Spire - 2. Relic

“Can’t be that bad.” Daiandra shrugged, sipping her drink. Caeto sat beside her, two hands in their lap; two nursing a thin tumbler of mildly fluorescent fluid. Daiandra glanced at them, awaiting a response with slight anxiety. Caeto stared ambivalently ahead, their lean, hairless features deceptively un-tense. Not for the first time, Daiandra noted how…aesthetic Caeto was. Features elegant and streamlined…deeply symmetrical…uncannily smooth and unblemished pale skin. Other than the four arms and complete lack of hair…the absence of ears and the abnormal grace of their features, Quadrians looked relatively human. She had trouble not evaluating herself in contrast; her mottled pink-and white skin, her dirty blond hair and slightly gapped front teeth. For a moment she felt a disjoint across a cosmic distance; an almost…evolutionary sense of physical inferiority, as if she was a draft, or an earlier iteration of something long since optimised.

“The human tendency to either minimise or catastrophise is largely a trait, in our estimation.” Caeto shrugged, taking a sip of luminescent fluid.

“Cool. For sure, for sure.” Daiandra rolled her eyes.

“We’re just observing that it’s not objective. Not something we share with you.”

“What, so every time you guys think something’s catastrophic, it’s because it is?”

“Simply? Yes. It’s just a matter of weighing evidence. If we disrupted a Yaevran relic - which remains to be seen - and if the Yaevran’s choose to respond - which they rarely do - and if that response is - "

“ - Okay, I get it. Lots of variables, and until they’re locked in we can’t do a real threat assessment.”

“Mmm.” Caeto confirmed. Daiandra paused, running her fingers slowly, thoughtfully, around the rim of her empty glass. Looking down at it, she thought about the planetary surface of Uvnaethe. Glassing was standard procedure for corporate expansions like this: if you wanted to build, you needed materials. And obviously you wanted those materials nice and sterilised and uniform. It made a certain kind of sense. But like…all technology - from a human perspective at least - there was the technical utility, and then there were…miscellaneous applications. She glanced over at Caeto.

“Were we a catastrophe?” She asked: “For the Quadrians?”

“In the beginning, you mean? When you first visited our world?” They asked. Daiandra shivered slightly. It was such a neutral, euphemistic way of describing what had happened all that time ago.

“Mmhmm.”

“For a time.”

“And now?”

“Allies.”

“So it’s forgive and forget?”

“It’s ‘forgive’. Quadrians never forget.”

“Humans forget all the time.”

“We’re aware.”

“Gods, you’re so…” Daiandra trailed off with a sigh. She motioned for the bartender. He sidled up with a disinterested glower, floppy fringe falling over his face, old-timey button-up attire seeming to organically become even more rumpled and un-ironed, just for her: “Another Belter, please.”

“We will also have another.” Caeto nodded. Wordlessly, the bartender got to work.

“So let’s game this out a bit - "

“ - There are too many unknowns in the equation.” Caeto aborted the line of thought with another shrug. Daiandra sighed as the bartender slid a tumbler of clear alcohol over ice in her direction. She took a sip and winced. Belters were designed to mask their alcohol content, but the results were highly variable. For a drink that had originated in the early mining colony days of the Sol systems’ asteroid belt, the focus was, predictably, on efficiency over enjoyment.

“Humour me?” Caeto nodded, relenting.

“The Yaevrans are unpredictable. We know this much. But if we look at historical records, both of our species’ encounters with them amount to being…” Caeto trailed off, searching for the right word in English.

“Punished.” Daiandra finished.

“Mmm.” Caeto confirmed. “There is a severity versus likelihood issue here, where the likelihood is moderate-to-low that this will provoke a response, but if it does, that response would probably result in the system as a whole being lost.”

“And it wouldn’t even be a fight.”

“To fight, there must be something to fight. Historically, Yaevran responses align more with…natural forces. Take Epaedra, for example.”

“Black hole.”

“Or Tetherine.”

“What was that one?”

“Yes, that would very much be the question, wouldn’t it? Because the system is no longer there.”

“I don’t understand how you can say it isn’t catastrophic - "

“ - We didn’t say it wasn’t catastrophic, just that we don’t yet have the understanding to know whether it will be. We should prepare, and we should attempt to mitigate, if possible. But the Yaevrans will do what the Yaevrans will do and we will do what we will do.”

“You’re very alien.” Daiandra noted after a pause.

“You’re very alien.” Caeto reminded her.

“Touché.” Daiandra frowned, sipping her Belter. As her lips bumped gently against glass and ice, she again remembered the surface of Uvnaethe. She glanced over at Caeto: “Should we have sex again?” She finally asked, apropos of nothing in particular. Caeto considered this for a few moments.

“If you wish, we suppose.” They finally shrugged. “Are you feeling tension?”

“Well that hurts.” Daiandra’s frown tightened into a scowl.

“We're just noting the correlation - "

“ - If you don’t want to - "

“ - That isn’t what we said - "

“ - Psychoanalysing me over coping mechanisms kind of implies that - "

“ - It implies that we care about your mental health more than our interest in recreation - "

“ - But it is recreation? You like doing that with me?”

“Of course we do, Daiandra, or we wouldn’t do it.”

“Then fuck my mental health. And-slash-or me. Okay?” Daiandra punctuated the sentence by downing the remainder of her belter, coughing and feeling her eyes begin to water.