The drums were the worst part.

  They crawled under his skin, vibrated in his damaged knee, and reminded him of a heartbeat that wasn’t his. Every strike was a question: Why aren’t you down there?

  Real drums, made from stretched synthetic fabric and hollowed-out logs. The rhythm was low, steady, and entirely human. To Nathan, it didn’t sound like a celebration. It sounded like a countdown.

  Silence he could handle. In the quiet, he could pretend she was just asleep in the next room. But the drums ruined the lie. Their joy felt invasive. It was a loud, rhythmic reminder that the world was moving on without her.

  Tonight, the twin moons were full, hanging heavy over the settlement of Solace. The colony had sprawled outward from the initial landing zone… a chaotic mix of sleek, alien-printed white stone and rough-hewn timber cabins that surprisingly smelled of pine.

  Nathan sat on the railing of his porch, a piece of sandpaper in one hand and a block of cedar in the other. He worked the wood rhythmically, matching the beat of the drums, seeking comfort in the friction.

  Down in the plaza, the bonfire roared. The shadows of thousands of people danced against the white walls of the business district. The colony had named their mating parties the “Choosing Ceremony.”

  At first, the aliens had tried to schedule reproduction like a manufacturing run. Dr. Brown had tried to organize it like a cattle drive. The women of Solace had said no to both.

  They’d sworn they wouldn’t formalize it. Then the months passed, fear settled into routine, and routine demanded a calendar. A celebration that became a monthly festival. A night where the few remaining men stood in the center, willing and available, and the women walked the circle. There was no force. No assignment. Just biology trying to outrun extinction in the firelight.

  Nathan watched a woman step forward and take the hand of a man from his building crew. They laughed, heads close, before walking away toward the bamboo groves.

  It was beautiful, yet necessary. And oddly reminded him of a nature show on mating season.

  His gaze drifted to the edge of the firelight, where the cushioned chairs sat in a privileged semi-circle. These were the VIPs of the new world. Not the politicians, not the engineers, but the pregnant. There were nearly fifty of them now, their bellies swelling beneath shimmering white tunics that caught the bonfire’s glow like pearls. They sat together, hands resting protectively on their laps… a cluster of fragile hope wrapped in silent terror.

  No one said it out loud, but everyone thought it: Will our children have the teleportation sickness? Will they, too, be fused?

  Nathan looked away. He took a sip of the fermented fruit wine in his cup. It tasted like sweet vinegar, but it burned just right.

  His thoughts always led to Christine.

  He didn’t just remember her face; he remembered the noise of her. The way she would drop her keys on the counter and announce, “I have conquered the grocery store!” The way she laughed with her whole body, tilting her head back until her neck exposed that soft hollow at her throat.

  She’d snort sometimes, right at the end, and then get embarrassed about the snort, which would make her laugh harder. It was like watching fireworks that set off more fireworks.

  She was chaos. She was joy. Missing her was almost too much to bear.

  To go down there, to take another woman’s hand, felt like erasing her. It felt like admitting that her silence was permanent.

  He turned his back on the plaza, his porch unbearably close to the festivities. He walked down the side path toward the edge of the treeline, seeking the only thing he could trust: Solitude.

  The woods were quieter, but the “Lust Moon,” as the survivors called it, reached even here. Nathan kept his eyes on the ground. Not out of shame… just courtesy. It wasn’t his party.

  His boot crunched over something soft.

  A particularly enthusiastic vocalization echoed from the bamboo grove nearby, loud and unexpected.

  “You stepped on a hallucination,” the voice said behind him. “Please remain still in case it reforms.”

  “Jesus!” Nathan clutched his chest, dropping the sandpaper. “What? Hallucination? Do you practice that? Stand in front of a mirror going how can I be more terrifying today?”

  “I do not stand in front of a mirror,” Patrick said, then paused. “I am uncertain what activity you reference.”

  Nathan rubbed his face. Explaining things to Patrick was often difficult. For a brilliant species, talking to Patrick was like talking to a curious child. “Of course not.”

  Another sound erupted from the grove... this one fueled with the Lust Moon’s energy. Someone invoking a deity. Repeatedly.

  Patrick’s head snapped toward the sound, his sensors whirring. “Should I alert medical? That sounded like acute distress.”

