CHAPTER 1
CELESTE
How I endedup on Zairion Prime as a beetle’s pet is… a long story.
Where to even start?
Probably with the cataclysm.
Twenty Earth years ago—as tracked on special atomic watches, even though Earth no longer exists—the little blue planet shattered into jagged chunks and burned a fiery death.
I was almost twenty.
Right when Earth was on the verge of collapse, the ICSS—Intergalactic Coalition of Sentient Species—swooped in to save us. They gathered samples of every species and loaded as many living creatures as they could onto massive ark ships, including the ninety percent of humans that hadn’t already died in the cataclysm’s first fissures.
At first, they kept family units together.
That was the worst time for me. My relationship with my mother and brother was already strained; the stress of the cataclysm and being cooped up on the ark ship only made them meaner.
Then the assignments began. The ICSS scientists treated us like animals in a zoo, and I mean that in a positive way. They took our happiness and enrichment seriously and tried to get to know us—all nine billion of us—as individuals.
In large part, they tried to help us become self-sustaining. They put us to work designing and building the city-ships that would become our permanent homes. There was all kinds of work: mechanics, builders, community organizers, experience designers, advocates for marginalized identities and experiences.
Over time, humans have also been assigned to jobs supporting other species. We have nimble hands and strong problem-solving abilities with relatively low nutrition requirements compared to other species. We also have creative minds to bring fresh ideas to civil and artistic projects alike. Overall, integration is going well.
The ICSS was the guiding hand, stepping in whenever humans started to behave in the way that had gotten us into this mess in the first place.
Somehow, they pulled it off. The ‘aliens’ of the ICSS—though, it’s odd to call them that, sincewe’rethe aliens in their skies—are more advanced than humans. Like, on a quantum level. They can perceive and manipulate gravity wells and time strings and consciousness energy and a bunch of other stuff that’s literally beyond our comprehension.
I asked a Scintian—a gorgeous species of iridescent squid-like creatures that hover in the air because they can climb gravity threads—about it once. Xe told me that most sapients have a sense for absolute truth, which humans lack. To put it in more accessible terms, xe said it’s as if all humans are colorblind: vulnerable to being misled, convinced that red is green or green is red. But to the species of the ICSS, the truth is always clear.
In my experience over the last twenty years, that’smostlybeen true. Maybe being ‘truth-blind’—in no small part due to how my mother treated me—has made me wary. Observant.
I have a chance of spotting a pattern even a Scintian might miss.
Ninety-nine-point-nine-nine percent of ICSS human assignments are successful.
It sounds pretty good until you realize that leaves nine million people without a sense of place or purpose.
I’m one of those people. The longest I’ve lasted in a role is two and a half years. I’m either out of my depth or overqualified. Failing to bond with my fellow assigned humans, or bonding too much.
I’ve tried and failed to convince the ICSS caseworkers that I’d rather be bored or picked on than constantly uprooted.
I ask to be given more time. A longer shot somewhere, anywhere.
“Humans are extremely adaptable,” they tell me. “We would know in two years if you’d be able to adjust. The next assignment has a tenfold higher statistical likelihood of compatibility.”
But I know the truth.Iam not extremely adaptable. I feel on the verge of tears when the cafeteria is out of my usual breakfast. Even small changes to my schedule send me reeling for weeks. I’m like moss desperately trying to grow on a stone that won’t stop rolling.
I’m an anomaly. An outlier.
And so I see a little crack in the ICSS’s claims. They may be able to seesomeobjective truths, but they can’t measure an individual human’s adaptability.
Stories similar to mine echo across the support boards for humans that still don’t have a permanent assignment; there’ssome quirk of the human psyche that the ICSS can’t quite figure out.
Every time they reassign me, they reduce the odds I’ll ever fit in anywhere.
A couple years ago, I thought I’d found my answer. The support boards mentioned that the bounce rate from one specific assignment is zero percent. Nobody has ever been dissatisfied.
