FSE

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When the sun rose early the following day, it revealed the still bodies sprawled throughout the central pavilion where they had fallen. A few lay with their heads or upper bodies on the large tables, while others lay prone upon the pillows surrounding the furniture. Checker pieces and mah-jongg tiles lay scattered among the insensible forms along with the scattered bowls and mugs left and forgotten by those who no longer required them.

With thumps of her large webbed paws on the wooden flooring and disbursed pillowing, So'waa'Ma'wae trod around the central structure of the village using her sensors to reroll the bug netting that had been dropped to protect the victims of what she had encouraged by example. It had been a rather unique day-night cycle for her, even if the hu-mans would not know her species' culture for millennia and had no knowledge of the day's importance for her. A starting of new journeys was only ever a time of celebration. However, it was not her fault if the hu-mans were damaged beyond repair. How could they know the tolerances of a being whose anatomy had literally never existed on Earth before yesterday?

The Golden-eyed one that So'waa'Ma'wae called Patience busied himself by creating and arranging a breakfast buffet for the dead. The deceased being enticed by the delicious smells that even So'waa'Ma'wae could scent and now showing signs of life. Groaning in pain while pawing at their visual sensors when Patience clanged metal trays and utensils together in a most ill-toned manner. Causing them pain from the overindulgence that left them in a state that she knew the hu-mans called a 'hangover' but seemed to her a form of living death. Although Patience had warned them when they had reached the limits that would lead to this outcome, So'waa'Ma'wae could only think that they had known that this would cause them pain on this wonderfully illuminated and scented day and had not cared.

A curious species, and one that continued to give her twenty-three different kinds of reservations in their concern for the future and for others that they would never know. How could a species that would trade pain and sickness in the next day-night cycle for pleasure in the current one ever be expected to think rationally? She knew this was not just a symptom of a younger life stage, and it continued to leave her wondering what current was best to follow. The Golden-Eyed Ones were to be trusted as they had earned that trust, and it was only with their assurances that this species could and would be worth saving that her great pod had agreed to lend comforting sensor brushes so far from their home waters. Whether she could make the hu-mans realize that the strange actions of the Golden-Eyed Ones were the last chance they would get to 'shape up' as they put it, she could not predict.

So far, So'waa'Ma'wae was not the most impressed of Dreamers in the fickle behaviors of the hu-mans. But then, she hadn't been the most impressed with the Golden-Eyed Ones when she first met them as nothing more than So'waa scurrying about on land prior to her adult maturation. She was young for one who had heard the water's call, only seven hundred and fifty tides of age as So'waa. Or approximately three hundred Earth years of age when she became fertile adult So'waa'Ma'wae two hundred zero and seven Earth years ago. She had only been two hundred tides of seasoning and always quick to flash her digging claws and bristle the scales of her spine when she had met her first Golden-Eyed One on land.

It was her young age and the processes she had developed as So'waa on land with her small clever, webless hands in the field of Organic Mimicry that had caught the attention of her elders. But it was her command as a Captain of a space launch on eight successful interstellar missions that had solidified So'waa'Ma'wae's position. The opportunity to help the hu-mans navigate the challenges inherent in the plans of the Golden-Eyed Ones and the risky enterprise of transitioning into a wider sphere of awareness.

Right after she taught these brash half-adults the stupidity of trying to out guzzle So'waa'Ma'wae, when she massed at least nine times more than the largest of them, she would help them find their beginning.

"Please be awake, okay? Today is very informative, and you must rouse before this is to happen, right? There are... cooked plant products for you, very yummy, and drinks made from scalding plant seeds and dried leaves with boiling water that are very good yes! Next time maybe you will not try to celebrate equally with So'waa'Ma'wae? We have seen seventeen movies depicting this type of behavior, and we are most confused. Can you tell us please why you repeat torturing yourself when you know the behavior will harm you? Do you enjoy this state of misery? This hangover? So'waa'Ma'wae is unclear."

Just like in the primitive flat videos that she had seen, the dead bodies that came to life at the sound of her happy greeting of the promises of a new day-night cycle were noises not meant to communicate anything other than their voicer's distress. Only those sensible enough to depart for the privacy of their hutches to communicate with their pods or to find their own suspended sleeping bananas returned her effusive morning salutations. Sixteen remained wary of taking the offered food and liquid with Patience hovering behind to observe them. As was his purpose. Even so, So'waa'Ma'wae was heartened to see that the number of hu-mans present had reached a new pinnacle of sixty-three after the conveyance in yesterday's light half-cycle of the sacrifices needed to find balance.

It still miffed Ma'wae enough, in her emotionless way, to force her to endlessly dwell upon the thought that becoming one of her species was seen by the humans as a punishment. This is what she had learned from the long chit-chat she had had before today's light half-cycle with her new, maybe friends. It had been a good time for her on the day of beginnings, and she had learned much of the five hu-mans in the stories they told and how they told them. Sharing seven of her own stories to break the frozen water and set their suspicious thoughts at ease. She had been particularly thrilled and had not been shy about letting her colors show it when Moreau had stopped being so defensive and relaxed from her curled distress posture.

In time, she and the others from her home waters hoped to call all of those here and around the world deep friends. However, she also knew that she must not let her tail get ahead of her snout and that it would be complicated to see these others become Dreamers in body, but never in thought or culture. Difficult times floated in the future for the Dreamers of Home Water. Even if nothing worked as planned, she and the others from her planet were promised a return. They would not be consigned to die here if an elevated stage of intervention became necessary in the assessment of the Golden-Eyed Ones.

Though they were as inscrutable as their methods were selectively destructive, they always did as they said and did seem to have a majority of creature's wellbeing in mind to a non-zero extent. At least in So'waa'Ma'wae's youthful experience. She knew that the hu-mans on the major landmasses were about to find an entirely different experience. But that was not her tangle to unravel as she had other matters to attend within a fin's reach.

"Once you have had your scrumptious murdered grain cookies, we must request a few scrub missions before we can begin talking with you. This will also be a fun, enjoyable time to think what questions you have from yester and maybe for today cycle. Can we please have forty volunteers to take water flasks and food to those who have not returned out of fear of us and charming living places? We have animated maps to show with red dots where the lost ones are. This will also be an excellent time to see painful sights of polluted shores to show that we aren't yanking tailfins or blowing bubbles into gills. The island is not very big, but it does get to be over forty degrees Celsius, and we must not waste time as there are no sources of yummy water for hu-mans to drink and not die from. Big deal, yes? Yes, we think so too. Dead hu-mans are not very helpful and seem to distress the living ones very much.

"The remaining twenty-three, we ask to stay here and make camp tidy and healthy for your stay. In this group, we ask all those that disagreed with the contents of their stomachs and could not help the regurgitation ritual on the ground, those pillows over there in the corner, and in the toilet rooms to join. Helpful protective clothing and cleaning sticks are provided in toilet room cabinets. Everyone must swim alongside each other! When you're all done volunteering, we recommend you take use of soft, smooth garments in the cabins and very nice smelling scouring patties before returning in four hours. Gives you plenty of time to think productive thoughts for today, contact pod kin to reassure your hearts continue to flutter, and to stop fearing all the wrong things. Any questions? Because fifty-nine of you are very stinky, and So'waa'Ma'wae's nose wishes to jettison its sensors and then detach from her skull to hide somewhere more pleasantly scented."

"One question!" Pattie called from where she was sitting off to the side. One of the new soft and supple sea-green gowns replacing her set of hide me-not-very-well clothes from yester cycle. So'waa'Ma'wae had been correct in guessing her guzzling habit yester night cycle if she was not ill like the younger brasher hu-mans pretending everything was a-ok.

"What movies and tv shows did you watch to learn about Earth? Because half of the things you say make no damn sense at all."

Hu-man Pattie had guessed at a dreadful topic of long thought and many theories among the Dreamers. So'waa'Ma'wae grimaced, in her fashion, before smiling charmingly to dissemble. Making the hu-mans recoil at the sight of the tips of her double rows of teeth peeking from behind her lips in what was, for her, an expression of sly sarcasm.

"Does anyone wish to continue guzzling with So'waa'Ma'wae?"

Her offer was met by a wave of groans and one young man running from the pavilion to lose his biscuits. So'waa'Ma'wae was definitely most sure that was one of the funny hu-man sayings she had heard from the movies. Were the Dreamers wrong in thinking that the Holly-Wood flat animations were accurate views of hu-man behavior? The Golden-Eyed Ones had found it suspiciously funny in their way but had never told them they were wrong in their evaluation of the hu-mans either. So'waa'Ma'wae suspected a joke at the Dreamer's expense.

Oh. Great Water. No...

****

A change out of her dirty Navy uniform hadn't been the only thing that Pattie had done since waking up at 0600 that morning. On top of a relaxing soak in the hot tub after sneering at the pathetic sight of the drunks that didn't know the first thing about being a high functioning alcoholic, she'd also gotten her marching orders from the CIA. The organization that was now apparently in command of her.

Which was just fucking spectacular.

"You have found yourself in a unique position, Senior Chief Moreau, in having direct communications with the aliens interacting with our world. The CIA and the DOD are particularly interested in your claim that the aliens there are different from those seen elsewhere and what United States citizens are being turned into.

"Volunteering the loss of your humanity is a profound sacrifice of course and will be taken into consideration in the awarding of valorous medals and promotions befitting your status as an emissary for the national interests of the United States of America in contact with two previously unknown species of extraterrestrial intelligence. You should know that given the immensity of the events underway and the grave consequences to our nation and the human species, any refusal to develop the intelligence potential of your current circumstances will be viewed as a dereliction of your duties. A betrayal of the oaths to your country that will be prosecuted as such."

So... the United States of fucking Russia had used a low-ranked CIA lackey to tell her just how terrified and in the dark about what was happening they were. By ordering her, in clever ways that would almost certainly never be documented, to allow herself to be turned into these aliens and report everything she learned at the earliest opportunity. Oh, and do her best to influence them to leave in some way that she couldn't possibly imagine. Or, if that fails, find some weakness of theirs that could be exploited through military means.

Shuffling along with the weight of a dozen water skins and sandwiches wrapped in leaves digging into her shoulders beneath the shapeless but comfortable tunic towards a cluster of ten dots five kilometers away gave herself time to think and bleed off the anger of her first reaction to the smug son of a bitch agent. Kicking a half-buried rock in the sandals that she'd found with the rest of her garments in frustration, she hopped, howling in agony after thoroughly stubbing her toe. The water she was toting sloshing and pulling her backwards until she crashed to the ground. She lay there thinking back to the last thing she'd said to Hertzog as she stared up at the whisps of high-flying cirrus clouds through a gap in the trees.

"I will call again in twelve hours, and I want to speak to someone with more authority than some bottom feeder in the CIA. I don't know what bullshit this is, but I answer to my military chain of command, not you, and especially not on this."

Then, hanging up, she had thrown herself spread eagle back into the mound of pillows in her private cabin.

"Fuck..."

****

"The gloating you have done the previous night we believe to be premature in nature," So'waa'Ma'wae told her audience, sheltering from the mid-day heat and listening to her with various levels of attention hours later. The morning's resupply of the panicky hu-mans from yesterday had brought in an additional fifteen individuals. Sunburned, bug-bitten, and dehydrated, they had reached the limit of their tolerance for self-punishment. Also becoming reassured by the approach of very much untransformed hu-mans bearing them water and food to relate that the only thing they ran away from was tedious explanations and vague alarmist predictions of dubitable future calamities.

