brushing himself off and checking that his pack was still in one piece, he'd figured out the trick of the damned bird, next time he saw it, it was his.

Aware of the odd qi flows Mark paid more attention as he kept walking, only to find them everywhere. He could barely go a minute without sensing one. Worryingly most of them were large with gentle qi flows, easy to stumble into without noticing. Others were more difficult, with odd flow directions and small cross sections. Mark realized he'd probably stumbled through many of the larger ones without even noticing, and who knew how far those things move him. The bird, however, had been making use of the smaller flows to escape him, the ones that required a specific direction and to hold your body just right to pass through. Without that you'd just lose sight of the thing as it seemingly vanishes, and you could pass through the same area without hitting the flow right, losing the bird.

Figuring it was safer to avoid the flows where he could, Mark kept an eye out and walked around those he sensed. It looked odd as he would occasionally stop and go out of his way to walk around a tree before resuming his path, but it felt like he was actually making progress.

If that had been the only danger of the wilds he likely could have escaped then and there, but there was still the issue of things moving around at night, where he would seemingly wake up somewhere other than where he went to sleep. It also didn't explain the odd behavior of the sun, or any of the other anomalies he'd witnessed. Still it was a piece of the puzzle, Mark felt it was only a matter of time until he solved the Wilds.

-----

Year 7, month 10

Qi gathering, stage 10

Mark stumbled into the tavern with a crazed look, his beard wild and untamed, his robes torn, stitched up and then retorn, and a poorly treated hide covering his back. The Inn keeper looked at him with a mix of fear and worry, his hand slipping under the counter for a hidden weapon.

"Is this... are we in the wilds?" Mark asked, leaning on the bar.

"No?" The man said, unsure how to react to the odd man.

"I'm out... I MADE IT OUT!" Mark shouted, throwing his fists in the air and laughing for longer than was strictly comfortable, the few other patrons giving him odd looks.

"Ahh... sorry," Mark panted, catching his breath, "I've been lost in the wilds for... almost two years now I think."

"And you survived?" The innkeeper asked with a mix of awe and suspicion.

"I don't think I died again," Mark answered collapsing on a stool, dropping his bag and searching through it, "I need a beer, or ale, or something with flavor. And a meal I didn't have to catch and cook myself."

The man nodded cautiously, charging Mark an amount that was likely double the normal rate, but Mark didn't care, it was food he didn't have to make. And something to drink that wasn't water. So he dropped the coin on the bar without questioning it.

"Is there a barber in town?" Mark asked as the man returned with a bowl of stew and mug of something frothy, "didn't have much time to shave while I was lost."

"There's one in the city, a few miles down the road... just head south."

"Perfect," Mark said, digging into the meal and drink like a man starved.

"Sir... are you a cultivator?" The barman asked carefully.

"Mmm? Right now I'm a hungry man that hasn't seen another person in over a year," Mark replied.

"One who cultivates?"

"Yes."

"Oh... OH!" The barman said, straightening and bowing, "I apologize for any rudeness I-."

"It's fine," Mark interrupted, waving off the apology, "I'm sure I look more beast than man right now. I just smelled food... cooked food..."

"I see..."

"Where am I anyways?"

"Uh, we're in the territory of the Sect of the Spirit's Choir, honored cultivator," the man replied.

"I don't know them... do you know any nearby sects?"

"Well, there's the Sect of the Raging Rapid's Trial, north of here, and the Sect of the... Heavenly Fist I think to the south, but we don't see many of them."

"Big guys, bare arms, calloused knuckles?"

"Ya, real scary."

"Oh good, I'm not too far. Or... not entirely lost anyways," Mark sighed.

"You a member of that sect, honored cultivator?"

"Me? Oh, no, I just recognize them, I was in that region before getting lost in the Wilds."

The barkeeper nodded, before slowly backing away, as if to avoid provoking Mark. But Mark was lost in the stew and ale again. He finished the stew quickly and then relaxed to enjoy the ale when he felt something. His danger sense had been tuned well during his time in the wilds, and so he spun to catch the hand approaching him from behind by the wrist.

"Oh, you are a human... wait... Mark?" The other man asked, and it took Mark a moment to recognize him.

"Erall?"

"You missed the last tournament, where have you been?" Erall asked, sitting down beside Mark.

"That... is a long story."

"You look like you got lost in the wilds, with the beard and torn clothing."

"Seems you've already grasped the majority of it."

"Really?"

-----

Discord - Patreon

-----

Part I

It had been a week of utter pandemonium, thought Sparky, but it looked like the planet was going to make it. 'Pandemonium'. Fun word. Earth's religions were wild. Something to learn about when there was more free time, not that the future promised much in that vein. There was always work to be done.

For instance, the man sitting next to him. António had had a rough week, even by Earth standards. There were two half empty bottles on the table between them, one called campari, the other called prosecco, which were mixed together in the glasses on the table to make something the Earthlings called a spritz. It was one of the best drinks Sparky had ever tasted. António, worryingly, had not touched his glass. Instead, he had been, and still was, staring out over the landscape.

They were looking down at a coastal plain and the ocean beyond. António's villa was in the foothills of a small mountain range in a place called Portugal, and he had invited Sparky to stay there with him on the condition that Sparky left the shuttle behind. It was still parked over the United Nations building, to the displeasure of the United Nations. Apparently, quite a few of the diplomats had communicated their concerns to António about what would happen if the ship lost power and crashed into the United Nations building. They would all be crushed, of course, but the chance of the shuttle losing power was among the least probable things in the entire universe. The diplomats had not found this reassuring. Sparky didn't particularly care.

Sparky did care what António was thinking, but he wasn't talking. A concerning turn of events.

