“You are most generous. I personally look forward to assisting your people in fully reclaiming this world.”
“As do the Myssari,” put in Bac’cul hastily. Though no diplomat, he could evaluate a critical situation when he saw one. “The Combine will provide you with any and all the help that you need.”
“As will the Vrizan.” Commander and research team leader glared at each other.
Leaving the two alien representatives to engage in an ongoing confrontation that was chilly but polite, the three humans edged away to greet and explain the current situation to as many of the revived as they could.
Eventually a driftec arrived to carry the original exploration team back to the Myssari outpost. Nashrudden and several of his colleagues went along. Looking back as he prepared to board the transport, Ruslan could see the resurrected humans organizing themselves into groups. As they began their work, repositories would be unearthed, automatics activated, and supplies distributed. Reconstruction would begin soon enough. Aid already promised by the Vrizan and the Myssari would help to speed recovery. Earth, humankind’s Earth, would live again. This time there would be no mistakes.
He entered the driftec and took a seat across from Cherpa, who was engaged in animated conversation with Nashrudden. The two were about the same age, Ruslan reflected. She had never seen a man her own age. Something sharp and painful lanced through him, faded like a burn, and was gone. This was right, he told himself as he watched them. Heavy as it lay within him, he could not find it in himself to object to rightness.
The woman who sat down beside him was one of the first ten following Nashrudden to be revived. She appeared older than the scientist but not by much. Her eyes, Ruslan noted, were very violet.
“You’re Ruslan, aren’t you?” She gestured across the way. “Nashrudden told me about you. You’re a natural immune from, I think he said, Seraboth. I’m Elehna. Elehna Anchez, one of the last to be extracted and have her body put in stasis. Like Nashrudden.” When he said nothing, she smiled. “You know what used to be said: the last shall be first?”
He finally remembered to nod, trying not to stare. “Yes, I’m Ruslan. Ruslan…I don’t remember the rest.”
“Well, Ruslan-I-don’t-remember-the-rest, Nashrudden says that you have lived and survived among these trisymmetrical aliens ever since they plucked you off your homeworld, and I really would like to hear everything you can tell me about your experiences. In detail.”
He found himself, automatically, smiling back. It was a smile that just kept getting wider and wider.
“And me? I’ve waited most of my life for the chance to tell you.”
“There will be others,” she told him. “They’ll want to know what you know, too.”
“I’m happy to start with you.” He truly was. “How many others have to be revived? How much work remains to be done to bring them all back into the light? How many thousands will walk the surface of the homeworld again?”
“Thousands?” She looked at him strangely. “The Project head didn’t tell you?”
He shook his head. “I just assumed thousands.”
Her expression shifted from warm to serious. “Ruslan, there are three billion of us.”
FOR BETSY MITCHELL,
with whom I went through a darned
lot of words together. With thanks,
friendship, and appreciation.
By Alan Dean Foster
Relic
PIP & FLINX ADVENTURES
For Love of Mother-Not
The Tar-Aiym Krang
Orphan Star
The End of the Matter
Flinx in Flux
Mid-Flinx
Reunion
Flinx’s Folly
Sliding Scales
Running from the Deity
Bloodhype
Trouble Magnet
Patrimony
Flinx Transcendent
Strange Music
FOUNDING OF THE COMMONWEALTH
Phylogenesis
Dirge
Diuturnity’s Dawn
ICERIGGER TRILOGY
Icerigger
Mission to Moulokin
The Deluge Drivers
STANDALONE COMMONWEALTH NOVELS
Nor Crystal Tears
Voyage to the City of the Dead
Midworld
Drowning World
Quofum
The Howling Stones
Sentenced to Prism
Cachalot
THE DAMNED TRILOGY
A Call to Arms
The False Mirror
The Spoils of War
THE TAKEN TRILOGY
Lost and Found
The Light-Years Beneath My Feet
The Candle of Distant Earth
THE TIPPING POINT TRILOGY
The Human Blend
Body, Inc.
The Sum of Her Parts
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
ALAN DEAN FOSTER has written in a variety of genres, including hard science fiction, fantasy, horror, detective, western, historical, and contemporary fiction. He is the author of several New York Times bestsellers and the popular Pip & Flinx novels, as well as novelizations of several films, including Transformers, Star Wars, the first three Alien films, and the most recent one, Alien: Covenant. Foster and his wife, JoAnn Oxley, live in Prescott, Arizona, in a house built of brick that was salvaged from an early-twentieth-century miners’ brothel. He is currently at work on several new novels and media projects.
alandeanfoster.com
Facebook.com/AlanDeanFoster
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