“Which one of you owns G2V3889?” Cygnus glided through a luminescent star field suspended in the center of an otherwise dark, oblong studio, then turned in a slow circle to survey the twenty Agents surrounding him. “Come on, speak up.”
Vega shuddered as Cygnus’s gaze swept over her, and she sheepishly stepped forward. The newest member of Altair & Deneb, she’d met Cygnus only once before, but his reputation lurked the halls like a dense molecular cloud, whispering tales of cruelty and cunning, along with his propensity to jettison underperforming Agents without so much as a warning.
“Vega.” Cygnus locked on to her. “Is it yours?”
“It’s a system of eight planets, the third of which is habitable and has a gravity rating of point seven eight.” She moved to the far end of the field and jabbed at a star, which brightened automatically. “The local name of this planet, in the majority language, is Earth.”
“Perfect,” he scoffed. “We have a child in charge of a system without so much as a common language.”
Displaying confidence, she’d heard, was her only chance to communicate with Cygnus. So, she summoned all the strength she could muster and said, “I know Earth. It’s the only decent world in my portfolio. I’ve studied it for—”
“Shhh,” he hissed. “The adults are speaking. I called you all here because we have an opportunity to save this Agency. The Rigel and the Musca are expanding. They’re racing to reach the outer edges of the universe, gobbling up as many systems as they can along the way and offering life-altering sums to whatever Agency helps them do it.”
He dimmed every star in the field except Earth, then illuminated a jagged line of two dozen systems between him and Vega.
“The Musca,” he continued, “want G2V3889. And if we deliver it to them, they will take the rest of these lifeless, unprofitable systems off our hands to secure their lines of communication. I knew the Rigel wouldn’t be happy about a line of Musca this close to their exclusion zone, so I told them about it, and now we have a counteroffer. We’re in the middle of a bidding war, every Agency’s dream, but it all hinges on the rapid development of one tiny planet. With that in mind,” he turned to Vega. “Where are we?”
Her excitement grew as he spoke about the prospects for this forgotten world on the fringes of the developed universe, only to be dashed at the end. Unless she could conjure up a miracle, she knew every step of Earth’s development would be torturous and slow. She didn’t relish the thought of laying this out for Cygnus, but there was no other choice. She didn’t
