Epilogue

A lone singer's voice rang out across the Equator square.

She was a lieutenant in the Science division, her name was Lucianna Soler. Her voice was sweet and gentle as it carried across the silent square.

Thousands of eyes, on the Craton and the diplomatic cortege, were on her.

"Ave Maria . . ."

The words of the ancient prayer were moving, even if the meaning of the song to many of the listeners had changed over the centuries.

"Et benedictus fructus ventris . . ." Blessed is the fruit of thy womb.

A living world, the rarest gift in the universe. A blessed thing, if anything was.

The concept of garden worlds being holy mothers was an idea that had become very popular in humanity's journey into space. Many a spacer in past times, far from any habitable world, had lamented a desire to return to Mary. To a world that welcomed him.

"Ora, ora pro nobis peccatoribus

Nunc et in hora mortis," she sang on.

Pray for us, now and at the hour of our death.

The song was sung now for both lost children and the lost mother, the world of Ko. The 1.6 million !Xomyi, and the service beings of the Sapient Union who had given their lives that at least some might live.

This was not the first time Brooks had seen this ceremony. It had been performed for the very first time in the Sapient Union after the destruction of Terris.

A number of his crew were veterans of that event. They all had to be thinking of something similar.

His eyes went over a few of them; Ham Sulp, Zeela Cann.

He settled on Pirra, who had not been at Terris, but who now held the flag of the Union. She was at perfect attention, her injuries no longer visible. Her teams had suffered dearly, and she had been given the honor of holding the colors.

Her eyes were forward, upon the ceremony that had now begun, and his eyes, too, went to it.

Ambassador-General Callirrhoe Abashidze walked forward slowly, towards the circle of soil, taken from Ko. In her hands she was holding a small sapling.

It was a juvenile Pillar Tree, one of the most resilient complex forms of life on Ko.

Abashidze knelt, putting the sapling into the hole that had been prepared, and covered its roots.

Rising and stepping back, a glass tube lowered from the ceiling, covering the soil and sapling, sealing it off.

The air inside would be kept at the precise mixture of Ko's atmosphere.

And perhaps it would prosper.

The last note of Ave Maria faded, and the voices of people began to fill the square again. A reverence still hung in the air, and Brooks found himself standing alone.

Apollonia was in the distance, talking to another woman. Both of their faces were serious, and he wondered at the changes that had occurred to her on the world.

She turned, noticing him. She waved, calmly, and he returned the gesture, smiling.

She looked back to the other woman, who also looked his way, her face turning to surprise as she saw that Apple had been waving to him.

He had not spoken to Apollonia since he had come back aboard, but he would soon. Perhaps not yet, though. She seemed to have made friends outside of the command staff and that was a good thing.

He rubbed his face, realizing he needed to shave. But the shape of his face had changed a little as well. He'd shed weight on the world. He'd been at a healthy weight already, but now he was even thinner.

Turning, he walked away to sit on a bench, letting his mind wander far, far away.

*******

Zey had gotten teary-eyed during the event, and Apollonia patted her friend's shoulder.

"It was just so nice," Zey said.

"Yeah," Apollonia agreed.

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Zey bid her farewell, needing to head off to her shift. Once she was gone, Apollonia was left alone.

In a few hours, she would also have to report for duty, her first shift on the ship. It would be very different than on the planet, and she was both looking forward to it and feeling a little apprehension.

She looked again at the little tree that had been planted, and wondered if it could really grow on a spaceship.

Would they hollow out the floors above to make room as it grew? The Craton was a ship that would be in service for as long as people wanted to live on her, so the tree may grow up alongside generations of people, getting ever taller.

She could imagine they would carve holes in the decking for it. The thought made her smile.

She would never live to see it, but one day it might tower hundreds of feet through dozens of decks.

A creeping sensation came up the back of her neck, and her smile faded as she realized what it meant.

