Reclamation

The thin wind he couldn't even feel through his suit blew more dust onto the drifts that piled up against what used to be a building's wall. The cement had been sheered off at about the level of Kelat's waist, leaving behind a rectangle that must have been half a kilometer on a side. Inside it, rubble lay in heaps, broken by burn craters, which in turn were being filled with yet more dust. Here and there clusters of girders, blackened by time, pushed their jagged fingers out of the dust, as if to see the outlandishly colored forms of the First Company as the Vitae spread out between them at a steadily increasing pace, like children left alone in a new park.

A dozen voices rang around the inside of Kelat's helmet, and his comparison of his Beholden and the committees to children settled more firmly inside him. All detachment had been suspended for the moment, even though six Witnesses in their green containment suits filtered through the gesticulating teams of techs and Historians, storing everything they saw for the memory.

What they saw were lumps of nameless materials, black, brown, and rust red, and clear silver. They saw dust, everywhere. They saw a world that was scarred, maimed, cratered, ungainly, and old beyond description. But everything they saw was theirs. Their home.

Kelat squinted at the horizon. It was impossible to tell whether the hills in the distance were more ruins or were actual geologic formations. He turned, shuffling around until he saw the black hulk of the mountains that sheltered the artifacts. There was no mistaking them. They stretched farther on each side than his eyes could see. Even though there was not enough air left to support clouds, he could arch his back as far as physically possible and still not see their tops. They pierced the vacuum.

In less than a week, the children of the Lineage would be on both sides of those mountains. Kelat wet his lips. Avir was a confirmed believer in the Assembly's stance, but a capable and dedicated Contractor. She would be going down with the Second Company into the populated regions. What she would find there…there was no telling, yet. Jahidh's last message had not been good. But Basq had found a way to trace the loose artifacts. Although Basq would have been horrified to hear it, that meant there was still a chance to bring the situation under control. That they would have to do it under Avir's nose saddened him a bit.

Is now the time for this? Kelat chided himself. You are walking on the Home Ground! Your job is to help coordinate this great work and you can't even coordinate your own thoughts!

"Contractor Kelat." Kelat became aware that one of the voices in his helmet was calling his name. "Contractor Kelat?"

"Kelat here." He touched a key on his wrist terminal to lay a display grid over the landscape his eyes saw. Each Vitae became targeted by a pinprick of gold light. He swung his gaze back and forth until one pinprick turned red.

"Historian-Beholden Baiel, Contractor," said the voice. "I think you need to see this." An anonymous figure in a Historian's grey suit stood beside a gleaming pillar that was twice as tall as he was and waved at him.

"I'm coming, Beholden." Minding his footing, Kelat picked his way through the mounds of dust and wreckage to Baiel's side.

The Beholden didn't even see him arrive. His attention was totally fastened on the cylindrical pillar.

Kelat studied it. For a moment, all he saw were its surprisingly smooth sides that glinted in the harsh daylight. The top was ragged, like the wall of the ruined building they had landed beside. Indistinct shadows played across it from…

Kelat blinked, and looked again. No. The shadows weren't moving across the surface, they drifted inside the pillar itself. Kelat pressed his faceplate against the pillar's side. The pillar reflected his face back at him and he saw his own wide eyes and undignified, slack-jawed surprise. Beyond that, under whatever silicate, or polymer, or glass this was, something shifted. A blob of shadow the size of Kelat's head flowed slowly toward the pillar's uneven top and hung there for a moment. Then it drew its soft edges in toward its center and began to swim, or fly, or creep back toward the bottom.

"Blood of my ancestors," he whispered. "Blood of my ancestors."

An irrational voice in the back of his head wondered if that might not very well be true.

5—Broken Canyon, The Realm of The Nameless Powers, Early Morning

Why cannot the Unifiers find the Evolution Point? For the same reason we cannot find the Home Ground. The two are the same world and we are not just the children of the Ancestors, we are the first of the Human Race. Why then should we, the parents, serve these, our children?