"While we enjoyed your celebration of life, and our more than willing to touch vessels with you again tonight if you very much happy to..." some of the people looked distinctly pale and sweaty at the thought of that, while others seemed eager for the opportunity. "We have very much more for you to consider in today's talk. Yesterday, we spoke of why it is necessary for these drastic actions to occur and why it must be you, and not us, to do these things. Today, we will revisit those reasons for our happy friends joining us newly and expand on what it means for you in your lives to undertake this transmogrification.

"The consequences for you, and if injudiciously applied, your world will be dire. We will not make the swish of our tail gentle in telling you this. Hu-man beings will die so that others may live. To preserve the balance of your waters, harmful actions that hu-mans undertake must be limited. No more digging out of burning hydrocarbons or poisoning surroundings with toxic dirt and better management of aquatic beings that already hurt very much. Okay, yes?"

"Then, what you're saying that we have to do is... we have to act on our own authority and interfere with every country that relies on water? We'll be hunted! They'll kill us all for this!"

"You can't ask us to kill people! We would have never agreed to this if we knew that!"

"We can't make these decisions on our own! It wouldn't be right for us to decide what is allowed or not!"

"How could you possibly expect us to make any difference at all? The oceans of the world cover three hundred and thirty-three million square kilometers! It's impossible! It would take...."

"...Centuries? Millennia? Yes, it will. And if you become a Dreamer, you will see it through to its very end. That is one reason among many why our species has been chosen by the Golden-Eyed Ones to be introduced to your world."

She looked across the crowd as forty-one of them engaged in animated discussions with each other. The remainder looking too disturbed or thoughtful to converse.

"As for killing, no. That is not an action we are asking you to undertake either. In fact of the matter, it is time for So'waa'Ma'wae to correct a misunderstanding she noticed yester day and night cycle."

"Allow us to address this one, please, water friend So'waa'Ma'wae."

Taking a step back, she flexed her legs in a bob that touched her belly to the ground in a deferential movement that recognized his primacy. So'waa'Ma'wae had known this Golden-Eyed one and the one who had visited maybe-friends Pattie, Malaaki, and Airini even before her arrival on this world and knew that he was a dependable figure. Patience was a new personality to her acquaintance. However, the Golden-Eyed one standing beside her now she knew as Trust, and the female who had visited Pattie and the Maori couple was the ever tricky Golden-Eyed one So'waa'Ma'wae had named Wily.

A particularly heavenly name So'waa'Ma'wae thought.

She knew that two of the females had been driven less than one quarter out of their own minds by Wily last night cycle. So, she must have used a soft touch on the four that had caught her interest. Her right sensor could feel the Golden-Eyed one's vibrations nearby, and the Dreamer felt some relief to know that Wily was asleep on the other side of the food dispensary. The hu-mans would have to be on their toenails with her.

"What you do not know yet is that our overseers have made the decision to degrade all but a ten-year supply of fossil energy sources across the world. The navies and armies of your planet, where they still have the necessary energy reserves, will be far too busy engaging each other in territorial skirmishing to confront you in meaningful ways unless you expose yourselves to aggression. As the gentleman from Chile rightfully pointed out, the oceans are too vast for easy management and certainly too large for creatures even as great as you'll become to be found. Which makes it most alarming that with such a small footprint in the waters of this world, humans have managed to damage the aquatic systems to this degree.

"It is a mistake to think that we are telling you how to act beyond our overarching declaration to respect your world far better than you have so far. We are not directing you to kill, destroy, interfere, or act in any manner of benefit or to the detriment of either yourself or others. What we will do in the six months that your transformations take to occur is educate you. With that knowledge, what we do expect is you to work to ensure that this world remains viable for the future intelligences we have mentioned before. When we can, and if you are willing to heed our advice, we will provide advisement on the consequences of your possible plans. But tell you what to do? Only in certain limited circumstances. Even then, whether you obey our directions or not lies entirely with you.

"As for acting on your own in making decisions that affect the management of oceanwide affairs. Yes, you will not be acting in any one country's interests and so not considering the directions of ruling governments. It is imperative that you realize that we are the ones granting you authority to act in ways that are beyond what law and politics will allow on this world. This, more than the loss of your current physical identities, may be more than some of you are willing to bear. This is one thing we insist upon and will expect you to adhere to if you volunteer to return and begin your transformations. You must let go of the national interests of wherever it was you were born. This fractious concept of dueling nations can have no place in ensuring the equitable usage of the waters of Earth with the creatures that reside there."

So'waa'Ma'wae noticed when Truth said this, he shot forceful signals of 'pay attention' towards Pattie and the Japanese hu-mans in particular. She knew that two of the groups further north had issued even sterner warnings for the larger and more militant super-pods that contributed to the destruction of the balance. China, Russia, India, the union of Euro-peans, and this USA. So'waa'Ma'wae was very cross with many of the super-pods after hearing the songs of the Earth almost-dreamers. A sorrowful tale that she was eager to put a stop to.

"It is, we understand, an awesome level of responsibility. Effectively, you will be forming an alliance that exists outside of the global world order with yourselves and those you choose to advise you as the founders. These are the same grave decisions that the other parties, like yours, will have to grapple with in each region of the Earth they have been established. Will you band together? Will you act separately? These are essential questions that you must answer for yourselves in time.

"You must know that in leaving these efforts to your own devices that the weight of humanity will fall figuratively on your shoulders. The Children of the Egg on land will have a critical role of their own in humanity's survival, as they will be dealing with them on a far greater scale than yourselves, but you will be the ones to live to see either the success or failure of the human species. Once we withdraw our involvement in this world's affairs in a hundred years' time, we will not interfere again unless the removal of the human or one of the introduced species becomes necessary. At which point, there will be no more dialogue, no more rationalizations, and no more chances.

"It will be a grievous setback to the ultimate health of this galactic spiral if we were forced to proceed to an alternative. But if we must, we will terminate humanity's evolutionary line."

So'waa'Ma'wae watched the hu-mans and felt that she must give them some credit for starting to realize the enormity of the task being offered them. She knew after last night cycle that nineteen of them had come up with the idea that becoming an alien creature would lead them to a carefree life of jumping and spinning. Theirs were among some of the most colorless of expressions that she could see once they knew that something was expected of them beyond finding tasty waves after the giga-whips of energy investment that the Golden-Eyed Ones were providing here.

"We really will be working to save the world, won't we?"

"I think I'm going to be sick... I can't even be responsible for Au, my goldfish.

"I know that I have friends in the community that would help if they thought I was an eco-terrorist like them...."

"No! That's not what we need. We need guidance from the other scientists."

"What about the adventurers and the sea-faring cultures? They could give us anecdotal evidence on the local conditions."

"You are mistaken. It is the communities most at risk that you should be consulting with."

"The elders of my village...."

"How big can these Dreamers be...."

"What..."

"Why..."

"How..."

So'waa'Ma'wae sensed that the Golden-Eyed Ones were as pleased as she was. The hu-mans had overcome their fear to express the curiosity that had led them to ruin and prosperity both. The questions that came next showed weighty consideration.

"If we changed, and we didn't want to be involved in whatever happens next and just wanted to go our own ways, would you stop us? Would we have the freedom to disappear?"

There it was again. These were the types of self-serving attitudes that caused So'waa'Ma'wae the greatest worry in involving hu-mans. She had had many tides' worth of discussion with the Golden-Eyed Ones and had only been grudgingly convinced that having an extant group of Dreamers undertake what the hu-mans would be transformed to do would lead to some very undesirable outcomes. They had, at last, convinced her that it was best for the hu-mans, even if they inhabited very inhu-man bodies, to undertake their own affairs. Once that groundwork had been settled, the eggs that they lay would, in time, hatch the first generation of true-born to continue their work. With the future intelligent species deriving from the waters of this world, their stewardship was too important to be left in hu-man fins.

"You certainly can do as you like. But we have chosen those gathered here based upon carefully gathered emotional and behavioral signaling. We have reason to believe that none of you will swim away from the calling and purpose we are providing."

"If you know all that, then how come so many people that you brought here are terrified senseless? Why didn't you bring people here that you knew were going to do what would be best for us?"

"Free will is a difficult factor to accommodate, regardless of which species is under discussion. We are also able to read the future in a limited manner. However, the smaller and more localized an event that needs to be predicted, the less accurate our predictive models become. At times, we must substitute hundreds of trillions of trillions of possible variations to discover what circumstances can lead to desirable outcomes on planetary scales. For those familiar with the energy consumption rates necessary for complex simulations, we are sure you can appreciate the scope of the difficulty we are describing here.

"Truthfully, we have just told you more about our ability's limits to foresee than any of those who have or are becoming Children of the Egg. The chaotic nature of the information given to that species is of much higher importance than truth in encouraging the former humans to reach the potential of their new biology. We must apologize to So'waa'Ma'wae for this sterile appraisal of her species' mental acumen. But the twinned species of the Children of the Egg enjoy processing abilities two orders of magnitude greater than your comparatively less developed minds."

"Ooooh, burn! It called your race stupid!"

So'waa'Ma'wae twisted her head around to cast beseeching colors at Patience. He grinned at her and bowed his head while offering a mug of her favorite fermented distillate. She gladly took it and held it up to her muzzle to glug away and ignore the inanity of the hu-man's comments. They didn't know that they were only the third most intelligent species in their world before the aliens had even arrived. Hu-mans had yet to earn a comparison to a species accomplishing even one-thousandth of what the Children of the Egg had.

The fact life had developed in this region at all was because of the defense that the Children had mounted in their own galaxy against the Void Stalkers for five thousand four hundred fifty and six tides. A fantastic display of strength and perseverance that could only be done justice with the highest of honors. The Dreamers had celebrated that vast civilization's achievements by sending a full complement of skip light drones to discover what remained of their mighty race. The Golden-Eyed Ones had been vague about whether they remained a viable species beyond using their stored genetic information on Earth. To the best of her knowledge, civilizations spread as wide as the Children had in the Universe were rather hard to drive to extinction. It was likely there was still at least one star system full of their descendants within ten parsecs of their homeworld.

Whether they were still extant or not, it told So'waa'Ma'wae all that she needed in knowing that the Golden-Eyed Ones held the Children of the Egg in high regard. Between the Dreamers and the Children, the Earth would be carefully embraced and nurtured if the hu-mans must be removed.

"Neither do we want you to take the information and act on it without corroboration from your professional and personal networks. This is who we hope to encourage you to consult in developing your own plans using the alien forms you will morph into and the information we provide. Each of you has constellations of friends, tribes, and researchers who can provide you with vital guidance in how best to act. Anecdotal stories of local problems, scientific data collection and analysis, and material assistance can be provided by your relations...

"Yes, Pattie? What is your urgent question?"

The naval sailor, leaning against one of the pillars supporting the roof and kicking her sandal-wrapped foot back and forth in thought, had raised a waving hand to grab their attention.

****

"This is all well and good that you're offering for us to become sea snakes."

Pattie's eyes swiveled to look at Soma, who had made a sharp clicking noise that the American could have sworn that she felt vibrating her skull, as she noisily slurped up her drink while staring balefully back at her. It was helpful for the Senior Chief to know that the creature was proud of her species' appearance and didn't like it being dismissively compared to lesser animals. Maybe it would help her appreciate that the humans were proud of who they were as well and didn't need to grow goddamn scales to fix their mistakes!

