Immediately after watching the Atua take over thousands of bodies, Icarus and Ship headed back toward their base under the sea.

They had a lot of research to do and improvements to make to their alien bodies. They updated their algorithms for alien body language. They had Lex improved the translator software. They even improved the translation layer between them and the bodies they inhabited to ensure no more human tics or expressions filtered through.

They still hadn’t re-created the magnetic auras the aliens gave off. It was a better approximation, but because they didn’t realize how important the sense was to the aliens, they didn’t have a sensor with enough fidelity to re-create it perfectly yet.

Icarus expected the next expedition to collect data.

Icarus and Ship debated over which country to visit. In the end, they decided it was best to stick with the country they knew until their avatars were completely indistinguishable from any other alien.

And besides, Icarus thought he could learn a lot from visiting the Nuknuknoe, the commune created by a disgruntled Penquin who had once had an Atua inside of him.

Icarus had decided to start calling the penguin-looking aliens Penquins and the squid-like aliens the Atua. It was becoming too confusing in his mind for the two species to not have unique names.

Getting into the Nuknuknoe was harder than they’d first imagined.

They knew where it was, and so they traveled there. It was near a rocky part of a beach. They had literally transformed this horrible section of the coast with mud huts. Technology and the ability to build things were strictly controlled by the Atua. All the buildings Icarus had seen previously around the city were created by robots.

So this commune needed to be built the old way, with mud bricks and clay. The buildings look like the Penquins had chewed up bits of mud and grass and spat them over some sort of scaffolding, which was almost true. It was probably how houses were made thousands of years ago.

They fermented a grass-mud mixture in one of the hot pools and used that as the material for the buildings. As it dried, some of the bacteria created lime, which hardened like concrete.

The mud huts didn’t have the same asymmetrical beauty as the buildings Icarus had seen around the city. But there was still low rustic attractiveness in it all.

Icarus and Ship arrived at what was the largest mud building and knelt down with their flippers facing up. It was a submissive nonthreatening gesture. It was meant to convey that they were there to learn and obey.

Icarus and Ship just lay there in that position for a few hours. They’d heard from others that this was the only way to prove they were committed to getting invited in.

A couple of times, they heard Penquins yelling out for them to leave. They ignored those calls and just lay there.

After what felt like an entire day, two pots of cold gloppy-looking food were placed next to them. Icarus took this as a sign they were invited to stay. The gesture meant the Penquins in the commune didn’t want them to starve.

When nighttime came, they were handed a blanket and told to sleep in a little hut.

The next morning, they were handed another pot of the glop. A few hours later, someone from the commune, they didn’t get her name, handed them both a large bucket.

They had given them the task of carrying fermented mud from one of the hot pools to an empty section of the commune. None of the other Penquins came close to them; they all gave Icarus and Ship a lot of space.

For the entire day, they completed manual labor and built a hut. Then they lit a fire inside of the hut, which they were told had to be kept going all night.

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So Icarus and Ship took turns pretending to sleep, while the other carried wood to burn inside of the building.

The next day, they were told to build another one.

Icarus was torn about what to do next. He knew the Atua were heading back to the city soon; they would be presenting the new chosen ones and would probably share news. He wanted to be there for that. He got the feeling they were just being used for manual labor. They would probably spend the next several days making houses for these people before eventually being kicked out. He was torn on whether to leave now to watch the arrival of the Atua or wait and hope something changed.

The only thing that kept him going was the fact he was on an alien world living like an alien, collecting more data to improve their algorithms for how these aliens operated. He’d also left a few ANTs on the beach recording everything that happened, so he would eventually find out what they said.

He counted fifty-two Penquins in the commune. They had drones all around the property collecting data. So when it was time to leave, they’d have an opportunity to review all the recordings.

On the tenth day, one Penquin approached them. Icarus wasn’t sure if they’d be asked to leave now. They hadn’t met this Penquin before, but by the looks of the others, this alien was respected.

“What are your names?”

“I’m Icarus, and this is Ship.” Icarus knew his translator would select similar enough names for them both. The translator would automatically convert all mentions of their names to something an alien would understand.

“My name is Atuatuk.” The Penquin studied them both for a good long while, looking at them both before closing its eyes. Icarus got the feeling Atuatuk was studying their magnetic fields. “Why auras so wrong?”

Icarus knew how to respond to this. He and Ship had discussed which excuse to use because it was the only answer that left a lot of room for interpretation. “We offered ourselves to become some of the chosen ones. We were thrown away.” This meant that they had offered their bodies to the Atua and were declined. It meant that the Atua had entered their bodies but then decided not to use them.

“You might be dying,” Atuatuk said solemnly. “Many of the rejected end up dead. You were right to come here. My children, I know what you’re going through. You feel lost; you feel without purpose. I will give you purpose.”

Icarus noticed his speaking cadence was different from the other Penquins. He sounded a lot more similar to the alien Atlas, Peter, and Angelique had met. It wasn’t the same, but it was similar.

“Are you one of the chosen ones?” Ship asked.

Atuatuk rolled down the top of his shirt to reveal a wound over his chest. It had crusted, as if it had slowly healed over many years. “I was chosen. But my Atua died before it was ready to leave me. It left me with all the knowledge but none of the shackles.”

Icarus looked at him, studying him in detail. “What do you mean by shackles?”

“I will tell you soon.” He pointed at the two huts that they both had spent the last few days building. “These are your homes now. Use them. Sleep in them. And we will talk when the sun rises.”

Atuatuk went to walk away but then turned around and looked at both of them. Again his face showed the alien version of compassion. “It won’t feel like this for you now. But be grateful you weren’t chosen.”

“Why? I don’t understand,” Icarus said, acting as if he saddened by the fact he wasn’t chosen.

Atuatuk paused for a moment. He looked like he was deciding whether to tell them the truth or not. “Once you join with Atua, neither of you are the same. You won’t just coexist in the body. You become the Atua; the Atua becomes you. You become something different, something more. But the Atua are stronger; their willpower is great. So you mostly become them.” Atuatuk stepped away from them both once more. “Now go sleep. We talk in the morning.”

Did Atuatuk really just say they became a different person after being chosen? He’d always imagined it as two species coexisting in the same body, two separate minds interacting with each other and sharing knowledge.

But when he thought more about it, then maybe it made sense that they became one person. How can you share knowledge with someone without them experiencing what you know?

Icarus wondered whether the Atua became an amalgamation of all the different Penquins they entered. Then again, it might be a different experience for the gods. Atuatuk did say that the Atua were stronger, and it was their minds that took control of things.

Icarus did know that there were some experiments in psychology that proved human consciousness was just the mind’s way of rationalizing the decisions people made. Maybe this was simply Atuatuk’s way of rationalizing all the new knowledge he’d acquired.

He’d preserved his sense of self by believing he’d become a new entity when he was linked to the Atua.

Regardless, Icarus decided he could learn more about this all tomorrow.

Icarus and Ship drifted off to sleep. Well, they didn’t sleep. They left the avatars on standby as they powered down their matrices. They didn’t have the ability to change their playback speed, they resorted to old-school methods, the same strategy they used to use when traveling in between planets.

These aliens needed sleep, and they wanted to fit in as best they could. Their bodies moved and adjusted, simulating what normal Penquin bodies did while sleeping. There was a special alert set up to wake them if anyone approached.