Dremian staggered back a few steps till his back was against the wall and his legs flexed, pushing him up against it hard. His eyes were wild and unfocused, and even though their species had genetically removed most kinds of fear, he was about to have a panic attack. Then, abruptly, his biology kicked in, and he was no longer feeling negative emotions.

A small, almost stupid smile replaced the terror, and his legs slowly gave out. He slid down the wall, landing on his butt chuckling darkly as he pulled out a flask.

“No, we were already fucked. I shouldn't try and put all the blame on you any more than I already am.” Dremian took a drink and motioned for Aldus to come over.

Aldus had never said no to drinking on the job his entire life, and he wasn't about to start now. He walked over and put his back against the wall to slide down like Dremian had, until the two were level and sitting close; at least close for how a human would measure it. Space Elves had a concept of personal space which included skin to skin contact only. There was no 'Personal Bubble'.

“You said nobody is ever going to know what we said here?” Aldus asked, taking a drink, and then taking another, longer drink before handing the flask back.

“Bah, forget about your image, you won. Nobody can touch you now, except me, and only until I officially pass on the title. Speak as freely as you want, you're the Warden now,” Dremian spoke, and Aldus felt the familiar shudder, the thrill that came with absolute power.

“It's as you said, then. I have no idea what's going on right now.”

“I'm being too hard on you,” Dremian said, and silence followed. He took a drink from the bottomless flask, a Flask of Holding. It's worth mentioning that old quote about sufficiently advanced technology being indistinguishable from magic, because the flask was also enchanted to produce whatever highly potent and illegal substance the galactic leaders were consuming.

Aldus had to stare, because nobody ever admitted fault in The Empire. Space Elves just didn't do that, no matter how much they drank. It made him uncomfortable.

“Too hard,” Dremian said with a sigh, setting the flask on Aldus's lap and standing up on steady feet; Space Elves had prioritized several things in their vision of genetic perfection, and near the top of that list was the ability to get way more drunk, stoned, fucked up, high, low; all the states of intoxication, without suffering any loss in function, or having any long term health problems. Dremian was drunk, probably drunker than most humans could get without dying, but that wasn't going to stop him, or Aldus, from getting through this conversation.

Dremian took brisk steps towards the holoprojector and began waving his hands around in the air, operating it. Aldus internally scoffed at the need to physically operate the device, really, who bothered to keep anything without psychic controls?

The planet, which was obviously Earth, blurred for a moment before re-forming, this time showing all the lights of civilization that crisscrossed the planet. Satellites orbited, and had their orbital paths projected by thin lines.

“I bet you're wondering about the fossil,” Dremian said, slapping the holo-projector fondly, “it's from the Age of the Primordial War, way back at the dawn of the universe. This little chunk of genius allowed for something to be viewed in real-time without projecting any psychic presence or allowing any psychic connection to form with the viewer; that's very important in psychic warfare. How does it work? No idea, it has a maintenance plan and we stick to it. The projector is interesting, but who cares,” he said, pointing at the Earth, “That's Terra, the only planet in the universe with humans.”

Aldus was many things, but stupid wasn't one of them. He stood up, only slightly less drunk than Dremian, and got closer to the projection.

“Primitive,” he said softly, his big, advanced Space Elf brain functioning like a computer. Aldus began operating the hologram and selected a satellite, zooming in on it. “Very primitive,” he was frowning now, and zoomed out to get a picture of the solar system. There were a few orbit rings around Mars, and Aldus selected the one that stood out to him.

“What is that, some sort of personal vehicle? If they thought they could travel space in a. . . Tesla?” he said, rolling the unfamiliar word around with his tongue, and then abruptly felt his mental defense system activate, as though something had briefly, and weakly, attempted to break into his mind. Dremian chuckled.

“I'd be careful saying too many Terran words, Aldus,” Dremian said, tapping his skull with a finger, “that planet is absolutely infested with predatory psychic life.”

