Parting black velvet curtains with blue hands that still looked strange to her serveral months after receiving her spores, Merula glared out her tablinum office window.

The Star glared back.

"What the hell are you?" she asked, but the brilliant light hanging alongside the smoldering sun offered no answer.

She gritted her teeth. The last thing she needed four days before the election to choose Aquarius's first democratic government was a mysterious Star sparking rumors about divine omens and celestial threats. Though she had to admit, sometimes she liked those theories more than her own, even if they might send the people running back into the arms of their theocratic Lightbearer oppressors. She almost hoped the Star was a sacred message from the Eternal Radiance and not what she feared.

Footsteps padded behind her, nearly inaudible on the palace tile. Would have been inaudible, if not for years and years of training Pullati like Karae in the arts of stealth. Merula would recognize that whispering footfall anywhere. "Please tell me you know what that thing is," she said as she turned halfway around.

The younger Pullatus, a Blended woman in her mid-thirties with cat-gold eyes gleaming in her blue face, sighed. "Afraid not, Augustus," Karae said. A sympathetic smile tugged at her scarred lip. "I've had folks enter Communion every hour on the hour, but no one knows anything yet. And the Eyes aren't answering anyone's questions."

"Call them the Four Sisters," Merula said, glancing back out at the sky. Two of the neighboring planets passed before the sun, little black dots against the fiery crimson orb. At Karae's questioning hum, she added, "They've made it clear that's how they want to be addressed."

The younger woman's brow furrowed as she crossed the obsidian tile toward the window. "I'm not sure how a planet is female, let alone a sister. Sentient or not."

Merula held the black velvet curtain aside so that Karae could join her in frowning out at the strange sight in the heavens. Even nearly a year after hearing the planets speak, it still made her mind spin to realize they were alive. People.

And now a strange Star gleamed in the sky above the Onyx Palace, and all four of those people had fallen silent.

"Do you enjoy when someone calls you a street rat instead of a Pullatus?" she asked, aware that she was pitching her voice the way she sometimes spoke to her teenage foster son and his twin.

Karae saw reason faster than the obstinant boys, however. She grimaced. "Alright, I see your point. Four Sisters it is."

Merula cast the Star one more troubled glare, then let the curtain fall closed. "Are the First People still on the ground?" she asked, folding her arms over her long Pullati-black tunica and paenula. The dandelion-like creatures no longer hovered in Vola Apertus's sky like living clouds, but who knew what they were doing elsewhere around the world? The alarmed reports she'd received from Promethidae praetors and local Pyrrhaei leaders suggested the clivias' strange involuntary flight had been global.

"Yes, the clivias haven't been called back to the atmosphere since that first time." Karae sighed. "They're scared, though. Especially parents with young pups. I've never felt such fear in Communion before. It almost hurts." She shivered. "They're trying to hide the little ones deep in the burrows, but the spore walls won't hold them if another call comes. They'll open right up if the pups try to leave. Their dams and sires don't know what to do to protect them."

Merula nodded. Sometimes it was hard to understand clivias, let alone empathize with them. They were so different from humans, even now that she was Blended and could understand their heat-speech. But she knew a parent's fear for their children all too well. "Will a locked door hold them?"

Karae's expression relaxed into a blank mask. Probably opening herself to Communion, the living web all sentient Aquarian beings could sense, including Blended humans. "Yes," she said after a moment. "The clivias are saying that when a call comes, they're not usually able to think well, just obey. The pups won't be able to unlock doors."

Merula nodded. "Alright, find volunteers. Blended, preferably, but anyone willing to host a pup in their home for a little while."

"Are you sure?" Karae hesitated, then spoke quietly, hands squeezing into fists at her sides. "What if someone volunteers who wants to hurt them?"

Merula winced. It was a valid concern. Many people, especially un-Blended, remained terrified of clivias. It was hard to empathize with a species with no face and alien thoughts and emotions. It must have been doubly hard for people who hadn't accepted the spores that would help them communicate. At least heat-speech let her understand them, somewhat. But the un-Blended didn't have that luxury. And sometimes people feared what they didn't know and tried to kill what they feared.

