After nearly six-hundred years of spacefaring, the humans of the known worlds had yet to encounter a single species that might even loosely be termed humanoid.
The beauty was that their tiny sliver of the Milky Way, much to the surprise of all, was replete with life. Of more than two-hundred-thousand explored systems, just over eleven-thousand worlds were home to some type of lifeform, and many of those spheres held such biodiversity as to rival even the fecundity of old Earth. In all, the human species had encountered one-hundred and seventy-seven unique civilizations, eleven of which had mastered extra-planetary travel.
But most such lifeforms were exotic beyond the wildest imaginings of humanity's ancient ancestors. The learned and technologically advanced dolen of Acacia IV were little more than floating bags of gas; the leel of Phocaii IV were something akin to especially intelligent and amiable slugs; and the eme of the Titian colonies, the species that most resembled humans in thought and feeling, were tall stick figures with a variable number of limbs and no discernible heads.
And then nine years ago, a civilian survey company exploring a terrestrial-type planet located past the edge of settled space had discovered the lacertians.
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Skiathos || 2018 Wattys Shortlist - Sample Chapters
Science Fiction|| Sometimes in Space Things Disappear || Nadja Bikram traveled to the distant and alien world of Skiathos to work one problem, a puzzle that had vexed her for seven years. But on reaching the savage desert world, she found the planetary survey team...