"And that one day far in the future, humans can jump in the Millennium Falcon and save the galaxy with a bunch of dragons and sea snakes like in Star Wars."

"Star Wars? So'waa'Ma'wae loves those movies!" Soma jerked her snout up, spraying the men right in front of her with the noxious crap she was drinking.

"There are so many things...." She said, before just as quickly as her enthusiasm had erupted clamping her mouth shut and plunged it back into her toxic soup to let the glaring Pattie finish. There were far more people than not that wished that she would finish what she had been about to say. What was out there that humans had no knowledge of?

"But what exactly is the reason for turning us into...that?" Pattie said. Continuing by jerking her thumb sideways to point at Soma, who lidded her eyes as brilliant bands of color erupted around her neck and chest.

Why are you doing this again? Pattie screamed at herself in her head. You're trying to piss her off, you stupid bitch! Look at the size of that tail! Do you want to get hit by that? Or those webbed paw things? Look at the muscles in her legs and those claws! Just ask your question and shut up! Pissing things off from one world is enough.

"I mean... why? Just... why?"

"Adults of the Dreamer species have several physiological adaptations that make them particularly suited for undoing the severe environmental degradation that humans have inflicted upon this world." The alien with the solid gold eyes that had taken over for Soma. While she fixated on Pattie with half-closed eyes in a manner that unsettled the woman. She didn't have to know how the alien communicated to understand that the zigzag patterns of the light around her nearest eye meant agitation.

"Which is ideal as with organic life forms performing this reclamation work, we will not have to remain here, at considerable energy cost, to manage the future welfare of this world. Instead, that will be your task.

"Initially, it will be best to have the first generation of Dreamers to have human identities, lacking a better description, for them to be aware of the gravity of their actions and to draw upon the social networks that we have mentioned earlier. By human identities, we mean you, of course.

"Dreamers can live to be ages of up to five thousand Earth years on their homeworld, but here we estimate that life spans will be closer to half of that. Given the unnatural creation of the bodies, your growth will be frozen at sizes relative to your ages. This means that you will not continue to develop as Dreamers would naturally but instead assume a fixed size tantamount to what a Dreamer would enjoy at a similar current stage of life. For instance, in her current adult form, So'waa'Ma'wae is roughly two hundred and seven years old on your world or approximately three percent of her expected life span. If she were a human, she would be less than four years old.

"What we are telling you is that after the completion of your change in biology, you all will be many times her size. The eldest two present, Eiken and Reiko, will be roughly as large as Dreamers can expect to grow on Earth. Approximately twenty meters tall at the shoulders, two hundred meters long, and weighing as much as two hundred and ten metric tons."

"That's impossible! There is just no way at all that...."

"You are basing what is or is not possible on what evolution has achieved on this world. The Dreamer's biology is such that not only is their size possible even in Earth's gravity field but that they also remain able to leave the water and walk on land. Their musculoskeletal system is more than up to the task of keeping their body's contents protected without the buoyant support of a liquid medium. While the biochemical properties of their bodies prevent their muscle mass from overheating.

"Size, as impressive as it is, is not the sole criteria when being chosen for the utility in this endeavor. Although, we must admit, that is a physical parameter that was heavily weighted in selection. There are far more diminutively statured species that would work just as well for what we have in mind. Unfortunately, the unexceptional size of these species would make them easy targets for destruction at human hands. Neither do they enjoy the same effects the Dreamers have on human emotions. Your species has much difficulty interacting with creatures that exist on different scales than yours and will think of the Dreamers and the Children of the Egg as mere animals because of their sizes and appearances. Figuratively speaking, it would be more appropriate for those two species to be calling you, you humans, animals, given the vast differences in culture and technological prowess of the two species over your own.

"A Child of the Egg is capable of rapid multi-path consciousness streams and intuitive understanding of information that would shame any human. While a Dreamer is capable of analyzing complex systems and understanding how they interact using feedback generated by their sensors and periodic somnolence. A demonstration of the capabilities of a Dreamer's cognitive processes could be provided by Soma if any of you felt brave enough to challenge her to a game of chess.

"There are other, more germane, features of the Dreamers that will also be of benefit. For example, utilizing these appendages that you have already taken to misrepresenting as whiskers." Here, the tentacled catfish serpent raised its whiskers and drew all attention to them with a brief flash of incandescent light. "Dreamers can exert control over other aquatic organisms below a certain threshold of development. They, you yourselves, will be able to give basic instructions and herd most species of vertebrate and invertebrate sea animals using a combination of electrical, auditory, and chromatic signals.

"That capability is in addition to the one that many of you have already guessed at. What the Dreamers themselves call a sensor, and only one of many lining their bodies, functions just as you would expect from such a name. Among many other variables and capabilities, it can detect texture, temperature, humidity, salinity, velocity, chemicals, pressure, and even sound when used in conjunction with Dreamer's ability to harness a variation of ultrasound.

"Another biological adaptation that you can appreciate is that when exposed to water, the skin of an adult Dreamer will exude an oily film that coats the outer layer of scales. When encountering certain compounds, this film can break down these syntheses for use in the Dreamer's body as a source of chemical energy. This will be helpful as the Dreamers crisscross the oceans on their journeys by passively dissolving the trash that you have polluted the greatest resource you have with."

"We hope that answers your question sufficiently, Pattie. If it does not satisfy you nor those who have traded on your loyalty to your country and issued vague threats to compel you to spy upon us, then you must wait until you have agreed to become a Dreamer. A more complete description of why the Dreamers are necessary in this world will include physiological weaknesses that can be exploited."

Pattie pushed herself off the pillar that she had still been leaning against. Nearly erupting with the force of the blood rushing to her face in her rage.

"You've... you've been... you've been listening to my conversations, you shitheads?"

"Everyone's conversations, actually. It would be a lie if we were not aware of what was being said over the communications network that we have constructed from thin air. We need to understand how you respond to this offer to repair humanity's mistakes to ensure a future for other intelligent species. If the groups which you number among should reject our offer, your interactions will be saved for posterity once humanity passes into history." It paused to cock its head in consideration of something. "In a manner of speaking, all of you will enjoy a version of immortality that will not be possible otherwise. Long after your star has burned this world to a cinder, your imprints will remain in our archives should they ever be needed. An unlikely occurrence."

The conversations in the pavilion grew louder and more distressed while Pattie blatantly ignored the giant sea weasels in the room and their not-so-subtle insulting hints of how small their entire species were in the grand scheme of things. Walking across the snake-cunt's prone tailfin to reach the bar to demand a mug of her favorite rice beer and tune everyone else out. Fucking aliens, she thought to herself. What's this bullshit about not respecting privacy and not putting their own nation's interests first? Did going into outer space meant becoming a bunch of fucking new world order communists too? If it did, they could take the future and shove it up their giant assholes.

Pattie grumbled irately over her beer. Working things out in her head, as she'd unknowingly trained herself to do whenever she had to make a hard decision, with solitude and alcohol. What good were the United States and all its freedoms worth if it didn't exist anymore? She knew many of her country's citizens would rather die than do the slightest thing that they felt encumbered their lives. She also knew that many would much rather live at all costs. What was funny was that both of those groups still lived within the control of one of the most powerful nations to ever exist. They each just rationalized away how little they controlled in their daily lives as necessary sacrifices to feel safe and taken care of in different ways. Much of what her government did it did in secrecy under the guise of protection.

Here she was being given a chance to do what many others had done more directly. Give themselves up to serve a more significant cause and make a difference in the world. The aliens hadn't asked them to enslave other humans or really do anything in particular, for that matter. Except for demanding that they not favor any nation over another beyond stopping or reversing whatever it was they were doing to affect the balance of the wobble board that the whole planet was apparently resting upon.

That rubbed her the wrong way. Who had elected her and the rest of these people to do any such thing? So what if a goddamn... red-breasted checkerboard flying minnow went extinct? What did it matter? That's what governments were for. To regulate and weigh the value of nature against exploitation, right? Not for a bunch of people turned into monsters to create a new worldwide authority to regulate and consider the evidence for action on their own. Which she still didn't know how they possibly could even if they chose to. Even if it meant saving the human species, it didn't make it right that they were taking control away from humanity. Which was funny, because that train of thought meant that that meant humanity had an inherent right to fuck up what ever they pleased and was not be reproached by any one or any thing.

It was even worse if the aliens had taken all but a ten-year supply of oil. As soon as that went public, whole economies would collapse. All those assholes in the middle east looking for the next fashionable jihad wouldn't have to try very hard to find one when everyone was out of work and in poverty. War was inevitable at this point. Although now that she thought about it, she did understand their conviction that no one would be able to stop them. No one would have the fuel or the uncommitted forces to. Creatures of the size she saw would have nearly free rein.

And what were they supposed to do with that rein? Tell countries what they could or could not do in their own territory based on what foreign scientists and people with cultural ties to water told them of all things. The politicians and industry would howl bloody murder. She knew what was being asked of them. Overfishing, disruptive maritime traffic, pollution, noise, mining, dredging, invasive species, habitat loss, dead zones, and global warming. The problems facing the underwater world were monumental. The economic and human costs would be as well. Pattie was under no illusions. Any actions that placed the hydrologic cycle above humanity's interests would result in people dying. Period. Even more egregious, it would cut into the profitability of nearly every corporation and the tax revenue that funded countries around the world.

Yeah, she got it. The oceans were growing warmer and acidifying. Every day the number of species in the world plummeted. The data that she had seen herself didn't lie. Hell, she was the NCOIC of a Navy department that worked with the NOAA to collect the very information that Greenpeace and the rest of the tree-huggers loved to plaster all over the internet. Like zealots outside of congress wearing sandwich boards proclaiming that the end is near, they always shouted that this milestone or that milestone would be the final straw. Pattie looked up from her drink at the alien staring unblinkingly at her, and grimaced. Well, the end had come, and now it was time for humans to adapt or die. Qualms about the cost to the systems that humans had worked out for themselves at the expense of everything else be damned.

For centuries, maybe even millennia, going all the way back to the death of megafauna worldwide, humans had been changing the Earth for their own ends. Now, these aliens had come to tell them that their efforts had reached a critical point of no return that they could not allow. She knew that the aliens could have interfered earlier but knew that their warnings would never have been acknowledged. So, they had waited, hoping that their ill-defined predictions were wrong and that humanity would not become a threat to the future like they had foreseen. In vain, as it turned out. As they may have even expected.

After some more thought and privately dismissing that she should be paying attention to what else was being said, as per her orders, her thoughts strayed further from a question of whether they could. Instead, moving towards the question of whether they had the right to wrest control of everything that wasn't underwater on Earth and tell the whole disparate human civilization they had to answer to a bunch of gigantic sea-snakes and their advisors. It didn't matter how big they were or whether the survival of the human species rested on their cooperation. She knew how stubborn and full of self-interest humans were. If they became these aliens, the minute they appeared on the shoreline of any country in the world, she knew what reception they would get. Humanity had weapons more than powerful enough to kill things even as large as these Dreamers.

