The Mediator was more than a little taken aback. He gathered himself and spoke again.

“I can’t claim to know much about your species physiology, but judging by the…sensitive subject matter, I can only assume this is an emotional reaction of some sort. Take all the time you need, but please. Elaborate”

Janea breathed in deep. She was young, had been born on one of the colonies. She’d never even been to Earth. Its loss still ached, in a distant sort of way. For people her age, the Earth was like a parent that had died before they could form a memory of them. The pain came not from the memories of what they lost, but rather from the knowledge of the memories they would never have.

Those who had been youths or adults at the time would be reduced to tears when watching the footage of Earth. Like almost every human, she’d watched that footage. It was a recording of a slow, agonizing murder. Cities crumbled, oceans were fried into a muck of desiccated animal corpses, continents were cracked. Yet, it was not memories of Earth that brought Janea pain in this moment. It was the memories of its murderers that gripped her heart like a vice.

“I…” Janea took another breath. This will be easy. I know it by heart. Every kid who grew up in the fleet could recite the whole war from memory.

“I will give you the…short version. In the last days of our civilization, we received a demand for one of our star systems by an ancient race known as the Ivos. No explanation was given. Within a few weeks, they invaded our territory. They were vastly more advanced than we were, but we fought back. We even won, for a time. Yet, they kept coming. The harder we fought, the greater their brutality became. One by one, our colonies were burned. Soon, all we had left was the Earth. Our Homeworld. They destroyed it, wiped it clean of all life.”

She took a moment, closing her eyes and swallowing. “A few of us survived, fleeing in whatever ships we could find. Most of us died in the Ivo’s [genocide], however.”

The Zan in the room looked on in horror at the brief, monotone description of crimes worse than anything they could have ever conceived of. The Mediator was the first to find his voice.

“These-” he cleared his throat. “...-These ‘Ivos’, what happened to them?”

“We don’t really know. They returned to their space, for the most part. They leave us alone, strangely enough.”

Had he possessed eyebrows, the Mediator might have raised one. “You’ll have to forgive me, as I find that rather hard to believe.”

“Nevertheless, it is the truth.”

“Why would they commit such astonishing evil, only to just…stop?”

“We don’t know. Maybe they decided we’d suffer more this way.”

The Zani mind struggled to grasp such cruelty. It was just too…irrational. Cruelty for cruelty’s sake was an alien concept to them. A mixture of terror, revulsion, and confusion filled the hearts of every Zani in the room.

“What of your neighbors?” the Mediator asked

“There was little they could hope to do. The Ivo fleet was far too large.”

“So they just…looked the other way?”

“Yes.”

The Mediator took a moment to process that. “I see. So, you’ve let us know that there as an ancient, highly-advanced race of beings that seems to committ genocide on a whim and has a fleet so large that none can hope to challenge them. Why, exactly, do you think going into space will sound appealing to us now?”

“You’ve already been discovered by that automated probe. If we know, then it won’t be long before everyone knows. The Coalition will probably leave you alone, but the Diln aren’t above sending a fleet to subjugate you.”

The Mediator did the Zani equivalent of a sigh. “...Diln?”

“An ancient species of slavers who are currently trying to conquer the entire Orion Arm. The Coalition is an alliance of races trying to stop them.” Janea said in that same bland monotone.

“Ah, of course. What else could they have been?” He rubbed his face with his hands. “Are there any other terrifying existential threats we should be aware of?”

“Well, a particularly bold pirate warlord might have a go at conquering you, but otherwise everyone else has already picked a side in the war, although there are a few irrelevant species that have managed to squeak by unnoticed. Humanity being one of them.”

The Mediator breathed a laugh. “So, what? We’re supposed to just form an alliance with humanity because you happened to be the first people to find us?”

“I don’t have the authority to do that. I told you, we’re just four travelers who want to go home. We’re not offering an alliance, we’re offering a trade. Our knowledge, for your resources. Once our ship is repaired, we’ll leave. If you never want to see another human after that, then that’s your decision.”

The Mediator stood up. “Under the provisions of the Discovery and Diplomacy Act, I have the authority to declare that we accept your offer, and I do, indeed, accept. However, arranging the details of the exchange is beyond my authority. The Governing Council shall take a few days to organize a plan of action. In the meantime, the four of you will be given housing and any supplies you may require to sustain yourselves. You are also free to explore within the limits of the capital city. We shall summon you when we are ready to proceed. I declare this Council session dismissed.” He turned and left the room.

—

“That was surprisingly easy.” Lance said, as the four humans and their Zani chaperone gathered together.

Janea nodded. “I know. I was expecting more pushback.”

“Why? It’s not like they have a choice. The cat’s out of the bag, has been since that probe first discovered them.”

“A cat’s a pet. Kind of like Snowy, but, uh…different.” Janea said, reflexively providing context for their alien friend.

“What? Oh…yes.” Ti-Ro said, before withdrawing back into herself.

The four humans exchanged a glance. Sandra nudged Akito, and gave him her best wifely do something, you idiot look that she could muster.

He coughed, scratched his head, and said something. “So, Ti-Ro. Are there any good places to grab a bite to eat around here? I’m told we’ve got the run of the place for the next good while.”

“…what?” Ti-Ro said distractedly.

Lance stepped in close. “Food. We’d like some. I haven’t eaten anything that didn’t come out of an airtight bag in weeks.”

