The Last Gifts of the Universe

by Rory August

You would think that while flying against a backdrop of foreign, dying stars, the last thing I’d have to worry about would be cat vomit.

That’s why we’re here: to find out what happened to not only this civilization but every dead civilization we’ve ever found in the universe. Because as far as we know, ours is the last one left.

We’ve invented the cure for the common cold—even if it is behind a ridiculous paywall.

You float in space, okay? You fall on planets.

“Who the fuck brings a cat to space? I thought it was a dog!”

My research targeted the cultural tendency for artificial division along political lines, and how our capital’s vehemently split parties could be extrapolated to highlight the divisive issues facing Interstel and the myriad colonies it attempted to govern. My proposition was a “common goals first” policy that built bridges instead of burned them. I was naïve, oh yes, but some things, I thought—and I still do think—are worth being naïve for.

My thesis had been the heart and soul of my belief for unification across the stars, for an end to the cold wars keeping necessary supplies from the most disadvantaged colonies, for an end to the soul-sucking reality of fifty billion of our own people not getting what they needed to live even a simple, comfortable life because of century-old grudges and greed.

“Life,” my father said, “is what we have the most in common with every other creature. We all want to live and become scared when living is threatened. All of us just want to survive and be comfortable, be happy.”

“Why even work for those assholes?” is all I can manage. Why can’t they see the value in the thing they’re taking? Why can’t they see what Verity Co. would, or wouldn’t, do with it?

I can’t stand them. I can’t stand what they do. I can’t stand their hollow reasoning. This cluster had the potential to be one of the greatest, most significant discoveries in our history, and now Blyreena and her people’s work will be locked behind an interminable paywall or, if deemed too valuable to sell, kept for Verity Co.’s self-propagating uses alone. I shake with rage that our home worlds might be under threat from whatever wiped everyone else out, and that the Verity Co.’s of the world are content to ignore that possibility—that likelihood—for a profit. I want to scream, I’m so frustrated.

Pumpkin sits beside Kieran, who’s already hard at work on the door’s thin locking mechanism, and meows. It’s a tiny, sweet thing that means Success! Or maybe Feed me.

I duck back in the dinghy and free Pumpkin from his restraints. He yawns hugely, showing all his teeth, and curls right back into his seat. I couldn’t sleep in this suit if you paid me, but cats are magic in any universe.

It’s so easy, when things don’t go as we’ve planned, to think that we’re a failure. To think that things will never get better.

It’s strange what hindsight does. Takes all the layers of emotions and flattens them, turns them either good or bad. It can take time to see the shadows as something beautiful.

When he came home, he would ask, What have you done? And I would assume he really meant, Why have you done nothing? He would say, Something will come around. And I would hear, You’re a failure for nothing having come yet.

There was no deeper feeling of failure than to complete all the perquisites for happiness and yet not achieve it.

It’s hard to tell in the moment, but with hindsight I can see that when I keep pushing forward, things have a way of working out.

I pause the recording. Blyreena stands frozen, tall and smiling, iridescent eyes warm despite all the coolness in their color. I haven’t gotten anything about the Endri from her. I haven’t heard anything at all about the crisis that befell her worlds, or the defenses her people were mounting against it. But in this moment, for the first time, I don’t really care. I’m listening to her. I’m hearing her.

“If there was something in these caches that would stop our civilization from crumbling, you don’t think they would use it to save people?” She has a device that can detect Remnants. She and Gunner had a warning. I glare at her. “The people who could pay, maybe. The people worth saving. And you know that’s how it would work out, don’t you?”

“The writing has been on the wall a long time,” I say. I can’t stop it now. “Continents have sunk into the ocean. Tsunamis have taken out islands. Whole towns without infrastructure have frozen overnight. Millions have died across all our worlds because people with power refuse to cut their profits to acknowledge the real problems.

“We’ve known for hundreds of years that we’re alone in this universe. We’ve known for decades that the reason why boils down to the same thing: the Remnants, and whatever caused them. And we’ve finally—finally!—found a people who knew something about what we’re dealing with, about what could come for our own planets at any time, and you want to give that information to the organization who won’t take a loss to save an entire moon community from a plague their mishandling caused...

Even at its core, even without common experience, there is something universal about loss. I can feel it, deep as heartache. Something stirs at loss. Something awakens to it, like a knowing, like an understanding, that this is how everything ends.

We are all alive. It is the single greatest and most important unifying experience we all share. You would think that alone would build empathy. That all of our having been blessed with, or serendipitously thrown into, a chance to experience a small fraction of all time in the universe would make us kinder to each other or the world kinder to us. But it doesn’t, a lot of the time. A lot of the time, due to other people, or our own actions, or plain circumstance, bad things happen. Things that terrify us. Things we can’t control.

Only this moment is certain. Only this moment is. That is just as true when we are sad as when we are happy. I have fears and doubts about the future, regrets about the past, surely. But realizing our finiteness, acknowledging where we are, is how we reconcile it. It’s how we move forward. It’s how we live our lives to the fullest, even when scared or in pain. Death, like life, is the great unifier. We may not go all at once, but we all go together.

I hope you one day recognize grief’s beauty, learn to live with the shadows, to understand that the only reason they could be so dark, is because they were cast by so much light.

“Life is a gift, Scout,” my mom told me. “Yours is just for you. Every moment. Every second. Run with it. Cherish it. Breathe it all in, Scout. That’s how you say thank you.”

“Were you even listening to him? They fought as long as they could with what they had. They pooled all the resources in their civilization to meet this threat.” “And then they didn’t.” I don’t know how to retort that, not immediately. They didn’t, she’s right. The Stelhari did everything they could and still couldn’t meet the Endri threat, and in the end they couldn’t resist it. They were all dead. But— “But they tried,” I say.

When you love someone or something, sometimes it doesn’t even matter what happens to you. You just want to see whatever it is you’re rooting for succeed. Or survive.

“What’s the alternative?” I say. Kieran looks at me, worried. It’s his don’t poke the lady with the gun look, but I keep going. “We turn our backs on everything they built for us? We don’t try anything? We might all die, so let’s give up now? Is that it? Is death a concession that nothing matters?” “It’s futile,” June snaps. “You want to bury your head in the sand and pretend this isn’t inevitable.” “No. I want to make the best of what the Stelhari have given to us.”

Because, June, all those moments are worth fighting for, even if things that are gone won’t come back . . . even if we all die, in the end.” I take a deep breath. “We can make the best of right now.

We can carry them with us into a better tomorrow. We can fight for a better tomorrow, even if we don’t believe it will come.