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  Neka held my gaze, quiet for a moment, then said, “You’re right, pausha. Whatever we build here, we build for all humankind. We cannot take that lightly. But we must tread with caution. If they learn too much about us, all at once, who knows what might happen. We could ignite a cultural war. Or a religious revolution. Cordar and I will work with Reacher to draft up an observation plan.”

  “Excellent.” I held out my hands, addressing the whole team. “We did not come prepared for this, but we must get prepared, as quickly and thoroughly as possible. Whoever these people are, wherever they came from, they are a factor in every decision we make from here on out.”

  * * *

  “Are we almost ready?”

  After an exhaustive orbital survey, we had determined an ideal landing area, a wide, grassy plain with long sight lines, far away from any native human habitations. Now, we rested on the planet’s surface, running the requisite battery of ground level preparations, and my patience was slipping.

  “Just a few more hours, Orenpausha,” Neka answered.

  Six farruns away, a spine of mountains shimmered on the blue horizon, begging to be explored. I watched on the feed as one of our explorer drones approached the range. The ground whipped past and the mountains rose up, carved with bands of glacial ice.

  I licked my lips. “How far along are the supplements?” I asked.

  “Reacher is rendering the nano-solution now.” She gestured to the monitor in front of her. “You should check out these readings while we wait.”

  “Are you looking at the monera ratios?” Sid asked, leaning over from his monitor.

  “Yes,” Cordar said, blinking his eyes as he lifted his head from a magnascope. “We’ve looked at dozens of samples like this one,” he gestured to the tiny biovessel beneath the magnascope, “and they all show an average dispersal of 100 billion microorganisms per square unit of biomatter.”

  Sid whistled.

  I looked at Neka, my eyebrows raised.

  “He’s right,” she said, confirming the measurements. “This planet is a flourishing gift. Absolutely teeming with life. It is more than seventy percent water, and photosynthetic organisms are prolific. They are gobbling up the carbon dioxide. The air is even richer than we first gathered. Almost seventy cones oxygen per unit in the lower spheres. And look at this spectrogram.”

  The star, Soth Ra, floated in front of me on a mobile console. Its color shifted from yellow, to red, to blue, to purple, to green, then back again through the spectra. Then the view zoomed past the star, focusing in on the planet. We watched as the radiant energy from the star, represented by the rainbow of colors, streamed past the planet, diverted along its curve, flowing around and out into space.

  Neka touched my arm. “The planet’s outermost sphere is a thin but effective magnetic shield, produced by the planetary spin and its dense molten metal core. It filters out the intense solar radiation, while allowing the optimal spectra to penetrate. Life does not just survive here. It thrives. It is a beautiful, delicate balance.”

  When you spend years in space, sharing each other’s thoughts and hopes, it becomes easy to read each other, even when you’re not connected to the field. Sid, sensing my excitement at this news, followed Neka by saying, “Of course, we must keep an eye on the star to get a better sense of its rhythms. At this distance, there is still the risk of solar flaring, which could warp or even catastrophically puncture the magnetosphere.”

  I nodded at him. “I appreciate your prudence, Sid.” I looked around at the team. “This is excellent work. We have come so far, and it is gratifying to see such promise.” On the viewing monitor, the image toggled between the feeds of each of our three explorer drones, small chrome orbs, skimming across the surface of the planet.

  The drone nearest the mountains was ascending. It shot up, and the land stretched out below. It was an incredible sight. Skeins of water snaked through emerald gems of tall grass. Graceful, two-winged flyers with long, thin necks touched off from the water as our drone zipped past, a ruby swarm, funneling through the air, flying as one. A massive brace of golden-brown, four-legged creatures thundered across the open plains. Tens of thousands of them, their tall, curving horns like a forest stripped of leaves, bending in the wind.

  My whole body was tingling, and I could feel my heart in my chest. Life. Running wild across the planet. It was magnificent.

  “Eledar’s breath!” I said. “We can’t let Reacher have all the fun. I’m going out.”