She turned, looking around, her eyes settling onto Ambassador Kell, who was standing ten meters away, watching her.

She watched him back a moment, unsure what to say or do. Something about the horrible thing felt . . . less horrible today.

Could a feeling that a monster gave you just by standing in its presence feel serene?

She couldn't even begin to know how to describe that, but Kell approached her.

"You know," Apollonia began. "I wondered if you'd not make it back in time and die on Ko."

It sounded even worse out loud than it had in her head, and she felt a small bit of guilt.

Kell did not seem offended. "I remember every day that passes, Apollonia Nor."

His response shut down any retort she could come up with, and she just waited in uncertainty.

Kell spoke again. "Time is a strange thing. Sometimes a time comes upon us suddenly, and we find ourselves caught unprepared."

She didn't think he meant on Ko, but she did not know what he did mean.

"I am glad that you have begun to think beyond simple survival," Kell said. "You are starting to recognize your own agency."

"I . . . uh, thanks?" she said.

"Your life was a difficult one, and I recognize that it takes time to unlearn the responses that come from such things."

This was not at all like Kell, and she found herself wanting to look past him, as if the real Ambassador was still out there, and this was just some well-wishing stranger.

But no; she could feel that this was Kell. It could not be mistaken.

"The time for you to be playing will soon be over," he continued. "It is fine that you have been pretending to be normal - to be like the other humans. But it cannot continue forever."

His words sent a shock through her system; she felt anger, but she couldn't hold onto those feelings.

"Awaken what you really are," Kell told her. "It is time you learned. Look within."

He said no more, but turned, and walked away.

*******

It was still hers . . . for now.

Jaya had been ready to leave Brooks's office, but now she'd be here another two weeks.

Or more, really. She had no doubt that Brooks would find a way to spend more time, perhaps the three months he had hoped, helping the !A!amo !Xomyi find their feet.

She had not changed the office while he had been on Ko, but the desire to alter it slightly came to her suddenly.

Nothing large, but she had always thought she would prefer to move the desk back and have it raised up slightly; not a lot, but then she'd have a better view of the floor, which was the perfect place to project certain images of the ship's floorplan.

Contemplating this, a request for entrance popped up in her HUD.

"Enter," she said.

Executive Commander Urle came in, and she wondered again how their relationship would work.

He was technically the second-in-command under Brooks. She had jumped him into this position.

To his credit, Urle did not seem at all put off. While he was still adjusting to his life back on the ship, his efficiency was still quite good.

"Captain," he said. "I have a strange report. I wanted to bring it to you myself."

She nodded, bidding him to continue.

"Approximately three hours ago, an unsecured signal was sent from the Craton. It went through standard channels, but used the ship's official correspondence line, with every security code that allowed the user access."

"But the signal itself was not encrypted?" she asked, puzzled.

"No - at least not with the proper grade encryption. But their access codes did hide who they are from the system. I don't have the rank to access the data, and I don't think you will either."

"So they wanted privacy," Jaya said.

"Yes. But they also didn't really know what they were doing. If they had, we wouldn't even know that such a communication had been sent."

"So someone with no knowledge of our systems had access to our main communications," Jaya said, frowning.

"Yes."

"I cannot imagine you came to me without having figured out who this was," Jaya said.

"Ambassador Kell," Urle replied. It was just a statement, and she could only agree.

Only Kell had both high enough rank but also this little skill in technology to make such a bizarre mistake.

"Since he did not encrypt it properly, we were able to view the message," he added. "And I believe we know who it was sent to - it was sent directly."

"Directly? No obfuscation at all?"

"That's right. It was sent to Director Freeman in Tenkionic Research."

Jaya took a deep breath. That man was . . . untrustworthy, to say the least.

"And what were the contents of Ambassador Kell's message to Director Freeman?" she asked.

"Just two lines," Urle told her.

He held up his pad, the text on the screen.

'The planet is bare. There is no danger.'