Free IGMS Issue 22 by IGMS Page B

Enough so that if any of us were still biologically intact, we could breed with them."
    "But how?" I asked, sweeping my arm towards the far side of the lagoon. "None of the colonies survived. Earth? Gone. Everywhere humans put down roots, the Swarmers located and destroyed them."
    "Like I said," Wanda repeated, "evidence indicates that these people have been here for a very, very long time. Someone -- something -- brought them here."
    I wondered who could have survived an era of interstellar flight long enough to avoid annihilation at the hands of the Swarmers, much less discovered humans and gone to the trouble of seeding us on a world so wonderfully and rarely like our own; before it too was destroyed.
    The Swarmers hated all intelligent life that was not their own. I knew first-hand. I'd found the nebular remnants of the other systems the Swarmers had obliterated -- inspected the crude probes those vanished races had flung into the void, unaware that their end was near.
    If your radio broadcasts didn't tattle on you, eventual discovery of the transluminal Link would. Earth and her colonies had discovered this the hard way.
    "So what are we doing about early warning?" I asked.
    "We're synthesizing a series of passive transluminal event detectors in this system's Kuiper region," Carlos said. He looked mostly like his original self, though he'd opted for skin black as midnight. "We also need to think about re-seeding some of these people to other worlds while we have the opportunity."
    "Earth tried that," I said. "The Swarmers found all our Easter eggs, and smashed them."
    "The colonies," Carlos replied, "were not aware of the Swarmers until it was too late."
    "They also retained Earth-level technology," Wanda said, "including constant Link to Sol. They'd have survived longer if the Link hadn't pointed the Swarmers to every world."
    "Which explains why Eden has survived unmolested for so long," I said. "If these people have remained at this basic level for the entirety of their existence, it's kept the Swarmers blissfully ignorant of their presence."
    Wanda simply nodded.
    I watched the Eden humans move their baskets up the beach, and into the trees. There was a village set back, away from the shoreline, and several tiny columns of smoke began to curl up into the breezy tropical air. Cooking fires? How long had it been since I'd eaten meat from a barbecue? The very thought gave me memory pangs of my last trip home to see my sister's family. Her husband had broiled New York strip steaks in the back yard, the glorious smell of beef wafting in through the open kitchen window.
    Damn, it seemed just like yesterday.
    Only now there were no more cows. Not even cow DNA from which to synthesize a new breed. The supernovas created by the Swarmers had taken care of that.
    They'd do the same to Eden, given the chance.
    I looked up into the sky, to where my ship orbited in concert with Wanda's, Ormond's, Carlos's, and a few others who were on the surface. Technically, our minds had never left space. Our bodies on the beach were Linked to the data cores in each ship. Short distance Link was harmless. The scanners the Swarmers used couldn't track over mere interplanetary distances. It was the interstellar stuff they watched for -- communications indicative of potential rivals.
    Those of us who had survived this far, since the long-ago destruction of Sol and the Earth colonies, had learned to go about our business as quietly as possible.
    "How can I help?" I asked, turning to face the small group.
    "Do you know the location of anyone else?" Wanda asked. "Anyone who isn't already here?"
    I shrugged. "I met Izuko about two hundred years ago. He said he was heading for one of the Magellanic Clouds. Haven't seen him since. Same for Venka, who said she was headed for the galactic core. Something about studying the event horizon at the core's perimeter. To be honest, I haven't made any effort to keep in touch."
    "None of us have," Wanda said. "Wish