"To a safe trip!" Davo said, raising his glass.

Pirra, Alexander, and Eileen all raised their glasses to the toast.

"Here here," Eileen said.

They drank. The humans drank wine, while Pirra drank something they called soy sauce; when watered down it was non-toxic to her kind in limited qualities, and tasted a lot like some Dessei drinks.

Her eyes flickered between the members of the family.

This had been a good trip, she thought. Alexander and his father had not argued once. Perhaps it was because the topic of his father's work had not come up - the elder Shaw seemed pleased as long as he got to tell someone, and Pirra was quite happy to be that someone.

Alexander had inherited some of the more gentle qualities of his mother; he was a neobotanist in her footsteps. For hours, while Davo and Pirra had run off to explode things and play with ultra-hot plasmas, Alexander and his mother had gone over research and the latest breakthroughs in building new plant life from genetic scratch.

It was important work, she knew. But as much as she loved Alexander, it was not her forte, and she rarely had anything much to add when he talked about work.

"Will your trip back out be as long as the one here?" Eileen asked.

"Not quite as long," Pirra said. "We'll sync up with one of the heavy carriers that's heading out of the system. They've got permission to use their zerodrive, so we'll be back at our ship in only a few hours."

"I've still never taken a trip through zerospace," Davo said. "I've always been curious."

"It's a lot less exciting than a dashdrive," Alexander said. "Assuming nothing goes wrong, at least."

"Have you ever been on a ship when something went wrong?" Eileen asked, glancing between her son and daughter-in-law.

"No, no," Alexander said placatingly.

"I have," Pirra said. "Three times."

Eileen gasped, and Alexander shot her a look, asking her with his eyes to not worry his mom.

Pirra only shrugged. "In the Response field it's not unusual. But don't worry, there's a lot of ways out of such a situation - if you're clever."

"What happened?" Davo asked, his eyes sparkling with curiosity.

Pirra wondered if Alexander got his expressive eyes from his father. "One of them was an experimental ship where we were tasked with rescuing the data before it accelerated too fast."

"Too fast?" Eileen asked.

"Yes. In Zerospace, momentum works differently. Things will continually accelerate, until they're moving too fast to be able to return back to our reality. It takes about three days in most circumstances. After that - we just don't have a way to shed the momentum and slow down. There are some very risky ways to try to come back anyway, but most likely you'd just explode into pseudo-light."

"Pseudo-light," Davo grumbled. "That's a neophysics particle, right?"

"Yes. We're not sure why, but they behave just like photons, so essentially the object would become a massive blast of gamma rays. But rather than continuing on until they hit something, they rapidly decay into krahteons and seem to seep back into zerospace."

"If not for that, they'd make for a hell of a weapon," Davo muttered.

Alexander shot him a dirty look.

Pirra glanced to Alexander, trying to warn him off now. Did they really have to have a fight at their last dinner . . . ?

"What do your parents have to say about these adventures of yours?" Eileen asked, adroitly shifting the topic.

Though it caught Pirra off-guard.

"Oh, ah . . . not much? They are proud of my successes."

"And that's it?" Davo asked.

Alexander came to her rescue now. "Dessei don't tend to be as close to their parents and children as we are," he said. "So it's nothing unusual. In their own way, they really do care about her."

"Oh, I see," Eileen replied, looking troubled.

"Ah, well they're an ancient people. I'm sure it all works for them," Davo said.

Pirra wondered if he was convinced. He didn't quite sound it.

It was . . . odd. Perhaps she should be defending her people more, though Alexander at least explained the differences very politely.

The only part he said that was not true was probably the latter bit. If her parents did care about her, they did a very good job of hiding it, even by Dessei standards.

"Do you talk to them often?" Eileen asked. "I hope I'm not being rude - I just want to understand," she added.

"You're fine," Pirra replied. "We don't talk often, but at certain times of year they message me."

Her last such message had been succinct;

We are very proud of you, her mother had written. And we request that you seek a divorce from your human immediately.

A lovely note, by their standards.

She took a sip of her drink to wash out the bitter taste. Carefully, though; her real mouth, hidden under the fold of her chin, was little more than a tooth-lined maw, and humans tended to be bothered by it.