  “They’re fine, Patrick.” Nathan winced, taking a sharp step back toward the path. The sounds were distinct now… too intimate, and far too close. He felt like an intruder. “Trust me. We need to go.”

  “The decibel level suggests otherwise.”

  Nathan pinched the bridge of his nose, stepping between the alien and the clearing to block his view. “They’re expressing... enthusiasm. Now seriously, stop staring. It’s weird. We need to go.”

  “Enthusiasm.” Patrick didn’t budge. He tapped a note on his datapad. “Earl mentioned enthusiasm as ‘bringing down the house.’ Should I check structural integrity?”

  “What? No. God, no.” Nathan stepped into the alien’s line of sight, making a frantic shooing motion toward the main path like he was herding a stray cat. “Just... come on. Walk away. And stop getting advice from Earl!”

  Patrick didn’t budge. “Negative. The observation is yielding valuable metrics. I require…”

  Suddenly, the noise in the bushes stopped. There was a frantic rustling, the sharp snap of a branch, and then the sound of hurried footsteps retreating deeper into the darker, denser bamboo.

  Patrick tilted his head, his sensors whirring as he tracked them. “Ah. Subjects have disengaged and relocated to a tertiary cover. Visual line of sight is compromised.”

  He turned to the rest of the woods, his eyes scanning for heat signatures. “I must locate an alternative pairing to observe.”

  “No,” Nathan said quickly, stepping into his path. “No more bushes, Patrick. You’re going to give someone a heart attack. If you want to know about the rituals, just ask. I’ll explain them to you.”

  Patrick paused, his lights cycling as he calculated the efficiency of this offer. “Verbal data is acceptable. Very well. I will accompany you.”

  Nathan exhaled. “Gee. Thanks.”

  As the alien stepped onto the path, his liquid-glass armor rippled. The nine-foot giant shrank, the light condensing until he stood a manageable six feet tall. The intimidating armor faded, replaced by a simple tunic that mimicked human style. His skin was still that translucent blue-violet, pulsing with blue light, but he looked less like a god and more like a monk.

  “New suit?” Nathan asked, eyeing the shorter frame.

  “Affirmative. The previous avatar caused cervical strain in human conversational partners. I adjusted the verticality to facilitate eye contact. Do you like it?”

  “It’s... less terrifying,” Nathan admitted, falling into step beside the monk-like alien.

  They moved along the crushed-stone path, putting distance between themselves and the sounds of the bamboo grove. Above them, the faint, geometric shimmer of the Nexus grid hummed with light… a silent ceiling over their world.

  Nathan watched the grid as they walked. “Patrick, I’ve seen other avatars patrolling the walls up there, but they never come close. I only ever speak to you. Why don’t the rest of them come down here like you?”

  Patrick’s lights dimmed, like he was choosing words that wouldn’t start a riot. “Most do not deploy avatars closer to the population. Human environments are… saturated.”

  “Saturated?” Nathan repeated.

  “Your moisture is inefficient,” Patrick said flatly. “Behavior barbaric.”

  “And you don’t care about… inefficient… barbaric moisture?”

  “I am the biologist.”

  Of course. Nathan exhaled. “Great. So… what were you doing in the bushes there, Biologist Patrick?”

  Patrick pointed a slender gray finger toward a clearing about thirty yards away. Another couple’s silhouettes were entwined against a tree.

  “Observation,” Patrick whispered. “I am attempting to understand the mechanics of the human mating.”

  He tapped his datapad, scrolling through data streams. “Earl provided context. He stated the humans were ‘getting lucky.’ However, I have been monitoring the event for twelve minutes. The encounter appears to be entirely intentional. The physical coupling is a mutual decision. I fail to see how random chance… or ‘luck’… is a variable.”

  Nathan sighed, rubbing his temples. “Patrick... you have to stop taking lessons from Earl.”

  If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

  “Earl is a human,” Patrick argued, looking confused. “His data should be reliable.”

  “Earl is a guy who thinks ‘pull my finger’ is high comedy,” Nathan muttered. “He’s a bad resource. ‘Getting lucky’ is just an idiom. A figure of speech. It just means... they’re happy about it.”

  “The data is incomplete,” Patrick insisted. He pointed a long gray finger toward a different part of the bamboo grove. “I detect further anomalies. A group of the pairings are biologically incompatible for reproduction. Why do they breed with the wrong sex?”