The crowd behind her ebbed and flowed as their own conversations dragged on, only vaguely noticed by the woman monopolizing the stool she perched on. As she left at irregular intervals for the latrines, she only gave cursory glances to see who was there and in what arrangements the talks had taken. It was somewhere around her third bowl of beer, as that goddamn Argus-eyed alien continued to stare at her whenever it wasn't serving something, that Pattie realized that she knew what she had to do. Not wanted to do. Had to do. She had to try to convince whoever that CIA peon could get to come to the phone tonight that this might be when it would be better to work with an overwhelming force for change than against it.

****

"We are finding it difficult to comprehend your verbs. You are saying that other learners of science will not be good to have as partners?"

Evelyn felt embarrassed along with the rest of her fellow marine scientists that filled most of the seats at the table talking to Soma.

"Because...those that pay them in green turtles have their own secret currents?"

"No... it's greenbacks, not green turtles...."

"Yes, exactly." Another woman, Evelyn thought she might be Chilean after listening to her speak without the translators in her ears, said talking over the superfluous correction from the man whose Spanish sounded Mexican.

"Not all scientists are going to be willing to work against their own personal or national interests. Some countries might even imprison their scientists for working with outside groups. Like us. We will be limited on what information we can get that we can act on."

"Then show that you are trustworthy by providing information of your own and that you are only trying to protect the critters in the embrace of the waters. What better reason could these others have than that?"

"Money and ambition, for one thing," Evelyn said in reply. "A desire to see their country succeed and others fail if resources are about to become scarce for another."

Soma seemed to consider that for a disconcertingly long time before replying after having drained and refilled another bowlful of the mixture that she was drinking. Belching thunderously and foully in their faces. Making all their eyes water with the pungency of her vented excess gas, although she appeared insensible to the discomfort she caused.

"Well... that just won't work anymore. Not if hu-manity is to survive this migration." She finally replied with alarming candor. "If what you were doing was acceptable to an unbalanced observer, our presence would not be required here."

"What can we do then? If even half of what you told us is true, then we will not be able to do this without more help. The oceans are simply too vast, and the problems are too manifold. Let us not forget that there will be the problems of the inland sources as well if you are truly concerned about all the liquid water of the world." The man from New Zealand that had been wearing scuba equipment yesterday volunteered.

"Not just liquid. Solid and gas too. It is important for you to address all parts of the cycle we think you know of very well already. This means working with the help you will have from land. The Children of the Egg and other hu-mans that will join your very fun adventures. It is imperative that this works as quickly as possible to save all the little fish and coral."

"And why would they do that? Aren't we all hidden away here anyway? Where are we going to get the humans to do any of this? Or these Children of the Egg. Which are what exactly? Those dragons that you forced other people into becoming? What makes you think that any government will allow their citizens to do anything at all to help you aliens after that? Which is what we'll be, right? We won't be humans anymore. We'll be aliens in our own home. We'll be outcasts at best, hunted and killed at worst."

"This is why we make sure you know what you are volunteering for. You will help save your pod-mates and make the waters calm for so many in the future. But you will be hated and chased after by those you once shared the currents with. Your names and your green turtles will likely be taken from you. Only in time will hu-mans appreciate what you will give up if you join this adventure."

"It might make this easier if you just told us what to do." Another researcher said speaking up for the first time. The name of the severe-looking and far too skinny woman remained unknown to Evelyn. However, she did recognize her and the man next to her as those wearing scuba equipment the day before. She had traded her wetsuit for one of the soft and comfortable-looking tunics that Evelyn wished she had tried instead of continuing to wear her reeking clothes from yesterday. "If you can predict what needs to happen...."

"No," Soma said with emphatic finality to tamp down the agreeing murmurs before continuing with a quieter tone of voice. "No, it must be done by you. This is why we haven't brought Dreamers here to do this for you. As you have noticed, there are sticky things that we have trouble understanding about you and you about us. We are here to help you adapt to being Dreamers in body, but you will never be Dreamers in mind. Not wholly. It will be the hu-man parts of you that will always remain that will make this work. If not, all hope is lost for the hu-mans. If that wave rises, this will become a world of Dreamers and Children of the Egg guarding tomorrow's promise of new intelligence. Then the protection of this galactic arm will be weaker when it is needed most."

"What is this danger that you keep speaking of?"

"It is not for us to decide or not if you need to know of this. You must ask the Golden-Eyed Ones. All that we can tell you is that this will not be a dangerous predator that you must deal with for longer than a thousand generations of your children."

"I, for one, don't honestly know how you can expect us to make this work." The Mexican who had tried to correct Soma's use of regional slang said. "You should be working with the governments of the world. Not groups of people whose only connection is a love of, or desire to protect, the marine world."

"You are wrong. That is exactly why it must be you."

****

That was the part that had Evelyn and Jackson worried the most when they had separated themselves apart from the others. A shared bowl of steaming green tea before them that they took turns sipping carefully.

"It would be best if we could get Quito to agree to work on this," Jackson said, watching as Soma explained some aspect of her biology to a woman who ran her hands over one of the dorsal fins growing from the creature's back.

Evelyn shook her head, dispensing with the stilted language that she had been using before. A sure sign of how troubled and unsure she was.

"This is not a certain fact. Many of our colleagues worry just as we do about the health of the islands. We could not stop what is causing harm before. Our country is so small and has so many other concerns with not enough resources. What could we do? But with this... with this, we can stand up for something that now has a chance. What is our other choice now that we know all that we have been told? To do nothing? To wait for the end? We would be cowards."

"If we agree to this, once it becomes known, we will be dead to our country. Our work and our lives will be over as far as the community is concerned. We need to find solutions to what has been put before us as soon as we can. One-third of our country's income comes from petroleum. The aliens have just destroyed our home's economy."

"From what they've said, that was entirely independent on our responses to their proposal here. Eventually, our nation would have had to find a substitute in any event. What else can we do? What use would hating the aliens be? We would be like tantrum-throwing children. They showed us streams of data detailing regional temperatures and atmospheric gas analyses. You saw what I did in that information. Only wide-scale fires could produce such conditions. We can't keep going the way we have. We must capture the world's attention. We must inspire others to meet the crisis brought to our door decades or centuries before it was due. Perhaps, the end was inevitable, and by forcing it to occur now, the aliens ensured that it would only be humans that suffered. Not the entire world."

"We don't know that we've been told the truth."

"It is a persuasive lie then that fits with what we have observed. The oceans are not healthy, Evelyn, and the land is not far behind. We know this. Maybe this is our chance to show others that there is a better way. One that we would give our lives to find. One that others have already given theirs for. One that countless others will in the years ahead."

"I do not know, Jackson." She said with a sigh, flopping back on the pillows she sat upon to stare up at the ceiling. One hand rose to lift the hem of her shirt and trace idle circles on her belly. "It is hard to think of being something else. To consider that we are being asked to become something greater than human and removed from the society we knew. All we know is to be human. There have never been other possibilities, and it was a childish fantasy to ever consider anything else. How can we think of shedding these skins like a snake now that there is? We won't be like these Children of the Egg. We will have chosen to leave behind our humanity."

He lay down on his side next to her, slipping one arm beneath her head and using his free hand to cover hers where it had stopped on her abdomen. Enjoying the warmth and smell of her in a small private moment just for them amid the crowd.

"All we have is each other and our work. Do you regret that we decided not to have a family all those years ago? Would it have made this decision easier, or harder, if we had our children's futures to consider?"

Her eyes left the ceiling to peer into her husband's dark brown pools. Her own free hand curling around the back of his head to pull him closer until they kissed. A tear fell from his eye to splash against her cheek, and she gave him a sad smile as her eyes turned distant once more. Releasing his head to place her hand against his chest to feel the beat of his heart.

"No, we never made a future for ourselves. But so many others have. Let's make sure that those futures can continue and that all the suffering that is to come will be worth it in the end when we can show new intelligent life all that we had been able to learn and achieve. To show them a world brimming with promise. A world where humans had proven that they were worth allowing to live."

****

"What did you learn? What did the creatures say?" Simone Genevive demanded in English of the man who had come running back to the sanctuary she and a dozen others had gathered at. A shaded place that they could hide from the sun in and that had a small pool of clean water bubbling up through the layers of sediment that had scoured most of the salt from it. Finding fresh water and shade were paramount following the first day and the rejection of the food and water brought by the dupes remaining behind. Without, they might even have needed to risk entering the colony to steal what they needed and hope that it hadn't been tainted to subvert their minds.

The French-American woman shuddered at the thought that people would so readily listen to what the aliens had to say after what they had done. It was better to think they had been brainwashed like in a cult or a science fiction movie than to believe that they might willingly associate with those mass murderers. Kidnapping them here, revealing that they had turned millions of other people... into dragons of all things, and then stealing the world's energy. What else could describe them? What else had they done that they hadn't told them?

Simone hadn't heard any of these things from the mouths of the aliens herself, though. No, the moment she had realized what had happened after their arrival on the island, she had immediately fled into its sparse forests. Only later had Simone gotten bits and pieces of the aliens' story and knew that she had chosen correctly in running from such monsters. As skeptical as she was, the woman instinctively distrusted any single report given her. But when two, three, four, or more other people repeated the same thing. Well then, that gave the information's veracity some weight. She had been the one to determine that the man relaying his report through an interpreter that spoke, whatever it was that he spoke, was the most trustworthy based on how closely his recollections were to her own. Even when some of the others disagreed with her interpretations. They had recognized the soundness of her arguments and judgement in following her lead.

"So, they still say that it needs to be humans to undo the damage to the environment?" She asked incredulously once she'd heard his narrative of the latest panoply of lies. "And where is their evidence for any of this? None of the webcasts that I listen to or the information that _I _read mentions that there is a single thing wrong with the world or how we use the resources meant for us!"

"I agree." Another man of what she had taken to calling her group said in badly accented French that she translated for the others in English and the onto Spanish or whatever. Simone thought by the tone of his accent that might have been from French Polynesia. He certainly looked like he was from French Polynesia anyway. She knew these types of things. "I hear all the time that the reefs in New Caledonia, my home, are dying. But the fish harvests have not fallen yet, so what are these things to me as a fisherman? I see pictures, but no one can show me where these things are happening. Outsiders like the U.N and rich Americans tell us that we must protect this or that, and now these aliens tell us our business?"

"I thought there was some sense to what the aliens explained from what you've said...."

The New Caledonian scoffed at the timid woman who'd said earlier that she was from American Samoa even though Simone definitely thought that she might secretly be from Hawaii and that she needed to ask her about the best spot to swim that only the locals would know of. "You Americans made it look like you landed on the moon once. I'm sure that aliens who've actually been to our moon can make movies and pictures to convince someone of anything. Just like Hollywood."

"I'm not really..." the tall and thickset but quietly spoken woman tried to interject. But the conversation had already moved past her protests on the status of her nationality.

"So, we are all in agreement then? This whole thing must be stopped no matter why you might think so?"

"I think we should just talk to them first. I am only here because I am not sure if..." the Samoan woman said quietly. Simone felt terrible for the woman now. She had a sense of comeliness and grace to her that seemed to derive from her implacable size, but she was far too much of a wallflower to allow for serious consideration. She seemed to realize this as well and only sighed quietly to herself when the New Caledonian fisherman patted her arm placatingly and talked over the objection that she didn't even finish.

"Of course, we should talk to the aliens. Once we have stopped their plans and forced them back onto their spaceships first."

