“I am confused,” Mimic said as the rest of us donned our enviro-suits. “I thought the scanner said the atmosphere was quite livable for humans. Why are you putting on such protections?”
“The atmosphere is livable, but the foliage or fauna could be less than pleasant. You remember that nasty creature you fought off during our first visit? Who says there aren’t bigger ones here?”
“I doubt there are. My people deal with predators…remarkably well.”
“Really?” I asked. “I was under the impression that your people were entirely peaceful.”
“We prefer it that way, but when life does not give us a choice, we will defend ourselves. It’s always a last measure, of course. Mostly, we’re happy if we can just eat. Before I met you, eating was ninety percent of my daily function. The other ten percent was thinking about eating.”
“I can identify with that,” Gonzales said. “Last night, I had this amazing dream about tostones made from Earth-grown plantains. That’s pretty much all I’ve been able to think about today. Oh, and uh, getting you back to your people, of course.”
We all laughed at that before Mimic gave a dutiful nod.
“Yes. It is time. Come, my friends, let’s take this final step of our journey together.”
In a bittersweet gesture, we all joined hands. Standing in a line, the five of us waited for the hangar door to slide open then the ramp to descend before walking forward into the light.
The planet was beautiful, that was for sure. Much different from the comet home we had originally pulverized. It reminded me of pictures I had seen of Earth, lush and green and full of all sorts of animal sounds. Far different from the colony I had been raised on.
“Wow,” Mimic murmured. “This is nothing like my last home.”
“I guess your people have gotten a bit of an upgrade.”
“Maybe one day, thousands of years ago, one of our space colonies was knocked out of orbit and landed here. My people do not have any form of inter-celestial object communications, so we would have never known. Never…cared, really.”
That last part seemed to bother her, but I wasn’t about to let her put a damper on what should be one of the happiest moments of her life in recent memory. “Hey, none of that now. You’ve found your people. This is a happy day.”
“Right. Supposing I actually find them.”
We looked around, unsure of which direction to go. “Well, east or west then?”
Mimic craned her neck, her eyes flashing several different colors. I guessed that maybe she was changing their structure to view the world in different ways, but she didn’t explain one way or the other before taking off to the east.
We followed her without question, our eyes all busy surveying the area while our hand-held scanners were set to find deposits of minerals that Mimic could eat. We figured that if her people were anywhere, it would be near food.
We trudged on for hours, saying nothing, seeing everything. The plants were truly beautiful, and my scanner beeped occasionally about edible ones. At least if we were stranded here in permanent exile, we would have plenty of different options for building our own sustainable farm.
I could see it now. The four of us settling into everyday life as we invented different things to make our own mini-colony, visiting Mimic and her shapeshifting relatives at least once a week while we ate totally non-compatible dinners. It was a nice vision, and I couldn’t help but find myself wishing that was exactly how all of this would pan out.
“There!” Mimic cried suddenly, tearing me from my reverie.
I blinked and turned my head to see that she was suddenly dashing off, disappearing between thick, flowered vines. The four of us exchanged looks before tearing after her.
I had no idea where we were going, or what she had seen, but I trusted her, so I sprinted along blindly, enviro-suit squeaking as I did.
But then, as suddenly as our chase had started, it ground to a halt and I barely had time to kill my speed to avoid crashing into a suddenly very still Mimic.
“What’s going on?” I asked her.
But her eyes were affixed on something ahead of her. Squinting, I looked into the distance to see some sort of black cliff, shimmering in the light. It was only after several steps that I realized it wasn’t the rock itself that was ebony, but rather the light glinting off of hundreds of thousands of little mimic bodies.
“My gods,” Bahn breathed. “It’s them.”
Mimic let out a screech that sounded like it might have been something in her own language, and ran forward again, arms outstretched. She shifted as she went, until she was once more the large dog-sized version of her dark, miasmic, spikey self.
She reached the base of the mountain in just a few short seconds, us following behind her with massive grins. I could hear her excited chirping even from where I was, while she danced in a small circle. Her joy was obvious, even in such an alien form, and it was entirely infectious.
Except…none of the mini-mimics reacted.
As the four of us humans drew closer, I realized just how small they were. Even smaller than Mimic when I had first met her. They just continued on, marching in a very dedicated line toward something that we couldn’t see.
Joy quickly turned to worry, then to heartbreak as Mimic’s cheerful cries slowly lowered in tone until they were nothing but a shaking warble. I wanted to intervene, but I also knew it wasn’t my place until I was invited.
After several tortuous moments, Mimic slowly shifted back into her human form. “They…they won’t answer me,” she murmured, eyes red with withheld tears. Since when had she learned to cry? What a horrible lesson to have to learn.
“It’s okay,” Ciangi soothed, coming up alongside the alien woman and gently rubbing her arm. “Maybe you guys speak a different language? You said they could have crashed thousands of years ago, right?”
“Yes, but it is like they don’t even see me. They should have some sort of reaction. Even when I couldn’t understand a word of what Higgens was saying, I still knew that he was some sort of strange and terrifying living creature!”
“You thought I was terrifying?”
“Of course. You were a massive giant inside of an even bigger giant that destroyed my home.”
“Fair enough.”
“Maybe it’s not intentional?” Ciangi offered, still trying to be supportive.
“Why don’t we do a cognitive test then?” Gonzales said, picking up a stone before aiming carefully. With a flick of her wrist, she sent it sailing toward a chunk of the mini-mimics a few feet up the mountain.
The rock crashed into them, sending a few scattering, but mostly they just went around it or over it, never questioning what had sent the missile in the first place.
“Yeah, either they’re not capable of recognizing stimulus or they are actively deciding to ignore everything. I’m not sure which is worse.”
“I don’t understand,” Mimic whispered, her voice cracking. “Why are they doing this?”
We didn’t have an answer, but seeing her like this was awful. I walked forward and pulled her into a sturdy hug, wishing her all the happiness that she’d had just moments earlier. “I don’t know, sweetie. But I’m sure this is just a temporary thing. We’ll get you both on the same page, I promise.”
“Perhaps the best solution to see what they’re all so mindlessly progressing toward,” Bahn said, looking in the direction the little shapeshifters were dutifully marching. “Perhaps they have evolved some sort of hive mentality and our answers will lie at the epicenter of all of this.”
“That’s definitely a theory,” Gonzales said, nodding hopefully. “I like it.”
Mimic nodded, wiping her face before pulling herself from my arms. “Thank you. That sounds like the best idea considering the situation. Let’s go.”