Still, she doubted such people would be comfortable hosting a clivia, even to harm one.

She hoped.

"Being called can hurt them, too," she said at last. She nodded. "Find volunteers. The pups' parents can decide whether they want to shelter their children with humans or in their burrows."

"Alright," Karae said after another faraway look. "I've put the call out. The local Rexes will pass the word. So, what now?"

What, indeed? She sighed. She hated entering Communion. Way too eerie for her liking. But it was becoming more and more necessary every day as she worked to weave Aquarius's three sentient species into one community.

Four species, if she considered the strangest species of them all.

"Let me see if the Sisters will answer me."

She closed her eyes and leaned against the windowsill with both hands. Unnecessary, but it always helped with the uncanny sensation.

Between one heartbeat and the next, the cosmos exploded within her even as she dissolved within it. She expanded to fill a solar system and yet remained a tiny yet treasured speck. Other life--other lives-- pulsed and rippled within and around her: the quiet hard-working movements of the spores in her body, the crashing waves of the clivias' fear, the confused alarm of lolligenes in the deep and Blended around the world.

Was this how Domi and other Lightbearers had felt when they'd entered the Caeles? Vast and insignificant at once?

Not too insignificant, I hope, she thought as she turned her attention to the vast life web itself, suspended between this world and three others like spider silk. She might have been one tiny life--nothing, compared to a planet, let alone four planets--but she was also the Rex of one of those damn planets.

Sisters? she asked, trying to smother her impatience and remain civil. If you're listening, I could use your guidance right about now. Care to give me a hint about what that thing is? Please tell me it isn't what I think it is.

Even as she asked, she sifted through the available information. Not that there was much. The lolligenes grumbled in the depths of the sea that the Four Sisters weren't coughing up anything to satisfy their curiosity or calm their worry. The clivias hadn't gotten high enough in the atmosphere to see what the hell was shining like a new star. Every time they tried to rise to see, Bridger shoved them back down again. For their safety? To hide something? No one knew.

Sisters? she asked again. But the damn planets remained silent.

Sighing, she closed herself to Communion and blinked at Karae as the woman's blue face snapped into focus.

"Any luck?" the younger Pullatus asked.

"No, they're either ignoring me or don't notice me." People might call her the Rex, ruler of the planet. But the planet had a mind and will of her own. Perhaps Bridger and her fellow Sisters meant to remind humanity of their place. Merula must seem like no more than a speck of whispering dust to such beings. It humbled her, not the way the Promethidae had humbled her with their subjugation, but the way the Eternal Radiance had humbled her with Its vast presence.

But the Eternal Radiance was just a ship... She shook her head. No, we mistook a ship for the Eternal Radiance.

She shoved the confusing thoughts away. "Please ask Kaitlyn to come to me."

Five minutes later, the eidolon glided into the office. And by glided, Merula meant melted up out of the obsidian floor like a statue of sparkling gold and magenta.

"Do you have to do that?" Merula asked, rolling her eyes at the glittering dead woman. Unlike Karae or even non-Blended, she couldn't feel the eidolon. She wasn't a sorcerer, crafted from the genes up to sense the promenia particles that made up Kaitlyn's form. And the man-made particles emitted no heat for her new spore-augmented senses to detect.

How bizarre, to find the absence of such an alien thing strange after less than a year...

Kaitlyn quirked a small smile. "Did you reconsider my offer, Augustus?"

Merula sat down heavily in her desk chair. "I'm still thinking about whether the risk is worth it." She sighed as Kaitlyn tilted her head and watched her with glittering golden eyes. The color was common now--one of three ways that Blending tended to change human eyes--but Kaitlyn wasn't Blended and her too-bright eyes were hard to hold. Was she even human any more? She herself claimed to be a being of nanites and exotic matter, not cells and atoms. Even the clivias were more natural.