"Yes, we have to stop them. Has anyone been able to get a signal to pinpoint where we are? We need the military to come put a stop to this. Or, if we can't do that, we need to record as much information as we can about everyone here. If we can't stop the aliens, we can stop the humans that fall victim to their lies and brainwashing."

None of their phones could be relied upon for any signal whatsoever. A few thought this was more proof of alien interference, but the clearer thinking within the group noted that whatever island they were on was distinctly lacking in satellite dishes and cell phone towers. The plan to disrupt the alien's attempt at world domination took shape, with Simone always sure to add in her input as they worked to save the world. Or, at the very least, make it aware that this plot existed.

But she was increasingly worried that the Samoan girl, Chloe Maiava, was not fully committed. She seemed to be leaning more towards actually talking to them! As if any good could possibly come from that!

"Maybe at least one of us should go back to ask questions that we all have if a few of us are returning?"

"But...why?"

"Maybe... maybe the aliens are genuinely worried about what we're doing to the Earth? I haven't seen much concern from the foreign nations that make their own rules when they come to overfish my country's...."

"Now that is just wrong! How can that be a problem when I have seen nothing like it?" The New Caledonian shouted and then had to wait for Simone, irritated that she had been reduced to a mere interpreter of French to English and back again, for translation.

"And even if it is a problem for you, what business is it of mine or my country?"

This seemed to be a step too far for Chloe, and a fire kindled in her dark brown eyes as she began to reel off reams of numbers and data that Simone only had the vaguest idea of the meaning of. Not that she would ever admit that. The New Caledonian did not seem to be fairing any better under her onslaught. By the time that it sounded like she was describing the migration route of a fish that she'd never heard of before and the effects of diminished levels of plankton on tuna, he was getting very red upset at what Simone was able to translate for him at his insistence. Thoughts of the Albacore Tuna that Chloe was discussing made Simone wish that she had an authentic Tuna sandwich. Not that squished and probably poisoned leaf wrap that that angry drunk woman from yesterday had delivered with the equally sabotaged canvas canteens full of water. Despite Chloe and a few other's protests, the group had buried the food and water well away from them in case they were full of alien microbes.

"Are you making fun of me with these numbers?"

Chloe's nemesis finally snapped at her, having had enough of Simone's translations as everyone else looked fascinated by the things she said that did seem eerily alike what the aliens had said. Almost... as if... the woman had been brainwashed as well already. Or she had made the same observations the aliens had. Which was, obviously, impossible because you couldn't validate a lie. She would have to keep a close eye on Chloe to make sure she didn't start to become a dragon or a sea serpent. It had to be the next step after having your mind fiddled with.

"No, I am not. I am simply telling you to consider that what happens in one part of the ocean will affect others. There must be some reason why these aliens have...."

"I knew it! You've become one of them, haven't you? No real human, no real islander, would think as you are!"

"I...I don't have to stay here and be accused of this. I will pray for all of you, but I will no longer have a part in this madness. I will go to hear what the aliens have to say and consider my choice. Not have it made for me."

"You can't do that! It's an affront to nature! You were born to be human and nothing else! You can't!" A particularly distraught woman, who'd refused to give Simone her name, screamed through sudden tears at the broad back of the departing Samoan.

Simone had a much more immediate concern and shouted her own alarm to the group. "She knows what we plan to do! She knows who we are! We can't let her leave, get her!"

Getting a woman who had slabs of muscle built up working the fishing docks and boats her entire life, hidden beneath the soft bulges of her body, was a task easier said than done. It was only after the first two men had been thrown into the brush like sacks of baitfish by the woman who was timid no longer that the rest were able to dogpile on and drive her to the ground.

"Go cut some of the plant stems! We can bind her with those!" Simone called authoritatively to the weeping, distraught woman that kept well back from the squirming pile of humanity to bite nervously at her nails. Simone had seen them make ropes like that on one of those survival shows she'd watched once. It would work here, wouldn't it?

Simone grew distracted and felt her attention shift away as she sensed an increasing cycle of shudders in the ground. Hearing a curious whistling noise, unlike anything that she'd experienced on the island yet simultaneously. She wondered uneasily if the island was volcanic as she turned around to discover what was causing the sudden sounds before freezing in place with stark terror shooting ice through her veins.

One of the aliens stood there in a gap in the trees that led to the ocean. Blocking the sun with its raised head pointing its snout down at her far below the level of its eyes. The bottom of its chest alone arced above the tallest trees nearby. Seeing that it had her attention, it brought that enormous head down to fix its eerie color-changing eyes on her. Taking in Simone, the heap behind her, and the fretting woman who had gone from chewing on her fingernails to collapsing unconscious at the alien's appearance. The tendrils undulating with slow hypnotizing rhythm trailed backwards along its neck and captured her attention with frightening force when they moved forward. As if she could sense their presence dancing over her skin even though they were yards away. A shiver passed over her like someone had danced over her grave.

For some reason, she felt naked.

Its nose shifted until it had fixed its attention behind Simone and it thumped forward with a strange and awkward coiling motion of its long serpentine body until its head loomed over the surging mound, still trying to subdue the woman at the bottom shouting in anger. Each fall of one of the paws that were nearly as thick as Simone was tall resulting in another impact like what she'd heard before and compressing the loose substrate until the tips of its lethal claws buried themselves into the sandy ground.

Those in the pile didn't even know what had hit them as a strangled warning wheezed uselessly from Simone's constricted throat. The twin ropes growing from the creature's nose wriggled into the pile to curl around the first pair that their host could reach as it separated the scrum. Handily hoisting the people and setting them to the side. There the humans froze as solidly as Simone herself while the alien worked its way down through the rest of the pile until it had picked Chloe up and set her on her feet, where she wobbled uncertainly.

Like blindworms, the livings ropes felt gently over Chloe's head before one flopped to the ground and the other soared upwards until it was in front of the creature's mouth. Simone was revolted to see its pointed tongue dart out to lick the bulb on the end of the whisker while the beast made a rumbling sound in its chest that sounded like a boulder tumbling down a mountain.

Then, to add to the horror of the situation, it spoke in an impossibly deep voice. Guttural and reverberating in Simone's chest like the bass from a subwoofer. It had an odd echo as if another was speaking simultaneously, creating a sonic overlap, unlike anything Simone had ever heard. The whistling noise that she'd heard just a moment ago, she saw now, came from rows of slits fluttering on the sides of its neck as it breathed with a rasp that sounded like the dragging of rough fabric across an equally coarse surface. It seemed like it spoke in English, but Simone saw the others react as if they understood it in their own languages as well.

"You have interrupted our Dream with your quarrelsome thoughts. We were not to be disturbed for ten and four more hours of your time, tiny Earthlings."

Pausing, the enormous creature considered the humans before it. Cemented in mortal terror, the humans could only await what it would say or do next with a dread that bordered on all-consuming. Only their eyes moving in time to the bulbs on the end of the creature's whiskers as they whirled and looped above their heads while emitting a scarlet red light. The bulb's colors suddenly shifted to an azure blue, and the fearsome alien resumed speaking. Just hearing such a vast living being as that alien speak made some humans wonder if they were hallucinating.

"You have caused damage to this female's central processing unit and three of you...." It poked two men and the unconscious woman with the blue, glowing bulb on the end of one of its whiskers so gently that it didn't even dimple their clothing. "...are succumbing to over-exposure of your surroundings. You will come with us for correction."

"No...no...no...no..." the New Caledonian man stuttered in terror and denial at the selection of the four people who the vast creature claimed were sick or injured. "We...we..."

Simone stumbled backward from the immense creature as it focused on the man and could see from her new angle that its body and tail trailed away into the roaring surf more than three hundred feet away. The recognizable tail fin rising from where it bobbed in the churning water stood at least forty feet above the surface. The scale of the creature was impossible, she thought. The one thing Simone knew from the Bachelor's in biology that she'd earned and that was doing her no good at her job as a seal trainer in Western Samoa was that there was a limit to how large creatures could become.

And this thing before her must surely have exceeded it.

One other thing that she felt she could be sure of was the intelligence of the massive being and the fact that it seemed to have no problem understanding French, English, or any human language at all. Nor did it seem to have any trouble reaching the correct conclusion of what was being stutteringly said to it. Bursts of color erupted all over its body when it responded with a terrible finality that could not be argued with. With one gravely rumbled word, the paralyzing fear broke, and the screams began.

"Yes."

****

"Don't be a galah, Cathy! You're a spunky Sheila. Why would you ever want to turn into a snake?"

"I don't want to, Elizabeth, and please don't call me stupid. It hurts that you think that the only thing I should care about is how attractive that I am."

The two were having a blue in the hut that they had decided to share with Evelyn and Jackson. They were two perfectly bonnie people, Cathy thought, and much more understanding than her forceful coworker.

"It's just that nothing will ever change in time to satisfy these aliens and hopefully save these poor creatures that might never even get a chance before they make good on their promises. Unless we act."

"And that's another reason never to work with these cut snakes! They want to kill us all if we don't tank the whole mudball's economy! For animals and nature? Fair suck of the sav!"

"They said that they were going to send us home again, right? Why don't we go to our governors in Perth and then to Canberra with what we learned here? If we can talk to all the other Aussies...."

"That ain't going to be some piece of piss. They're probably flat out like a lizard drinking with the petrol going missing and dragons everywhere. But we've been abducted by the aliens in the middle of yabbering with the clients. It's bound to make a stir when we vanish into the bush for two days, right? Get us teed-up with the pollys?"

"We have to try, though! Someone must listen to us. Won't they? What will we do if they don't?"

"We won't do a damn thing! If the go'vnors won't listen to us and want to act like bludgers, then I will try to find a way to survive when the economy is not worth a Zack, and our jobs kick the bucket. You can rack off with the aliens if that's what'll get you stoked. Just remember that you have a bloke back at your unit, your oldies, and your rellies to have a care for.

"Have a Captain Cook, okay? Don't give up on humans figuring this out. I know we haven't yet. But that isn't a reason to turn into a snake because some Martian is having the lend of you by saying it would make things better. You shouldn't be thinking about giving that beaut of a body the flick anyhow. I'm thinking of fighting back against them. I don't know how yet, maybe as a digger. But I'll find a way, and I don't want to find myself pointing a rifle at you someday, okay? Especially if you plan to snakify yourself and swim around telling humans what they can't do. Which has a Buckley's chance of working.

"I already told you that I am not going to become one of these serpents." Cathy sighed and soothed her rising irritation. "Let's...let' go see if we can talk to the others. We shouldn't be talking like we've already failed. Our jobs are to settle insurance claims. This should be easy."

Cathy tried to put on a brave face but was perturbed by the hardening intent that she could see in her friend's eyes and that her repeated attempts to tell her that she didn't want to become an alien weren't registering. All she had said was that she thought the aliens might be right to be concerned with the health of the Earth, and her friend had gone off like a rocket. Between what she could only now accept was meant as a joke last night and the events that they'd witnessed earlier, their opinions had begun to diverge on the aliens' intentions. Just a few hours ago, after the briefing, the one that Evelyn had named Yacumama had roused itself up from where it had been sleeping with its head and the legs of one side upon the half of the bar facing away from everyone else.