“Noted,” Aldus said dryly, reviewing the attack and then rolling his eyes at how weak it had been. He continued to review the planet, only stopping to drink, and began laughing when he realized what the roads were made out of.

“Tar and pebbles? What a bunch of primitive savages! Oh, I get it now, Dremian. This was a funny joke. . . those vehicles are strange. They're belching out smoke almost like something is burning,” Aldus said, watching a lone car on a highway at night, evidently trying to puzzle out how it functioned.

“That's a car, Aldus. This is my first lesson about humans, and it should tell you everything you need to know about them,” Dremian said, pulling up an animated schematic of an internal combustion engine, “Lesson number one; A human being is perfectly comfortable with the idea of strapping themselves into a highly unstable, active bomb and using it for the purpose of transportation.”

“A bomb,” Aldus said, eyebrows raising up in alarm as his mind caught up and realized the obvious. “A bomb! By the stars, that's madness. That can't be safe!” he said, looking to Dremian.

“Lesson number two, it's not, at all, and the humans know that. One of the leading causes of death on their planet are these transportation bombs, but they refuse to stop using them. Go ahead and keep looking around, Aldus, I'm enjoying this, seeing someone else go through it all.”

Aldus did continue, all traces of humor evaporating as the puzzle pieces began to come out of hiding. Aldus had found the Midwest of the US now and was looking at a massive field of corn.

“Ah, that's their food then, Corn?” Aldus said, reading the label the hologram placed over the field, “They must need to eat a lot of it, judging by how much they're growing,” Aldus said, and Dremian had a look of anticipatory Schadenfreude on his face.

“Oh!” Aldus said, suddenly exclaiming in delight, “No, they've got two food sources! Corn, and Wheat! I wonder what the ratio is between the two. . . what's this now? Potatoes? Some sort of root, so three food sources? That's a little bit excessive. What are those structures,” Aldus said, zooming in on a building next to the farmhouse, “chickens? Why in the name of The Empire would they have an enclosure full of useless birds?”

Dremian gave him a level look and stared at him.

“They can eat chickens as well,” Aldus asked, but it was more of a statement than a question, “So they have four kinds of food then, right?”

“If you had to guess, just based on what you've seen, how many kinds of food do you think a human can eat without any kind of processing?” Dremian asked the question with a sly look on his face.

Aldus knew it was a trick question, he was no fool. Being able to eat both three different kinds of plants and chickens without chemical processing already gave them the most diverse palate out of any species he'd ever heard of.

“I'll bet they can eat any kind of white meat, and any kind of green plant,” Aldus said, referencing an ancient, monstrous species that had been defeated by The Empire. Their species name, roughly translated, was 'The Mouth of the Void', and they'd earned it. Dremian smiled and savored the silence between them.

“No,” he finally said, “they are a class of organism which is unique to Terra. They are Omnivores.”

The word hung in the air like a physical thing, its psychic presence rooted in Dremian, seeking access to Aldus's mind. It was gradual, working its way slowly through the layers of psychic checkpoints, filtering through mental machinery, processed and finally broken down and understood.

Omni, which meant all, everything, infinite.

Vore, which means to eat, to consume, to digest.

Omnivore, the one who will devour infinity.

Aldus took an involuntary step back, seeing the farm, and indeed, the planet, with new eyes.

“Anything? Without technology? Without processing? Anything?” He asked, his eyes pleading with Dremian.

“Anything,” Dremian replied, taking obvious satisfaction at Aldus's distress.

“Could they eat us? Stars! No wonder we're keeping them contained,” Aldus said, suddenly filled with purpose, “but the moment I'm in charge, I'm exterminating them. Why haven't we exterminated them yet, where is Terra anyways.”

Dremian closed his eyes and sighed, taking an almost erotic pleasure in the next part of the explanation.

“Oh, you want to know where Terra is? Why, it's located in the heart of the Dead Galaxy, didn't you know? Wasn't that obvious?”

