FOR THE next three or four days, as best she could judge, Jacqui was left alone to her thoughts. No Sous visited her: her meals were brought and her commode was emptied by robots. They may be loathsome in appearance, these robots, she thought, but they’re non-sentient: they can do me no harm and they can’t upset me. Was this how she would live out her remaining days? Utterly alone?

Did she want to go home?

Would she return to a planet ravaged by Climate Change? Major had warned her, and moreover the eventual prognosis had been pretty well accepted by scientists even before she’d left Earth in 2031. And the earliest she could return was over 116 years after that time. What could she possibly find? Most of the coastal areas flooded because of polar ice caps melting? Other areas become deserts devoid of life? Most animals and plants extinct? Humans greatly diminished in numbers, civilisations crumbling, technology lost, whole populations descending into savagery, famine, disease?

Or even the temperature unbearable and the atmosphere unbreath­able due to the greenhouse effect?

The Four Horsemen!

And this might well be the world she was craving to go home to!

On the other hand, could she simply remain with the Sous?

She did not like this planet—what she had seen of it. A water-world, but not the exhilarating experience she had imagined a water-world would offer. Having to wade to get anywhere was intolerable. She recollected water-worlds she had read about in fiction. C.S. Lewis’s Perelandra, for instance, set on an imagined idyllic Venus far removed from reality. A paradise—whereas the real Venus was a hell-hole. The movie Waterworld: rather the opposite: a futuristic and post-apocalyptic Earth with all land areas flooded due to a 7000 metre sea level rise (Jacqui knew that this was a gross exaggeration: the most that sea level could rise due to polar and glacier ice melt would be about 70 metres). People were portrayed as living and having adventures in such a world. The movie certainly implied an exciting scenario.

But the Sous’ world? Dull, dull, dull, was all Jacqui could make of it so far. If nothing else, if she stayed here she’d soon die of pure boredom. So much for the perceived adventure, the thrill, the romance, of being the first human to visit an alien planet—to encounter intelligent alien beings—the picture Grandad had painted so often in his works! Reality was a poor substitute for fiction, as she was rapidly discovering.

And the Sous themselves? Cuckoos, no question about it. She was glad she had refrained from uttering that word during her conversations with Major. The Sous evidently knew a great deal about Earth’s ecology: they would surely know the life-cycle of the cuckoo and all the other brood-parasites in Earth’s fauna. They must have known that the concept would be distasteful to Jacqui—so why had they been so open in describing their reproductive process? A question Jacqui could not answer. She was beginning to feel a sense of revulsion towards the Sous.

*

Jacqui’s solitude did not last. Some days later, Major appeared through one of the orifices in the wall. Noting Jacqui’s unease at his entrance, he wriggled discreetly towards the furthest corner of the room, where he coiled up as usual and raised his Big Bell towards her. Jacqui did not look at him.

“I have bad news for you—possibly bad news for us—but also some good news for you. What shall I begin with?”

“All right,” said Jacqui with a shrug. “Let’s have the bad news first.”

“We have decided that no further breeding missions will be sent to your planet—to Earth. This means that the only way you can be repatriated is if Colonel agrees to your being taken on a mission bound for somewhere else and dropped off on your world.”

“So why is this bad news for you too?”

“We are running out of worlds suitable for our breeding prog­ramme. If we do not find new suitable planets in the not-too-distant future, then, given time, our species will become extinct. In a short time by our reckoning—a few thousand of your years—all of us will be dead.”

“Good,” muttered Jacqui, resentfully, glancing at Major for the first time. “We shall be gone, too, long before then. Join the club and enjoy the company!”

“I do not understand that last remark, but I had hoped you might have something positive to say, notwithstanding the bleak prospects for both of us. But I shall let that pass. But the good news—maybe—from your point of view, is that we have discovered that sentient life exists on a world which lies in the same direction as Earth, but more distant. I shall discuss with Colonel whether a mission to that planet is being considered, and if so, whether there is any possibility of taking you as a passenger and dropping you off.”

“Yes—please!” said Jacqui, hope rising once more. “How soon might that be?”

“I cannot answer that, sorry. It may be quite a while. Meanwhile, I came here also to warn you that our part of the planet will in a few of your days enter its Night period. It will become dark here, and considerably colder—though not as cold as your planet Mercury in its night-time! Your room here is not suitable to remain in during the Night, so we have prepared a better habitat elsewhere in this complex. I am here to guide you to it. Are you prepared? Do you have your mask ready?”

