Ximena smiles. Touché.
“What are you saying?” Sky stands and points a finger at him. “Are you calling me a—?
“People, people,” Miyagi raises his hands and tone. “Come on. Keep it civilized and respectful. Discuss away, but no name-calling. Sky, sit down, please. Thank you. Cody, please, no more metaphors nor, uh, hints. Tell us in simple, everyday words, why the radically shorter lifespans destroyed the sophisticated civilizations of the golden age.”
“Apologies, Professor, Sky.” He bows at her with convincing humility. “I did not intend disrespect.” Ximena chuckles. She knows him better. “To find the truth, I believe we need to take a step back from Dem, the collapse, the great dying, and ask ourselves the proper questions.”
“I like how you think.” Miyagi is nodding at him. “Finding the right questions is a cornerstone of science. Often harder than finding the answers. So, tell us, which questions are relevant to the second collapse?”
“The key question, I believe, is: what makes a civilization?” He pauses a second. “And the answer, in my humble opinion, is not knowledge nor technology. Not directly,” he hastily adds as Sky seems about to say something. “The answer is specialists.”
“Specialists?” Miyagi says, squinting eyes staring at Cody. Ximena throws a glance down to the front bench where Sky seems to scoff. “Yes, quite right,” Miyagi says. “The more complex the civilization, the more specialized we all become.”
“Yes, Professor. Doctors, engineers, scientists, botanists, analysts, merchants, financiers.”
“Don’t forget historians,” Miyagi adds with a chuckle. “Each splitting into dozens of more concrete specializations. My best friend is a solar-energy automation engineer specialized on Near-Earth habitat structures.”
“Yes, Professor,” Cody says, his kind smile broadening, “great example. Now that we have a candidate answer, specialists, to the key question, what makes civilization, we can postulate the impact of Dem killing at ever younger ages.”
Ximena is mildly jealous of Cody’s ability to remain calm and well-paced. The whole auditorium is staring at him, and many, like Sky, even with suspicion, if not open disdain. He just doesn’t care.
“Put simply,” he continues through that perennial smile of his, “specialists died, one by one, together with their experience and wisdom. Until all that was left were ignorant kids. Take your friend, for example, Professor. What would happen to our space habitats if specialists like him died from Dem without replacement? Yes, as my esteemed fellow Sky rightly points out,” he extends a hand in her direction, “human knowledge persists, but, alas, only on paper and digital storage.”
“And what good is that knowledge,” Miyagi says, “if nobody has enough time to absorb it, right? Great answer, Cody. Thanks. Love this discussion. You began by asking how old Edda was in the sequence we observed and ended discussing the ravages on humanity of the second collapse. Only by the outset of the twenty-third century did lifespans finally stabilize at twenty-seven, and so it remained, unchanged, until the early twenty-fifth century—the fascinating times which we are studying in this seminar—when that stability came spectacularly to an end.”
Seven
The Reseeding Effort
“Aliens, aliens, aliens,” Miyagi says, pacing the stage with his usual self-confidence. “You either love them, or love to hate them.”
He laughs aloud, as if he had delivered a joke. Some students chuckle obligingly, but not Ximena.
“Their meddling in human affairs has gone unnoticed for way too long. But finally, First Contact is imminent.”
Some students around Ximena actually whistle and cheer with anticipation. Ximena can of course understand the historical importance of the event, but why the excitement? Even Mark is smiling sheepishly at Miyagi.
“Before that, though, I want you to meet them right before First Contact. Yes,” he raises a hand at the sudden roar of excitement, “I know you’re eager to see our favorite alien again, huh?”
“Favorite?” Ximena murmurs to herself. How can there be a favorite—?
“Rew,” Mark whispers in her ear. He’s heard her. “He’s speaking about Rew. You wait and see.”
Ximena doesn’t have time to reply before Miyagi continues, “For the first time in dreamsenso, we are actually going to dramatize events from a non-human perspective. Sensational stuff, people!” He raises both arms. “You’re welcome for the privilege.”
Ximena watches in confusion as the surrounding students clap fiercely. At least her fellow GIA students, on the opposite side of the amphitheater, seem as baffled as she feels.
“Thank you, thank you. Obviously, we have taken some liberties, like dubbing and such. But all in all, our historical sources are solid, and I’m quite pleased with the results. Now, without further ado… Ank, if you will.”
A scene materializes immediately: a flat ground, made of some sort of impossibly polished dark stone, that spans infinitely in all directions. There is nothing on the ground: no object interrupts the spotless sight to the horizon, anywhere you look. The sky is pitch black, yet a soft light irradiates in all directions. A dream, thinks Ximena. Empty and simple, but a dream nevertheless.
A figure is now standing on the infinite expanse. It was not there an instant ago.
Ximena has seen this creature before. In Edda’s detention cell.
It is not quite human: a grotesquely elongated figure, thinner and taller than any human could possibly be; no clothes, no hair, no genitals; spotless white skin; a proportionally smaller head; no ears, no nose, just an over-sized black, humid mouth and two fully white eyes—no iris nor pupils—whiter even than the color of its skin.
The figure just stands there, idle, still.
And time passes.
“So, who is this?” Miyagi’s powerful voice breaks the students’ absorbed attention.
“It has to be Rew, or Yog,” Lora says.
“She’s Rew,” Miyagi says. “Yog has three bodies. At least had them before First Contact. She also features in this scene, coming up any second now.”
“Is this a female?” Sky asks from below Ximena, as her eyes scrutinize the alien body.
“No,” Miyagi says. “Mares do not reproduce sexually. If you are asking why I say she instead of it when
