“My father was nineteen then. He joined a liberation group and started writing articles and dumping them into the colony feed, trying to convince the old guard that they needed to respect the local life. My mother went further. The group she was with launched an attack on one of the facilities where the natives were being held. She told me that they didn’t intend to kill the workers there, but … well, mistakes were made all around, I guess. After that, Command rounded up some of her friends and stuffed them down the corpse hole while they were still kicking. The next day, the sister of one of the ones who’d been killed went after the commander with a burner. She didn’t kill him, but apparently she really pissed him off, because he tried to have Security detain every single planet-born colonist. The first officers who tried to carry out the order got ambushed, hit by hijacked military burners, and roasted in their armor.
“After that, things got bad. When it was over, the old guard was gone. They should have known that they’d never really had a chance. They were old, after all, and they were outnumbered two-to-one or more. Most of the colony’s infrastructure was gone too, though, and the planet-born survivors didn’t have the knowledge base or the resources to rebuild it. Also, a lot of them had come to the conclusion that they should never have come to an inhabited world in the first place. So, they boosted back up to orbit, did the best they could to retrofit the shell of the colony ship that had brought them there, and abandoned the planet. Five years later, eighty-two of them made orbit around Midgard, where they’ve been getting shit on ever since.
“The end.”
The cabin is silent once Nasha stops speaking.
“Wow,” Cat says finally. “That’s not exactly the story we got in school.”
“Yeah,” Nasha says. “No shit.”
“I am confused,” Speaker says. “Was this story intended to reassure me of your good intentions toward us?”
Nasha shrugs. “Maybe. Did it?”
“No,” Speaker says. “Not at all.”
“No kidding,” Cat says. “That story really didn’t show humanity in the best light, did it, Nasha? Maybe you could have started him off with something a little less genocidal?”
“Sure,” Lucas says. “You could have told him about Gault.”
“Or the Bubble War,” Berto says.
“The Bubble War?” Speaker says.
“Not relevant,” I say. “Anybody have something a bit more appropriate to talk about?”
“I think it’s Wormy’s turn,” Lucas says. “A story for a story, right?”
“These other places,” Speaker says. “New Hope and Midgard—they are other worlds?”
“Maybe,” Nasha says. “What do you know about other worlds?”
“We know many things. For example, we know there are six other worlds orbiting our sun. I do not believe you come from any of these, however. Two are airless and very hot, and the other four are more like failed stars than planets. Nothing like you could exist on any of their surfaces. There are moons as well, some large enough to be worlds in their own rights, but none we know of that could harbor life. We do not know of any worlds orbiting other stars, but it seems reasonable that they might exist. Perhaps you would know the truth of this better than we.”
I wouldn’t have thought the creepers would know any of that. I need to file that away for future reference, in the same folder with the conversations I’ve had with Nasha on the topic. She’s right. The creepers are not primitives. I’m still not sure I buy that they’re really that much smarter than we are, but in any case it seems pretty clear that they’re not significantly dumber, and underestimating them is probably a good way to get us all killed.
“So that’s where you think we come from?” Nasha says. “Other stars?”
A ripple runs the length of Speaker’s body. “The possibility has occurred to us, but this is a point of great contention. On one side, it seems clear that you are unlike any other creature on this world, and in fact you appear to be unable to survive here without significant augmentation. This argues that you come from elsewhere, and as I said, it seems impossible that your home could be another world orbiting our sun. On the other side, we have concluded that travel across the distances that separate us from even the nearest stars should be impossible. However, you are clearly here, so…” He trails off, and his mandibles clatter together. “The amount of energy required to cross the gulf between stars would be…” He falls silent, and stays that way for a long while. I glance over at Nasha. She shrugs. I’m about to say something when he speaks again. “I think,” he says, “that it is possible that you may be a great deal more dangerous than we had thought.”
“SO IS WORMY gonna tell us a story?”
I open my eyes. I’d been dozing, half dreaming about being down in the labyrinth with Eight again. Nasha had been resting her head on my shoulder, but she sits up now and squints across the cabin at Lucas. “Are you back on that again?”
“I told you,” Lucas says. “I’m bored.”
“You’re a child,” Nasha says. “I’m going to war with a goddamned child.”
“We are not going to war,” Speaker says. “I thought I was very clear about that.”
“Yes, you were,” Nasha says. “I guess we’ll see, huh?”
We’ve been rolling for about six hours at this point, and for the last two we’ve been picking our way along high ridges, charting a path to avoid the worst of the remaining glaciers, barely moving faster than a walking pace most of the time. Lucas is right. It’s really boring.
“I did agree to tell a story in exchange for the one the Nasha told,” Speaker says. “Is this an appropriate time?”
“Depends,” Nasha says. “This isn’t more excerpts from Mickey’s comm, right?”
“No,” Speaker says. “Instead, I can tell a story explaining why our world is sometimes warm, as now, and sometimes cold, as when you first arrived here. Would that suffice?”
“Sure,” Lucas says. “Go nuts, Wormy. Entertain me.”
“Very well,” Speaker says. “This story involves our sun, and also the world whose orbit is just outside ours. It can usually be seen clearly in the southern sky. Do you know it?”
“We’re aware of it,” Nasha says. “Massive gas giant. Twelve moons, some of them almost big enough to be habitable if they weren’t frozen solid and buried in the planet’s radiation belts.”
“Yes,” Speaker says. “For the purposes of this story, I will refer to the sun as Fire, and the planet as Ice. Is this acceptable?”
“Those are terrible names,” Lucas says.
Speaker twists around to face him. “What?”
“Those names,” Lucas says. “They’re terrible. Is that really what you call them?”
“No,” Speaker says. “We do not communicate using atmospheric compression waves. Would you rather I tell this story in our language?”
“No,” Lucas says. “Just pick better names.”
“Mutt and Jeff,” Berto says.
Speaker turns to him. “Mutt and Jeff?”
“Yeah,” Berto says. “Those are good names. Use those.”
He turns back to Lucas. “Is this acceptable?”
Lucas grins. “Sure. That works.”
“Very well. So, in the beginning, there was one Prime, which was Mutt. As time passed, she found she was lonely, and so birthed seven ancillaries to serve as companions. These are the seven worlds in our system.”
“Wait,” Cat says. “Why are you calling them he and she? Didn’t you say before that you don’t have sexes?”
Speaker twists to face her. “We do not, but you do, no? Please remember that this story is for you, not for me. You see?”
“Yeah,” Lucas says. “We’ve got it.”