  Nathan sighed, rubbing the back of his neck. “It’s not ‘wrong,’ Patrick. It’s preference. Not everyone follows your biology manual. It’s about connection. Who you love.”

  He kicked a loose stone on the path. “See, sex is required for reproduction, sure. But humans? We don’t just do it to make babies. We do it for comfort. For fun. We do it recreationally.”

  Patrick’s shutters clicked as he processed this. “Inefficient for repopulation,” he noted, then pointed again. “And that group. They are engaging in the ritual, yet they are utilizing methods to prevent conception. Why? The objective is to create offspring.”

  “Some of them are afraid. They want the comfort... the… physical enjoyment... without having a baby.”

  “Why would you not want to produce offspring?” Patrick asked, tilting his head. “Dr. Allen states that the human body is designed for this function. He says the body ‘knows what to do.’”

  Nathan’s hand tightened on his wine cup. “Dr. Allen reads textbooks,” Nathan snapped, his voice sharper than he intended. “But biology isn’t a blueprint, Patrick. It’s a gamble. Sometimes the body gets it wrong. It makes mistakes. And right now? We don’t know if the dice are loaded. We don’t know what the teleportation did to us.”

  He gestured toward the pregnant women in the plaza. “We’re all waiting. We’re terrified that the babies will be affected. That they’ll be born... broken. So yeah, some people just want the comfort without the fear.”

  Patrick went silent. His blue lights dimmed slightly, cycling slowly as he integrated this new variable: Fear of biological failure.

  “I did not calculate the fear variable,” Patrick murmured. “I assumed the survival instinct would override.”

  “Human instinct is anxiety,” Nathan muttered.

  “I will require further data,” Patrick decided. “You will continue to provide the cultural context?”

  “I’ll try,” Nathan said, his anger fading into exhaustion. “Just... can we… step farther away from the mating rituals while we do?”

  They walked together toward the perimeter wall, sitting on the stone ledge that overlooked the valley.

  “I don’t get it,” Nathan said after a moment. “You scanned Earth. You have our history. Why are you confused by... all of this?”

  “We did not have access to your internal networks,” Patrick said. “We were light-years away. We intercepted only what leaked into space. Broadcast signals. Satellite bounces.”

  Nathan stared at him, the realization dawning. “You only saw what we broadcast? You missed the entire internet?”

  “We received fragments,” Patrick admitted. “We saw wars. We saw I Love Lucy. We saw a great deal of Baywatch. We assumed the slow-motion running was a religious practice.”

  Nathan let out a short, incredulous laugh. “So you built this whole place based on sitcoms and the nightly news?”

  “The visual data was necessary for the habitat construction,” Patrick said dismissively. “But the broadcasts themselves were of little interest to the Nexus initially. We did not travel across the galaxy for your broadcasts.”

  “Then why did you come?”

  Patrick looked back toward the woods, his sensors whirring softly. “We came for the Noise.”

  “The noise?”

  “Your glow,” Patrick reworded. “The signal within you. Your species is loud, Builder Nathan. You generate a thermal-electric output that pierces the void. To us, Earth did not look like a blue marble. It looked like a fire.”

  He turned to Nathan, his large eyes reflecting the distant bonfire. “We call it the Golden Bloom.”

  “Bloom? You mean like light?”

  “Pure, chaotic energy,” Patrick said. “We lost the gold frequency when we uploaded. We became efficient, but had forgotten our light. Until you reminded us.”

  He tapped his chest, where the blue light pulsed beneath his skin. “Tonight? Solace is blinding.”

  “Blinding?” Nathan squinted at the plaza. He saw the torches, the bonfire, the shadows dancing against the white walls. But nothing blinding. “I don’t see it. Why can’t I see it?”

  “Does a star see its own light?” Patrick asked softly. “Humans do not see it, Builder. You live it. You generate it with your emotions. and somehow, oblivious to it.”

  Patrick pointed a long finger toward the bamboo grove. The couple was audible… and far too close for Nathan’s comfort.

  “To you, that is darkness,” Patrick said. “To me? It is a web of gold light. It stitches them together. One human signals, another answers. It is a seamless connection.”

  Patrick’s sensors whirred as he watched the woods, his voice dropping to something like reverence. “It is inefficient. It is chaotic. But it is magnificent.”

  Nathan looked back at the fire. He tried to imagine it… thousands of people burning with gold light, stitching themselves back together with love and hope, unaware that they were the brightest things in the galaxy.

