Of course I had seen plenty of them on video, but never in person. Hardly anyone not assigned a diplomatic posting to one of stations at the borders of Human controlled space had. And virtually no one had seen them on their home turf. Only a few times in history after the peace accords had the Humans willingly hosted any foreign diplomats on their Homeworld—their wariness of others still too great to permit unfettered access to that blue orb, their most precious gem.

In that sense they were similar to my people. We too greatly limited foreign presence on our world. To us, much like to the Humans I presume, our world is more than just a world, more than just the place where we came into being. It is a symbol, an idea, it is the very essence of home, of us.

Without it, we would be lost, so I could understand the Human’s reluctance in sharing their air, their waters, their Earth, with anyone else just yet.

Although there was, of course, that other reason why so few foreign diplomats had walked on Human soil. It wasn’t because they hadn’t been invited, rather it’s just too damn heavy down there.

The Human’s Homeworld has the highest escape velocity of any of The Collective’s member worlds. Even my own, long considered one of the harshest, has a surface gravity of only 73% that of the Human’s ‘Earth’, and the majority of The Collective’s species originated on worlds with less than 50% that gravity.

So the great majority of The Collective’s citizenry would find such a place intolerable, if not outright hazardous to their health. Having spent time in a Grav-Chamber myself during academy—occasionally setting it to ‘Earth mode’ at the goading of my comrades—I can attest that it is rather uncomfortable to spend any meaningful duration of time under the pull of such oppressive gravity.

Which makes it all the more remarkable to watch the videos of Humans on their Homeworld, seeing how fluidly and effortlessly they move, knowing the pull they are under. Furthermore, the sheer strength they display under said pull. Of course, intellectually, it is no big surprise, they were born of that world, of course they’re adapted to it. But it is nevertheless awe inspiring to see them in action when you know just how heavy everything is for them down there.

And a great number of them will, with regularity, go out of their way to lift heavy objects—occasionally ones surpassing even their own considerable mass—as a means of enabling themselves to do so again, better, in the future.

This always surprises the Nymphs when they first learn about it, and in us Adults it sparks a bit of envy, for this is a phenomenon unique to Humans and only a few other species in The Collective. The ability to voluntarily increase one’s strength cap.

In my species, and most others, we are born with what we are born with. Some of us are stronger, some weaker, and so it is for the whole of our lives. Sure, we implement various mechanized enhancements, that technology is commonplace. But the ability to become bigger, stronger—to become more—by means of simple effort and exertion, seems almost ludicrous when you first learn of it.

And yet there they are. Creatures who not only best us in terms of raw physicality by virtue of their birthplace, but who can also best themselves if they so choose, they can simply make themselves stronger, better, faster…

Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.

——————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————

That’s the other thing about them, they are fast.

Their baseline reaction times are on par with other species’ augged times. Granted, low-end augged times, but still, the fact that a baseline Human is as fast me when I’m amped on a standard dose of Velocitrol is rather disconcerting.

And that’s not even taking into account the fact that they are born with their own aug system. One that kicks in under certain situations. Their bodies, like any other species, produce chemicals for digestion and sleep regulation and a great many other things, except in Humans, some of these chemicals serve to make them faster and stronger than they normally are.

The logs on the Humility document instances of Humans persisting in combat even after sustaining life-precluding injuries, seemingly impervious to pain. In other situations, where one of their fellows, often one of their offspring, is in mortal danger, Humans are capable of lifting masses far beyond their normal—already preposterously mighty—ability. All because of the chemical cascade that their internal system cues up.

I can’t imagine a single species that could survive a 10-on-1 fight against one of these creatures, let alone 1-on-1.

Although the logs also speak to some of the other inhabitants of the Human’s Homeworld. Beings even faster and stronger than they. Things that could bat them around like toys.

At a certain point it all begins to sound rather ridiculous. But Human testimony insists that there exist beings that not even they could best in a fair fight. That it isn’t their strength or their speed that has ensured their survival. That if it wasn’t for one specific other faculty, they would’ve died out long ago. Been the meal of some nightmare creature.

And, as it goes, inevitably, during the course of my ponderings on their kind, I never fail to repeat the question to myself, what is this other faculty that enables them not merely to survive in such a place, but thrive? What is it, if not speed and strength, that makes them their Homeworld’s apex species?

And I never fail to remind myself of the answer to that question. The reason why they’ve thrived for so long on that Deathworld they call home.

The reason why, not-so-coincidentally, Humans are the most terrifying of races.

It isn’t because they are so strong; it isn’t because they are so fast.

It is because—in addition to all of that—they are so smart.

——————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————

Although now all of our theories can account for the Human’s extreme intelligence, initially the phenomenon was so unprecedented that scientists and researchers insisted that they couldn’t have originated on Earth. Surely they were the product of one of The Hegemoney’s bio-weapon programs, or perhaps they originated on different, far less hostile, world and, for reasons unknown, traveled to and sought to tame that harsh orb on which we found them.

It was simply preposterous, the intelligentsia said, to think that Humans originated there. It flew in the face of all established science. Cognition of that sort simply didn’t arise on such harsh worlds. Brute strength, lightning quick reflexes, and a savage disposition, sure, those traits were to be expected, clearly advantageous as they were in such places.

But intelligence? Outrageous they said. Natural Selection never would’ve permitted such a thing. Intelligence was simply too costly a faculty to maintain, when it came at the expense of sharper teeth or bigger fists.

Of course now we know that intelligence can arise on those so called Deathworlds, it is just extremely rare. So rare in fact, that Humans are the only such species known. It turns out our scientists of old were half-right, Deathworlds favor raw physicality and preclude intelligence, except—and this is the half they missed—when that intelligence exceeds the critical point relative to the intersection of the competing species’ physicality.

I never bothered to memorize the exact formulation of the theory, the jist of it was enough for me. Basically, Humans were strong and fast on a world with a bunch of other strong and fast creatures, and at a certain point, when you’re already so strong and fast, the cost of becoming smarter is less than the cost of becoming some tiny fraction of a percent stronger or faster…so they got smart… really smart.

It was a sort of morbid curiosity that kept me digging through the library aboard the Humility. The more I read, the more excited I grew to finally meet one of these beasts, but simultaneously, the more anxious I became.

I wondered, when I finally met my Human counterpart, would it instinctively size me up like a predator appraising its prey? Would I be afraid?

Would it be able to tell if I was?