The fetch reappeared in the midst of this chaos, still in costume. Adel had never seen her flicker before. “I’m afraid,” said the Godspeed to no one in particular, “that I’ve made a terrible mistake.”
The Alien is worshipped on almost all the worlds of the Continuum. While various religions offer divergent views of the Alien, they share two common themes. One is that the Alien gods are—or were once—organic intelligences whose motives are more or less comprehensible. The other is that the gods are absent. The Mission of Tsef promises adherents that they can achieve psychic unity with benign alien nuns who are meditating on their behalf somewhere in the M5 globular cluster. The Cosmic Ancestors are the most popular of the many panspermian religions; they teach that our alien parents seeded earth with life in the form of bacterial stromatolites some 3.7 billion years ago. There are many who hold that humanity’s greatest prophets, like Jesus and Ellen and Smike, were aliens come to share the gospel of a loving universe while the Uplift believes that an entire galactic civilization translated itself to a higher reality but left behind astronomical clues for us to decipher so that we can join them someday. It is true that the Glogites conceive of Glog as unknowable and indifferent to humankind, but there is very little discernable difference between them and people who worship black holes.
We find it impossible to imagine a religion that would worship the prazz, but then we know so little about them—or it. Not only is the prazz not organic, but it seems to have a deep-seated antipathy toward all life. Why this should be we can’t say: we find the prazz incomprehensible. Even the Godspeed, the only intelligence to have any extended contact with the prazz, misjudged it—them—entirely.
Here are a few of most important questions for which we have no answer:
What exactly are the prazz?
Are they one or many?
Where did they come from?
Why was a sentry posted between our Local Arm and the Sagittarius-Carina Arm of the Milky Way?
Are there more sentries?
And most important of alclass="underline" what are the intentions of the prazz now that they know about us?
What we can say is this: in the one thousand and eighty-sixth year of her mission, the Godspeed detected a communication burst from a source less than a light-year away. Why the prazz sentry chose this precise moment to signal is unknown; the Godspeed had been sweeping that sector of space for years and had seen no activity. Acting in accordance with the protocols for first contact, she attempted a stealth scan, which revealed the source as a small robotic ship powered by a matter-antimatter engine. Unfortunately, the prazz sentry sensed that it was being scanned and was able to get a fix on the Godspeed. What she should have done at that point was to alert the Continuum of her discovery and continue to track the sentry without making contact. That she did otherwise reflects the unmistakable drift of her persona from threshold norms. Maybe she decided that following procedures lacked dramatic flair. Or perhaps the discovery of the prazz stirred some inexpressible longing for companionship in the Godspeed, who was herself an inorganic intelligence. In any event, she attempted to communicate with the prazz sentry and compartmentalized the resources she devoted to the effort so that she could continue to send nominal reports to the Continuum. This was a technique that she had used just once before, but to great effect; compartmentalization was how the Godspeed was able to keep her secrets. We understand now that the contact between the two ships was deeply flawed, and their misunderstandings profound. Nevertheless, they agreed to a rendezvous and the Godspeed began to decelerate to match course and velocity with the prazz sentry.
The highboy that killed Robman had crushed his chest and cut the tether that joined him to Jonman. Their blood was all over the floor. Adel had done his best for Jonman, clearing enough debris to lay him out flat, covering him with a carpet. He had tied the remaining length of tether off with wire stripped from the back of a ruined painting, but it still oozed. Adel was no medic but he was pretty sure that Jonman was dying; his face was as gray as his jacket. Kamilah didn’t look too bad but she was unconscious and breathing shallowly. Adel worried that she might have internal injuries. Meri’s arm was probably broken; when they tried to move her she moaned in agony. Jarek was kicking the slats out of a Yamucha chair back to make her a splint.
“An alien, Speedy?” Adel felt too lightheaded to be scared. “And you didn’t tell anyone?” It was as if the gravity generator had failed and at any moment he would float away from this grim reality.
“So where is this fucking prazz now?” Jarek ripped a damask tablecloth into strips.
“The sentry ship itself crashed into the backside engine room. But it has deployed a remote.” The Godspeed seemed twitchy and preoccupied. “It’s in the conservatory, smashing cacti.”
“What?” said Adel.
“It has already destroyed my rain forest and torn up my alpine garden.”
plus buzzed—they’re fighting with plants?—
“Show me,” said Jarek.
The wall turned a deep featureless blue. “I can’t see them; my cameras there are gone.” The Godspeed paused, her expression uneasy.
—more bad news coming—buzzed minus.
“You should know,” she said, “that just before it attacked, the prazz warned me that I was infested with vermin and needed to sterilize myself. When I told it that I didn’t consider you vermin…”
“You’re saying they’ll come for us?” said Jarek.
“I’m afraid that’s very likely.”
“Then stop it.”
She waved her magic staff disconsolately. “I’m at a loss to know how.”
“Fuck that, Speedy.” Jarek pointed one of the slats at her fetch. “You think of something. Right now.” He knelt by Meri. “I’m going to splint you now, love. It’s probably going to hurt.”
Meri screamed as he tenderly straightened her arm.
“I know, love,” said Jarek. “I know.”
—we have to get out of here—buzzed minus.
“How badly are you damaged, Speedy?” said Adel. “Can we use the MASTA?”
“My MASTA is operational on a limited basis only. My backside engine complex is a complete loss. I thought I was able to vent all the antimatter in time, but there must have been a some left that exploded when the containment failed.”
Something slammed onto the level below them so hard that the walls shook.
—those things are tearing her apart—
—looking for us—
“I’ve sealed off the area as best I can but the integrity of my life-support envelope has been compromised in several places. At the rate I’m bleeding air into space…”
Adel felt another jarring impact, only this one felt as if it were farther away. The Godspeed’s fetch blurred and dispersed into fog. She reconstituted herself on the wall.
“…the partial pressure of oxygen will drop below 100 millibars sometime within the next ten to twelve hours.”
“That’s it then.” Jarek helped Meri to her feet and wiped the tears from her face with his forefinger. “We’re all jumping home. Meri can walk, can’t you Meri?”