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"So... What's it like on that thing of yours?" Skjorn was sitting in a wheely chair, while we were beginning to power up the Cyan Wasp.

"It's called the Infinatum, and it's a lot better down here than up there." I may have been reluctant to accept the idea at first, but this place already felt more natural to me than that chunk of metal I'd called home my whole life.

"Then why are we going back?"

"We need to talk to the Elite. Show 'em there's intelligent life on the planet. Intelligent life that breathes oxygen same as us." [Gamma]

"Oh. So I've gone from leader of the Humans, to specimen. Great."

"Exactly."

"No! Not true. You're more than that." [Alpha]

"Really?" [Skjorn]

"Yeah. You're evidence that we can use this planet until it's star dies or until it resets itself."

"No, the planet doesn't reset itself. Ever. That'd be like if you guys suddenly decided to become a Kruuqzien, and then did."

"Huh?" [Gamma]

"You wouldn't get it even if I told you."

"Whatever."

"I guess you guys do have your own cultures and stuff. Your own history, and lives." [Me]

"Our race may be a lot older than yours, but it's not as convoluted as yours. We always knew who our enemies were, it was the unspoken rule, but... you guys always hid the enemy, or made them out to look like the hero. It was strange, and witnessing what you did to each other... Your people work differently. I guess it's the magic."

"Right, 'cause magic's real." [Gamma]

"How do you know it isn't?"

"I'd believe it." [Alpha]

"You should."

"Yeah, what about love?"

"Love isn't magic."

"Wait, so you mean to tell me that love is just chemistry?!" [Alpha]

"Thinking it isn't is old logic, Alpha." [Gamma]

"Thinking it's magic or science is old logic. We learned long ago that for every person born, there's another person they're destined for. Maybe the rules don't apply to you, but for us, it's always been true. When one person dies alone, you can be sure that someone else died just as alone." [Skjorn]

"That's ridiculous! How are you supposed to find you're meant for?" [Gamma]

"We don't know, we just know that there's always one person. And anyways, the rule may not even apply to you. For you... maybe it is magic. For us though, it's simply the right combination of events."

"Wait a minute... you're talking about destiny!" [Me]

"You Anthros got destiny wrong, though. It can't be changed. Nothing can. Everything occurs in one string of events and it always will."

"When you say it like that you make life sound worthless." [Alpha]

"It is worthless. So far, of all the creatures in this world that we've found, only Anthros are capable of living their entire lives believing that the universe was made for them. It wasn't. We were made for it."

There was silence. For the two hour flight out of the atmosphere and towards the Infinatum, no one spoke. Skjorn's words were too heavy on anyone's minds to think of anything else, that is, until we arrived.

We realized that Skjorn looked way different than us, and made him put on one of our suits. We left the ship and stepped onto the docking platform. Everyone's ships were still there, and only a few people noticed the fourth.

A thought began to form in my head as we walked. People here are usually closed minded. While being different is good, being unnatural, unusual has become so cool and common that it's legitimately normal, too different is a bad thing. Different as in alien. As in helping an alien. Talking to an alien... Bringing an alien on the ship.

In fact, some people have been banished for being "too" different. I remember our last unit in history when I graduated twelfth grade seven years ago. We spent a whole week talking about people who were condemned for being different. Some were extreme, others were mild. Some were banished for acting on pedophilia, where others were banished for being more feral than others. Some, were even banished for loving eachother.

I honestly don't remember it too well, and I'm sure I'm getting half of it wrong, but even our teacher hated the subject. Everyone did. It was uncomfortable. Being special was cool, until we went through that week. That week made people like me and Alpha feel more valuable. A little abnormality is fine, but too much, and it'll get you banished.

I acted on this thought. I need to make sure there was a way for us to get back. I turned abruptly and went to Roper. Roper, was weird. He was the only person who'd returned from banishment, and that's because the machine broke. He was given a second chance on a technicality.

Normally, when you're banished, you're cryogenically frozen in an escape pod. Thing is, he wasn't cryogenically frozen, and he just turned around and came back in the escape pod. And it's not like his return was a threat to anyone. He was banished for rape, and the second they declared he was banished, his boyfriend finally found evidence that it wasn't rape, or even wrongful abuse. His boyfriend, Scratch, had certain... pleasures, to put it gently. Roper had hated that, and his boyfriend gave up his want for those things. He forced them down, to keep Roper, and people stopped caring beyong jokingly slapping Scratch or forcing him down on the table, but he always laughed, and sometimes got more carried away than the one who started it.

When I got to Roper's ship, he was working on something underneath it. I kicked the cart he was on, "Yo, Rope."

He just groaned. I kicked it again, a little harder.

"Rope, come on."

He said something, but it was too quiet for me to hear. I kicked his ankle this time and he screamed. He pushed out and glared at me, "The fuck is wrong with you, Carter?! I said just a second!"

"Well maybe you should speak more clearly next time. I need your help."

"Bullshit. You never need help."

