“THE LAST STUDY THE SUPERORGANISM HAS DONE ON YOUR PLANET WAS 650 YEARS AGO, SUBJECTIVE. IF YOUR POPULATION AND TECHNOLOGY CAN ADVANCE SO EXPONENTIALLY IN SUCH A SHORT PERIOD OF TIME, IMAGINE WHAT YOUR DESCENDANTS WOULD BE CAPABLE OF WHEN THEY BECOME SPACEFARING LIKE WE ARE. PERHAPS YOU WOULD EVEN SURPASS US IN BOTH POWER AND INTELLIGENCE. THEY WILL NOT SUFFER YOU TO ADVANCE LIKE THAT.”

Kaveh turned his attention from the megalopolis below to Nikola, parsing his words. “What do you mean by that?”

“HERE WE HAVE FOUND YOU, ALIVE AND CONSCIOUS AND INTELLIGENT AT THE SAME TIME THAT WE ARE ALIVE AND CONSCIOUS AND INTELLIGENT. THIS SHOULD BE A JOYOUS MOMENT FOR BOTH OUR SPECIES—THE DISCOVERY, THE REALIZATION THAT NEITHER OF US ARE ALONE. BUT I AM SADDENED BY IT, BECAUSE I KNOW THAT EVENTUALLY, THE SUPERORGANISM WILL DISCOVER WHAT YOU HAVE BECOME AND WILL HALT YOUR ADVANCEMENT.”

Kaveh had known this moment was inevitable, that sooner or later this wouldn’t be fun and exciting anymore. Sooner or later, he would dig deep enough to find something like this. “How would they halt our advancement?”

“THEY WOULD ENSURE THAT YOU COULD NEVER POSE ANY DANGER TO THE SUPERORGANISM, AS OUR TRANSIENT SISTER SPECIES HAS. THEY WILL HALT YOUR ADVANCEMENT, THROUGH ANY NUMBER OF MEANS. THEY WILL HALT IT, AND THIS CIVILIZATION WILL END.”

Kaveh looked down into the metropolis he had called home for so much of his life, this dirty, beautiful, horrible city that had taken him in after the unimaginable had happened to his family. The little tidbits Cora had dropped about their history—They’re refugees, the Superorganism is hunting them. Something happened to them, something terrible—and he had not pushed, had not pried because he had hoped this wouldn’t be the case. The “dead dove, do not eat” of first-contact scenarios.

Well, he thought, I don’t know what I expected.

“I CANNOT BEAR TO THINK OF SUCH A PROFOUND LOSS, OF SOMETHING SO RARE, AN INTELLIGENT CIVILIZATION CAPABLE OF UNDERSTANDING THE UNIVERSE AS WE DO, CAPABLE OF COMMUNICATING WITH US.”

Nikola turned to face him and bent over so that his big, bright eyes loomed just above Kaveh’s. He placed both of his hands above Kaveh’s head, drawing the pointed digits down around his temple, behind his ears, to the nape of his neck. “YOU MAY BE THE MOST PRECIOUS THING I HAVE EVER BEHELD.”

A knot formed in Kaveh’s throat. Nikola was right—there was something so profound about the idea of one intelligent species, with a wholly different evolutionary history, learning to communicate with another. Wanting to communicate with the other, to see the other as a person worthy of empathy.

“BUT YOU WILL NOT SURVIVE CONTACT WITH THE SUPERORGANISM,” said Nikola, removing his fingers, taking a step back and standing up to his full height. “I CANNOT WATCH YOU DIE. I REFUSE.”