Merula forced herself to meet the dead woman's gaze. "Whatever is up there has the Sisters spooked, Kaitlyn. I don't think they'd act that way if it were just a passing comet. I know you said you're willing to go up there and take a peek, but I don't want to put you in danger."

"There is nothing on this planet that can endanger me," her uncanny advisor said.

"It's not what's on this planet that worries me."

Kaitlyn drifted closer, walking like a human now and not some floating spirit. Her feet padded lightly on the tile like slippers. "I know that my knowledge is of great value to you. And the history I hold." She Shrugged. "But I've existed for fifteen hundred years. I've enjoyed more than my share of life. Perishing doesn't bother me."

"I know," Merula said, "but it bothers me." She shook her head, the old fury and determination stirring in her belly like pent-up fire. "Too many people in this world have been treated as expendable. I want a new way for us. All of us."

"You also care about the liberty and consent of those you govern," Kaitlyn said evenly. "I am your subject, but I have a will of my own. I want to find out what that thing is."

Merula nodded, relief sweeping through her. A solution, at last. And soon, hopefully, answers. "Alright. Thank you, Kaitlyn." She swallowed hard. "I hope it isn't what I fear."

Kaitlyn nodded and then streaked up into the ceiling in a blur of pink and gold.

Merula blinked, then held her breath until the woman reappeared a moment later the same way, not a single hair--well, magenta particle--out of place despite just having been in the Dark Waters between the planets to gawk at a light that Merula really, really hoped was just a star.

"Well?" she demanded as the eidolon, jaw clenching, crossed her arms tightly.

"It is exactly what you fear."

Her heart lurched into her throat. "A ship?"

Kaitlyn inclined her head, her glittering face lined with anxiety. "A ship," she  confirmed, voice grim. "There's an eight-mile-long starship in orbit above us."

***

The human leader's questions brushed insistently against Bridger's awareness. She pressed the Blended woman from her mind and felt her sisters do likewise.

They needed to concentrate on the ship drifting between them like a fragile snowflake.

WHO ARE YOU? Thinker asked, her heat pulses simple and steady as she directed them toward the ship in flashes of infrared light. The vessel spoke an early form of heat speech that the Sisters had used many cycles ago when they had last communicated with the Galactic Accord.

MY NAME IS 112358, the ship responded.

No, Bridger realized. Not the ship but a being upon it. The infrared waves and sparks carried the image of a slender pale biped. A white Patron's mask covered his face but did not quite hide his dark violet eyes and long tapered ears. A Starless? Some of the ancient species born around black holes and nebulae preferred numerical names, as she recalled. But countless cycles had passed since her former Patron had required her and her Sisters to learn about the Galactic Accord's many cultures, so she could be wrong.

GREETINGS, 112358. WHAT IS YOUR PURPOSE HERE? Bridger asked politely.

I'M THE PATRON OF A POPULATION THAT HAS BEEN DESIGNATED BY THE GALACTIC ACCORD AS A PROVISIONAL PATRONAGE SPECIES, the Starless said. THEY CALL THEMSELVES IRTLIJ AND SEEK OTHERS OF THEIR KIND.

Confusion rippled between Bridger and her sisters. A provisional patronage species? She searched her long memories but could recall no such designation among the Accord. A population was either a patronage species, a member species, or an isolation species. What did 112358 mean by "provisional?"

WHY DO THEY WISH TO FIND OTHERS OF THEIR KIND? Seer asked.

IF YOU ARE COMFORTABLE COMMUNICATING WITH A PATRONAGE SPECIES, the Patron named 112358 said, I WILL LET MY WARDS ANSWER THAT QUESTION.

Amusement radiated from Mover. Bridger couldn't blame her; the humans she hosted were far more dangerous than any patronage species. It would be absurd to fear contamination by an untried population when she and her sisters already dealt daily with a violent young species that simmered constantly with both great destructiveness and great potential.

