you would have to speak to the commander about that. I am not privy to such… sensitive information.”
She read between the lines. Nyek wasn’t high enough in the chain of command to have those rumors confirmed or denied yet. She made a mental note to check with Madison because, if she could drop preggers, they sure as hell needed to start taking some precautions.
“What’s in the rest?” Gracie asked, already moving.
The next three tubes showed what looked like standard Lathar, although Nyek commented in a low voice one of them was adapted for conditions on a snow planet.
The tube after that made them all stop in utter shock. As soon as Nyek’s hand passed over the plate, an image formed on the front of a tube.
“Holy fuck. That’s us!”
A human male stood on the screen in front of them. Admittedly, the Lathar looked so similar it was hard to tell the difference sometimes. They were taller, and heavily muscled, but apart from the difference in their eyes, they might as well be human. But this was no Lathar. The hologram showed a human, that small difference undefinable but undeniably there.
“Keris,” Indra asked carefully, not taking her eyes off the screen. “How long would you say this base has been abandoned?”
“At least four decades.”
“Shit. The Lathar have known about us that long?”
Nyek shook his head, scanning the text on the smaller screen. “No. I do not believe so. It seemed the Cabal have access to ancient records lost to the rest of the empire. This is a genetic prototype for a long-range colonization mission.”
“Colonization? You mean like… you guys send peeps out in ships to take over planets?”
Nyek shook his head, the lights from the display catching his cat-like eyes as he looked at her.
“Not take over, no. If there is indigenous life, we do not disturb it. We simply move on to an uninhabited planet.”
She nodded, trying to wrap her head around the facts. “So… could you have found a human and brought him back? That’s how this guy is here.”
Keris had joined Nyek at the console. She scrolled down the information faster than Indra could follow.
“No. Although he looks like it, this individual is not actually human. He is a Lathar who has been genetically altered for certain conditions, I assume the conditions on the target planet for the colony. However…” She paused for a moment, head tilted to the side as she accessed her databanks. “That colony expedition is listed as missing. They did not reach their destination. Current theory extrapolating from known facts… they deviated from course for unknown reasons and crashed on Earth.”
“Then became us,” Indra breathed in wonder as she looked up at the guy on screen.
Scientists had long since proved that human life on Earth had originated someplace else, but most people thought Humanity’s planet of origin had been Mars… Aliens had never entered into the equation. It was one thing knowing that your entire species had come from somewhere but a completely different matter to come face to face with one of your ancestors.
“Well, sucks to be him. Doesn’t it?” she quipped, her automatic reaction to lighten the mood. “All that potential, and he dies here in a tank.”
“That’s… not. No, this can’t be right.” Keris wasn’t listening to her, scrolling through the info on the little screen.
“M’rln?” Nyek asked, his brows furrowed. “What is it?”
“I think…” The AI straightened up and then turned and walked across to the other side of the lab. A station sat there but no screen, just an upright block like a lectern next to a depressed circle set into the floor. As she activated it, the circle rose to reveal what looked like a gate… like the type Indra had seen in spaceports. The kind you stepped through and they scanned you for anything hinky.
Keris looked up at them. “None of these bodies were ‘alive.’ They were bio-printed for remote piloting.”
14
Nyek froze at the words. All he could hear in his head was his father screaming the words of one of his popular sermon-like rants.
Blasphemy! This is against the will of the gods… you will bring ruin on us all!
For a moment he remained locked in place and then, carefully, he looked up. She was right. The printer hummed softly with renewed power, standing empty at the moment, but the awful shape of the bio-tubes now made sense. One would slot into place within the printer, its mechanism spinning around and back as it wrought its blasphemic