“We have to kill it.”

Kaya shook her head. “I can’t make another disruptor without leaving this place inoperable.”

“It was inoperable before you got here,” Gael replied. “We are directed to live for a year, but where and how is up to us. Father said that houses were too much to worry about. I’m inclined to agree, since we know that another group already intends to take it.”

“Your father lived on a boat, Gael.” Wynn observed. “That’s just a house that moves and has extra leaks.”

Kaya snorted. “Shelter is one of the first priorities of any settler.”

“Shelter is one thing,” Naomi agreed. “Food and water is another. From what I recall, this place had a garden cell and a cycling unit, both inoperable. Unless you got those working too, we are going to have problems long before we need to worry about the weather.”

Kaya gave the other girl a dirty look but didn’t argue.

“Y’fussin’ t’much. Crack t’door, wave, bean t’ape with t’… t’disruptor.” Tyver said the last word slowly, easing the unfamiliar stresses from his mouth and smiling hopefully at their newest member. “Do it myself, I. Maybe y’tell us what they are, fair?”

Kaya blinked. “What did he say?”

“He suggested we simply open the door, attract the ape, throw your disruptor at it and get on with our lives.” Wynn said helpfully. “Then he asked you to tell us about the apes.”

She peered at Tyver as though he was an odd sort of bug. “Tell him his suggestion is terrible.”

Tyver peered back and gestured impatiently. “Tell me, not him. Understand y’fine, I. If t’plan is bad, explain. Naomi n’I already got beef, don’t y’two gang I.”

“Yeah,” Naomi said. “That’s my thief you’re picking on, get your own.”

She and Tyver cracked equally evil grins as Kaya looked incredulously from one to the other. She turned to Gael in desperation. “What do they want?”

He smiled serenely. “Well, I want you to tell us about the apes. I think that’s what they want too, but they don’t appreciate that you’re being aggressive because you’re anxious so they’ve joined forces. Thank you for that: it’s nice to see them cooperating.”

“Explaining it like that just… just ruins it.” Naomi muttered, and Tyver nodded grumpily.

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“Mother did it to Father all the time,” Gael said apologetically.

Kaya’s mouth had fallen open during Gael’s explanation. She closed it and shook her head. “My dads ran the communications rig. They heard it first, told me at dinner. To us, it was only stories. Everyone told stories like that: ancient ruins, abductions, war from Coreward. None of it was serious. We… my dads and I passed time that way, swapping make-believe on the communicator with other riggers, seeing how long we could keep the story going. It wasn’t until Imber sent word that it really started.”

“Imber?” Tyver asked.

“A supply depo on the fringes,” Kaya said. “They’d stocked an expedition headed to a recently scoped system. Not colony grunts out to throw up a dome on some rock, you understand, big money. A few of the mercs talked while drinking, claimed their science guys had scoped life out there. Not just crab-analogues and algae, real life like old Earth-That-Was. They were talking how they were gonna shoot some real aliens.”

Kaya paused when she saw the looks on their faces. “Yeah, that’s what we thought. Alien life, and first thing you’re going to shoot it like some trophy hunter? We thought the Imber guys were jerking our chain.”

“Did they come back?” Gael asked. “The expedition?”

“Something came back,” Kaya replied. “Not them, though. We started hearing… well, they started sounding real. A few months later every colony in the sector was talking monsters in the forests, in the sky, in the water. Some even said they’d seen things outside the domes, but we knew that was impossible. At least, that’s what we thought. Then Imber station was finding dead in the corridors. They thought some freighter had left a crazy behind until they… they got footage.” She gestured down the corridor, face hard. “One of those coiling, bladed things, tearing apart a friend. They spaced it in the footage, thought that was the end of it. It dug its way back inside through the garden cell hull, froze half the station’s crop in seconds.”

“Sol,” Naomi breathed.

Tyver and Gael made identical warding gestures at the mention of the abandoned sun, both of them looking more troubled by the name than the story. Wynn, though, looked sickened. “Did they come to your colony?” they asked gently.

“It started,” she said blankly. “The farmers were going armed by then. When they came, the guns didn’t matter. Nothing seemed to matter until dad saw it. One appeared outside, killed our neighbor while he watched. Swooped down as one of those owl things and… well, when it was done it changed. Just flickered and then it was something else, Dad said, all legs and hooks. But when it flickered, he saw the core.”

“A hologram,” Wynn said.

“A hologram,” she nodded. “My other dad figured if it was a machine it had to have some sort of signal receiver, he just didn’t know what. So… he figured if you broadcasted a lot of everything that might do something. He always wanted to build something that mattered.” She smiled sadly. “My dads got me off the planet with it, at least, sent us coreward with recordings. Someone had to tell the Nineteen, they said. So here I am, telling you.”

“And they made you a Martyr?” Gael asked. “It’s been years, why haven’t-“

“A Caretaker found our ship coasting on autopilot,” Kaya said sharply. “A pack of terrified kids nearly out of food, so the damned thing did what Caretakers do, reported the incident and helped itself to children of the right age. I doubt anyone even knows.”

“A Caretaker,” Naomi said with dawning horror. “But… but those things are here. They’re here now. ”

“We’re anyone,” Gael said grimly. ”Now we know.”

Tyver gulped. “Not fair.”