Leaping off the rocky precipice, EUe whipped up the air with his wings, zooming down the mountainside, passing over forests and craters and troughs. He tamped down his communion with the God of Flight, slowing his advance. There was no need to go long-distance speeds anymore; his destination was straight ahead, down below: a collection of nest buildings—egg-shaped, as always—grouped together a short walk from the rocky shore, like a hamlet forgotten by time.

Two of the buildings at the heart of the camp towered over the rest, each at least twice as big as the others. A spiritual glance at the camp confirmed EUe's suspicions about them: they and the rest of the camp were all products of a dreamshard. The fragment was probably no bigger than a finger claw, but even a piece of that size could be loaded with a communion strong enough to transmute and rework the surrounding matter to assemble it into a makeshift settlement like this. It even had a ring of earthworks around it, to fortify the encampment against any unwanted guests. The walls were in communion with storm Gods; EUe could tell it was meant to electrocute anything unfortunate enough to touch it, especially gU-lUte.

gU-lUte entered their breeding season in late spring, which made them even more inclined to snoop into twEfE settlements in search of food or a mate, and the last thing you wanted to wake up to in the middle of the night was to find yourself under attack by an omnivorous, six-limbed reptile nearly seven times your size.

Then, of course, there were the drones. Yes, they didn't seem to be hostile, but that could change like the wind, and that wasn't paranoia, it was just common sense.

This was an especially dangerous place to be wrong.

Fortunately, EUe saw several people conversing in the center of the camp, no more than a minute's flight away from the nearest Impactor. He figured they'd have more information—and, for what it was worth, they saw him too, their heads turning in near unison to watch him make his final approach. The communion that had built the camp had also cleared the ground of grass and foliage, leaving only smooth, compacted earth underfoot as he landed.

He definitely felt self-conscious standing there, not the least because of the handful of scientists that fluttered backward, proactively keeping their distance from him. His black Gatherer's chest-plate made him stick out like a lolled tongue. Everyone else was wearing breeches and simple, high-necked vests—some short-sleeved, others long—maybe with an Utal-a to keep themselves warm. Many of the scientists had dyed frankly ridiculous-looking colors onto their wings, tail feathers, and head feathers.

What kind of twEfE needed to look like they were wearing a black bowl on top of their head?

It reminded EUe just how far he was from the world he'd known.

The world he'd left.

Fashion had… loosened quite a bit over the years.

More than anything else, however, it was the way so many of the strangers looked at him that really got him: wary; fearful; deferential to the point of obsequiousness.

As if he needed another reminder that he didn't belong.

Some birds just never got a break.

Quickly, the remaining onlookers dispersed, leaving EUe standing alone with the three strangers—two males, and one female—who seemed to have taken interest in him.

The older of the two males spoke first. "Greetings, Gatherer." He had a frilly ruff on the high collar of his dull brown, long-sleeved vest, though not quite as frilly as a cleric's. He was definitely getting up there in years: about two-thirds of the corrugations on his upper beak had been worn away, and—when he spoke—EUe could see just the slightest hint of gray creeping in at the edges of his white-fleshed gape.

Nodding, EUe offered a handshake as he introduced himself. "My name is EUe."

The older male hesitated at first, but he eventually reciprocated the gesture.

"lU-twO," he said. His grip was strong for his age.

lU-twO gestured to the younger male at his left. "This is—"

"—I can introduce myself on my own lU-twO, thank you very much," the younger male said, in a snappy interruption. He crossed his arms and spread his wings. "gEl," he said, glaring at EUe, "rhymes with pEl—the fruit. Only don't expect me to be sweet and sugary."

gEl's gorget was a bit on the small side, but very brightly colored. Bright colors seemed to be a theme for him: he had two bold stripes of yellow paint on his head; his glove-boosts—genuine gU-lUte leather by the looks of it—were polished to a sheen; and his breeches and Utal-a were a deep, dashing green. He kept licking the tip of his beak with his tongue—a juvenile display of aggression, to be sure.

"And this," lU-twO added, "is tlE-la." He gestured to the female at his left.

tlE-la had a few squiggles of soft red paint on the brown feathers on her wings, giving her a somewhat masculine look, though it was counterbalanced by the pretty silver daubs on the edges of her throat. She had a pair of small spectacles and a yellow, short-sleeved vest. Her suede-colored breeches bore several stains from carelessly spilled nectar that had been left to dry. Her beak was smooth only at the tip, so she couldn't have been much younger than he was, time dilation notwithstanding. But the oddest thing about her—the thing that really caught EUe's attention—was her sheer indifference to him, the complete opposite of hUen-dE.

tlE-la held a crystal slabboard in her hand. Clouds of shrunken text floated all around the deep blue crystal, like algae on the sea. Her eyes kept darting back and forth between EUe and the text she was writing on her slabboard—glistening true-light characters that formed where and when you drew your claw along the slab's surface—though tlE-la must have been using a communion with one of the gods of writing or poetry, because she was shaping the text on the crystal by thought alone.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

She happened to say "Hello" on one of the occasions when she briefly looked up from her work.

gEl clicked his beak and shook his head. "Don't worry, she's always like that. She does math—"

"—Arithmetic geometry—" tlE-la interjected.

"—Meanwhile, lU-twO is our resident astrophysicist," gEl continued.

"And you?" EUe asked.

gEl coughed softly. "I can tell you everything you ever wanted to know about the greater tree clam. Granted," he shrugged his wings, "there's not a lot to say about them."

"He's being too modest," lU-twO said. "gEl does theoretical biology."

"Did you know that, proportional to their body size, the male greater tree clam has the largest, longest genitals in the animal kingdom?" gEl said, irreverently.

tlE-la clacked her beak at him. "There," she said, "done." She held out the crystal slabboard and levitated it over to EUe with a flight communion. "Take it."

