by Kris Schnee
Miles groaned and rolled over, still aching from the wounds he no longer had. He sat up and said, "I'm sorry, everyone. Did the GMs fill you in on that 'dragon'?"
First Officer Andrea said, "I've informed everyone. I'm the ranking officer in here and I take responsibility for your... enthusiasm in the battle."
Miles stood shakily and said more loudly, "I'm sorry I did that. We've been dancing to the aliens' tune. But now, it's over -- I hope."
The crew looked more relieved than angry. One man clapped him on the shoulder and said, "That was terrifying. But now that I know it's not fatal, I want to try it again." Others murmured in agreement.
The Vizier appeared without fanfare, in its form as a Hexapod. "You did as we asked, Miles, and gave us a chance to see how humans behave in a dire situation."
"That wasn't exactly a realistic battle," Miles said.
"No, but your crew showed ingenuity, courage and teamwork in the face of a major threat, even while having to adapt to arbitrary and unfamiliar rules. Now, shall we hold a reunion at last?" The Vizier raised a tentacle-arm. A shimmering portal appeared, leading to the dragon's treasure-hoard.
The crew flooded through to stare at the vast pile of glittering coins. They called out to the soldiers who were just now arriving from the killing ground. There was a tearful reunion as the living crew finally got its proof that nobody on this entire trip had really died.
Miles hung back without going through the portal. As he'd expected, Eva came through to his side. "I was the dragon that time," he told her.
She stared, stammered something, and finally ran forward to hug him. Miles patted her back and apologized again, saying, "You're pretty tough for a damsel in distress."
"And don't you forget it," she said. She saw the Vizier and twitched; this creature's Hexapod form was new to her. "So you're the one behind all this."
"I represent those who are, yes. For slaying the dragon, I owe you answers..."
Eva listened to what Miles already knew. During the explanation, both of Captain Thorn came through the portal to see Miles and Eva with their alien visitor. They listened quietly, too, keeping their expressions carefully neutral.
One of the Thorns steeled himself to speak calmly. "Given the nature of our meeting, are you satisfied with us humans now? Do you accept that we can deal on equal terms without these games and ruses?"
"No," said the Vizier. "Your people are primitive by our standards, in most ways. If we wished to have a war with you, be assured that we would win. Why do you think we singled out one of you in particular to have special powers that would cause conflicts of leadership and imbalances of power? The point wasn't so much to see what Miles would do with strange, unfamiliar abilities as to see what you would do in response."
Both of the captain glowered, holding their fists at their sides. "I see we have been thoroughly played," said one.
The other turned to Miles and said, "Under the circumstances, it's hard to blame you. If this were a military mission, I'd impose the sort of courtmartial that gives you a day in the brig followed by a promotion."
"Thank you, sir."
Eva took a deep breath. "So, we've been made immortal. Most of us have been doubled. You promised dragon powers to whoever does the killing blow."
Miles said, "To do what? The game is over."
"It's only beginning. Vizier, what do you plan to do to us next?"
The walls of the habitat fell away to reveal a gigantic auditorium. They were surrounded by countless Hexapods watching from all around, seeming to perch on endless rows of benches. Humans had the attention of this entire world.
The Vizier said, "Because Miles failed to kill quite so many of you as the quota we set, we won't rush to rebuild your starship --"
"So that's why you fought!" said Eva.
"Which means that you humans are now 'trapped' with us until you have a working ship again, built at a more leisurely pace. You are now our honored guests, not our game pieces."
One of the Thorns excused himself, looking uncomfortable. He said, "I should go tend to the crew." He walked through the portal to the cave where people were playing in the treasure hoard. The other Thorn said, "If the Hart is gone, we have some new possibilities. As digital ghosts, we don't need life support systems, only computers. Correct?"
The Vizier nodded. "Your next ship can be far more efficient, particularly using some design methods we can suggest."
Eva had wanted this uploading thing for the sake of fun, but it was also a means to colonize space more easily. Miles murmured, "Eternity and infinity."