Alexander was probably the only one she'd known who wasn't. At least, he was the only one she'd let see it. Even among Dessei there was a certain disrespect at seeing the mouth of someone you were not related to or close friends with. Some ancient tradition about showing contempt by being willing to take your eyes off a potential enemy.

And thinking of danger brought a question that had been on her mind to the fore.

"I've been wondering," Pirra began. "What kind of plan do you have here if there's an emergency?"

"First," Davo said, leaning forward. "We make sure no one's been dabbling in teleportation!" He laughed uproariously.

It must have been some kind of Phobosan in-joke, she thought.

She smiled, but then continued. "I'm serious, though. The moon is hard to catch, you have supply problems, and it's just . . . such a unique place that it could have novel problems. Do you guys have any plans in case something happened?"

"What could go wrong?" Davo said.

She hesitated. She could understand Alex in his native tongue, but she was not great at telling the tones of other humans. Her system translated his words, and she thought there was an edge to his voice.

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

She didn't want to insult him . . . but at heart, she was a Responder and she wasn't going to mince words.

"If the moon began to break up, or something collided with it - or something big broke. There are many possible scenarios."

"Oh, you over-worry," Davo said. "Alex, does she always over-worry like this?"

"She's good at her job, dad," he replied. "I've always thought you guys should have more emergency drills."

"It's fine," Davo said. "We can handle anything the Mars area can throw at us! I mean, we've certainly got the ability to defend ourselves!"

Alex shifted, but before Pirra could interject, Eileen spoke.

"I know that you two . . . can't have children, of course," she said suddenly. "But have you ever considered adoption?"

Alexander almost choked on his food.

"Mom," he managed to say. "That's a little out of the blue, isn't it?"

"I'm only curious," she said quickly, seeming to regret changing the topic to this already.

"I'm sure with enough science they could have a child," Davo said.

"Dad, no, literally it's impossible for species from different worlds to have any interaction like that. It's a miracle that we're not allergic to each other's-"

"I mean with genetic re-writing, of course! Dessei have that tech. It'd be more like creating something from scratch that shares traits from each of you."

"So not really our child at all," Alexander replied dryly. "And remarkably illegal, I might add. Dad, do you even pay attention to mom's work?"

"I failed genetics," he said laughing. "But where there's a will, there's a way! You can't just let a thing like genetics prevent-"

"Dad!"

"Alexander, I'm just saying that it can't be ruled out! Not saying you have to. But for the science, wouldn't you want to try?"

Eileen spoke. "Davo, please drop this line of thought. I just want to know if we'll ever have grandchildren. They don't have to decide now, I just-"

Pirra slammed a hand down on the table, making the three humans jump.

"Adoption is not off the table," she said firmly. "The rest is a firm 'no'."

An awkward silence fell, but it did not bother her. She was good at those, when it came to family.

At least this one wouldn't last for years.

The meal was nearly finished, anyway, and Eileen soon stood. "Pirra, dear, would you help me with these dishes?"

There were drones for that, but the woman seemed to like to do some busywork herself. And Pirra was glad to help.

As they left the room, Eileen took the plates from her and put them in the cleaner, then turned to her.

"I'm so very sorry for bringing that up," she said. "And sorry for, well . . . everything Davo said. He . . . thinks genetics is just like tinkering." She shook her head. "I swear, that man - a genius in some ways and then a total . . ." She trailed off.

"You don't need to apologize," Pirra told her, liking the woman greatly. "I know that it's important to parents to see their line continue on. And that . . . well, that we can't do that."

"No matter what," Eileen said, "the important part is that you and Alex are happy. That's the best thing I could wish for."

Pirra felt a warmth in her chest. "Thank you, Eileen."

"Oh," the woman said, laughing. "You can call me 'mom' if you want."

The casual human word had no equivalent in her language. She couldn't even quite make the sound; but the offer meant something to her all the same.

"Thank you, mom," she said, the human-like smile coming as a second-nature and truly meant.

Eileen hugged her suddenly, and Pirra was thrown off again. Her own mother had not hugged her since she was immature, and even then it had only been for warmth on a cold day.

As little emotion as it naturally would trigger, she still knew that it meant something coming from Eileen.

