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It’s been ten thousand years since anyone made contact with this offshoot of the species. In all likelihood, they are all dead. That’s why the Patron sent me here. To see what happens when orders are disobeyed, and protocols not followed.
He wants me to see the desolation of a species consumed by the wild. He wants me to understand how fragile life is, and how disobedience leads to inevitable suffering. I know these things already. The humans who headed out this way were ill-fated explorers, and they almost certainly died so far from home they would never be found, but I see this mission a different way. I’ve come for them. Even if it’s just for the smallest hints of remains, some long lost wreckage, even if they had to wait ten thousand years, I have come. We do not abandon our own. Not forever.
Beeep Beeep Beeep
Either I’ve forgotten that I put a second set of noodles on and the ship is reminding me that they’re ready, or the scanners have found something. Noodles are more likely, so I slip out of the chair and check the generator first. No noodles. Back to the scanners, which have started spitting out data so aggressively I can hardly keep up with it as it scrolls across the screen.
“Holy shit.”
I’m seeing signs of life. And not just any life. Humanoid life.
The scanners are showing a settlement at the base of a mountain range. It’s hard to pick out details at this range, so there are no pictures right now, but according to the data feed, hominid patterns of behavior have been detected. Primitive, but present.
“Wow,” I breathe to myself, watching as the data pours across the screens. I am going to need more than numbers and reports. I want to see these people with my own eyes. They have been here for ten thousand years existing entirely on their own. What are they like? Do they retain any of the old culture? I am excited at the prospect of seeing people who live as humans did at the turn of the thirtieth century.
This is so exciting I almost call a report into the Patron’s office, but something stops me. If there are people down there, I will be recalled and sent off to some other backwater. I will be denied what is mine: the rescue of the remnants of humanity.
I know what he would say: they are not to be interfered with. Life on other planets is not something for us to toy with. But I don’t see why. The Patron is always so concerned with contamination, saying that our mere presence can destroy what would otherwise exist. And maybe that’s true. But maybe it doesn’t matter. If the scanners are right, those are people down there. So how can I mess with them? I am a people too, after all.
The Patron might disagree. He has been saying for a long time that we are not human. We are superhuman. We are an offshoot of the original Earth species who decided not to keep falling prey to the cycle of birth and death. We long ago cured our ailments. Colds. Warts. Cancers. Coronary disease. Each one was systematically eradicated until only our traitorous bodies with their cellular aging held us back—and then we solved that too. Some say the Patron is over a thousand years old. He has earned his immortality by guiding us to a place of pure power. To him, the rest of creation is nothing but a zoo to be curated. But I am only eighteen years old. I am a late birth, the product of illicit copulation. I am lucky the Patron didn’t have me removed from existence as an embarrassment.
Most of my people are not technically alive to shame him anyway. At any given time, most of our living members are in stasis, frozen in time. There are fields of people frozen, waiting for there to be a reason to exist again. It turns out, a perfect existence without pain or suffering is incredibly boring—and it also turns out that it is a lot more sustainable to keep a million or so people on ice than it is to have them walking around eating and excreting.
I don’t agree with that. I don’t agree with most things the Patron says and does. I am his youngest and most rebellious child, and he will never quite forgive me for existing.
But that doesn’t matter now. What matters is that I am here in orbit around the remnants of old human civilization.
I start to mess with the controls. The ship put itself into ideal orbit, but I’m not satisfied. I want to get lower. I want to see more. I want to get eyes on what’s going on below.
Hours pass as I hunt for humanity. Maybe days. I lose track of time as I scour the lands for views of what I know must be down there. I am almost asleep in my chair when the grainy image of several bipeds flashes across the lower corner of the screen.
