The Watcher

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.

Summer. Desert sand everywhere… and in everything. The local star was beating down on my environmental suit with such intensity the light itself had mass. I was melting inside the thing, and I couldn’t focus on anything but how miserable I was.

I’d been stationed on this remote galactic rim world for decades; I just hadn’t been out of stasis for the whole time.

All of us had our assigned roles and when performance of duty was required, we were thawed. Technically it was a bio-stasis field, not freezing, but I’ve been told I have always had a flair for drama.

I was designated an Interventionist. When worlds with intelligent life were discovered, an assessment team was dispatched to study the local sapiens and determine their potential threat to the Council Races. This was Council Law based on lessons learned from a mistake made long ago; a mistake that burned ten thousand worlds and cost ten trillion lives.

Races with cooperative tendencies were nurtured, sometimes guided into Council awareness and then membership. The more cooperative by nature, the earlier the acceptance.

Predatory races without hope of redemption were exterminated. This usually involves a global extinction event.

Worlds with life were numerous, but still precious.Destroying an entire world was an absolute last resort. That type of apocalypse was reserved for predatory species discovered so late that their technology posed a serious and immediate threat to galactic peace.

We had already destroyed one world in this system. It was so long ago even I barely remembered it. The devastation we wrought was so complete we left it a barren rock with no atmosphere to speak of.

This world, the next one in toward their star, was unique. The locals could be so vile. Some of the worst creatures we had ever encountered. Then, suddenly, for some reason known only to them, they would become the most caring, kind, and protective beings we had ever encountered.

They were some of the bravest beings I personally have ever encountered. They risk their lives so brazenly. Sometimes to harm, sometimes to protect, and sometimes it appeared to be…just for fun.

This was a young and savage world, and I would not have wanted to face their perils.

This race could become great protectors of us all, or they could become our persecutors. Or worse, the rebels could find and recruit them, as they had the other world in their system.

The decision on what to do was still being discussed by the Observers and Deciders.

I had been thawed to execute whatever strategy those burdened with command decided was appropriate. I hoped it would not involve planetary destruction. This was a beautiful world.

I decided to walk around and do some observing of my own.More firsthand data would help me improve the effectiveness of whatever method 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 and without the cooler working at maximum, my suit had surplus power, I engaged the light bender and made myself invisible to the locals.

I had barely traveled a thousand steps when I saw two of the locals. They were converging at an intersection of two of their crude versions of a travel lane.

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 was obvious 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 they came face-to-face and neither was going to yield.

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 again.

The male roared right back, grabbed his copper stick, and dove at the animal with as much savagery as the predator.

He stabbed that animal through the side and the point went deep. He must have been quite strong.

The animal, however, spoke the last truth of the encounter.

It used one of its giant claws to slash the male and ripped him open from his throat to his pelvis.

The male 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 the male and knelt beside him.

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 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 his 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 alter the language centers of their brains. Many different splinter groups would form and communicate in a way only they could understand. This would factionalize them, and there would be so many 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, as I always do.

This world so fascinated me that I found myself not wanting to go back into stasis.

I stared out at the now-abandoned structure the locals had started building near the banks 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.