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I used to assume, when I first began to study the lives of my sapient neighbours, that perhaps sleep would better prepare those species for death. Sleep sounds quite like death to me, a strange temporary death, complete with an afterlife of surreal visions. I have heard both a Human and an Aandrisk, on separate occasions, posit that death must feel like nothing more than a ‘dreamless sleep’. You would think, then, that these species are less fearful of the inevitable end. If one experiences oblivion daily – and for an enormous portion of the day, at that – should it not be familiar territory?
As an ethnographer, my role is to be a neutral observer. I cannot judge, I cannot suppose, I cannot fill in blanks with my own biases (as much as this is possible). And yet, my presence here has prompted change. I have not done anything harmful, to my knowledge. All I have done is talk. I ask questions, I give answers, I make connections. This is not much, and yet, I of all people should know that this can be everything.
I don’t think technology is the greater evil here. The comforts we’ve invented – or that our neighbours have invented – can become bad if you don’t always, always ask what the potential consequences could be. Many of our people skip that step.
We’re our own warning. That’s why the Fleet needs to remain. Why it has to remain. Without us out here, the grounders will forget within a few generations. We’ll become just another story, and not one that seems relevant. Sure, we broke Earth, but we won’t break this planet. We won’t poison this water. We won’t let this invention go wrong.’ She shook her head. ‘We are a longstanding species with a very short memory.
‘So what you’re saying is Humans aren’t really supposed to do anything in particular, and we get to choose the kind of lives we have. But that doesn’t mean any of it has a point, son. You think people born planetside don’t wonder what the point of it all is? You don’t think they know that their cities will fall and their houses will rot, and that somewhere down the line, their planet will get swallowed up by its sun? Spacers and grounders, we’re riding the same ship. We both depend on fragile systems with a million interconnected parts that can easily be damaged and will eventually fail. Yes,
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‘I’ll only tell you if you understand that when a person tells you what they want of you, they’re not deciding for you. It’s their opinion, not your truth. Got it?’
Go wherever calls to you. And maybe you’ll find out that life out there is good, that it suits you. Maybe you’ll find that thing you’re missing. Maybe not. What you will find, no question, is perspective. What that perspective is, I have no idea. But you’ll find one. Otherwise, you’ll only ever think about other people in the abstract. That’s a poisonous thing, thinking your way is all there is. The only way to really appreciate your way is to compare it to somebody else’s way. Figure out what you love, specifically. In detail. Figure out what you want to keep. Figure out what you want to
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‘Go out there and see what it’s like to be the alien. Eat something weird. Sleep somewhere uncomfortable.
We’re meant to go. And we’re meant to stay. Stay and go, each as much as the other. It’s not all or nothing anymore. We’re all over the place. That’s better, I think. That’s smarter.’ He nodded. ‘That’s how we’ll survive, even if not all of us do.’
We, too, took the ways of our planet with us. And so, too, go the Exodans, a spaceborn people who balk at abandoning an environment inspired by a planet that, to most, may as well be myth. Humans will never leave the forest, just as Harmagians will never leave the shore.
‘From the ground, we stand. From our ships, we live. By the stars, we hope.’