"Well this time I do."

"Well this time you're not getting any help."

"I just need you to point me in the right direction."

"Okay, anywhere out of ear shot."

"I'm being serious! I need your help, and if you don't help me, I could get banished!" His eyes widened and he dropped the wrench. He got up off the cart and pulled me into the ship, where Scratch was working on a core power line. As I walked by, I jabbed him in the arm, and he moaned, more sexually than out of pain. Roper hit a button on the dash and a door opened in the wall.

The room inside was decorated like a living room, but with a bed instead of a couch. I glanced at the bed, saw a bunch of straps and buckles on one side, and turned away, ashamed that they'd done this to their ship.

"Isn't this were the Magnecore goes?" [Me]

"We only need to be fast enough to keep up with standards, and the Magnecore's heavier than most would think. I mean, it's a series of electromagnets creating a magnetic current around the ship. Not a magnetic field, but a current of changing fields, and that slows the ship down. Our ship is still fifteenth fastest, and that's a title I'm okay with. And you should talk, number fourty nine."

"And we'd be off the top fifty if it weren't for Gamma's obsession with plasma based ion thrusters." There was an awkward pause in the conversation.

"So, why might you get banished?"

"Well, you know how we were assigned to go down to Biocrate today?"

"Yeah, what about it?"

"Well, there's life down there."

"We already suspected that-"

"Intelligent life. Really intelligent."

"Wait, what? That's amazing!"

"What we did wasn't so amazing."

"Why? Did you bring one aboard or something?"

"Yeah."

"Heh heh heh. Good... one. ... You aren't joking, are you?"

"Why do you think I'm not wearing my suit?"

"That's dangerous, you don't know how we'd react to their diseases-"

"You don't know that they have diseases."

"Well if they can wear your suit they're like us enough that it's not impossible."

"Well they admitted to their biology being the same as ours. They've been watching us, Rope. A lot longer than anyone would think. They watched us before reset!"

"Woah... What's their tech like?"

"Biological. Their... their planet is made mostly of biological materials. Anything raw and abiotic is more valuable to them than life itself, and they can manipulate it. But not ours. They said something's weird about us. That we can't be changed as easily."

"So they speak english?"

"They reorriented their entire culture to be like ours! We're like gods to them!"

"But they can control life."

"I know, it doesn't make sense, but it's all true."

"That's... That's ridiculous."

"It's still true."

"I... What do you need my help for?"

"I just need to know what went wrong with your escape pod, why weren't you cryogenically frozen?"

"Well, I guess someone would ask sooner or later."

"Wait, you didn't sabotage it, did you?"

"Me? No. I was held in a quarentine cell when I wasn't at the stand."

"Oh."

"But I was allowed to read the records of the old banishments. I persuaded myself one minute of unmonitored talking and got Scratch to rework the icer."

"So, can you get him to do it again?"

"Well, the first time nothing happened. He just straight up hacked the pod's console so that the icer wouldn't kick in. It'll be different now though, they knew what we did. Scratch admitted to hacking it, but everyone was okay with it. We'd feel pretty bad if someone was lost because there wasn't enough evidence in their support."

"So we can't hack it?"

"I never said that. I simply said you can't do it the same way. I've been monitoring their changes to the systems. You know those system updates that seem to not change anything?"

"Yeah, what about 'em?"

"They're changing the systems that we don't use. They're reprogramming automated parts of the whole, but the whole thing gets the update."

"So, you just need to revert to the old system."

"You just need to hack it to use the old system. That was before seven point five, remember? Not going back."

"Sure, whatever. Still, you think you can make it so that the icers don't kick in?"

"Maybe, and our best bet is that one doesn't work. Who's your best pilot?"

"Gamma, but it still takes three guys to use our ship."

"Then me and Scratch can help him fly it."

"I doubt that, your ship is completely different than ours. You don't understand how to-"

"Projectile motion is the same in space no matter the size or shape of the object. You know that way better than any one."

"Shut up."

"You're the one who asked for help."

"I know.... Isn't there some way more of us can get out?"

"No. And, do you even know that you'll get banished?"

"No, but we need to be sure-"

"That you won't die?"

"Banishment isn't a gaurenteed death."

"Bullshit. You wanna know the real reason why people don't return? It's not because they can't figure out how, it's because they're dead! Chances are, they drifted into a star, or a black hole, or if they were lucky enough to land on a planet, it probably didn't have the right gravity or atmosphere or have enough water or carbon to sustain their lives! And that's assuming they aren't still drifting in space! It took two thousand years for the Infinatum to make it to the closest system, and half the things we knew about it were wrong."

I didn't say anything. He was right. Everyone knew it. Deep down, they knew it. Roper was right. The chances of survival after banishment were unlikely, and the one glimmer of hope I had, being launched down to Biocrate, was probably an illusion. If anything, they'd just move the Infinatum so that we'd be shot out into space, or into the star. If we get banished, we're dead. For sure.