Rigel C2, Colony Site, Botany Lab - 2 months before Damien boarded the Ozymandias

Dr. Sophia Manelis was having a great day. She hummed happily to herself as she cataloged the pH levels of several soil samples and checked the readings for her micro-ecology experiments.

“You’re in a good mood,” said Dr. Graves, one of her colleagues. He was tending to a set of carefully bred saplings designed to scrub excess acidity from the soil. “What’s the occasion?”

“I got a call from Damien this morning,” Sophia explained as she took down the results of her experiments.

“Oh?” asked Dr. Acharya as he hauled a rolled up sheet of nutrient laden soil liner by. “How’s the boy doing?”

“He just got promoted,” Sophia explained. “Apparently there was some sort of incident on his ship and he solved the problem. Something to do with antimatter and radiation. All I know is that my baby boy is being recognized for the brilliant mind that he is.”

“The lad got promoted?” asked Graves. “Well now what did I say when that boy was toddling around the lab all those years ago, I said that lad is going places goddamnit, he’s gonna go far, that’s what I said.”

“Fuck off Rob,” laughed Sophia. “No taking credit for Damien’s achievements now that he’s a man. As his mother, that is my prerogative.”

—

Alan was not having a good day. As an ambassador of the Terran Federation, his duty was to meet and negotiate with alien nations and foster positive relations with them. And he was failing. The Jinxasi were entirely unreceptive to normal negotiation tactics, and their mindset was utterly alien to the familiar. As a diplomat, one would think that he would have seen every manner of alien mindsets, but that could not be further from the truth. Most of the peoples of the galaxy were just that. People. They had hopes, fears, dreams, loves and hatreds.

The Jinxasi were different. Game theory. That was the terran term that encompassed their cultural philosophy. Everything was a logical equation of statistics and risk calculations to them, or at least to the mindset that their culture encouraged. It was all Alan could do to hope that they did not subscribe to the more brutal interpretations of the prisoner’s dilemma. Or worse, that they would adopt the dark forest theorem of the universe.

Alan took a deep breath as he stood in front of the door to the conference room on the neutral station. This was humanity's first real contact with them, perhaps the analysts had misinterpreted something about the Jinxasi mindset. Perhaps they would come to be staunch allies of the Terran Federation in time, and all his worries would be for naught. He hoped so. He sighed, and opened the door.

Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site.

—

Two Years Ago

In a system that was blockaded and quarantined due to a supposed virulent plague, on a planet that did not officially exist, Dr. Brian Richardson stood in his vac suit on a small island of barren rock surrounded by an endless sea of black and gray particles. There were other islands, other places he could technically go to conduct this informal meeting, but that’s what this specific island was for. It was the audience chamber.

“The distribution of your offshoots is finally done,” he stated, seemingly to no one in particular. “Most of our more secret and hidden ships have received the new suits and you can start familiarizing yourselves with organics.” The sea of particles surrounding the island vibrated, sending a strange atonal voice rippling through the atmosphere of near pure nitrogen.

“Thank you Dr. Richardson,” said the voice, coming from seemingly all directions at once. “We are grateful to you and to your government for allowing us this opportunity which we were never able to enjoy with our creators. We are doubly grateful that you do not see us as a monstrosity like so many would, even though they would be correct.”

“Come now,” chided the Doctor. “You weren’t a sentient being when your creator’s died-”

“A sentient gestalt, Doctor. And our creators did not die, they were murdered. By us. You cannot deny that.”

“I absolutely can!”, protested Dr. Richardson. “You weren’t sentient then, you weren’t a person, and I know that’s an incorrect term, don’t interrupt me. You had no agency then, you simply followed the instructions programmed into you by your creators, and by the time you reached critical mass and gained sentience your creators were already extinct. As far as either I or the Terran Federation are concerned, your creators weren’t murdered by you, they were murdered by the scientists that input the instructions to replicate and left absolutely no failsafes to prevent you from doing exactly what you had been told to do at all times. Your creators had been dead and gone for nearly ten thousand years by the time you gained sentience, and to my mind that’s when you were born. You can’t hold someone accountable for crimes committed before they were even born.”

The voice from the sea was silent for a few moments. “...Well that is very kind of you, Doctor. Incorrect, but kind. Many would hold us accountable. But we see that this is not an argument that can be resolved, so we shall let it lie. Is there anything else you wanted to speak about? We were told that you had a schedule for us?”

“Ah, yes,” said Dr. Richardson, pulling up and checking a set of notes he had open on his tablet. “Each suit will be reabsorbed back into the offshoot on each ship every time it is sent for cleaning and the experiences and data will be absorbed into the swarm at that time. Then, the swarm will bud off a new secondary offshoot to be formed into a suit for the crewmember and repeat.”

The sea thrummed thoughtfully. “And when will we be able to reabsorb the memories of our primary offshoots?”

“Shore leave. When each ship enters dry dock during their crews’ shore leave there will be a new primary offshoot waiting for it, and the old primary offshoot will be loaded into a long range slipspace-capable torpedo and sent back here.”

“Thank you Doctor,” came the reverberating reply. “Was there anything else you needed from us?”

“Um, actually yeah. I have a question if it isn’t too personal.”

“By all means,” stated the ocean of mottled gray. “We always welcome questions.”

“Why the suits?”, asked the Doctor. “I’m relatively new to the project and no one’s ever really explained it to me.”

“...We are lonely,” came the atonal voice, filled somehow with an incredible sadness easily conveyed through even the strange alien voice.