She sighed heavily. “The colonies that did survive . . . you never know what you’ll find. The earliest ones, like Guera, had time to adapt to their new homes before Isolation began; some of those colonies are quite well developed, and may even have space travel of their own. But other colonies were cut off before they got all the supplies and personnel that a new colony needed to survive. When their children were born with what they perceived as horrific deformities, when the home planet cut off all contact without warning, they had no idea why these things were happening. All they knew was that Earth had abandoned them in their time of need, and they hated it for that. Later generations might come to blame Earth for all their troubles, even ones the Terrans had nothing to do with. They needed to blame someone, and an absent scapegoat is the best kind, as it can’t fight back.”
“Amen to that,” he muttered.
“In some places, that hatred took on a dark spiritual aspect. Humanity does love its religions. Earth became the Great Betrayer, existential source of all pain and suffering, the embodiment of evil. In order for your people to prosper, you had to hold its malevolence at bay. Some colonies even viewed Earth as a demon proper, that must be placated or exorcised if humans were to prosper. Tully and I found one colony where—” She stopped for a moment. Took a deep breath. “They threw babies into an abyss,” she said softly. “The spirit of Earth demanded death, they told us, and if they offered it a sacrifice of their own free will, others would be spared.”
“Shit,” Micah muttered. “That’s pretty messed up.”
“Now you understand why we don’t usually talk to outsiders about such things. But every outrider has seen them.” She shut her eyes. “By the time we show up, strangers from the sky, the language of such a colony has evolved into new forms, and their communications technology—if they have any—is no longer compatible with ours. Sometimes there’s no way to communicate until we are actually face to face. And then . . .” She shrugged suggestively.
“You look like Terrans.”
She nodded. “Sometimes we get a chance to communicate who we are before they attack us. Sometimes . . . sometimes we don’t. All that hatred, all that fear—centuries of raw despair—it all gets focused on us.” She glanced back at the armory. “It’s rare we need weapons. But when we do, we’d damn well better have them on hand.”
He exhaled softly. “Wow. I just . . . I had no idea.”
“Yeah. By the time the second wave teams show up, that’s all been sorted out.”
“So this ship we’re on . . . is that armed, too? Seems like it would have to be.”
She smiled slightly, said nothing.
“Do you have to make first contact like that? Couldn’t you bring back data and leave it to someone else?”
“It’s our call. If we don’t feel the situation is safe enough, yeah, we can let Guera send in its experts. But Micah . . . Imagine you’ve spent six months cooped up in a spaceship, hungering to explore the mysteries of a lost world. Do you think you could just take notes on it, shoot a few vids, and then go home? Think about the kind of people who sign on for my job. Think about why we do it. I’ve never known any outrider to turn down an opportunity for first contact.”
He chuckled softly. “You need someone on your team who can’t be mistaken for Terran.”
“Yeah. Well. Except it’s the Guild that’s in charge of all this, and they’re not about to trust any non-Guerans with their precious Manifest Destiny.” She could hear the edge of lifelong frustration coming into her voice, and it wasn’t something she wanted to share with him, so she changed the subject. “The ship’s on autopilot now. I need to get some sleep. I’m sorry I can’t let you connect to the ship’s innernet, but if you picked up some malware on Shenshido—”
“I understand,” he said quietly. “No need to explain.”
“Once Ivar is up we’ll need to stagger shifts so that one of us is always awake. I don’t trust him worth a damn.”
He raised an eyebrow. “You trust me?”
Do I? She wondered. Should I? “Navigation is locked. You can’t access the ship’s innernet without my security codes. And the ship will alert me if you try to break into the armory while I’m asleep, or do anything else unseemly. I’m not really worried about you trying to cut my throat while I sleep. So I think we’re good for now.” She indicated the console. “You can bring up anything you need to on the screen. We’ve got one hell of a library—books and vids—and I think Tully stocked some games. Not really my thing.”
“You prefer your adventures to be real.” He smiled dryly. “Got it.”
She eased herself up from her chair. God, she was stiff. Her wellseeker would have to address that while she slept. “Make yourself at home. Get some more sleep if you need to. When we’re both well rested we can see how our friend is doing.” She glanced back at the medpod. “And if he’s going to prove useful enough to be worth all this effort.”
THE HARVESTER IS COMING!
Come celebrate with us in style, as Harmony Node welcomes the return of its harvester in a grand station-wide festival. Sample the food of a hundred different worlds, attend concerts by famous bands and orchestras, and gasp at the daring of multi-G acrobats in Solial’s Galactic Circus—all while our great winged ships spread out across the heavens, bearing gifts from distant worlds. This once-in-a-century event is not to be missed, but tickets and accommodations are selling out quickly, so make your reservations now!
The harvester’s arrival will be livecast on VBC, with virtual feed courtesy of Blue Galaxy Studios. Visit their site to subscribe.
DEEP SPACE
APPROACHING HARMONY NODE
THE AINNIQ is near. Not yet so close that the harvester can see it, but her sensors are picking up subtle fluctuations in the fabric of space that hint at its proximity. Too subtle for human senses to detect—or even most mechanical constructs—but she was designed to locate such things and hone in on them.
She is nearing home.
She shifts her sensors to the frequencies that humans use to communicate and picks up faint whispers of navigational code. She is searching for one in particular, a signal meant for her and her children, to help guide them home.
There. There it is.
Soon she will spread her wings wide and command her children to separate from her, and they will do so, spreading their wings into the galactic night. A vast flock of silver birds, each with a portion of her precious harvest clutched to its chest. It is far easier to deliver mass that way, in small portions that are easily decelerated, than to try to slow the harvester itself. She will circle the ainniq while her children make their deliveries, then gather them to her again when the job is done. By then she will have received orders for her next assignment. The human hunger for raw mass never ends, and so her task is eternal.