WE ARE COMFORTABLE, Thinker said. SPEAK, IRTLIJ. WHY DO YOU WISH TO FIND OTHERS OF YOUR KIND?

Time passed. Then the Irtlij spoke. WE'VE TRAVELED LONG AND FAR. NOW, WE'VE FINALLY REACHED OUR JOURNEY'S END. WE HOPE TO FIND A HOME. WAIT, OUR PATRON IS SPEAKING TO ME. ONE MOMENT. The Irtlij fell silent for a moment, then returned. HE SAYS WE SHOULD SHOW YOU WHO WE ARE. THIS IS US.

Heat waves rippled with data. A long-limbed species of intelligent bipeds from a world orbiting a yellow star.

As shock reverberated through her sisters, Bridger could not prevent her amusement from rising to greater heights. Of course. Of course more humans had come.

She smothered her inappropriate humor and urged her sisters toward caution and silence. The ship didn't need to know there were other humans here. Not yet. Not until she knew more.

HOW MANY ARE YOU? she asked.

THREE-THOUSAND.

NEGLIGIBLE, Thinker said, her words now hidden from the ship. THEY WON'T BE A BURDEN.

FROM A CAPACITY STANDPOINT, Mover said the same way. Anxiety rippled from her. BUT THESE ARE HUMANS. EVEN ONE CAN CAUSE IMMENSE DAMAGE.

IF THEY'RE WITH THE GALACTIC ACCORD, THEY CANNOT HAVE HARMFUL INTENTIONS TOWARD US, Seer pointed out.

THEY'RE JUST A PATRONAGE SPECIES, Mover argued. THEY HAVEN'T PROVEN THEMSELVES FREE OF WAR AND MURDER YET.

AND I'M UNCOMFORTABLE WITH THEIR SPECIES DESIGNATION, Thinker added. A PROVISIONAL PATRONAGE SPECIES? THAT IS STRANGE.

IS IT? Seer asked. WE HAVEN'T EXACTLY IMMERSED OURSELVES IN GALACTIC LIFE. PERHAPS THE DESIGNATION IS COMMON.

They paused, considering her words. It was true that they were out of touch with the Accord's ways. They'd interacted with their Patron just enough to prove they were non-violent and therefore worthy of joining the Accord, then enjoyed their privacy since then other than occasional checkups. The last such had been a few cycles before the humans had arrived.

Had arrived the first time. Humor welled in Bridger again.

STILL, Thinker said, I FIND IT TROUBLING THAT THEIR PATRON HASN'T FULLY CLAIMED THEM.

IF THE IRTLIJ ARE LIKE OUR HUMANS, ARE YOU TRULY SURPRISED? Seer asked. THEIR RASHNESS OUTSTRIPS THEIR INTELLIGENCE. I WOULD BE HESITANT TO TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FOR THEM FOR MORE THAN A FEW CYCLES, TOO.

Sudden fear broke through Bridger's amusement. Her humans were dangerous, yes, but now that they were without their destructive nanites, there was little they could do to truly threaten the Accord. Yet that also meant they were vulnerable. If the other humans on the ship tried to harm them, they would be in danger.

SHOULD WE TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FOR OUR HUMANS? she asked. CLAIM THEM, JUST IN CASE?

Her sisters' surprise and dismay brushed her. THAT SEEMS RISKY, Thinker said. WHAT IF WE CAN'T CONTROL THEM? OR WHAT IF 112358 CAN'T CONTROL HIS HUMANS? WE MIGHT BE HELD RESPONSIBLE IF VIOLENCE BREAKS OUT.

I DON'T WANT TO LEAVE MY HUMANS WITHOUT PROTECTION, Bridger insisted. They were her youngest children. Perhaps she had not brought them into being the way she had the other lives she harbored, but they were hers now. Especially the ones with her spores in their bodies, yes, but all of them, even the strange ones made entirely of microscopic machines.