  Neka grabbed my hand. “Wait, pausha. Reacher has not finished adapting our supplements yet. And we still do not know what happened to the first party of Architects. Maybe they were wiped out by an unanticipated virus, or consumed by some terrible predator. You could be killed.”

  “I will not be killed,” I snapped at her. “Don’t you see? This is what I was bred for. My bones and skin and sinew ache for this.”

  “We see you as you are, Orenpausha. Or we would not be here with you.” Neka let go of my hand. “Yet, with all that you have survived, I wonder if it is you who judges us? Your patience is so thin.”

  I sighed and put my hands on her shoulders. “I am sorry, Neka. Maybe you are right. But you have trusted me to carry us this far. Please, trust me now.” I looked at the rest of them in turn.

  Siddart shifted in his chair and coughed, clearly uncomfortable with the conflict.

  Cordar glowered at me, disapproving.

  Adjet smiled, shook her head, then turned to the console and activated the decompression chamber that would let me exit the ship. “As soon as the supplements are ready,” she said, “we’ll be right behind you.”

  I knew that Xayes and Xander were watching from the field. I could almost feel them hovering next to me. I entered the decompression chamber and dialed my cloak to quarantine settings. It formed into an exoskin around me, the nanofibers weaving airtight around my limbs and torso, my hood forming a filter over my mouth and nose. I nodded to Adjet, and she closed the door behind me, activating the seals that would keep them safe when the exterior door opened.

  Neka put her slender hand to the glass. The lines in the light, tawny skin of her palm flattened and turned white with the pressure. I mirrored her gesture, placing my large, coarse hand on the opposite side of the glass, my palm to hers.

  The air from the alien world came rushing in.

  * * *

  After a few tentative breaths, I retracted the filter and filled my lungs. It was outstanding, like liquid ambrosia after years of recycled air. Connecting to the field is a singular gift. It provides a virtually infinite range of experiences. But there is something uncanny about waking life. The way the heart churns and pulses, every breath, every step, every pang of hunger a reminder. We are alive.

  I knelt down and scooped up a handful of soil and grit. Dozens of tiny critters nosed and squirmed through the dirt. An insectoid with six legs, two darting antennae, and a mud-colored chitinous carapace skittered up my wrist. A nelida as long as my finger, its skin ringed with hundreds of tiny folds, stretched and compressed as it wormed its way through the dirt in my palm.

  I lifted the handful of earth to my nose. Fragrant. Redolent of decay and recomposition. I touched my dirty finger to my tongue. The loam was bitter and strong.

  I smiled, dropped the clump of turf, and leapt straight up from my crouch, pushing against the earth and propelling high into the air. My muscles had been shaped both by genetics, and by the gravitation of Verygone and Forsara. Here on Eaiph, with its lighter gravity, I felt for a moment that I might tear through the cobalt paper sky and just keep going out into space.

  But the planet’s pull was stronger than I realized. Once my initial muscular force was depleted, I shot back down to the ground. I rolled to absorb the impact, and came up standing. I laughed. It felt so good to move!

  I saw a forest, maybe half a farrun away, and I leapt again, covering the space in two bounds, touching down at the edge of the woods. The trees were maybe three times my heigh
t, with rough, scabrous bark, and broad, coniferous canopies.

  I stepped across the threshold, into the dark of their shade, and waited for my eyes to adjust. The sounds within were riotous. Birds hollered and whistled, dancing through the boughs. A rodent with a long, bushy tail opened its mouth and chirruped, then leapt like an acrobat from one tree to the next, landing on a thin branch that bent under its weight as it scurried in towards the trunk. A seed cone fell from the end of the branch, plunking to the dirt and dry needles on the forest floor.

  Then I caught a glimpse of something larger, a flicker of movement deeper in the woods. My adrenaline spiked. How foolish I was, going out there alone. Where there is life, there are always predators. And even someone as big and strong as me might still become the prey.

  I crouched a little lower, scanning the light and shadows. There. Another movement. Was that … a person? My mind raced with possibilities. There were not supposed to be people here. We had made sure of that. But what if they had been expecting us? Had somehow slipped our scans?