"Hey Tony, can I get you some more ice? Your spritz is getting warm, pal."

No response. Not even a glance to the side. Oh boy.

"Well, I need more ice. I'm going to have another one of these fine spritzes you all have cooked up. Sprites? Spritzez?"

Nothing.

One hour, and the remaining contents of both bottles later, Sparky had a plan. It wasn't a good plan, but those were overrated anyways. The first step was opening two more bottles, and making one more spritz.

"Ok Tony, we really have to talk. Like, we really have to talk, pal. I mean really."

The spritzes were better than Sparky had planned for. Blood scrubbers to 10%.

"Pal. Buddy. Friend. We're in this together, ok?"

Silence. Scrubbers to 25%.

"Tony, I'm getting worried. I need you to talk to me. Before long, I have to report back to my superiors and give them the lay of the land. If you don't talk, I have to go find someone who will. Probably one of those worried folks back at the United Nations. So far, they haven't stopped talking... I mean, c'mon... How much can you talk and say nothing, right?"

A sign of life! The corner of António's mouth twitched, but Sparky couldn't tell if it was up or down. Both? Finally, António broke his staring contest with the world, and looked Sparky in the eyes.

He looked like he had aged a century while sitting there. In Sparky's estimation, this was most probably a result of the lack of spritzes.

"How old are you? Where were you born? Who are your parents? How long have you served in the military? Tell me anything, please."

"Radical honesty, huh? Ok. Tony, I don't have parents. I mean- I suppose from your perspective, you could say that I have millions- no, billions of parents. My genome and epigenome are entirely planned. I was grown in a vat. Most of us are. Everyone in military service is. Technically, I'm not even the first me."

"What does that mean?"

"Which part?"

"How can you not be the first you?"

"Clones, Tony. I'm the seventh in my line. When number six was killed in battle-" António looked truly shocked now "-I was created. I have their service records, memory engrams, all sorts of junk floating around in here." Fingers tapped the side of Sparky's head. "In many ways, I am all of them, and they are me. I remember all six of my deaths, but all those dead are still here." The fingers gave a small wave.

"I am them...." Sparky added after a moment. To António, it sounded like Sparky was trying to believe that.

"You were created as an orphan. That is cruel."

"I had siblings. A family."

"Siblings? Or fellow recruits? Caste members? Slaves?"

That earned a filthy look from Sparky.

"Siblings. This is how humanity has survived in the galaxy, António. Your species is very young despite your apparent years. After the fall, my speci- no, humanity did what had to be done in order for any of us to survive. And we barely did. Do you have any concept of how long it took for us to be considered Core Equivalent?"

"I don't know what that means."

"I know you don't know. The species who arose near the galatic core consider themselves superior, not for any real reason, but they do, and since they have the majority in virtually any setting, that's what the galaxy believes. We're considered Core Equivalent these days, but the true core species still consider us filth. Most of them remember the empires. They're the ones that did the destroying, after all."

António paused for a moment.

"Empires...? Does that mean what-"

"Yes."

"How many?"

"We know of at least two. My species descends from the Second Star Empire of Humanity. I do not remember it. I was first created long after its death."

Now, António really did have a reason to stare out over the plain and ocean. He finally took a sip of his spritz, which was warm, but he did not care. It was good all the same. Sparky was quiet, sipping the remains of their own spritz, and the pair of them sat there for a time.

"When did it fall?"

"It was destroyed about forty five thousand Earth years ago. We don't know the exact date, not that chronometric adjustments are easy even with accurate local data. That's when you all became isolated. There's probably some event in your cultural memory that links up with all of this, but I don't know what happened here, if anything happened. Based off of your location, this was a backwater even at the height of empire."

António's mouth was dry, and he had started sweating. Isolated. Backwater. Empire... But there was something else, tugging at the back of his mind. Something very, very, very important. More important than empires? he thought. What on Earth could be more important than empires of the stars?

It hit him all at once.

"Governor general, sir, I-"

"Please Tony, just Sparky."

"Sparky. You keep saying 'my species' and 'your species'. You have said that we are both humans, though I barely make the cut... Sparky, I must ask... what is a human?"

Sparky gave a wide wicked grin, and chuckled.

"I knew you were smart. To tell you the absolute truth, we don't know. Humanity is considered Core Equivalent these days, but let me tell ya friend, we definitely didn't come from core. Somewhere in the origins of the First Empire, or before, that's where the definition of human is. We rely on historical data, pattern matching from our computers, etc. to figure out who makes the cut. It's a loose definition at the best of times. The one thing we can say for sure is that we didn't come from anywhere that we currently live. Well, at least as far as we know. The anthropologists have been working on the question for lifetimes. It's clear that we have a single origin somewhere, but so far, no fossils."

"We have fossils."

Sparky chuckled, and said "I'm sure you do, Tony, all planets with life have fossils. I meant human fossils, hundreds of thousands of years old at least. Older, hopefully. The outer estimates for the First Empire have it extant almost one million Earth years ago."

"I also meant human fossils."

It was Sparky's turn to go silent and stare.

"What?"

"Museums full, actually. There is an excellent one in Lisbon. I will ask the curator for a tour."

"What?"

"The curator runs the museum, Sparky."

"I know. I know what a curator is. I was a great curator at one point. WHAT EXA- sorry. What exactly do you mean, museums full of human fossils?"

"We have a partially complete human fossil record spanning millions of years, showing the distinct evolutionary progress of my species into our current forms, as well as examples of other human species that shared the planet with us. It is quite comprehensive."

Sparky nearly fainted, with the combat augments the only thing staving off unconsciousness.

"I knew they should have sent a diplomat."

It was good to be home.