“Is this planet a good harvest?” I asked numbly.

First shook her head. “No,” she said. “Less than half of the seeds we sent have sprouted and survived to meet us. The creatures this world evolved for its own pleasure are not gentle. The soil is good but the hands that work it are cruel. How fortunate, that we have found it, and will be better stewards.”

Her voice was cool, calm: she sounded like one of my neighbors back in Seattle talking about weeding their garden. My mouth went dry. I swallowed, trying to chase away the sudden dread that filled me.

“What do you mean?”

“When enough seeds have sprouted and reached mobility, when enough of them have reached maturity among their host species, they form the forest between them,” said First, ignoring my question. Or maybe not. Maybe she understood that my question had never really needed an answer. “We see it flicker and form, becoming a bright beacon across the gulf of space. ‘Come for us,’ it cries. ‘Come and bring us home.’ When we see the forest form, we know the soil is good and the meat is plentiful, and we turn our sights toward our newest destination. That is what has brought us here, to you, to reap what we have sown.”

She had to be getting her words from the forest: there was no other way she could be using English idiom and imagery with such ease. Still … “I thought you sent us here to obtain cultural literacy, to make it easier to hunt the humans.”

Her smile was the sun on a rainy afternoon. “It’s always so delightful when our seedlings are able to reach that conclusion on their own. Of course it would be you. I have known so many of your cultivar, and you have always been clever, always been swift to understand what is needed from you. First the seeds test the soil. Then the flowers test the flesh. Then the seedlings test the world. If all of you had died before you could form the forest, we would have grieved you, but we would have known we didn’t belong here.”

“I don’t understand.”

“You will.” First stepped forward, reaching out to touch my cheek with one familiar, unfamiliar hand. “This is such an interesting form. The biology of this world must be fascinating. Is everything here bipedal and symmetrical?”

“Symmetrical, yes, bipedal, no. Some things don’t have any legs, some have hundreds.”

Her eyes lit up. “What a wealth of things to experience! But this is the dominant life form, yes? We have chosen correctly?”

“Chosen … I didn’t choose this … I ate a little girl.”

“You gave her a chance to transcend the limits of her origins and become something more,” said First. “Everything your first meal would have been in life, you have been, and more.”