  Whatever it was, it moved too quick for me to be certain. I was on the verge of calling out, to see if I might get some response, when someone else shouted.

  I ducked down even lower, cursing, and swiveled my head in the direction of the voice. If I have stumbled into a group of natives, I thought, then they have me surrounded.

  But it was only Sid. He was running towards me on his powerful bionetic legs, Cordar and Neka coming behind him, working hard to keep up. My heart rate slowed. I took one last look into the depths of the forest, but there was nothing. I stood and walked back into the light of day.

  * * *

  “Here, pausha,” Neka said to me, “breathe this in.” She handed me two small tubes that carried the special cocktail of nanoparticles designed to fortify us against any dangerous bacterial and viral monera, and to ensure that we could consume and metabolize the alien organic matter of this planet without poisoning ourselves.

  I placed the first tube to each nostril in turn, inhaling deep. Then I took the second, opened it, and swallowed its contents. When I was done, I handed the vials back to Neka, and she slipped them into a fold in her cloak.

  I turned and clasped one hand on Cordar’s right shoulder and the other on Sid’s left, drawing them close to me. “Can you believe all this? The planet is ripe with the fundamentals. Everything we’d hoped for.”

  Cordar smiled at me. “I can’t wait to begin working with the flora. All this green is so vibrant. A striking contrast to the blue and purple hues of Forsara. Who knows what cuisines we might invent on this world!”

  That made me laugh. “After years tending our tiny botanareum on Reacher, now you have a whole planet to harvest, eh?”

  He nodded, still smiling, then he turned to face Neka, and moved his hands in a series of complex gestures. She moved her hands in a response series, too quick to follow.

  Cordar laughed out loud.

  “What are you two conspiring about? Did you just say something about an experiment, Cord?”

  Neka chuckled. “There’s no conspiracy, pausha,” she said. “He speaks in his native tongue, as plain as day for any who have eyes.”

  “Then my eyes must be getting worse as I age,” I said, grinning at her.

  “I told her that we should run an experiment to see what medicinal qualities the plants of this world might hold for us,” Cordar said, “and she said that, first, we have to make sure you don’t run trampling over all of them.”

  I looked at each of them for a moment. Then, while I had my eyes on Cordar, I lunged at Neka, surprising her. She squealed, trying to leap out of my grasp, but I was too fast for her. I wrapped her up in my arms, pretended to growl like some wild beast.

  After a moment, I loosened my grip and she squirmed away from me. “You’re a savage,” she said with a big smile.

  “Oh, I’m so sorry, my dear,” I said in a self-important voice. “I was merely conducting an experiment to see if you were as fast on your feet as you are with your witticisms.”

  I turned to Cordar. “And don’t think I won’t do the same to you. I heard the way you cackled at her joke. Best be careful, the both of you, because there’s plenty more tough love where that came from.”

  My warning didn’t seem to trouble Cordar. He had a look of mischief in his eyes. I saw him glance past my shoulder, and I turned my head quick, following his gaze. I saw nothing but the trees.

  Something touched the back of my legs.

  Cordar jumped towards me. He let out a wild roar, raising his hands above his head. I flinched away from him, and promptly tumbled over, my feet flying up, my hands grasping futilely at the air.

  Sid had crept up and knelt right behind my knees, setting me up for the fall. The great, blue sky filled my vision as I pinwheeled backwards, landing with a thump. It didn’t hurt much, but it knocked the wind out of me, and before I could do anything else, the three of them were on top of me, pinning me to the ground.

  “How dare you treat your pausha like this,” I roared in mock anger once I’d caught my breath. With my strength, I could have escaped their clutches, but I played along, acting immobilized, and soon we were all laughing like a bunch of children who had been cooped up inside for far too long.

  Our laughter was interrupted by the sound of Reacher’s voice.

  “Ahem,” he said.

  We all looked up.

  The chrome orb of an explorer drone hovered above us. “Cordar, when you’ve completed the ritualistic sacrifice of our pausha, Adjet requests your presence back on the ship. She is preparing our first supper here on Eaiph, and she apparently needs your help to ensure that she does not end up poisoning the entire team.”

