Tessa’s tears were slowing, and she was wiping them from her face with the back of her hand. “I know how this looks,” she said. “I know how much we’ve thrown at you. That you’re feeling manipulated. That you don’t know who or what to trust. But trust how I feel about you. Because I’ve never lied about that.”
“Spare me the lovesick puppy-dog act,” I spat bitterly as the hurt and betrayal I felt hardened my heart, and I forced myself to become as cold and clinical as she had become emotional. “I only want facts. Lie just a single time and I’m out. The galaxy and you can both go to hell.”
Tessa cringed in pain as if I had just delivered a physical blow. “But how could you possibly guess?” she whispered. “What would make you think I haven’t been entirely straight with you?”
“Not entirely straight?” I shouted back in disbelief. “Telling me you like my shirt when you don’t is not being entirely straight with me. Telling me you knew nothing about Nari when you’ve been actively working for him? That’s a betrayal of biblical proportions.”
I shook my head. “So you’ll be answering my questions, not the other way around. If you don’t like it, you can leave. Or you can kill me. I don’t care anymore.”
“Well I do,” said Tessa as yet another tear slid from the corner of her left eye. “And you will again, too. I’ll make you see how much you mean to me. And why I couldn’t tell you about my past right away—which I was planning to do very soon. So ask me anything. I’ll tell you whatever you want to know.”
“Are you even human?” I began. Nick Nicola had assured me she was, but it was worth a direct question.
“Of course I am,” she said. “You know every inch of my body,” she added, almost sadly. “Intimately. Spock might have had a human mother and Vulcan father, but in real life, different species aren’t sexually or reproductively compatible.”
God she was good. Referencing Star Trek to someone like me was a masterstroke of manipulation. But I was done being manipulated, and this just made me angrier.
“So you’re human. Good to know. But you weren’t born on Earth, either. So explain that. Explain everything.”
“When Nari took over the reins of the Earth mission just after the Second World War, he and the entire Galactic Federation were appalled—horrified—by the atrocities and sheer barbarism our species exhibited. They had known we were wolf-like with a history of violence, but we really outdid ourselves during World War II. To say it freaked them out is an understatement.”
She paused. “Would you like to find somewhere to sit? This could take a while.”
“Standing is fine. Keep going.”
“Okay. Your show. Just let me know if you change your mind. Anyway, the Galactics decided they needed to study us in a more controlled setting. Humanity has come a long way since the forties, but back then, who could have blamed them for thinking we really could be as big a threat to them as the Swarm?”
“So they just whisked a bunch of experimental subjects off the planet?”
“Basically. In a much more sophisticated manner. They approached the best and brightest our world had to offer, tens of thousands of people from a variety of cultures, and speaking a variety of languages. And they made each an offer.”
“What kind of offer?”
“They asked them to volunteer to leave Earth. It took considerable time and effort, but the Galactics convinced the human prospects that they could dramatically extend their life spans if they agreed. Convinced them they’d live a life of luxury and technological sophistication beyond their wildest dreams. Filled them in on the Swarm and explained the stakes involved.”
“Getting me to understand and believe all of this was challenging enough,” I said. “And I came to the party open-minded and seeking answers. Not that you haven’t given me reason to doubt everything Nari has told me,” I added as an aside. “But convincing a wide variety of people in the nineteen forties seems like an impossible ask.”
“Difficult,” said Tessa, “but not impossible. Why do you think the so-called Foo Fighters made themselves so obvious at the time? Because the Federation wanted humanity to begin acclimating to the idea of intelligent life on other planets, so they made them as showy as possible. And it worked almost immediately. Foo Fighter publicity around the world made the people of that time more open-minded to aliens than they would have been otherwise.”
She paused. “Also, you’ve seen yourself how compelling a single ride in a UFO can be, complete with changeable holographic interiors. Long story short, the aliens were able to present a compelling case. And they continued adding hundreds of hand-picked volunteers each year until twenty-six years ago, when they decided it was time to approach Damian Spooner and openly ally with humans on Earth.”
“And everyone the Galactics approached agreed?” I said in disbelief. “To book a one-way trip to Zeta Reticuli?”
“First, not everyone agreed. Those who didn’t had their memories of all interactions with the Galactics erased. And they weren’t taken to Zeta Reticuli. They agreed to live out their lives on the asteroid ship traveling around Saturn.”
She blew out a long breath. “Which is where I was born.”
Incredible. I had believed for some time she had been born off-planet, but to hear it from her own lips was insane. I had briefly dated a woman who had been born and raised in Panama, and I had thought that was exotic. But the rings of Saturn? Just a tiny bit more.
“And this program was orchestrated by Nari?”
“Mostly, yes.”
“For what purpose? So he could have thousands of human guinea pigs at his disposal? Living in a fishbowl?”