"Lana? How old are you?" Cheyenne asked. They were walking the hallway outside her medibay, to help her get some exercise. She looked up at her healer. "If it's not too personal."
"It's not," Lana replied. "I will be fifty two next year cycle."
"Fifty two?" Cheyenne squawked. "I would have never guessed. You don't look that old."
Lana chuckled. "Thank you, I try to watch my health."
"How long do people live in the Consortium?" Cheyenne wondered.
"People? You mean humans," Lana said. "One forty, one fifty, is average I would say."
"A hundred and fifty years? Wow, that's a lot longer than we live."
"We have better healthcare, better nutrition, in time your people will live as long," Lana said.
"Yeah," Janda agreed, "give Princess Sarasvat a chance to clean up your planet. Without all that pollution and crap, your life expectancy will go up. And then start using advanced agriculture, living more like we do, you'll see."
"Is that what she means to do? Change our planet to be more like yours?" Cheyenne said.
"For the better," Janda insisted. "Really, I don't understand your politics at all. We only want to make your planet better."
"I know you guys mean well," Cheyenne said, putting her hand on Janda's. "But a lot of people still don't trust that. How old is she? She looks like she could be nineteen, but you keep saying she's old."
"Oh yeah, she's Vatari," Lana said. "They are a long lived race."
"How long?"
"She was barely a kid when her Uncle Vaisha left for this planet. That was forty five thousand years ago," Janda said.
"Forty five thousand? God, she must be..."
"She'll cross fifty eons in a few years. By the standards of her race, she isn't much more than nineteen, as you say. They indeed live long lives."
"What do you think happened to him?" Janda wondered, looking at Lana.
Lana just shrugged. "Vaisha? Hard to say. The galaxies were not aligned. No ships could pass. Perhaps we will never know."
"But they've not even found any evidence here," Janda protested. "Do you think he made it this far?"
"But he had to," Cheyenne protested. "Didn't he? I mean, you're human and we're human."
"You could have evolved here," Janda said.
"But...then we didn't come from your settlers? I don't get it. How could we evolve here if we evolved in some other galaxy, like you say?"
"We terraformed this planet," Janda said. "So at least some of you evolved here." To Cheyenne's blank look he added. "Look, if you plant a garden full of tomatoes and then leave, what do you find when you come back? Tomatoes. Same principle on a bigger scale."
"Is terraforming that accurate? You can control evolution?"
"Evolution is a science. If you understand it well enough, yes," Lana said. "But no, we've studied genetic markers, some of the humans on this planet do come from within the Consortium. We know this. Besides we've found some traces, similar words in ancient languages. Sanskrit, it's a lot like Consortium."
"Really?" Cheyenne said. "I didn't know that."
"In time, they will discover something, I am sure. In the meantime our patient should eat a bit, then maybe another short walk, then back in the tank," Lana said.
Cheyenne nodded.
#####
"What'chya up to?" Kleppie asked Dan as he, Madsen and Jensen came into the lounge.
Dan looked up from his slate and groaned. "I got roped into being morale officer," he groused. "Lannister talked to command about having a movie night, like back in World War Two. Thought it would help give us something to do, keep morale up."
"Sounds fun," Kleppie said. "A movie night."
Dan scowled at him.
"I take it things aren't going so well," Madsen said.
"Are you forgetting we work for the United States Government?" Dan asked. He held up the slate. "Which Bob Hope movie did you want to see again?"
Jensen chuckled.
"It can't be that bad," Kleppie said.
"Look for yourself," Dan said, sliding the slate across. "In fact, all three of you look. Consider it an order. Pick a movie, please."
Madsen looked over Kleppie's shoulder. "God," he said after a few minutes. "You weren't exaggerating. I think I'd rather see an old Bob Hope movie. These are the only movies that the U.S. Armed Forces was able to come up with?"
"Oh, oh," Kleppie said, pointing at a title. "Let's pick this one. Think about it. A movie about aliens, show it to the aliens. It'll be a hoot."