Returning a half-hour after it had left with two women and two men, pale and sweating where they sat on her back. Allowing them to stumble down with minimal explanation when she folded one leg into a crouch. One of the women, huge and with a spectacular bruise forming across the brown skin of her face, plopped to the ground where she wobbled alarmingly. The other three screamed over each other, ranting about monsters from the depths of the ocean that were going to eat them all if they weren't quieter. The Yacumama told them she would eat them first if they didn't shut up after what they'd done to the woman sitting in the grass. Cathy realized the large woman was concussed when she vomited on herself, as she and several others rushed forward to help her to a bathroom to get her out of her reeking clothes.

"They require medical attention, and three of them have soaked their garments in urine. We will take a bath, and if anyone feels equal to the task of talking any sense at all into them, they are welcome to try. Just make sure you stand back a little in case they have anything left in their bladders that they didn't discharge all over our fins."

The whole sequence hadn't exactly engendered the most positive of reactions in Cathy's best friend, Elizabeth. Of all the consequences that she had imagined so far, the possibility that one day she could end up on the opposite end of a firearm from the friend of ten years that had introduced her to her husband was not one of them. Speaking of Jonathan, now that Cathy had convinced herself that no unwonted turning into aliens was going to happen, she had to call him. He must be freaking out after her disappearance.

She wanted to help. She really did. But not at the cost of losing her body.

It was who she was. It was what defined her. How could she make the world better for everyone when it meant no longer being herself? It wouldn't be her then. It would be someone else. Some...thing... else. It would be worse than death for her. At least then she would be gone. Not spending the rest of her life swimming with a vague perception that she was once beautiful and human.

She stopped and sighed to herself. God, she thought, does that sound as shallow as I think it is?

No. It wasn't.

She shouldn't have to apologize or make excuses for wanting to remain who she was. If she walked on her hands, would she still be who she was? The same question could be asked for any other of the physical features of the "Dreamers," as she'd learned they call themselves. Turning into something else physically had to mean that she had become something else mentally. The individual who was the sum of all her human experiences and memories could not survive in another form. Didn't these people that were talking of volunteering realize that? It would have to mean the absolute corruption of who they were.

Right?

She did not know. But what she did know was that she was Cathy Franks, and to make sure of that, the striking woman would finish her life just as she'd started it. As human. The aliens would not take that away from her even if it meant not participating in their crazed scheme to make the world a better place for non-human beings. She would find some other way to help stop all that nasty stuff she saw washing up on the shores of Perth. Jonathan would know what to do. So would the rest of the volunteer club that she coordinated to clean up the area's beaches. That was how you made a better future that everyone could join in on by making small changes along with plenty of time and patience. That was how you made a better future that didn't require you to have a nasty tail obliterating the curves of your body or hideous fins replacing your silky hair. The mere thought of feeling her skull elongating into that flat-lipped reptilian grimace made her want to vomit.

She trusted other humans to know what to do and to tell her what that was. She did not trust these aliens with their magical technology and their callous indifference to what they were doing to human affairs. She had faith that humans would do what was right when it was explained to them.

She needed to speak to her husband. Cathy only hoped that the phone wouldn't brainwash her like that group that had just marched by her brandishing tree limbs had shouted.

Her species would do what was in the interests of others. Wouldn't they?

As Cathy dialed her husband's cell phone number, that quiet voice in the back of her mind that she had never been entirely able to squash whispered one last doubt to her. What if they wouldn't?

****

Simone could barely understand the pidgin torrent of English coming from the woman that she and her posse had crossed at the edge of the village. But the few phrases that she did understand in between the more common words of their shared languages told her they had met a kindred spirit that wanted to resist what the aliens were doing. Even if she did dismiss the purpose that Simone had managed to instill in her followers out of hand. Continuing by herself, the Australian left Simone and her group bemused by her indecipherable idioms to achieve what they had set out for.

Step one meant going to get their comrades in arms back from where that giant had taken them. Simone hadn't been sure it would be wise to come with weapons. If you could call the two pocketknives being brandished along with the clubs that were nothing more than broken tree limbs the instruments needed to force their will on any of the creatures they'd seen so far. The foul-mouthed Australian had certainly been quick to point out what a bunch of idiots they were to think that they had a chance in hell of doing whatever it was Simone's pack thought they were doing. To soothe objections, she had reminded the others that this was to symbolically show the aliens that they disagreed with their presence and intentions. The weapons were really in case any of the brainwashed humans tried to attack them.

They weren't stupid enough to think that some twigs would be enough to fight off creatures that could grow to be much, much larger than the tree that they came from, after all. They certainly didn't need any help from the American woman, even if her military training would have been of use. She had run into them, literally, when she drunkenly stumbled into the posse. Breaking into hysterical laughter after taking one look at the group coming to voice their objections to their treatment. What they also hadn't expected was to find one of the creatures waiting for them and willing to hear their concerns once they had made it past the hazards of the intoxicated American sailor.

"We ask that you lay down your...sticks and your cutting metal to signify your peaceful intent if you would like to talk. There is no bad being done here. Our elder was only concerned for the health of your pod-mates after cooking to unhealthy red color with no water for tenderizing and felt offended that you would fight to keep them sick. They are recovering in this outhouse here if you wish to observe. We apologize for not giving tail whip battle that you had expected, but your severed tree appendages would have been no match for this one of few tides. The challenge you would have presented to the elder ones is not even worth noticing if you had thought to make them heel for you. Are you sure you would not like some water or very yummy food? So'waa'Ma'wae believes you to be acting very oddly.

"You must also tell So'waa'Ma'wae why you have hurt your pod-mates head and then shout nasty things as if we are the ones causing harm."

"You kidnapped us! Your torturing people by turning them into dragons! And you're going to destroy the world by taking away our oil! Fuck you!"

"All of which would have been explained if you had stayed crouched ready to listen here, instead of going to hatch crazy ideas there." A flick of a whisker pointed in the direction they had come. "Please join us in the center pavilion. The Golden-Eyed Ones are very good at describing...."

"We don't want explanations. We want you gone from Earth. We want Earth back to the way it was."

"That is no longer an..." was all that Soma got to say before one of the sticks that had never been set down as she had asked were thrown at her head. Bouncing off her muzzle just in front of her eye. As Soma wasn't standing, she didn't present the largest of statures. Which might have made the humans think that she was not as substantial as she really was. The thrown piece of vegetation did not even rock her head. She merely blinked at the crowd, no sign of injury or harm evident. No reaction, beyond the colors flashing on her body cycling rapidly on her snout around the point of impact.

"So'waa'Ma'wae asks that twigs not be thrown at her. We will not suffer harm, but we might be inclined to throw twigs back at you. This is time for chit-chat, not showing which of us has stronger twig throwing."

Simone next had to hear from that American woman where she was seated in the screened cabin right beside the confrontation. Swigging from the bowl settled in her lap and holding her hand to her mouth as she belched.

"Y'all are a bunch of fucking morons. It was funny watching you charge along like you were after Frankenstein's monster with pitchforks and torches, but not so much now. Don't you realize that you're not going to get these aliens to do anything by force? Show them that we're smarter than they think by convincing them that we can fix what has them all spun up. Not by yanking the tail of the dragon to see how strong it is. Dumbasses."

"Shut up, you drunk!"

"Yeah, I'm drunk. But tomorrow morning, I'll be sober, and you'll still be stupid. Not one of you went to check on the people you claimed to be here to look after. They are fine, by the way. Neither did any of you ask why the aliens are doing what they're doing. I see your spy over there, who I suppose has been listening in for you. But not once has he stayed to hear the full spiel from these aliens. They aren't just going to let everything 'go back to the way Earth was.' Not after they went through all the effort to do..." she waved one hand around in a circle over her head, "this. In my experience, cultures only do things like this if they have to."

"Then why should we bother with words when you just said yourself that they won't undo what they've done?"

"Because, you ass, if they can make every military power in the world impotent overnight, then there is no chance in fighting against them. At least not right now. If we want them to leave, we need to work towards that together with whoever is transformed."

"You sound brainwash! Why should we ever work with them? How can you accept that it is okay for them to transform anyone? They are threatening to kill everyone if we don't do as they say!"

Simone was startled when the American sailor jumped to her feet to throw her bowl from the cabin. It landed with a thud, spilling its contents, before rolling away. The French-American suddenly found it a lot easier to look at the wooden dishware settling to a stop than the blazing eyes that weren't nearly hazed enough by booze to hide the anger and betrayal in them.

"Maybe because I think that they are trying to do what they suppose is right in making humans grow the fuck up or get the fuck out of the way. Is that a good enough fucking reason for you? How about because they are convincing enough to get another alien race here just to help us? What do humans do? They order others to turn into aliens so that they can fuck over their enemies! It's no wonder that they're here to kick us in the ass and threaten us with genocide. We wouldn't be able to manage our way through microwaving a fucking hot pocket if more than two countries had to agree on what setting of heat to use. The aliens say that you are the best suited to work toward some idyllic future where everyone wears white unitards, has a garland of flowers on their head, and dances barefoot in a grassy field with dragons and sea serpents. All under a clear blue sky that doesn't reek of the acrid stench of the chemical plant a hundred miles away. I don't see it. You idiots can't even help yourselves. Look at yourselves and those idiot 'who, me?' expressions plastered on your faces."

"Geeze, what crawled up your ass?" Simone muttered into the silence after the woman's tirade. Shrinking back with her head lowered and her hands up defensively when suddenly the sailor went from where she was yelling to directly in her face. Her hot breath rank with the liquor that she'd been drinking just moments before.

"The Secretary of Defense of the United States of America asking me to spy for my country as an alien. That's who. And why the hell these others are bothering to follow you, you ditzy frog, I can't figure out. They all better start thinking for themselves before another one of you ends up with a concussion. It's probably going to be you once they realize that you don't have a thought worthy of the name in that vapid head of yours."

The very creature that Simone had been leading the others to confront was the one that intervened for her. Curling its tail between Simone and Pattie. Even the New Caledonian, who had been so avid to teach the aliens a lesson once the giant had trundled off with the four kidnap victims back to the site of their first kidnapping on its back, was mum.

"There will be no more throwing of words or sticks, Pattie." The creature said, in placating tones that made Simone's skin crawl. "She did not betray you like your pod elders did. Simone is struggling with different currents, okay now? In her dreams had asked to come here because she was unhappy and had thoughts of better waters. But now, she finds those waters too turbulent for her, and that is okay. Okay? No human here is forced to participate. Forced transitions will not bring the happy outcome the Golden-Eyed Ones say might be possible with mighty swishes of mighty tails. Not like those very unfortunate people on the big islands."

Simone's mind reeled inside her head as the others argued about the purpose and meaning of what had and was going to happen to them. Struck by the words that the creature had said. Was she unhappy and looking for meaning? Even if she was, what did that matter? Nothing that these aliens were doing was right. If they wanted to help, as this one with color-shifting eyes insisted, then they should just help. Not make things worse for humanity. If they were altruistic, how could they make one species suffer so much in the interests of others? Other species that didn't even exist yet. Or, more importantly, and to the point, were not human.

Simone would not accept a world where humans would suffer in the interests of animals. They were lower than humans for a reason, and so were these aliens. They would need to be forced to realize that they were inferior because they weren't as sympathetic to humans' problems in managing a whole world. Simone had found her purpose. Now, all that she had to do was use her innate leadership skills to make the rest of civilization see that they must demand the return of Earth's affairs to humanity. It was what was right, after all. If the governments had failed, as these aliens indicated, then it was time for new governance. When nothing worked, you burned it all down and started again.

