🌒

“I think our destiny lies not down in a gravity well, but up here among the stars.” You brute force your way through enough signs to say this, hoping it makes sense.

Akiko stares out into the sky. “Only time will tell who has it right,” she signs. “We’re technopaths, anyway, the material world isn’t our realm to control.”

Here in the nightside, the four birds return to the ground around Akiko. She throws a bag to you, and you catch it as it drifts slowly toward you in a straight line. “Make some friends.”

It’s full of seeds. Must have been collected from the plants in the colony. Getting plant seeds would normally cost a fortune. Once you have them, the birds approach you on the ground, looking up at you inquisitively. Of course, they eat these, right. You take some and scatter them toward the animals, and they excitedly feast on them.

Akiko stands up. “I have to get going,” she signs. You realize you should head back too, you’re pretty fatigued from the intense gravity.

She points to the bag of seeds.