“Yes, food. To…eat.” She started walking, heading out of the room.

The four humans exchanged another glance. Janea gave a shrug and started after the alien, her three human companions soon following.

—

Zani restaurants seemed to all be buffets. For the alien visitors, this quirk proved quite useful, as it allowed them to test the food to make sure they could eat it without melting their insides with alien chemicals. The humans stacked their plates high with everything that passed their phones’ chemical testing, and then made the trip back to their table. Lance then went off again, and returned with five glasses of suspicious liquid on a tray. He set it on the table.

“Well, I have five glasses of what my translator tells me is “fungus beer”, which smells about as appetizing as it sounds.” he said as he set the tray down.

Janea took a whiff. “I mean, it’s not bad. It’s not good either, but it’s not bad.”

Akito took an experimental sip. He made a face that was neither good nor bad. “It’s like someone made beer out of vodka.”

Sandra looked at him like he was an idiot. “That makes no sense.” She took a sip. “...oh my God you’re right.”

The two younger humans took their own experimental sips, and had equally mixed reactions to the beverage. Lance picked up something on his plate, and watched it squirm in his fingers.

“Now, these things caught my eye most of all. They seem to be ‘shellfish’ in the most literal sense of the word. I didn’t have the courage to ask if they were still alive. I’m also not sure how I’m supposed to eat it.”

Janea looked at it in fascination. “Wow. It looks like a rock that magically turned into a fish.”

“Or a fish that is slowly turning into a rock.” Lance countered. “Either way, I don’t know how to eat it. Any advice from our local girl?” he said, turning to Ti-Ro.

She was startled. “Oh! Umm...we usually just put them in our mouths.”

Lance smacked his head into the table. “Yes, I could gather that much. I mean, which part do I put in my mouth?”

“...all of it?” Ti-Ro asked, momentarily broken out of her thoughts by the perplexing question.

Lance looked at the rockfish and then looked back at the Zani. “Hilarious, can I get a serious answer.”

“I was being serious.” she snatched it from his fingers and tossed it into her mouth. Unnaturally loud crunching followed as she ate the animal. For the first time, the humans actually took the time to get a good look at their alien friend’s teeth.

Lance was mesmerized. “Good God, they’re like soccer cleats. It’s a wonder the dentists on this planet don’t hang themselves.”

“What is a ‘dentist’?”

Akito laughed. “Well, that’s a terrifying question.”

Sandra answered. “It is a person whose job is to take care of other people’s teeth.”

“Who would pay for that? Don’t your teeth grow back?” Ti-Ro asked, not a trace of deception on her face.

“It’s surprising how well you pull off the ‘puppy dog eyes’, considering you don’t have pupils.” Lance said.

“That does not answer my question. In fact, it only gives me more questions.” Ti-Ro said in annoyance.

Sandra extended the alien a lifeline. “No, Ti-Ro, we grow one set of teeth as children, and then a second, permanent set as adults.”

“I…see.” her brief burst of energy seemed to have gone as whatever was troubling her seemed to return to her memory.

“Alright, this is ridiculous. Ti-Ro, what is wrong?” Janea asked in exasperation.

“Nothing.” she said, about as unconvincingly as possible.

“Ti-Ro, I’m insulted you’d think I’d buy that.” Lance said.

She pulled at the hair on one of her tails in anxiety. “It’s just…how are you ok?”

Janea sighed. “You’re talking about Earth, I take it?”

She nodded emphatically, her love of the human gesture was displayed even now.

“Yes! How do you go from emotional pain so terrible you have a physiological reaction, to joking about…rockfish, and mushroom beer?”

Sandra placed her hand on Ti-Ro’s. “Ti-Ro, it does hurt. Even now, it hurts. For every one of us.”

Akito stared into his cup. “Sixteen billion nine hundred ninety-nine million seven hundred eighty thousand.”

It was an agonizingly familiar number for the few humans left alive.

“What?” Ti-Ro asked, confused by the non-sequitur.

“That’s the rough estimate of how many people were murdered by the Ivos.” Lance said, his voice taking on a monotone all too similar to the one Janea had used.

Ti-Ro felt ill, and it only grew worse as she processed the number. It was an inconceivable amount of deaths. It was a figure composed not of numbers, but of people. Each one was an individual, each one had been its own story. Every triumph, every tragedy, it had all amounted to nothing for seventeen billion stories that ended in ash and death. An atrocity of a scale physically impossible to comprehend

Zan did not shed tears, but they certainly did cry. Ti-Ro struggled to fight down the urge to sob. That such a nightmare could be real was a tragedy that demanded her sorrow.

“How…?” she asked, unable to articulate her swirling thoughts.

“You get used to it, after a while.” Janea said. “Brains are good at compartmentalizing. When you’re in the moment, living your life, it gets tucked away in a little box where you don’t have to think about it. But, in the quiet moments, it comes again. It will always be there.”

Akito leaned against the table, thoroughly interested in his cup. “We keep going, because otherwise it all meant nothing. While we live, they live on in memory. All of them, from even before the Nightmare. If we give up, lay down and die, then there will be no one left to prove that human civilization ever existed at all. That’s why we keep going, why we laugh and joke and live. That’s who we do it for.”

He raised his glass, the other humans doing the same. They uttered the words of the toast that had become tradition in the twenty years since the fall of Man.

“For Them.”