Thorn seemed not to hear him. "We may be able to turn this fiasco of a mission to our advantage after all, then. Will you let us build a warp gate at planet Tafl?"
"No, but we have an uninhabited world in this system that should meet your needs. We also know of a few other planets elsewhere that biological creatures might want to colonize. You may pass this information along to your people."
"Because we're not 'biological' anymore," Thorn said glumly.
Eva said, "Captain --"
"My ship is gone and Hochen took my authority twice over. I'm just His Majesty's loyal subject now, if I'm even recognized as alive."
Miles said, "If you're loyal, like us, then there's work to do. We can still build the gate and put humanity in contact with the Hexapods, then help our people to travel even farther out."
Eva said, "You can even go and stay here, one copy each. But now isn't the time to jump right back into work, not when there's so much to learn about this new life. Earth needs to know about the uploading technology we've been through, but we need to understand what resources and abilities we've got before we can even get started on the gate."
"This sounds like an excuse for spending time as a dragon before you return to any official duties," Miles told her.
"It's research. Understanding virtual worlds, you know. Besides, I bet I could have beaten you as the dragon in that last battle."
Miles looked to the vast crowd of Hexapods, then to the Vizier. "How about it, for a start? Shall we redo the battle but with Eva playing as Iskandar?"
There was a roar of cheering and hooting from the aliens who wanted to see the strange outsiders give them an encore.
Miles peeked through the portal to catch the attention of the hundreds of crewmen who were exploring the dragon's lair. The white-scaled kobolds had broken character and were dancing with them. Miles said, "Who's up for another fight before we settle down?"
The humans were eager to play again, too.
* * *
"Only thirty-five kills!" Miles said with a grin, and thumped his beer on the wooden bar table.
Eva protested to the other people sitting with her. "That was against Miles with his special magic, and everybody knowing it was a game."
Rodriguez said, "Did we ever find out how the Hexapods were gambling on that round?"
One of the people with them was a Hexapod itself, perched on an odd stool. "There were many individual bets."
The bar was in a surreal district consisting entirely of taverns and cobblestone streets, drawn with little graphical detail and staffed by bland AI bartenders. It existed mainly as a place to wander and relax between visits to more elaborate worlds. There wasn't much more yet to the humans' living environment but a generic barracks; everything was a work in progress.
The Hexapods were helping the Silver Hart's crew to build their own virtual world within the far larger system that filled their planet and hosted over a billion alien minds. For the Hexapods, accommodating two copies of a few hundred humans was like buying a cheap new toy, and even helping them build a warp gate and a starship would count as a mildly strenuous hobby project.
Making a pair of virtual rings to mark Eva and Miles' marriage had been entirely trivial.
Today wasn't a day for more dragon battles or space construction. Instead, Eva tapped a glass for attention and brought this little meeting to order. She opened a box and set out he
r supplies: pencils, paper, and dice.
She said, "It's a hot summer day as you hide behind a hilltop. The soldiers of your three peasant villages have gathered to smite the evil bandits lurking on the other side. A nobleman says quietly, 'I need a few scouts.' Your characters will be the ones who volunteer, so come up with some character concepts to start with..."
There was a lot of work to do in the next few years to re-establish contact with home and bring the news of Hart's good fortune to everyone. In the meantime, though, there would be chances to play. Miles idly rolled his set of dice and got four plusses. This was going to be a good campaign.
* * *
One month later
Miles Hochen, former crewman of Silver Hart and former human, walked in the new colony with his wife Eva. Though Miles continued to wear a human appearance with a version of his old uniform, Eva had chosen to spend today as a horse-sized white dragon who trotted along beside him.
The alien with them was calling itself Rini, and had declared itself the Extravagant Translator. As it shuffled along the metal catwalk with them on its six tentacles it said, "I'm having particular trouble with what you call fairytales. Is the goal of them an engagement between teacher and student?"
