“Safety for the passengers,” said Washen. “That’s every captain’s first duty. After that, we care for the Great Ship, and then, we welcome new passengers onboard. But there’s a fourth duty waiting. Humanity used to be a minor species. We were late to the business of star travel, but then we found the Great Ship. In the tens of thousands of years since, this beggar of a starship has left multitudes in its wake. New worlds by the thousands, all claimed by our people. Immortals like myself, and humans like you. And those colonists, your brethren and mine, will rule the galaxy for the next ten billion years.”
With that, she paused.
The invisible spectacle must have finished. Eyes were blinking, faces smiling or frowning, and many people shyly looked at their neighbors, trying to gauge what this magician’s trick had done to their tiny souls.
That’s when the great captain was rudely interrupted.
“So what the shit do you want from us?”
Amund shouted those caustic words.
Turning, Washen looked at nobody but the rude boy.
He instantly regretted his action, but in the next moment he was angry all over again. For his doubts, for her invasion. But mostly because he was a stupid little bit of humanity. Amund existed only because the captain machines allowed him to live inside what was little more than a tiny drawer. Washen’s kindness was what kept all of them alive. Unless it was her utter indifference to their little existences, and when the time came, she would throw them out, replacing them with richer, more interesting tenants.
That’s what passed through one young head.
Washen’s thoughts were a mystery, then and always. What kinds of elaborate calculations was she making, transforming this complex, ever-shifting event into the best action? But of course the mathematics were easy. After all, she was one of the finest machines ever fabricated, standing before a tribe of primitives, all of them easily swayed and just as easily forgotten.
“So what the shit do you want from us?”
For a long breath, nothing happened. Except that Amund kept finding reasons to grow angrier.
“The Great Ship,” the captain began.
Another pause.
“And our hands,” said Washen, holding her hands towards the basalt sky. “Ships and hands have limits. We’re passing through the Galaxy, and yes, we’re aiming for the most fascinating portions of the Milky Way. But our speed and course are inflexible. Most solar systems remain out of reach. In reality, there’s only a narrow cylinder of space that our shuttles can reach, and then they have to return to us again.
“Where-the-rivers-live is very close to that cylinder’s edge. Velocities are law. Time is short. And wise as these rivers seem to be, they don’t have their own starships. They might build some workable craft soon. Even a tiny river has astonishing talents, and working together with a world’s full resources … well, they could possibly launch a starship or two in the next few years. But there isn’t time to wait and hope. If we want the rivers to live with us, we have to make our own round trip. And to achieve that, there is a plan. The plan is underway already. This morning, a special streakship was launched. That ship was pre-built and then mothballed for a day like this. It’s massive and full of fuel and exceedingly well protected from the dangers of deep space. But there is no crew. Shaped nukes and war-grade lasers are accelerating it to a healthy fraction of light speed. It’s exactly the kind of vessel that can race out to an alien world, landing under the guidance of AI pilots, and then wait for its passengers to board.”
Washen was ageless. Except when she paused, as she did then, she looked like a woman who had endured a long, difficult day.
Two breaths and she spoke again.
“The living rivers have explained themselves. And that includes some inflexible ideas about ceremony and symbol and the value of life. Which they cherish, by the way. More than most species, the sanctity of organism is held in the highest regard. Perhaps because they are so few, and by any measure, they are so very old.”
The captain took a long step forward, studying the ignorant young fellow who seemed to have forgotten how to talk.
“Their largest river claims to be older than earthly vertebrates, older than our sponges,” she said. “So we’re battling some instinctive, unyielding ideas. There are also the horrible limitations of time and our room to maneuver. We spotted their world years ago, studied them and built an offer of friendship. Two Venus-class worlds, two icebound moons. That was our initial offer. Which is a fair price, a modest price, considering the technologies we’ll share and the places that we will take them. And the rivers have agreed with us. They’ll give us everything we want. Four substantial worlds, with space for hundreds of trillions of good people. When you talk about mortals. If you can imagine millions of generations of humans living beneath this orange sun.”
Washen took another step forward, standing that much closer to Amund.
He wanted to run.
His feet preferred to hold their ground.
“One icy moon will be warmed and then bathed in a delicious atmosphere,” the captain promised. “Then it will be given to you, the humans, and you and your trillions of children will live out their lives on this spectacular new realm.”
Except there wasn’t any joy in the machine’s words or her face. She was a grim, all-knowing god, talking to tiny entities who couldn’t appreciate the shitty choices that she had to walk through.
“Four worlds would be an enormous gain for our species,” she said. “But it requires one quick mission that culminates with a brief, brief ceremony.”
“Which is what?” Amund meant to shout, but his words emerged as a guttural whisper.
Did she hear him?
“What ceremony?” asked twenty other voices.
“This is a very ancient dance,” Washen explained, “One creature must symbolically merge with another. Two unrelated rivers must