EUe grabbed hold of it gently. Lowering his left second-eyelid, he glanced at its not-light webs, flicking through the different strands. With every moment of his hand, the displayed text shrank away and rejoined the school of motes of true-light that swam through the blue crystal. At the same time, a different group of motes swelled to prominence at the top of the display.

EUe read through the notes with gusto, or at least tried to. The slabboard's notes covered a dizzying array of topics. Prime numbers; lists of elements drawn next to geometric figures: squares, circles, triangles, and more; diagrams of arrows and lines chasing after lonely islands of letters like a barbarian tribe out on the hunt. One text cloud consisted entirely of musical notation, only without pitch or attack, just rhythm.

EUe didn't know what to make of it.

"What is all this?"

gEl's eyes widened. "You don't know?"

tlE-la pushed her glasses up to her face. "We were chosen for this mission because the international Ua-enla council believed we were the individuals most qualified to successfully navigate a first-contact situation with sapient extraterrestrial lifeforms."

The Impactors were sapient?

EUe tried not to seem quite as surprised as he felt.

tlE-la continued: "The stakes are significant enough that we were requisitioned a dreamshard fragment powerful enough to help us set up this camp overnight." She nodded at the nearby buildings.

"I'd figured as much," EUe said. "So… what do you expect me to do?"

tlE-la looked off at the distance, toward the field of scattered impactors beyond the hills at the camp's edge.

"The Impactors have been manifesting communions unlike anything known to science. From what some of our experimental theologians here have told me, they believe the most likely explanation is that the Impactors are communing with a pantheon of alien deities."

"What?" EUe said. "How?"

lU-twO nodded in approval. "And that is the main argument against that particular theory. Where would these alien gods be, and how would the Impactors even contact them?"

EUe agreed: it was a genuinely fascinating question.

"It depends on both the topology and geometry of the Great Dream," tlE-la said. "As far as we know, the Door is the only point of identification between the Great Dream and our own spacetime. However, if the Great Dream runs parallel to our universe—for an appropriately defined sense of parallel—it's conceivable that it could extend across the universe, in which case, you would be able—"

gEl waved his hand dismissively. "—Long story short, we don't know what they do."

"But… we do have our theories," lU-twO added.

The three researchers looked at one another.

"Yes?" EUe asked.

"Have you seen the drones?" tlE-la asked.

He nodded.

"We believe they are here to do… something," lU-twO said, "most likely some form of resource extraction, possibly for the purpose of repairing and/or building more of themselves. For all we know, they might be on some great cosmic journey beyond our wildest imaginations, and they've just come to UlU for a brief pit stop."

"I just want them to not be hostile," gEl said. "I hope that's not too much to ask."

EUe pointed over the hill, where, even as they spoke, the drones were busy mining the planet's resources. "Why aren't you over there? The Impactors are—"

"—Completely incomprehensible," gEl interjected. "We've still got a few guys here and there working inside them, but it's hopeless. Maybe even worse than hopeless."

EUe squinted at them. "Did you just say inside?"

"Yes, he did," lU-twO said. He sighed. "Right now, we're focusing on the drones. The plan is to capture one from the crater and take it in for study. Considering these beings traveled across the stars to get to our world, perhaps their gods hold the secrets of faster-than-light travel. And if they don't, then that means they've developed a method to safely travel through space for geological spans of time. Whatever the truth is, it will benefit the Ecumene enormously. We're here to mediate the situation, to maximize the possible benefits while minimizing any potential dangers or risks."

"That's reasonable enough," EUe said. "So… what do you want me to do? Why am I here? What's my purpose?" EUe was insistent, mostly because he wanted to end the suspense. In coming here, he'd dared to believe that this job would offer him a way to meaningfully contribute. Did these scientists truly see him as a fellow researcher, or just another tool for them to use for their benefit? Certainly, the government saw him as a weapon with a brain. Did these people feel the same?

He was about to ask them "what do you need me to blow up?" when tlE-la spoke up:

"I happened to stumble across one of your research publications," she said.

EUe had to fight to keep his tongue in his beak.

"Your work with runetic automata and conjectural theophany was… singular," the mathematician said. "It was an unusual approach, and, when I found you had become a Gatherer I put a word in with my castebund to have you transferred here."

"It wasn't because of my closeness to Uka-yen?" EUe asked.

"That certainly helped persuade the nay-sayers, most of whom lacked the expertise to appreciate the relevance of your work."

That… that made EUe feel happy.

He almost whistled.

"But… by modern standards, my work is old-fashioned." EUe found it hard not to avert his gaze. He felt embarrassed, and not in a bad way!

He couldn't remember the last time that had happened.

"Compared to the aliens," gEl said, "we might as well consider all of our work to be 'old-fashioned'."

"We thought it would be helpful to get a different viewpoint," lU-twO said. "You can count the number of experimental theologians who ascended to Gathererhood on one hand."

"And, of course," gEl added, "if, for whatever reason, our drone-harvest happens to go horribly, horribly wrong, it's nice to know that we'll have a Gatherer waiting in the wings, ready to blow our problems to smithereens."

Of course, EUe thought.

He sighed. There it was; it was inescapable. If you needed a big project done, you got a Gatherer. That was just the way the world worked. Regardless, he was still pleasantly surprised that his raw power hadn't been the first thing on their mind.

For the first time in a long time, EUe felt needed. Sure, he didn't trust the feeling would last, but he figured he might as well enjoy it while he still could. It wasn't like the fate of the world was at stake. This would be science for science's sake.

What could be better than that?

He nodded. "Alright, take me in. Show me what we're dealing with."

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