Chapter Text
Sprout-among-the-rocks swam up to the porch of the house that – for now – belonged to her and her parents. It was modest but comfortable, her parents having adorned it with a dozen decorations and trinkets so that it might be called “home”. She knew that “home” for them was not a place and definitely not a building. Her parents were both diplomats, and during the fifteen years of her life the little family had moved all over and lived in virtually every habitable corner of Home-sea. So if “home” meant anything to Sprout-among-the-rocks, it had to mean the things they were able to take with them. The little decorations, Mom and Dad’s work… Mom and Dad themselves. Consequently, most of her friendships were long-distance and she lacked the rootedness to a particular place that most people her age took for granted.
But they were nomads for a reason. There had been no wars on Home-sea for several decades, but eradicating war is not like eradicating a virus. One can never definitively win the war on… war, one can only be winning in the current moment. Vigilance is always required. Sprout-among-the-rocks’s parents were soldiers in a new kind of army, waging peace wherever peace was threatened. She appreciated the importance of the work and understood the sacrifices it required. But sometimes, when deep in thought, she contemplated that, since she never knew anything different than the life of a diplomat, she didn’t actually know what she was giving up.
After shaking off beads of water and letting the drying machine do the rest, she slumped into a seat and reached for the tablet on a nearby table. She habitually skimmed over the day’s news headlines. One story caught her eye:
Hope for Science Minister After Light-Speed Probe Success
Last week’s unexpected successful test of the light-speed space probe has offered some reprieve to embattled Science Minister Light-in-the-deep, with approval ratings soaring to 67 percent from his typical 30s and 40s. Critics will surely continue to demand that the Ministry’s research be more transparent and more geared to the practical needs of Home-sea, but all the talk of his imminent recall or resignation seems to be silenced for now. But, as significant as this breakthrough is, and as excited as we are by the possibility of manned interstellar space travel, can the dreamers and science fiction nerds among us keep Light-in-the-deep afloat once the light-speed engine inevitably rockets its way out of the news cycle?
She tagged the story to attract the attention of her friend Plentiful-catch, and then noticed the alert. Personal note.
Sprout,
We won’t be home tonight. There’s an emergency of some sort at work, and everyone is being called in. There’s plenty of food in the cooler. Do your schoolwork and don’t slack off. Mandatory communications blackout, but hopefully we will contact you again soon.
Love, Mom and Dad
She groaned and prayed that this didn’t mean another move. New school, new friends, a new language possibly – and they had barely been six months here. If her life was about to be uprooted once more, she deserved a night of comfort all to herself. She opened the cooler and noticed an ample supply of sweet-fish fillets, enough for her to snack all night while doing absolutely nothing else – to hell with her parents’ admonition.
She turned on the wall-screen opposite her comfortable chair. She had spent a little more than an hour watching some mindless entertainment when the regularly scheduled programming was interrupted. An important message from the Prime Minister will begin momentarily. It is requested that all citizens pay close attention. She scowled. So it was really an emergency after all. Should she go ahead and start packing her things?
Soon, the Prime Minister’s face filled the wall-screen. Sprout had become reasonably good at reading people’s emotions from their faces and body language. Something as trivial as a twitchy nose or a tendency to swallow could reveal a lot. The Prime Minister’s emotional state was… strange. His nerves were obvious, but he wasn’t truly scared. He was… solemn? Hopeful? Resigned?
For millennia, our spiritualists, philosophers, and scientists have sought to answer many fundamental questions about the nature of reality and our place in it. One of those questions is, “Are we alone in the universe?” It is my duty this evening to inform all the people of Home-sea that, as of today, this question has been affirmatively answered. Today, the Home-sea global government was contacted, both remotely and in person, by beings from elsewhere in the universe.
Before I say anything else, I must emphatically state that, as of now, there is no evidence of hostile intent from these beings. On the contrary, they have assured us that they are peaceful explorers and that their laws prohibit any interference in our affairs. Over the next few days, my office, the Science Ministry, the…
Sprout-among-the-rocks was not going to have her lazy night.