The Long Game (The Far Reaches, #4)

by Ann Leckie

Who put you in charge? Someone has to make the plans. Someone has to tell people what to do. Why shouldn’t that be me? It makes sense. I’m the biggest.

you should be proud of what you’ve accomplished. And you should think about how to make sure that accomplishment doesn’t disappear after you’re gone.

once you decide to find out why people die and how to stop it—really truly seriously decide—you can’t let little things like some pain stop you. Otherwise you might just as well have stayed home and died.

Humans live longer than your people. But we still die. All of us, no matter how long we live. Everyone dies, in the end.

We got here, found you. And we found, not just life, but intelligent life. Not that the company cared about that—or even the government. But word got back to earth that not only was there intelligent life here, but it was squishy knee-high creatures in pretty colors that ate plants, and so it became a question of publicity.

I’m here to make it look like the company cares what happens to you. All of you, not just you in particular. But the company doesn’t really care.

The company might know how to make you all live longer. It probably does. But it won’t do anything to help you make that happen unless it gets something out of it. And there’s nothing the company would get out of it that it isn’t already getting from you.

Go back to your colony. Build your algae pools, forage with your friends, and play with the infants. That’s what you’ve got; that’s all anyone gets in the end. Don’t give that up for nothing.

What are you going to do now? “I don’t know what to do,” I said to Nish. “I don’t want to die; I want to live as long as I can. But I don’t like the humans telling me what to do. I’m the one who tells people what to do!” It didn’t help that I felt helpless here, spending whole days with only Nish to talk to and the occasional human. The human who had talked to me the most—the chief of all the Field Liaisons, they had claimed—had spoken to me as though I were stupid. I didn’t like that either. Nish had suggested that it was only that this Field Liaison couldn’t speak people’s language very well, and maybe that was the case, but I still had come away from every meeting feeling insulted. “And besides,” I continued, “I don’t like that the humans think we’re cute.” I had talked with enough humans now to sort of understand that word. “You said that humans here would be sad if anything happened to us, but they don’t think we’re people. They think we’re things to play with. The humans on earth could kill all of us and the humans here might hardly even notice; they’d still have their sparkly, fringe-eyed, stiff not-people to give their infants.” “Ah,” replied Nish. “So you’re not just a big bully. You actually think about things.” I was angry at that, but before I could say anything, Nish asked, “Why do people do what you tell them?” That was a ridiculous question. “Because I’m bigger. Because I have other big people to help me make them do what I tell them.” But as I said that, Ni...

I will never see the outcome of this plan. Maybe it won’t happen exactly the way I want it to. But I can start it now, and the people who come after me can build more.

Someone has to make the plans. Someone has to tell people what to do. Why shouldn’t that be me?