Still, it was peaceful in Teskor. So peaceful, so quiet, sitting up there on top of the roof. Peaceful, and dark. With the planet so sparsely settled, there wasn't a lot of light pollution, Teskor seemed pretty dark at night, with no street lights, and only a single dim light here and there at the front or back of houses. I hadn't experienced darkness like this since I left electricity-starved northern Maine. Our base at Camp Alpha had been lit by floodlights at night, blanking out much of the sky. Here, sitting on a rooftop in the tiny village of Teskor, on the alien planet of Paradise, I saw the sky. The stars. The Milky Way. This far from Earth, the constellations were all wrong, but, man, the Milky Way was sweeping across the sky in all its glory. It was mesmerizing, I had to remind myself not to stare at it, that I was up on the roof to keep watch, not to gaze at the stars. I swept the horizon and the road from the village with an infrared scope, it was all clear. The eastern sky had just the faintest hint of pink from the approaching dawn, and insects began to buzz, or chirp, or whatever insects did on this planet. This time of morning is when, on Earth, birds would begin to sing, but Paradise didn't have any native birds. The guidebook said the biosphere wouldn't evolve flying animals other than insects for many millions of years, and since the planet was now occupied by aliens, Paradise probably never would get a chance to evolve birds on its own.

I sat on the roof, watching the eastern sky lighten, listening to the low buzzing of unseen insects, and felt homesick. I missed Earth. Mostly, I missed the Earth that used to be, before alien invaders, before electricity was a luxury, before we saw twinkling lights in the sky and thought of anything other than meteor showers.

Before Columbus Day.