  “And me?” Nathan asked quietly. “Do I glow gold?”

  Patrick’s sensors whirred softly as they focused on Nathan. “No. You are dim.”

  Nathan let out a breath he realized he was holding. “Figured. I feel dim.”

  “Why?” Patrick asked as they continued walking. “Your genetic material is desirable. Why do you choose dim when you can have gold?”

  “Because I’m alone, Patrick.”

  Patrick looked back at the celebration, then back at Nathan. He seemed confused by the inaction.

  “The remedy is available,” Patrick said, gesturing toward the plaza. “If you are lonely, why remain in the dark? Go down there. Connect. Create the Gold.”

  “Loneliness isn’t the problem,” Nathan said, his voice cracking. “Loss is.”

  Patrick’s shutters clicked. “Define: loss.”

  Nathan turned to the alien, trying to find a way to make this alien mind understand the pain of his human heart.

  “Loneliness is just... an empty room. You can live in an empty room. But loss? Loss is building a house with your own hands. Painting the walls. Filling it with light. And then watching it burn to the ground while you stand there, helpless.”

  Nathan rubbed his chest. “I can’t build another house, Patrick. I can’t survive watching it burn again. I can’t lose my wife again.”

  “You prevent the connection to prevent the cessation of the connection.”

  “Exactly.”

  “It is... inefficient.”

  “It’s human.” Nathan took another sip. It didn’t help. “We’re not efficient, Patrick. We eat food that’s bad for us because it tastes good. We stay up too late watching movies we’ve seen before. We love people who can’t love us back anymore.”

  Nathan almost broke down, then closed his eyes. “She was my light, Patrick. My Christine. She didn’t just walk into a room; she exploded into it. She had this laugh... God, that laugh. It could fill up a whole house.”

  Gold.

  Patrick jerked back, his shutters clicking rapidly. “There!” He pointed at Nathan’s chest. “You bloomed gold.”

  Nathan frowned, looking down at his shirt. “I did?”

  “A pulse. Bright. Sudden. Like a solar flare. It erupted when you spoke of the laugh.”

  “I... I glowed?”

  “Brilliantly. But it does not sustain. It explodes and vanishes into the void.” Patrick leaned closer, his alien face inches from Nathan’s. “What were you thinking? Precisely? Replicate the data.”

  “I was thinking about my wife. I was missing her.”

  Patrick sat back, his blue lights cycling rapidly as he processed the contradiction.

  “My data defines grief as darkness,” Patrick murmured. “A suppression of energy. A void. But your grief... it registered as Gold.”

  “Grief isn’t the absence of love, Patrick,” Nathan said softly. “It is love. It’s love with nowhere to go. It’s all that energy, just... hitting a wall. It flares up because it’s trying to find her, and she’s not there. It’s lost love.”

  “Energy cannot be destroyed,” Patrick recited quietly. “Only transformed.”

  “Yeah,” Nathan said. “I guess so.”

  Patrick tapped his datapad, his long gray fingers moving in a blur as he logged the new definition.

  “Parameters updated,” he murmured, saving the file. Then, his large, shuttering eyes fixed on Nathan. “Builder Nathan, I have a query regarding the data from the bamboo grove.”

  Nathan took the last sip of his sweet vinegar, bracing himself. “I told you I’d answer. Go ahead.”

  “The vocalizations,” Patrick said, gesturing toward the woods where a fresh wave of noise had just erupted. “They are... illogical. My sensors detect high-decibel output consistent with acute physical distress or structural failure. Yet, the subjects continue the activity that causes the sound. It is a paradox.”

  Patrick leaned closer, genuinely baffled. “Why do they scream if they are not damaged?”

  Nathan laughed… a rusty sound, but real. He swirled the wine in his cup, looking for the right words to explain friction and fire to a being made of cool light.

  “It’s not distress, Patrick,” Nathan said softly. “It’s... intensity. Pleasure. Surely you can hear the difference?”

  “Define intensity in this context.”

  “Okay... Intensity… it’s when the feeling gets too big for the body,” Nathan tried. “When the Gold gets too bright, you can’t just hold it in. It creates pressure. You have to make noise to let it out. Like a valve with the primitive plumbing I showed you.”

  Patrick processed this, his blue lights pulsing in a slow ripple. “So... it is a functional release? A necessary venting of excess energy?”

