The Blue Dot.

Page 1: A discovery that could not wait

Aren Tal ran so hard that the bronze chart struck his ribs with every step. He had checked the coordinates three times. He had checked the signal five. There was nothing left to do except make the elders believe him.

The sun burned along the sandstone passage. Ahead, the doors of the council hall stood half closed. Aren put his shoulder to them and broke the silence inside with a sound that sent every face turning.

“Elders! I need the council!”

Elder Seya rose from her seat. Her silver braids caught the light above the broad sun-disc at her throat. “Breathe, Aren. What have you found?”

He tried to answer, discovered that running had borrowed all his breath, and set the chart on the central table instead. A point of blue appeared above it. The point grew into oceans, clouds and the curve of an unfamiliar world.

“A world,” he said at last. “An inhabited world.”

Nobody interrupted him now.

“They call it Earth.” Aren looked from the projection to the elders. “I call it… the blue dot.”

Meet Aren Tal

Alizean scientist

A scientist on Almag’s sunlit hemisphere, Aren brings a discovery too urgent to walk with: a blue planet inhabited by people of extraordinary will and imagination.

He measures the heavens with instruments. The excitement in his voice comes from what those instruments cannot tell him—who humanity might become.

Page 2: Everything good

Aren spread the transmissions around the globe. There were patterns in them: questions repeated across generations, failed attempts followed by new attempts, impossible things slowly becoming ordinary.

“Its people call themselves humans. Their willpower is extraordinary.” He leaned closer to the little world. “They imagine what does not exist—then spend their lives making it real.”

Seya watched a ribbon of light cross the blue surface. “And if the Maggis learn of them?”

Aren did not answer quickly enough. That was answer enough.

The elder turned to the council. “Then we must reach them first. Dispatch the exploration pods. Claim this world for everything good.”

Beyond the hall, the launch terraces woke. Four exploration ships rose from their cradles, ivory hulls catching the endless sun. Two bronze battleships climbed above them to guard the expedition.

Aren stayed by the projection after the elders had gone. So much hope could fit inside a point of light. So much could be done in hope’s name.

Let us be worthy of what we find, he thought.

Meet Elder Seya

Voice of the Alizean council

Seya listens before she decides. Among the elders, her calm authority turns a scientist’s report into a mission with consequences far beyond the council hall.

To her, duty and certainty are close companions. The people of the blue planet have not yet been asked what they want.

Page 3: News travels into darkness

On Almag’s other side, morning was a thing that happened elsewhere. Artificial light ran through the research city in narrow blue veins.

Veyr stood within one of those lights when the report arrived. The commander’s great black eyes reflected a small blue sphere.

“An inhabited world,” said the relay. “The Alizean have already launched.”

Veyr read the assessment without moving. Where the elders had seen promise, the Maggis commander saw a resource no archive yet possessed.

“Willpower,” Veyr said. “Imagination.” The words were spoken as though they could be weighed, separated and placed in chambers.

A long pale finger closed the report. “Prepare the collection vessels. We will study this blue dot for ourselves.”

Deep beneath the research towers, hangar doors opened. Engines illuminated hulls that the permanent darkness had kept hidden. The Maggis exploration pods departed in the wake of their fleet.

By the time the last vessel left, the city was quiet again. Its lights did not dim.

Meet Veyr

Maggis research commander

Across Almag’s divide, Veyr receives news of the same distant world. His measured voice makes even an extraordinary discovery sound like a problem awaiting a method.

Knowledge is valuable to him. So is the power to decide who collects it. His command post is on Almag; he is not the pilot of the vessel approaching Earth.

Page 4: Visitors without an invitation

Earth turned beneath two Alizean battleships. From that height, borders disappeared. Weather moved across oceans. On the night side, human cities made their own small constellations.

“Two battleships holding position,” came the command signal. “Exploration ships one through four: begin descent.”

Four smaller craft slipped away from the great bronze hulls. Their surfaces shimmered. One by one, the ships borrowed the colours of the world beneath them until only a distortion of cloud and light remained.

“Camouflage active. Entering the atmosphere.”