Awkwardly, she returned it.

"You are so good," Eileen said. "I'm so glad that Alexander met you."

She thought back on her own days in her youth of fascination with humanity. She'd been considered odd for her interest in another species. At times, even something of an outcast.

But it had put her on the path to meeting Alexander - and Eileen and Davo.

"I'm glad, too," she cooed, leaning into the hug.

*******

Something in the air felt different as Brooks went back outside.

It could not be colder; his old home was already just as cold as the surrounding air, and the wind made no difference within his weather suit.

But it was changed all the same, and he uneasily put his hand where his sidearm would have been on a normal excursion.

It was not there, of course. He was on Earth, the homeworld, and there was no native life that could be a threat to him.

Yet he felt a danger. All his senses were on alert as he moved back towards the crawler.

He had walked almost out of town, he could see his vehicle, when the strange man came out from behind a building.

He walked out, between Brooks and his crawler, and stopped, staring at him.

He was nondescript; tanned skin, dark hair, brown eyes. Rather short, and his clothes extremely plain.

And he wasn't even wearing a weather suit.

Brooks continued to approach. The man was making no overt signs of threat yet, but his senses screamed that something was terribly wrong.

"Hello," he said cautiously.

The man said nothing, only watching him with unblinking eyes. Even when the wind whipped towards him, he made no move, neither swaying nor blinking.

Brooks's unease suddenly made sense, and he understood.

"You are a Shoggoth, aren't you?" he asked.

The being only continued to watch him, and he was about to speak again when it finally talked.

"You are Brooks," he said. He sounded human, save for a subtle timbre that made a shiver go down Brooks's spine.

"I am," he replied, though it had not been a question.

The man turned. "Come," he said.

He could ignore the being and continue to his crawler. Something inside told him that he probably should - but he did not.

Instead, he followed the Shoggoth.

The being said nothing, never even looking back at him, and having no difficulty with snow or climbing. When Brooks fell behind, the Shoggoth stopped and waited with seemingly infinite patience.

They walked towards the foothills. There was no way they could go that far, Brooks knew they were many miles away. But as they walked further, he began to wonder.

They'd been walking over an hour, and he'd had very little information to go on. He silently sent a signal for his crawler to navigate itself to his location. He couldn't do that in the town - a half-buried building could have collapsed under it, trapping his only transport.

The flatness of the immediate environs was broken as the Shoggoth ahead of him turned suddenly, and began to disappear under the snow.

As Brooks caught up, he saw that the being was walking down into a crevasse.

It was raw stone, all its harsh edges worn down by ice over the millenia. It went down at a slow angle for ten meters, dropping only just under the surface, then veered off to the right. A chasm above opened it to the air which he had been unable to see before.

He began to follow the being down. The ramp was shallow, but slick, and he realized that it was not rock, but dense, ancient ice.

Some had survived through the centuries, he'd always known, but he'd never known about this one.

His boots clamped onto the ice with spikes to help him walk, but he was quickly being left behind by the Shoggoth, who seemed entirely untroubled by the slippery surface.

"Wait," he called.

But the Shoggoth kept going, and Brooks sped up as much as he could.

Finally reaching the bend, he went past it - and saw a crowd waiting for him.

Thirty people stood in the cool dimness of the ice ravine, their eyes all fixed upon him. Their faces were tranquil, and no two looked alike. All ages, all sizes, with skin tones and features just as varied.

They had no systems that his could recognize. Their faces were unknown to the records he had on-hand.

"Hello," he said, feeling a tingle down his spine. A strange pressure felt like it was crushing down on him. The effect of so many of the strange beings all gathered together.

They were all Shoggoths. They had to be.

None of them spoke, and he was not sure why they were here or what they wanted.

He waited, as they waited.

A male pushed through the group, and Brooks recognized the face as Kell's. But that didn't mean it was him . . .

"Ambassador?" he asked.

"Captain Brooks," the being replied with a slight nod.

"What are you doing here?" Brooks asked.

"I would ask you the same question," Kell replied.

"I was born in Perry. I am visiting my home," he answered.

"You might say that I am doing the same," Kell replied. He looked up, towards the direction of the ruins of the town. "What was once your home exists near mine, it seems."