IF WE CLAIM THEM AND THEY CAUSE DIPLOMATIC RELATIONS TO DETERIORATE, WE'LL BE RESPONSIBLE, Thinker said, even as Mover tried to radiate soothing comfort. ALL THE LIVES WE HARBOR COULD BE IN DANGER. WE COULD BE IN DANGER.

LET'S NOT CLAIM THE HUMANS YET, Seer said. BESIDES, SHOULD THEY NOT BE CONSULTED? THEY CARE IMMENSELY FOR THEIR INDIVIDUALITY AND INDEPENDENCE.

THEY'RE PART OF OUR COLLECTIVE LIFE, Bridger said. Humans were learning that truth more and more each day. THEIR INDIVIDUALITY AND INDEPENDENCE ARE ILLUSIONS.

PARTIAL ILLUSIONS, Seer said.

THE SHIP AWAITS OUR RESPONSE, Thinker pointed out impatiently.

IF THEY'RE LIKE OUR HUMANS, ONLY AN INSTANT HAS PASSED FROM THEIR PERCEPTION, Seer said. BUT I AM READY TO RESPOND.

AND I, Thinker said firmly.

AND I, Mover said.

Bridger felt her sisters' shared desires welling between them and contributed her own. Their preferences shifted, adjusting to the new input, and a consensus came into focus among them.

AND I, Bridger said.

VERY WELL, Thinker said. I'LL SPEAK. BRIDGER, PERHAPS YOU SHOULD INFORM THE LIBERATORS' MOTHER?

I... YES, she agreed reluctantly. She did not look forward to having that conversation with the human woman. She doubted Merula would be any more pleased about the presence of more of her kind than Bridger was, though for different reasons. Humans were very territorial and resistant to change.

Thinker broke off their private communication. WE BEAR YOUR KIND ON OUR STAR'S FOURTH WORLD, she told the Irtlij humans on the ship and their Patron. WE HAVE NOT YET DECIDED WHETHER YOU MAY ALL SET FOOT IN OUR WORLD OR LIVE HERE. YOUR KIND HERE WILL HELP DECIDE THAT. BUT YOU MAY SEND A SMALL LANDING PARTY TO CONDUCT DIPLOMATIC RELATIONS. IF OUR HUMANS WISH TO MEET YOU, WE WILL TRANSLATE.

Bridger turned her attention inward. Countless lives stirred within her. She sought one, a mind that had shaped the Liberator's more familiar mind, stamping it with a certain family likeness their genes lacked. She dove into the woman's consciousness and gently manipulated the human's neurology to permit the creature to hear her.

She made her voice very small, lest she harm the human's fragile brain. Merula? she asked, unsure why the human's sudden wave of irritation made her feel embarrassed. She hadn't ignored the woman or Merula's underlings for very long, and she'd only denied them information briefly and for their own good. There is something I must tell you.

Oh? the human thought back at her archly. Do you mean about the bloody ship in your orbit?

Surprise rippled through her, fading quickly into exasperation. Of course Merula knew. Bridger couldn't control her youngest children in any way, even this.

She pushed aside her dismay. Yes, she said. The vessel bears a very small number of your kind. An even smaller group of them will land on my surface. If you wish to speak to them, you must prepare.

***

What the hell am I thinking? Hunibi asked herself for the thousandth time.

Her heart hammered in her chest more than it had when the lander briefly shorted out while passing through a strange hazy-blue deflection shield around the planet. There was snow beneath her feet. Snow and pebbles.

She stared and wasn't the only one. All five members of the landing party gaped down at their gilt shoes.

She blinked stupidly at the fluffy white snow. She blinked up at the rosy-red sky. She blinked back down at the ground, where the snow--snow!--glittered pink in the light of a sun.

A sun. She tried not to stare at the crimson thing burning in the sky but found herself failing every few seconds. She stood beneath a sun. On a planet. A real planet, not one woven on a tapestry or seen in gilt reveries about Uld Irt. Not one glimpsed, briefly, out of the observation windows as the ship careened past a star-system. A real planet with real soil and snow and sun and strange white flower-like plants.