There was no argument to that. So, wearing her mask, Jacqui meekly followed Major out through the door and into the open air. She then realised for the first time—although she must have noticed before without taking it in—that the reddish ‘sun’ which she at first thought was completely stationary in the sky, had indeed changed position. It was now low on the horizon. ‘Sunset’ was not far off—but still a few days to go by her reckoning.

“Is Night the same length as Day, here?” she asked—in one of her rare lapses of memory, Jacqui had forgotten that Major had already told her.

“Yes. I explained this to you before, but you may have forgotten. Our planet has almost no axial tilt relative to its orbit, so we have no seasons like you have on Earth. There is some variation due to the eccentricity of the orbit, but you will notice little. The day-night cycle lasts forty-six of your days: twenty-three of daylight and twenty-three of Night.”

It was only a short wade around the perimeter of the ‘building’ this time, and soon they arrived at another ‘room’. This time the wall was a semi-opaque pink and Jacqui had to wait until Major had opened another ‘door’ and let her inside, before she could see her room.

It was certainly an improvement. The floor was still inundated, but only half of it: the other half, a sort of stage, was raised well above the waterline and reached by a couple of steps. Its surface was slightly soft, like a thick rubbery carpet. There was a much larger bed with some sort of coverlet made of a similar material: a table and a few chairs, a sort of desk, and a curtained-off bathroom which included a shower and, much to her amazement and delight, what appeared to be a flush toilet. “No more commodes!” Jacqui thought.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

There was even a mirror.

For the first time in many days Jacqui was able to see her face. It looked thin and drawn, but the Sous had been telling the truth: she had not aged during the forty-three year voyage. She still looked very much the attractive thirty-four year old. If only Adam were here! But Adam, she remembered, was already dead. Tears welled in her eyes.

“It’s lovely: thank you, thank you Major, it’s so much more comfortable here. But I want to go home. Really and truly I want to go home! No matter what state my planet is in. When can I?”

“I already told you: I do not know. We have a ship leaving on a potential breeding mission in two of our Days—about ninety-two of your days…”

Three months! How could Jacqui endure being stuck here for that long?

“…but it is not going in the direction of your planet. It does not carry enough fuel to make the detour.”

What sort of ‘fuel’ did these interstellar ships use? Jacqui thought better than to ask: she wouldn’t understand the answer, she was sure.

“You will just have to wait until I have an answer concerning the planet I mentioned earlier.” continued Major. “The one that does lie in your direction.”

Major was doing his best, Jacqui felt. She was more positively disposed towards the Sous now. “What can I do to occupy myself while waiting for my return trip?” she ventured.

“I shall have to consult. But our robots are capable of constructing many things. We shall do our best.” And with that, he was gone.

*

Jacqui explored her new room. She noted that the green spot in one corner of the room had now turned red, so she took off her mask and thankfully breathed the thin air in gulps. Amongst other things, she discovered on the ‘desk’ a small pile of square sheets of some sort of grey plastic-like substance, like that which her mask was made of. Beside them was a short pointed stick, not unlike a pencil. I wonder? she thought. She drew up a chair and sat down. Yes, the stick was a pencil, and the sheets could be written on. At least that was some­thing she could do! The journalist in her stirred itself, and she set about scribbling down an account of all that had happened to her since she arrived at this planet. No-one would be around to read it, of course—but it had to be recorded. When a robot next entered her room, she showed it the sheets she had already covered with handwriting, and pointed to the dwindling pile remaining on the desk. The robot appeared to understand; within a few minutes she heard the familiar buzz and the red spot on the wall turned green, so she put on her mask. The exterior door opened and two robots entered bearing a large box containing a huge supply of the ‘paper’, plus a number of the pencil-like objects. She could now go on writing for years, she reckoned.

She also discovered a discreet knob which enabled her to change the exterior wall through every state between almost-pinkish-transparent and completely black and opaque. That was well: she could look out through the ‘window’ but could darken the room as and when she wished. She wondered if there was artificial lighting of some sort, and spent a long time hunting for anything that might be a switch. She should have asked Major when he was here, of course! But eventually she found the switch, and the room was bathed in a soft yellow light.

Not pink, she thought with some relief!