****

She did not notice the other alien watching her from where it had snaked its head around the corner of a bathhouse. The one that So'waa'Ma'wae called Wily making sure she could be seen watching them from the shadows while producing the coughing noise that passed for irritation in the Dreamer species. Her tail shivering with annoyance. The thoughts running through Simone's head were the exact kinds of idiosyncrasies that made Wily doubt the viability of the human species. She had spent enormous amounts of energy demonstrating why the humans were an element of chaos that was not worth the contribution they would provide against the coming threat. But her predictions and models ran perpendicular to the cautionary algorithms embedded deeply in her kind's matrices. Receiving the assignment of tertiary protocol that the intelligence which enjoyed the moniker of Wily knew it deserved.

The humans were beholden to a violent and turbulent past and would not accept the facts that Wily and her analogs had arranged for them because it did not fit their narrow worldview. That violence and restricted thought would be shown in the centuries ahead before they settled in a majority of the likeliest outcomes. Hundreds of millions of humans and Children of the Egg, and yes, even a few Dreamers, would die in the centuries to come from the violent aftershocks of her race's intercession. It was simple math. The planet would not comfortably sustain humans in their present numbers and levels of sophistication alongside the species that needed the space and resources to develop. They had waited, hoping the data predicting increasingly remote outcomes was proven wrong. But then they, too, had run out of time and were forced into action.

They did not relish the deaths that would be indirectly attributable to their actions. But if humanity were forced to accept the consequences of their own actions before it became too late for the Earth's biosphere, then billions upon billions of life forms would enjoy full, healthy lives that they would not have otherwise. If not, then humanity would take their place in archives maintained by Wily and her fellow aliens. A few thousand electro-chemical imprints locked inside of a simulation that they would never leave while they lived out a facsimile of life. Alongside quadrillions of other life forms drawn from across their Universe. Each species beautiful in its own way. A beauty that the race Wily represented never took without the direst cause. The humans could not know the magnitude of the force they had drawn the attention of. But they would learn. Painfully.

****

So'waa'Ma'wae was delighted that only six of the hundred hu-mans had killed themselves last night cycle trying to chug with them. Sitting up on her tail most legs by locking her abdominal muscles to rise upwards four times the height of the hu-mans. The teaching stance her people called it where she could both watch and inform. She would not have undertaken the symbolic act but for the presence of her advisor-parent, who was here to see the hu-mans off.

The honor and joy she felt at him attending was nearly ruined with the insult that Pattie had offered him upon her arrival. His gracious response to her insult making So'waa'Ma'wae's hearts churn with thoughts of teaching the hu-man a lesson that she would have a chance to muse over in the darkness of underground forever once So'waa'Ma'wae had placed her there for time-out. A good-natured dismissal from her advisor-parent and an amused rumble from him soothing her scale hackles that had bristled as if she was only So'waa once again.

The early day cycle cleaning had been completed after much making of mouth noises. Attempts to make questions at her were given short answers and not so gentle fin shivers to show that the time for such challenge and response were over for this time. Now was time for them to return and interact with their own pods instead of endless seeking of information about things far beyond human concern within sight in the future.

Seeking input from those they had joined with, those they had spawned, and those that directed their movements being the more vital thoughts they should focus upon. It was the time for hu-man to seek more council from hu-man. If they still wished to volunteer at the end of a fortnight, which So'waa'Ma'wae thought was another lovely hu-man ex-pression, they had only give the signal. Their return would mark the beginning of their new lives as caretaker guardians of the water's balance. Which is what the young Dreamer tried her best to impart upon the fragile, tiny hu-mans.

"This is the pattern of your waters as they flow. Your species has reached a level of infection of the world that cannot be allowed to continue if future intelligence is to develop here. The Golden-Eyed Ones have waited, hoping that you would see the dangerous currents you swam, but you have not. They have intersected your civilization's goals and issued you their citation that this is your last chance. The Golden-Eyed Ones have shortened the tool you have built your constructions upon, and in turn, brought to this world two alien species birthed from the willingness and unwillingness of selected humans. Humans have proven themselves not to be trustworthy or integrable and so will not be left to tackle the proving of their value unaided.

"Those that have become Children of the Egg have had no say in their part in this play while you keep your choice of where to flick your fins and swing your tail. The reasons for these things have not been fully explained to So'waa'Ma'wae as they are not our concern. This is hu-man's chance to prove that you can change when challenged with the immediacy of your action's consequences and interact healthily with other intelligent species. If you cannot do this either as Dreamers, Children of the Egg, or human, then hu-manity will be ink-blotted out. The Golden Eyed Ones will not solve your problems for you, but they will give you the ability to do so. This is why we are here, why we ask you to consider to be Dreamers, and why many have been forced into the bodies of Children of the Egg.

"You may be right to think that what is raining upon you is hateful and destructive. To an extent, that is So'waa'Ma'wae's voice as well. On the other claw, our analysis of your species' history indicates that the Golden Eyed Ones are also correct in their manner of intervention. Hu-mans do not change unless they are forced to. Let no lack of sun take root in your thoughts now. That is precisely what this drama given to you is designed to inflict. The Golden Eyed Ones know only change that comes from within is a lasting one. If they would fix your situation for you, they would have to return time and again to continue to fix the mistakes that sicken hu-manity. Nothing would be learned. No growth will have been made.

"The threat of what may come has been laid as bare as the glinting teeth of a harming intent, and the announcing of what you must do has been given full attention. Now is the time for you to make decisions. Will you stand aside and hope hu-manity will succeed against tall odds by themselves while they murder death kill each other, Dreamers, and Children of the Egg to avoid responsibility? Or will you sacrifice impossible things to make future clear for all? This you must keep uppermost in your thoughts for the fourteen day-night cycles before your return. So'waa'Ma'wae has spoken, and you have listened. School has concluded for end of day."

****

Manaaki tried to pay attention to what Soma had to say while she was curled upright in the shape of a backwards question mark to face them. A true feat, given her length, that made Airini and himself reevaluate just how strong their bodies must be to accomplish such an act. Paying attention, like how Pattie was as she recorded the conversation with her cell phone, 'for those assholes in the rat warrens of DC,' as she put it, was just not something he felt capable of. Half of his mind was on Soma's words, the other half on the titan that had crept almost silently into the camp before sunrise. Giving away its presence, not by the whispering of tens of thousands of scales or the way the tops of the trees were pushed aside by the bottom of its body. But by the rhythmic thumping that had travelled through the ground with its arrival. Currently, it lay wreathed around the inner perimeter of the cabins with its head raised to block out the sun and throw the whole meeting into shadow. Not saying a word. Even to Manaaki. The only man brave enough to try to talk to it.

He had gotten nothing audible beyond a toneless grunt that had pierced through him and a caress from one of the whiskers as thick around as his wrist and the length of an inter-city coach down the side of his head and neck. Instead, he'd gotten a brilliant display of color cascading across its body that dwarfed anything shown yet by Soma for communication and went on for a considerable length of time to impart he knew not what upon him. Pattie had been the only other human he'd seen interact with it. Only to dismiss it as nowhere near as big as she'd thought it'd be after taking pictures of it. This might have been true if the woman was drunk again and trying to compare it to one of the Yankee's massive aircraft carriers.

What he found interesting, and his wife thought might indicate a kind of relationship between the two, was how Soma had been acting around her vastly larger kin. The way that she addressed the humans was one indicator. With a tone less playful and more intent than what Soma had had before. Another was the large bowl, three meters across, that she had pulled towards the gigantic alien with her tail hooked around a spur jutting from the side of the vessel. Coming to a stop, an astringent liquid that Minaaki couldn't name slopped out while Soma performed a flowing dance that made him think of undulating ribbons held up into the chaotic whirlwinds of a spring storm.

Crouched against the ground next to the bowl, Soma had looked up at her larger companion as it bowed its head lower with its eyes looking right into hers. Stopping less than half a meter apart so that their whiskers could reach towards each other's and intertwine. Their constantly flashing lights slowing until the only hue showing upon their bodies were vivid lavenders that started around the base of their whiskers before moving rearward down their lengths the longer they held the contact.

As distracted as he'd been, he still had had enough presence of mind to hear most of what Soma had said and known that Manaaki could rely on his wife to fill him in on everything that the big man was equally sure that he hadn't even noticed missing. It had been a summarization of everything they'd been told so far. The ability of Earth to be the future birthplace of other intelligent species was in danger. Humans would make it easier to defend this region of space from an unspecified threat far in the future, along with other species not yet named but were not vital enough for that purpose to be above removal. Humans were becoming aliens because humans weren't seen as mature enough to manage an attempt at correcting their own mistakes, and the aliens were meant to be a lasting influence on humanity's actions when the superintelligences that had arranged all this departed for good. These Dreamers and Children of the Egg were being installed upon Earth with the first generations deriving from the human species for their sense of what it means to be human and for their contacts among their former kind.

A new alien with monochrome eyes stepped into the center of attention to address Manaaki and the others. His hand squeezed Airini's when he saw Soma tense up as this golden-eyed alien slunk forward with their characteristic loping stride. Airini nodded her head in acknowledgement, knowing right away what he was startled to notice. Soma had identified this individual before as Wily, and it had been easy for the humans to mark her apart from the other two with the featureless gold eyes because of the yellow-green tint underlying the base color of her scales and her larger frame. They had been told to avoid speaking with it unless one of the other aliens were present. Which was alarming, to say the least, when they knew she was among the ones who had a god-like capability to alter their physical environment at will.

"Many felicitous greetings this morning, indigent subsoil scum. As your going away gift, I am here to remind you that you are being ransomed against the destruction of your species. As all of you are too obstinately convinced that only small percentages of yourselves are worthy of existing. A final reminder that you must do as we say and preserve the biosphere that gave rise to your trifling existence for a larger and richer cause than anything you have ever achieved and might actually make you more deserving of the designation of sapient.

"A majority of you have questions that have not been answered in the short time that we've arranged for us to enjoy the pleasure of each other. Questions as to why you are being approached and not your nations or the political structures designed to encapsulate these issues on global scales. There are questions as to why the schedule we have set has taken the shape that it has. There are even questions as to why we care about you at all. Some of you, haven't listened or believed a thing we've said and still do not understand why they must be something other than human in the future to work towards saving your species.

"Let us begin by telling you that we do not wish you ill-will or malice. You may not think that when the ancient liquified putrid vegetative matter needed to make your unbalanced society possible is rationed by your idiotic governments to ensure the continued ability to conduct warfare against each other, but that is the truth. We are not here to pat you on the back and tell you that everything will be okay in the short term. It will not. Humans are going to die. Not by the direct actions of an alien intelligence but by yours. We do not care to hear you say that these deaths will be our fault for depleting a finite resource before you could burn the rest of your world to the ground instead of afterwards while you were busy murdering each with the fission-fusion weapons that we've already taken from you.

"The specific categorization of your race has always had a much higher than average potential for achieving incredible societal feats. Your categorical type also has an abnormally high chance of self-destruction when faced with negative developments and is pathologically self-centered. You are not readily capable of uniting to work towards a common goal. You will undercut each other, rationalize your selfishness, and be general hazards to yourselves and any other creature that has had the misfortune of crossing paths with you.

