Only Human

Only Human

By Sylvain Neuvel (excerpt)

File No. EE955 – personal file from Esat Ekt

Personal Journal Entry – Dr. Rose Franklin

Be careful what you wish for.

About ten years ago – I was thirty-seven at the time – a giant robot from another planet visited Earth and decimated part of London. We succeeded in destroying it, but thirteen more appeared and dispersed a genetically engineered gaseous weapon in two does of our most populous cities. One hundred million people died on the process. Among them, this mysterious man whose name I never learned, who steered our every move ever since I was put in charge of studying that giant hand at the University of Chicago, and Kara Resnik, my best friend, who was also Vincent's wife, and Eva's biological mother.

With some help, I found a way to alter the metal these robots were made of at the molecular level and disabled one of them. That was enough to convince the aliens to leave.

I can't say that I knew that was going to happen, that millions would die because I had discovered Themis and brought attention to our planet, but I was afraid it would. I was afraid ever since I was brought back to life. I felt... out of place, and I wished that whoever built Themis would come back and take her away. I also said I hoped they would take me with them.

They did. After the alien robots left Earth, General Eugene Govender, head of the EDC, Vincent, Eva, and I went aboard Themis to celebrate our – I was going to say victory, but that's not what it was – survival. While we were there, the Council of Akitast – the group of aliens who decide how their world deals with others – had Themis brought back. She dematerialized on Earth and reappeared on Themis's home planet, with the four of us inside.

Only Human. Photo by Elena.

They call it Esat Ekt – Home of the Ekt, their people. In some small way, they're also our people. The Ekt first came to Earth some five thousand years ago – twenty-four of them or so. They were among us for a couple of millenia. They were ordered never to interfere, to stay out of history's way, but over time., some of them frayed and joined the natives. They had children – half-human, half-alien – who in turn had children – three-quarter human – and so on, until their descendants, indistinguishable from humans, had but a tin bit of alien genetics left in them. Three thousand years later, there was nothing left in them. Three thousand years later, there was nothing left to distinguish them from. All of us, every single person on Earth, were related, however remotely, with the handful of aliens who chose love over duty, back when the Titans walked the Earth.

We have been living here on Esat Ekt for nine years now, but we are still very much outsiders. Their entire society is built on the idea that different species shouldn't interact in ways that can affect them, that each should be left to evolve according to its own set of values. Centuries ago, their kind was nearly decimated by the inhabitants of a planet their emperor had displaced, exiled for personal or political raisons. After that, they replaced their monarchy with a very complex democracy, and took their noninterference policy to a whole new level. To the Ekt,”polluting” an entire species with their genetics means robbing them of the future they should have. They view this as we would genocide.