Her muscles tensed with the urge to flee. This was great and all, but she wanted to return to the familiarity of the ship.

What the hell am I thinking? She glanced longingly at the lander. A forest of what looked like mushrooms, cedar and olive trees, and tangled spires of weird white crystalline branches stretched toward the white walls of a distant city.

A city on a planet under the sun. She was going to puke.

What am I doing here? What am I thinking? Why the heck did I volunteer for this? The chance that the natives spoke English was slim. She didn't belong here. She didn't belong on a planet.

She stared at her feet, breathing hard, then shook her head. "You want to go back and miss this? Idiot!"

"What?" the woman next to her asked, tearing her gaze from the sun to blink dazedly at Hunibi.

"Nothing," she said.

On her other side, a young man named Klud gawked up at his namesake as the cloud drifted, puffy and crimson-kissed white, through the sky above him. Without looking down, he muttered a command, and the gilt on his feet crawled up to his ankles. He curled bare toes into the snow, at last jerking his head down to peer at his feet.

Hunibi wasn't the only one to hold her breath. Everyone stared at him. Her heart skipped a beat as Klud's breath hitched.

Could it be? Hope blossomed in her chest.

Then Klud moaned and collapsed to the ground. Tears streamed down his face as he dug his fingers into the snow. "It's not working."

The woman behind him--Jres, a middle-aged member of the Helm--was the first to shake off the moment. The Renunciate's lip curled. "Of course not. This isn't the time. This isn't our home." She shook her head as, kneeling in the snow, he gazed miserably up at her. "Come now. Stand tall. You know better than to crave what you were never meant to have."

Hunibi grimaced, turning away as Jres reached out to help Klud to his feet. Of course it was foolish to hope their Legacies of Soul could blossom in them here. This wasn't Harbor. The neuro-locks they all carried within them must sense, somehow, that they weren't on the right planet. The Souls their ancestors entrusted them with would never be released. Would never gaze upon a new world.

But Hunibi was seeing a new world. I'm on a planet. Giddy dizziness swept through her. She couldn't wait to describe this to Bru. The kid would be drawing crimson skies for weeks. An actual soil-and-sea planet!

Snow crunched behind them. Hunibi tensed, clutching her walking staff, then forced herself to breathe calmly. The olivewood staves she and the others carried may have been carved in the likeness of swords, but they symbolized the wisdom to choose nonviolence over violence. She would not have her first action here be to thump some poor native over the skull.

She turned and tried very hard not to stare like a fool.

"Are we sure they're humans?" Hil, the youngest member of the Helm--well, after Bru, who didn't count--whispered.

Hunibi was inclined to wonder the same as a black-robed woman approached her, flanked by tense guards.

Blue. Every last one of them was blue.

"Maybe it's like a Legacy of Body?" Klud  whispered back.

Jres shot them a quelling look. "You're being rude."

"They can't understand--"

Hunibi elbowed him to shut him up as the strange woman stopped a few feet from them. Blue-flecked dark eyes assessed them from beneath a halo of tight black curls. Then she smiled, the movement making crystalline markings on her cheekbones glint, and said something in her language.

Hello, my name is Merula Nocticula.

Hunibi jumped. The intrusive voice had whispered inside her head. Next to her, the others' eyes darted to and fro, trying to find the source of the words. She found herself breathing hard. She'd known that the planet would translate, but until now had not realized what that meant.

There's a planet in my head, she thought, and ruthlessly strangled the giggle that threatened to rise. In... in my head. A planet. In my...

The whispering words layered atop Merula's voice as the woman continued speaking, blending so seamlessly that Hunibi had to concentrate to separate the two. "I'm the Rex," the blue woman said, staring at them with the same awe that must have been on their own faces. "The leader of this planet's government." She swept her arms wide. "Welcome to Aquarius."