  “Exactly,” Nathan nodded. “It’s a good scream.”

  “A good scream,” Patrick repeated, testing the words as he typed his data entry. “Humans are exhaustively confusing.”

  Patrick finished his notes and tucked the datapad into his robe.

  “This data is enlightening, Builder Nathan,” he said. “It appears the noise is not a defect, but a feature. I would like to converse with you again on this matter. The logic of it is... elusive.”

  Nathan gave a tired, crooked smile. “You have no idea.”

  Patrick turned to glide away, but his internal processor flagged one final correlation. He paused, rotating back to the human.

  “One final query regarding this... ritual,” Patrick said. “My sensors track a high volume of humans retreating into the dense bamboo forest at the perimeter. Is this specific foliage required? Does the bamboo enhance the acoustic resonance of the mating calls?”

  Nathan’s smile vanished. The lines in his face seemed to deepen under the harsh work lights.

  “You think they’re in the bamboo to mate?” Nathan asked quietly.

  “It is logical,” Patrick noted. “They seek isolation. Isolation leads to the noise.”

  Nathan looked past the alien, toward the dark, rustling wall of the forest edge.

  “Patrick,” Nathan said, his voice flat. “Tell me, why do you think the humans are really hiding in the bushes?”

  “To facilitate the scream?”

  Nathan shook his head, his eyes locking onto the alien’s glowing blue face.

  “No. They aren’t hiding to make noise. They’re hiding from you. Peeking in their houses.”

  Patrick stopped. His internal cooling fans whirred… a soft, mechanical sigh in the quiet night. He didn’t look offended. He didn’t look guilty. He simply processed the accusation as a new variable, his blue avatar pulsing as he re-contextualized the behavior of the villagers.

  “Privacy is... an inefficient variable,” Patrick finally concluded. “But I shall add this ‘fear of observation’ to my calculations.”

  “I will return,” Patrick promised.

  He stood up then, smoothing his robes. He turned and glided away into the shadows of the tree line, disappearing as quickly as he had arrived.

  Nathan leaned back against the cold stone, the conversation echoing in his mind. In all the years of occupation, he had never spoken to one of them like that. It hadn’t been a command, or a reprimand, or a data dump. It was a question. An honest, fumbling attempt to understand.

  They are learning, Nathan thought, landing with the weight of a stone.

  Patrick wasn’t just a drone processing code; he was an explorer trying to map the unknown. He was trying to rationalize fear, intimacy, and instinct. In that moment, the alien didn’t seem like a monster. He seemed... strangely, terrifyingly human. Just another consciousness poking at the world with a stick, trying to figure out how the pieces fit together.

  Nathan stayed on the perimeter wall for a moment longer, staring down at the valley one last time. The drums below had softened, the rhythm slowing to a sleepy thrum as the Choosing Ceremony wound down. The bonfire was just embers now; the frenzy was fading into the quiet hum of the night.

  He pushed himself off the stone ledge and began the long walk back.

  His boots crunched on the gravel path as he skirted the edge of the settlement. He passed the bamboo groves, which were silent now, and the darkened windows of the other cabins where families… and new couples… were sleeping.

  His cabin waited for him at the end of the lane. It looked dark. Cold.

  Nathan climbed the porch steps and opened his front door.

  The silence inside was absolute. It rushed out to meet him, heavy and thick. This was the empty room he had told Patrick about. The box he had built with his own hands.

  He stepped inside and closed the door, shutting out the alien moons and the dying rhythm of the drums. The only sound left was the hum of the air recycler and the creak of the floorboards under his weight.

  Nathan leaned his back against the wood, closing his eyes.

  He thought about the alien standing on the wall. He thought about Patrick looking down at the messy, loud, chaotic humans and seeing them as a brilliant glow. Patrick saw light where Nathan only saw darkness.

  From the memory of a laugh.

  You do not need to see it, Builder. You live it.

  “Energy cannot be destroyed,” he whispered to the shadows in his living room.

  The phrase felt heavier now, but less terrifying. It was laden with possibility. If his grief was just love with nowhere to go, then that love was still real. It was still bright. And if she was energy...

  “Goodnight, Christine,” he said to the empty space beside him.

  And for a second… just a second… as he stood alone in the dark, he could have sworn he felt warm.

  Like somewhere, impossibly, she could see him glow.