She made herself at home in her new room, as best she could. The writing kept her occupied for much of the time, and when she got tired of writing she amused herself by making sketches of what she had seen. She reckoned that she had from memory captured a good likeness of Major on the ‘paper’, but whether he would ‘see’ the drawing as she could, or whether he would recognise himself, remained to be seen. She also made sketches of the ‘building’ as she had remembered seeing it from the outside.

It was while she was drawing that she noticed how dim the light had become outside. Local Night was indeed falling, although it took at least half an Earth day to become truly dark. She wondered if stars were visible. She would have liked to go outside, but she did not know how to operate the exterior door.

She decided that to avoid confusion in her notes, she would write this planet’s ‘Day’ and ‘Night’ with a capital D and N.

*

Major reappeared before long. He complimented Jacqui on the writing she had done, and appeared to gaze for a long time at the sketch she had made of him. Of course she could not read any of his emotions—if Sous had emotions, that is.

“That is meant to be a likeness of me,” he observed after a pause. “You are a good artist, Jacqui. We do not practise such arts, our­selves. Some of my kin would not understand. But please continue with your sketching.”

“I would like to go outside, if possible. Now that it is Night: are the stars visible? Can I—can I possibly see our Sun?”

“All right. You will not see much, I’m afraid. We cannot go far from the complex: it is not safe at Night, and the light from this building will interfere with your view. But you should see some stars. Not your Sun, I’m afraid: at this distance it is too faint to see with the unaided eye [see note (1)]. I shall however point out for you the approximate direction. Do not forget your mask.”

So Jacqui took off her poncho, guessing that it might be an encumbrance, and accompanied Major out of the building, wading after him for about a hundred yards. Then they stopped. Jacqui looked around her.

There was one very bright star, or possibly a planet, visible, but it was fairly near the horizon. It appeared to be even brighter than Venus. Jacqui first of all pointed to it and asked if it was another planet in their star system.

“No. There are other planets in our system, but they are faint, and none are visible from where we are, at present. What you can see is a star that may be familiar to you: your people call it Arcturus.” Jacqui nodded: she knew the name, and recalled that she had been shown how to find it in the sky: not far from the Plough, and pointed to by the Plough’s ‘handle’. But there was no sign of the Plough itself.

“It is our nearest star after our Sun,” continued Major, “about three light-years away. At this distance, it is more than a hundred times brighter than you see it from Earth. We have many names for it, but I am afraid I cannot pronounce them for you. It features in much of our folklore and traditions.”

So this afforded a clue as to the direction in which she had been brought! If she ever returned to Earth, could she pinpoint this planet’s Sun from there? “Can your Sun be seen from Earth?” she asked.

“You would need an exceedingly powerful telescope for that,” replied Major. “It is possible that our Sun shows up in your star catalogues, but I would not know how to direct you. All I can say is, as you no doubt realise, we lie in roughly the same direction as Arcturus, as seen from Earth.” [see note (2)]

That was the best she would get from them, Jacqui realised, but it was something to go on. No-one on Earth, not even those cleared for Wistbourne, had ever had an inkling of where the Changelings’ origin planet might be. Perhaps she should pass on what she had learnt to an astronomer—if she ever got round to meeting one back home. If she ever got back home.

“So, you said you would point me in the direction of our Sun, even though I can’t see it,” she said.

In reply, Major raised his Little Bell: the one he did not ‘talk’ with, furled it, and pointed it towards a different region of the sky, fairly close to the zenith. “Do you see that moderately bright star where I am pointing?”

Jacqui crouched down until her head was close to Major’s body, briefly thrilling at the feel of his smooth, barely damp body where it touched her bare skin. She had not had such intimate contact with another living creature since her nights with Adam. But Major was no human—certainly no lover. She shuddered for a moment, drew a little away from him, and squinted along the direction he was pointing. Yes, there was a star in that direction: not very bright, she thought—about the same as the stars of the Plough.

“That is the star you know as Sirius—and your Sun lies in roughly the same direction,” continued Major. “I am informed that from Earth it is the brightest star in the night sky. But from here it is not particularly conspicuous. Quite the opposite situation to Arcturus, you might say.”

“ ‘The tables are turned’ is what we would say,” remarked Jacqui. She spent some minutes gazing at the night sky around her. She could see several stars which might be grouped into constellations—though of course she could not recognise any of them. But the Milky Way was discernible—looking much as it did from Earth. A wave of homesickness engulfed her once again. She told Major she had had enough, and they returned to her room.