Their orders were to bring human specimens aboard. The council had called its purpose good. The people below had been told nothing at all.

The exploration ships vanished into the atmosphere. Above them, a warning crossed the battleships’ instruments. More vessels were coming: graphite hulls, cold engines, an unmistakable Maggis formation.

The Alizean guns turned.

“Maggis vessels approaching. Keep them away from the planet.”

Page 5: One got through

The Alizean fired first. Lines of light crossed the distance between the fleets, and the leading Maggis vessel opened along its side.

The reply came too late. Above Earth’s blue curve, the battleships held their ground. Maggis hulls broke under the barrage, scattering metal into the paths of the vessels behind them.

For a moment, the field of wreckage hid a smaller movement. A single exploration pod slipped beneath the fighting and drove toward the atmosphere.

“One pod has crossed!”

An Alizean shot caught it at the edge of the blue. The pod lurched, lost its clean line of flight, and became a burning streak.

Below it lay the Atlantic Ocean. No landing platform. No welcoming signal. Only water, dark and immense.

The impact threw a white column into the air. Waves closed over the damaged hull. For a moment, a cold blue light remained visible beneath the surface. Then the ocean swallowed that too.

Far above, the battle continued.

Page 6: The man who was watching

Mr Bigg was still at his desk when his satellite returned the impossible.

Big Labs was the largest science facility in Nigeria, and as its founder and chief executive he could have asked someone else to review the late feed. He preferred to look for himself. Machines were very good at reporting what they had been told to notice. Discovery sometimes required noticing something else.

He leaned toward the display. A flash marked the edge of the atmosphere. Then another. The objects beside them were moving with purpose.

“That cannot be right.”

He enlarged the feed. A hull filled the screen. Another vessel broke apart beyond it.

Bigg stumbled back from the desk, his hand catching its edge. “Those are ships,” he said into the empty room. “They’re fighting over us.”

He reached for his phone. Professor Adun would listen long enough to look at the evidence. That was all he needed: one person who would look.

The call began to ring. “Adun. Please pick up.”

Meet Mr Bigg

Dr Magnus Bigg · Founder of Big Labs

A prominent Nigerian scientist and the founder of Big Labs, Magnus Bigg has built his life around questions other people dismiss. He is better known simply as Mr Bigg.

His laboratory gives him the tools to watch the skies. His stubbornness makes him keep watching. Behind the public warnings is a man who still reaches for a friend when something frightens him.

Page 7: Missing

The call rang out. Bigg tried again. Still nothing.

“Come on, Adun. Where are you?”

He switched on the television. Perhaps the rest of the world had seen the flashes. Perhaps someone had an explanation he had missed.

A news presenter was speaking over pictures of worried families. “Reports of missing people are coming in from across the country.” The report offered no explanation. Names, locations, appeals for information: each detail made the room feel smaller.

Bigg looked from the television to the satellite feed. The battle was still there. So were the reports. He could not yet prove a connection, but he could no longer treat either as an isolated problem.

“First the ships. Now this.”

He put down the phone and reached for his keys. The small metal ring slid beneath his fingers. He closed his hand around it and turned toward the door.

The room became white.

Bigg stopped. The light had no visible source. It did not fall through a window or spread from a lamp. It was simply there, surrounding him.

“What—?”

Page 8: No one could hear him

“Who’s there?”

Bigg raised an arm across his eyes. He could still see the desk beyond the light, the open satellite feed, the television carrying on with its report. Everything familiar was only a few steps away.

He tried to take one of those steps. His foot found no floor.

The keys slipped from his hand. He watched them fall while he rose, a small ordinary thing moving in the direction his body should have gone. They struck the tiles below him.

Bigg reached for the desk. His fingertips closed on light.

“Help!”

He screamed again, with everything he had. No one could hear him. The room drew away beneath his shoes. White filled the edges of his glasses, then the lenses, then everything.

And he was gone.

The laboratory returned to its own quiet lights. The phone lay on the desk. The keys lay on the floor. On the television, people were still asking where their loved ones had gone.

Above the blue dot, the battle continued.