  Cordar laughed, stood up, and made a swiping gesture with his hands down his chest. In response, the nanofibers of his cloak rippled and whirred, shaking off the dirt that had stained his arms and knees in our playful scuffle.

  Neka and Sid climbed off of me and helped me to my feet. We stood around, grinning at each other like idiots.

  “Please do hurry,” Reach said. “I would hate to be left here all alone as the result of a tainted tuber stew.”

  3 Verygone

  I was born on the small moon Verygone, far away from Forsara, well on the tip of the Nomarion arm of the galaxy, in one of the innumerable tiny settlements populating the margins. The moon boasts deep deposits of terranium, so, in spite of our distance from the center, we were a modest but important juncture in the trading and communications routes that ringed the galaxy.

  Verygone orbits the giant Cordelar, the planet always looming on the moon’s horizon. Dark bands of gas carve across Cordelar’s upper atmosphere, striping the massive orb. One complete orbit of the planet takes a little over eight galactic years, as measured by Fellowship regulations. As Verygone travels the sunward side of Cordelar, facing the star of Beallus, the moon is blessed with the long summer. The light of Beallus reflected off the upper atmosphere of Cordelar, turning it into a quiet sun, all light, no heat. Every morning, Corderlar rose and coated the valleys of Verygone in amber. Then Beallus came into view, bringing the true day. One or the other, always rising, lighting up the sky.

  In the waning months of my first summer, my father hiked with me to the top of Senes, the mountain peak at the edge of our settlement. From our vantage at the top, with Cordelar at our backs, we watched Beallus set. When the star fell beneath the horizon, an amber glow enveloped us, Cordelar shining behind us, bathing us in its warm glow.

  I stared up at my father as he surveyed the valleys. He looked invincible, his head tilted up, his skin glowing in the setting light. Motes of dust scattered in the air. I wove quick, fractal patterns with my hands, the dust chasing my fingertips in contrails before they dispersed again a moment later.

  He closed his eyes, and drew a long breath through his nose, his chest and shoulders lifting. “Soon you’re going to crave that light, Oren. Soak it in, like the Beallurian generators we use to power our
homes. Let it permeate your bones. We are crossing to the far side of Cordelar. The long dark.”

  I had been born at the end of the last winter, too young to remember. I had never known anything other than the warmth and light. I touched his hand. “The long dark, papoh?”

  He looked down at me. “Winter. It isn’t easy for any of us, but you are different, my son. You are special. And that sets you apart. Which means winter will be even more difficult for you.” He stared off towards the setting sun, his face sad.

  “What makes me special?” I asked. “You always say that, but you never say what!” My voice rose, and I crossed my arms, determined to make him tell me everything.

  He smiled and put his arm around my shoulders, pulling me close, hugging me into his leg. He sighed. “One day, you’ll grow too big for this lonely moon of ours, Oren,” he said.

  When I think of his smile now, I miss my father as much as the day I left Verygone.

  “But I’m the littlest,” I said. “That’s what the doctor told moma at my last check-up. She looked sad then, like you do right now.”

  “There are many kinds of strength, Oren. You’ll see. Until then, promise me that no matter what comes, you will be brave. And remember that your moma and I love you very much. We believe in you with every fiber of our being.”

  “I promise, papoh,” I said.

  * * *

  My father’s name was Sora. ‘Papoh’, I called him when I was a child. Our people were descended from a hardy settler stock bred for heavy labor, and like most men and women on Verygone, he was tall and broad shouldered, with thick, tough hair covering most of his body. He was one of three quarry chiefs in the terranium mines, and he was well respected amongst our people as a competent and fair manager.

  My mother Enebtha, my moma, was tall and uncommonly slender, with the delicate hands of an artist. She had lines of ancestry tracing back to the water world of Jarcosa, and at a young age, she showed an aptitude for complex processes. This skillset had guaranteed her a job in the refinery, where terranium was purified and prepared for use as fuel, ensuring she would never have to set foot in the mines.