Watcher. That is my function now. I watch, I report. It was not always so. I will back up… certainly not to the beginning, but to the beginning of this story.
It is Summer. Desert sand everywhere… and in everything. The local star is beating down on my environmental suit with such intensity the light itself had mass. I am melting inside it, and I can’t focus on anything but how miserable I am.
I’ve been stationed on this remote galactic rim world for decades; Well, I’ve been here for decades. I’ve only been out of stasis for a few days now.
All of us have our assigned roles and when performance of duty is required, we are thawed. Technically it is a bio-stasis field, not freezing, but I’ve been told I have always had a flair for drama.
I am an Interventionist. When worlds with intelligent life are discovered, an assessment team is dispatched to study the local sapient species and determine its potential threat to the Council Races. This is Council Law based on lessons learned from a mistake made long ago; a mistake that burned a thousand worlds and cost trillions of lives.
When discovered, races with cooperative tendencies are nurtured, sometimes guided into Council awareness and later membership. The more cooperative by nature, the earlier the acceptance.
Predatory races without hope of redemption are exterminated. This usually involves a global extinction event.
Worlds with life are numerous, but all still precious. Destroying an entire world is an absolute last resort. That type of apocalypse is reserved for predatory creatures discovered so late their technology poses a serious and immediate threat to galactic peace.
We had already destroyed one world in this system. It was so long ago we barely remembered it. We were efficient. The devastation we wrought was so complete we left it a barren rock.
This world, the next one in toward their star, is unique. The native sapiens are vile. Some of the most hateful creatures we’ve ever encountered.
Then, suddenly, for some reason known only to them, they can become the most caring, kind, and protective of individuals.
They are brave to a fault and will risk their lives so without a second thought. Sometimes to harm, sometimes to protect, and sometimes it appeared to be… because they enjoy spitting into the eye of mortality.
This is a young and savage world, and I would not want to face its perils without the technologies that protect me. Our technology is so far ahead of these primitives it might as well be magic.
These beings could become great protectors of Confederation, or they could become destructive nightmares.
The decision on what to do is still being discussed by the Deciders.
I have been thawed to execute whatever strategy those burdened with command decide is appropriate. I hope it will not involve planetary destruction. This is a beautiful world with many times the living species found on most worlds.
I decided to go out and do some observing of my own. More firsthand data would help me improve the effectiveness of whatever outcome was ultimately chosen. Well, unless it involved planetary annihilation, but these primitives were nowhere near that level of threat so I considered that possibility to be unrealistic.
I waited until their sun dropped below the horizon. During local night without the cooler working at maximum, my suit had surplus power, so I engaged the light bender and made myself invisible to most spectrums of light local eyes used for their version of sight.
I had barely traveled a thousand steps when I saw two of the locals. They were converging at an intersection of their crude versions of travel lanes.
From the left path came a large male. He sprouted clumps of long hair at various points on his bipedal frame, and he carried a sharpened stick with a point made of hammered copper. He was as deadly a creature as this world currently produced.
From the right came a female completely wrapped in the fabric they somehow made. It must have taken one of them weeks to weave enough plant fiber to make that garment.
In this heat I didn’t know why they bothered.
From their adornments it appeared each belonged to a different local tribe. The two groups they came from were constantly in conflict over local resources. Especially water. I suspected the large male was going to end up killing the female. The strong usually dominated the weak on this world.
When they both met at the intersection, they made a point of walking the same line, so each obstructed the path of the other, and once face-to-face neither was going to step aside and yield passage.
They began making noises that grew louder. I assumed it was some sort of vocalization and they understood the content.
The large male used his hands to make gestures, while the smaller female held a bundle of that cloth close to her chest. She was every bit as loud as he was, just not as animated.
The noise must have attracted one of the local predators because a massive carnivore jumped out from a grouping of rocks and roared. It was covered in matted brown fur that was longer around neck than on the rest of its body.
It dropped its head and began a slow slumped-shoulder predatory circle around the female.
That is when this species surprised me yet again.
The male roared right back at it, grabbed his copper stick, and dove at the animal with at least as much savagery as the threatening beast.
Almost too fast to see, he stabbed that animal through the side and the point went deep. He must have been quite strong.
The animal, however, spoke the last word of the encounter.
As it curled under the tip of his crude spear, it used one of its giant claws to slash the male open from his throat to his pelvis.
He collapsed beside the animal that would soon be his killer. They both lay on the warm sand, their life energies mixing as it flowed out of them.
The female rushed over to him and knelt.
She showed him the bundle of cloth in her arms and made more noises that were clearly in a different tone. I probably should have taken the time to have one of their local language models uploaded into my mind, but there was just so much to see and do when one is not in stasis.
That is when I saw the movement. A tiny version of their gripping appendage rose up from the bundle of cloth. It contained an offspring.
This species perplexed me.
Two obvious enemies. Both demanding the other step aside. But when outside danger appeared, the stronger one did not hesitate to risk, and ultimately give, his life to protect his enemy — his weaker and more vulnerable enemy.
Her offspring would likely grow up to war against his, but still he offered them mercy and protection. And he did it with a bravery I have not seen for many cycles; not since the great war.
Watching her comfort him in his last moments somehow seemed selfish.
I turned and headed back to base.
By the time I returned a decision had been reached.
They were too young to eliminate and still showed much potential.
They also carried the greatest danger we had ever sensed in a found species (according to the Deciders).
We would deploy satellites and use targeted microwaves to alter the language centers of their brains. Many different splinter groups would form and only be able to communicate in a way their small grouping could understand. This would factionalize them, and there would be so many different groups this world would resemble the number of member worlds represented by the council.
If they could manage to overcome differences in their own species, then perhaps they would learn cooperation and coexistence at a level the other members of the galaxy demanded.
If not, they would likely do the final extermination for us, and we would not carry its shame.
I did my job efficiently, as I have always done.
But, yet. This world so fascinated me that I found myself not wanting to go back into stasis.
I stared out at the now-abandoned structure some of the locals had started building near the banks of the river they called Euphrates, and I volunteered to stay awake and observe and send reports.
Life had become so dull over the millennia, and this place had become so interesting.
And that is how I became the only one of us who was ever allowed to alter my oath and change from Interventionist to Watcher.