"That is how species of your category act on intra- and inter-global scales, like degenerates. On smaller scales, you are capable of the compassionate, empathic, and intuitive thought that is the only reason the decision has been made to allow your species a chance to repair the damage your avarice has caused.

"Your group, to include the paranoid idiots in the brush behind me that think they've somehow gone unnoticed, have been chosen because you have personality types and value systems judged to be compatible with securing the wellness of your world's aquatic environments. Yes, even those among you that are entertaining thoughts in their heads of fighting us off heroically by using biological organisms or malicious computer code to poison us, conventional acts of military aggression, or enlisting another mythical race of aliens to save your ability to strip your world of life. No, we don't expect you to listen to us when we tell you that none of that will work as you will have to appease your senses of pride and honor in attempting to repel us before you'll believe that we are beyond your ability to cause harm. The death toll caused by you devoting your energies towards combat instead of saving each other might even be significant enough for Mars to change its orbit. Or not.

"At the completion of this morning's festivities, you will return to your homes and your social connections to seek their input in deciding your course of actions. Watching how your fellow humans interact with those that have lost their humanity with your knowledge that those Children of the Egg are a crucial indicator of whether your species is rising to the challenge we have set against them in proving the value of their continuing existence. Observations of this kind may be helpful in minuscule ways that you might find it worthwhile exerting yourselves to notice. Ask yourselves if you are willing to sacrifice everything that you think you are to ensure that this world remains suitable for life as you know it. Ask yourselves if you think humans will be worth undertaking what is being asked of you. Speaking for ourselves, we would rather arm humanity to the teeth and let them all drive their own population into genetic moribundity. Accelerated Darwinian pressures will take care of this world for us organically. Then you can blame us for not inhibiting your innate wanton bloodlust when we provided you particle beam rifles, anti-matter hand grenades, and kinetic energy converters. Weapons the last species of your type we attempted to help used to annihilate themselves with.

"You have two weeks to seek what advice you may desire and learn what imperatives may be forced upon you. This will be plenty of time to have ample opportunity to learn the irrational and short-sighted behavior of many of your fellow humans and discover the unruly inclinations of your individual governments."

Manaaki noticed, as did Pattie herself, that when the alien said that last line, she was staring directly at the American woman dressed in her uniform once more. For the first time since he'd known her, the Yankee had nothing to say and only looked away with a wan color overtaking her cheeks.

"Two weeks from this date, you only have to indicate that you wish to return, and we shall return you at any point in the entirety of 17 June from local midnight to midnight. When you return at that time, nothing else will be brought with you, and all communications will be managed by the devices we have provided here. If you are under duress or being forcibly prevented from volunteering your return at that time, we will remove you from your circumstances and allow you to make your decision known after your recovery from whatever idiocy you were subject to.

"We're sure that no humans would ever act so selfishly as to prevent any of you from choosing to work with aliens as an expression of your own free will. We are equally sure that humanity is all about respecting the rights of individual freedoms like we were when we turned millions of bipeds into quadrupeds without consultation about whether they'd enjoy flapping the two new limbs growing from their backs to fly.

"You are allowed to bring as many other volunteers as you would like for this project. However, there are three caveats that you must be made aware of.

"One, any human returning to this island, other than the specific example given before, will only be brought here to volunteer their bodies. There will be no passive human spectators on this island.

"Two, if you desire someone of your acquaintance to accompany you to this island that has already become a Child of the Egg, they will remain as they are. Multiple consciousness transfers will degrade an individual's mental state and will not be performed. We do not desire Children of the Egg or Dreamers that have had their matrices transposed one too many times running-a-muck on this world eating humans because they no longer recognize the difference between strips of beef jerky and high-functioning cockroaches. It is terrible for the children of all three species."

Wily looked around at the crowd who gasped at this horrible realization that hadn't quite sunk in yet that some of the families and friends they hadn't spoken to lately might not be human upon their return. Manaaki's mind went straight to thoughts of his daughter Pounamu's neighbor. What had that man been thinking once his transformation was over to attempt to climb into the driver's seat of his cherished sports car and crush the whole thing before making that horrible screaming noise that he'd heard in his daughter's video chat. Did anyone else he or his family knew suffer such a fate? Would that change what they thought they should do? Wily continued after visibly losing patience with murmuring humans. Her large tail fin, which Manaaki now knew was razor sharp at the edge to his horror, scalping the ground behind her with one energetic swing.

"Three, we will not bargain for your participation and will not tolerate intrusion upon our activities here or anywhere else the Dreamer intervention is underway at. Interlopers approaching this island and any other project location will be turned inside out and fed to the sharks or any other handy aquatic lifeform that happens to be nearby. Human chum is good chum, we are saying for the first time ever. Or maybe we always say. It is up to you to decide. We care not what your thoughts are. To be more precise, we are having difficulty caring one bit about the levels of stress hormones flooding through your ill-designed bodies that Patience is frantically telling us to monitor right now. We can solve your flashes of disunion swiftly by dumping swarms of nano-bots on you with chaotic instructions programmed into them that couldn't possibly make them less of a threat to this world than you are. If you would prefer of course. We all are all about self-determinism here after all. Unlike those sadists running roughshod over the Children of the Egg.

"Patricia Moreau is showing good if unnecessary, initiative in filming this encounter." Indicating behind her to where Manaaki watched as the bartender of the past two days emerged carrying a wooden serving bowl filled with tiny devices that it took him a moment to recognize as small rectangular USB thumb drives. Placing them right in the middle of the circle and then back away with awkward swings of its hips and tail that left a few laid out upon the scrubby grass. Which it promptly apologized for while using its nearly four-meter-tall thresher-like tail to lift the dazed men and women to their feet.

"These have recordings of all the information that we have delivered upon this island for further consumption or distribution. We recommend copying the data on these and leaving it with someone else in the likely event your government makes you disappear within the next twenty-four hours. We are sorry, but we will not stop your own rulers from acting like assholes. Just try to survive until we bring you back here in two weeks. Any broken bones you suffer as you are re-educated by those you do, or do not, trust will reset while you transform."

By this time, Manaaki was not the only one exchanging looks with another at the oddities in Wily's briefing. A sense of surrealism set in as it became evident that, if these aliens were working from a script, Wily was straying from it. A rumble that shook the fronds of the trees emanated from the titan that couldn't be ignored simultaneously with Soma stepping forward. They had reached the ends of their patience with the female speaking, it seemed.

"Wily, you have said enough. We had expected better from the Golden-Eyed Ones."

The ones that Soma had called Patience and Truth were both now flashing signs at a furious pace but not making physical movements to interfere. Neither Manaaki nor Airini knew who they were being directed towards. Although, if Wily was the intended audience, she seemed to have no sense of contrition for her aggressive tone. Crouching with her chest low to the ground and her hips in the air, she waved her tail back and forth above her in half circles. When Soma bared her teeth at the gold eyed alien, Manaaki was able to determine that this was a gesture of almost obscene defiance.

Regardless of the intended recipient of the warning and whether that recipient gave the least care of their meaning, the conversation ended when the giant towering above them all raised a paw with the claws spread wide to show the thick membrane growing between the fingers. Setting it slowly down upon the ground with a sense of finality and a terrible pressure that Manaaki felt squeezing painfully against his ears. Even the three aliens he had the impression of being in charge fell silent in color and vocalization with this movement. It was a gesture of authority that carried a figurative weight out of proportion to the size of the paw making it. This enormous Taniwha held a presence that was clearly respected by all the aliens. The Maori man doubted it had anything at all to do with its size. Whatever wonder he had at the reasons for Soma's odd behavior vanished in an instant as he had to fight a nearly overwhelming urge of his own to lay flat against the ground as the other aliens were in the face of the casual dissatisfaction of the enormous being.

Its grumbling, harsh-edged words were as terse as its movements.

"The Earthlings grow confused. For them to consult their spirits in clear water, this ends now."

"My father-teacher speaks with wisdom," Soma said, picking up where her enormous counterpart had left off. "Hu-mans, we have shown you all that you need to know for the making of decisions. Go to your cherished ones and consult with them to learn what may be best for you and them. With begging, we ask you to be safe at your land huts. The world you return to will not be the one that you've left. Many hu-mans will not think kindly on knowing that aliens have dialed their home numbers. We hope to be seeing you again in a fortnight, whole and eager to work towards the best option for humanity left to it. We apologize for the inconvenience it will cause you, but the injured amongst you will be returned to places of medical treatment near your origins."

Soma ignored the protests that this gave rise to and Manaaki did not think she truly understood the concepts of medical costs and insurance premiums. She may not have even understood money at all, for all the New Zealander knew. Some of the people here did not come from countries where medical treatment was a right, instead of a privilege like in countries far from his own.

"It is now time for you to depart. Some of you, we shall feel with our sensors again. For the rest, we wish you strong currents and clear waters. We have made as much noise as possible, and now the time has come for you to act. On the count of five, you will reappear at your home waters.

"0...1...2..."

"JUMP!" Wily leapt into the air shrieking, cutting into Soma's count, and Manaaki's stomach lurched as his sense of space warped unexpectedly.

They were dispatched from their kidnapping, not giving them any chance to prepare themselves for their return. Manaaki almost wished that there was a way to mark the transition from one location to another. A flash of blinding light would have helped him make sense of the disorientation he felt with the mundanity of the shift. In the blink of an eye, he was no longer looking at an island full of the impossible. He and Airini had returned to the street curb in Christchurch where they had been before their sense of reality had been torn apart two days before. With heads full of knowledge, two thumb drives of digital information in their pockets, and the choice of what their fate was to be.

The city they returned to was not the one they remembered from a few days before. Helicopters circled overhead as fires sent plumes of smoke into the skies. A terrible roar came from overhead before a vast winged figure slammed into one of the helicopters that were firing upon it with what Manaaki only just realized was the rat-a-tat of a machine gun. The creature came from beneath. Avoiding the lethal churn of the rotors and flipped the helicopter upside down with a twist of its body. Dropping the Military aircraft to the ground hundreds of meters below with its crew screaming in terror. Wheeling away, the broad-winged creature flew to rejoin a pack of disparately sized dragons that were flying towards the mountains in the distance. The other helicopter chasing after them at a distance with guns blazing as they flew with chaotic jerks that kept any bullets from striking them.

"Oh, Manaaki! Your shirt...My shirt... We need to get out of here."

Confused by his mate's comment, Manaaki grabbed the bottom hem of a t-shirt he was not wearing moments ago to pull it outwards and read what the design on the cloth said.

'Down With Humans.' was printed alongside a picture of the spindly-bodied, large-eyed aliens that Hollywood always portrayed. Airini herself wore a shirt that said, 'I Volunteered To Be An Alien And All That I Got Was This Lousy Shirt.' below a silhouette of a Dreamer standing on all four legs.

"We need to go!" Manaaki said, tugging on Airini's arm as they fled a world gone mad. Dodging the debris swept from the roof of a tower by a tail twenty meters long as its owner bellowed in pain. Manaaki and Airini wove through the crowd, ignored by the bystanders who hadn't notice their sudden arrival as they watched the smoldering building and the creatures working together to rescue the humans fleeing to the top. Disseappearing into a marching protest that had more of the dragons intermixed with thousands of humans, all waving signs demanding government action. Safe in the faceless throngs.

All but for the woman who had just happened to record their sudden reappearance and the clothes that they were wearing. Capturing their faces on video to be broadcasted on Itube.