Eva chuckled, letting out puffs of frosty breath. "There isn't really a goal besides the fantasy and the feelings those stories give people. I don't think they're meant as models of good behavior. But I'm no literary critic, as I already told Oru the Phantasmal Monster Collector." These Hexapods all seemed to like titles.
Miles said, "It might help to just watch us for a while." They were touring the outer edge, a surface of slightly stained concrete and rusty pipes that formed a mile-wide cylinder. They were inside it, since it contained the Wondrously Appointed Environment For the Newcomers. Miles reached out to touch this wall, then looked inward to the city and forest and lake that the aliens had given them to live in. It was all bottled up in this cylinder... and none of it was real.
After the game, there'd been the question "And then what?" Anyone's "happily ever after" -- a phrase the Hexapods adored -- was just the beginning of a new Great Work to do. For Miles and the other devout ones, anyway. The aliens had tried to explain that their human toys-turned-guests were now digital minds, freed from physical form, and able to exist as motes of pure thought. The humans just didn't get it. A group of Hexapods reacted to the humans' confusion with a collective "Aha!", declaring victory in a political (or maybe religious) conflict the humans hadn't even been aware of.
As with the struggle between the Hosts running the Fate game and the Viziers trying to make it slightly more pleasant, the aliens had been arguing and gambling on a grand scale about matters like how humans would react to their new status. The upshot? The humans decided that they were going to continue having physical bodies in a physical living space, even if it was really a simulation. Fascinated, the Hexapods helped build one in the shape of a giant cylindrical cave buried beneath the planet's crust, which was close to the truth. Most of the Hexapods were themselves living in similar artificial worlds, they claimed.
Eva looked back at the city's crystal spires. With a population of under four hundred humans and a hundred Hexapods, the new Hartstown was absurdly spacious. "How did our Hexapod residents get selected, anyway? Another game?"
The Extravagant Translator laughed, a burbling noise and tentacle movement Miles had learned to recognize. "A tournament of social savvy. There were a million initial volunteers for this first close interaction with your people. The chosen ones are subject to what you'd call 'reality shows', monitoring their no-doubt bumbling attempts to understand you. What wonderful turmoil you've caused, showing our best theorists about alien minds to be wildly off-base."
Miles said, "You're in for more turmoil when you meet the rest of us."
Eva nuzzled him. "No need to frighten them. Why are we out here again?"
Though the shining city and its parkland filled the center of the virtual cave, this outer wall was deliberately dingy. Having an obvious boundary kept everyone a little saner. It helped them understand their "captivity" in a way that didn't seem too confining, and comforted the share of the crew who'd grown up on space stations. If it had looked perfect, it would have been unnerving. Miles waved to open a huge steel door, leading to a staircase.
It took them up to the planet's airless surface without spacesuits. There was no need for an airlock. Really, they were seeing a model being updated by a set of drones that now moved openly on Edda V's desolate exterior. Above them was the incomplete ring of a warp gate in orbit. Really it was orbiting Edda III for safety, just as the Sol system's gate was out past the asteroids rather than aimed right at Earth. The overall design used human technology, faithfully built according to the specs from Silver Hart. Unfortunately, "incomplete" meant that it'd be unfinished for decades, at this rate.
Miles said, "I brought us here to look at how little there is so far, and ask: are you people slow-walking this?"
The Translator said, "Some of us would like to see you stay just for fun, and some would rather learn about your people for a good long while before inviting your potentially hostile species to our doorstep."
Miles didn't argue the point. Even after this relatively peaceful first contact, there would be plenty of humans arguing against much interaction with the Hexapods except at some neutral star system. "How about allowing us to use Edda IV's moons for mining? We can do the work ourselves."
Eva stretched her wings. "And right now we're just playing."
"I didn't think you'd complain about that," Miles told her.
"I'm having fun right now being a dragon, and tomorrow I can be a wizard or an elf or whatever else I like. I have our Fate sessions, and plenty of new people to talk to. But I've also still got an obligation to get this gate built and send the good news home. I can take a long vacation after that."
The Hexapod listened. "Though we could have you use our drones to do the gate construction, we don't entirely trust you with heavy machinery in our star system yet. No offense. Maybe we could let you try some small drones to set up a human-style surface base on those moons, for practice. We'd like to see how you do it."
"It might help," Miles said.
The Translator said, "But even letting you do the heavy work wouldn't address the reasons we're working slowly. And Miles, here, didn't win the dragon battle to earn our best efforts."
Miles' cheeks burned as he looked up at the unfinished gate. If he'd used slightly better tactics or rolled better, he could have helped the kingdom years sooner. "So we're stuck here on a forced vacation while we watch you do the job we were sent for."
"Is that really so bad? This is hardly a prison environment."
"We haven't even gotten to see your territory, your history."
A sort of tentacled shrug. "Give us time to experience more of your culture. You know a few things about us already and can guess a few more. This is not just caution; it's a chance to study humans in an unsullied state."
Eva laughed. "Unsullied! Dear Maker, did you people get into our history books at all?"
"We did. It eases our hearts to know that your species, too, has deeds it's ashamed of. We will be stronger for comparing notes more freely, when the time comes."
Miles stared up at the gate again. "If you're worried about having a whole royal starship come through soon, then how about building a lesser gate? You could build it with much less effort and send small probes through." Humans had built those first as experiments, at a dear cost in money and lives.
Eva added, "Maybe a probe large enough to carry a delegation of your own people, if all you need is computers and not a life-support system. You can go to us and share the technology, exchange messages, then let a full-size gate come later."
The Hexapod considered. It said to Miles, "This is possible, Ambassador, but I'm just a translator. I've passed your idea along. We'll need to speak to many more people on our side, and to Governor Thorn."
Miles nodded. There'd been a need for someone to manage the day-to-day affairs of Hartstown, and Miles had warily asked Thorn if he was interested. One of him was willing to accept the role of civilian governor, and to quit calling the Hexapods "the enemy". Thorn had organized the crew into some semblance of a new society whose goal was to learn about their hosts and advise them about gate construction. There really wasn't much that the crew needed to do now, and wealth was arbitrary because this environment could generate anything the people wanted.
So for the most part, they were all on a sort of extended shore leave. Miles was glad that many of them were already looking for new things to work on.
The other Thorn was one of them. He had, after much discussion with his double, become a military scholar. He was working on the first evidence-based treatise on battle between unrelated intelligent species. So far his data was based on simulated fighting between humans and eager Hexapods in a variety of games, rather than a "real" fight. But the man was already drawing insight about alien psychology and tactics that the King would definitely give him a medal for.
"Well, good," said Miles. They descended the stairs to the city's edge. "If we can build a smaller gate, we can get a little ship through it within a few years. What now?"
Eva crouched beside him and brushed one wing against his side. "For the moment, our work is done. Now hop onto your space dragon and have some fun for a while."
Miles chuckled. "If you'll excuse me, Extravagant Translator?"
"Certainly."
Miles climbed aboard his dragon steed and they took off across the habitat. They flew above the crystal city where the two species mingled, relaxing and studying and making plans. Eva landed on the roof of the tallest tower and transformed back to her human shape, saying, "Parachutes?"
"What? Why?"
"Practice at getting used to our new powers. You did keep the Fateweaver abilities, right?"
The Hexapods were letting humans continue to use Fate rules in their new environment. There was an entire city district for spoilsports who didn't want to bother with them at all (really, so humans could be studied in a more natural environment), but elsewhere the physics were mostly an excuse for people to try having superpowers. Even now, one crewmember flew past the building, whooping and waving. Death was temporary and everyone could experiment in something resembling a fair playing field. Since Miles had been a little busy with his honeymoon and being an ambassador and having an actual tabletop game to play with Eva, he hadn't bothered replacing his "official" powers yet.