The Empire was not situated in the Milky Way Galaxy, which was known as the Dead Galaxy to everyone else. The Empire was a galactic neighbor in the same way people living in the deep country can call the only other family for fifteen miles around their house a neighbor. Everybody knew about the Dead Galaxy, though it was a source of endless speculation, a bit like Antarctica is on Earth.

The official story was this; The Dead Galaxy was dangerous, and nobody was allowed in for their own safety. There had been some sort of ancient cosmic war that polluted the entire thing, and if anyone went inside it, they would be contaminated, get sick and die.

If The Empire caught you before you got sick and died, they would cull you, no questions asked. According to the official story, the contamination was contagious, and a threat to all life in The Empire. Nobody tried to go in.

“Oh,” Aldus said, “yes, I suppose it was obvious. So these humans are living in a pocket of the Dead Galaxy that's free of contamination? I guess they won't be getting out of there, and who would want to run a suicide mission. . . why are you laughing?”

“There's no contamination, Aldus. That whole galaxy exists for the singular purpose of keeping them confined to a single planet. Their galaxy is barren of all life, so that whenever the humans turn their sights on the stars, they hear nothing, see nothing, and feel nothing save for a sense of absolute loneliness. Do you know why?”

“Why?” Aldus asked, feeling nothing but a sense of superiority and power; feeling that even for The Empire, this was an impressive punishment for an enemy. Aldus felt a warm glow of pride in his chest.

“Why? Because if they even got a hint that there was anything out there, even the faintest whiff of it, they would leave their planet and start to spread out. You asked why we haven't eradicated them yet, yes? Would you like to guess?”

“We're keeping them as a trophy,” Aldus said, feeling smug, “It's obvious.” Dremian chuckled again and shook his head.

“No, Aldus, but good guess. It was a trick question, because we have eradicated them before, thousands of times. If I'm being perfectly honest, the Warden's main job is to eradicate humanity, to destroy them when they reach a certain point of advancement, and start the clock over. Take some time to process that, Aldus.”

“Have we bombarded the planet?” Aldus asked, mentally going down the Empire's official doctrine on how to exterminate a species, something that, until this moment, Aldus thought their species had completely mastered.

“Yes, but we missed a few of them, and they recovered within a thousand years,” Dremian replied.

“That fast? How quickly do they reproduce?”

“A little more than one child per year on average, per female, if they are reproducing in a hurry.”

“How fast to maturity?” Aldus asked.

“About fourteen years at the soonest,” Dremian explained, though it's worth noting he used the Space Elf way of measuring time, and that I've converted it to something coherent; You're Welcome.

“By The System,” Aldus swore, “Lifespan?”

“A hundred years, give or take, though the females will stop being able to produce offspring after they're about fifty.”

“So one female could produce forty children in her fertility cycle, roughly speaking?”

“Yes, which is part of the problem,” Dremian said.

“Have we irradiated the planet?”

“Yes, it didn't work.”

“Bioweapons?” Aldus asked, voice hopeful. Dremian scowled.

“That was a terrible mistake. One of our predecessors released the Gorvx strain [Translation: E Coli] on Terra. Then, for good measure, he released hundreds of weapons-grade, adaptable micro-organisms on the planet. He figured it would take care of the problem.”

“That's a war crime in any other situation, what happened, were a few of them able to isolate themselves long enough for the weapons to become inert?” Aldus asked.

“No, most of them died, and then they kept dying for a few hundred years. Actually, it succeeded in wiping out all animal life on Terra, at least for a little while. Most of the plants too. That particular warden was incredibly pleased with himself and enjoyed a few million years of peace and quiet. In fact, it was so quiet that he forgot to keep checking up on the planet every five hundred years or so, like he was supposed to. Care to guess what happened, Aldus?”

“The humans were all dead, what did it matter?”

“Wrong. That is the mistake made over and over. The humans re-evolved from scratch, all the way from the micro-organism stage, and this time, they came back highly resistant to any and all types of bio-weapons. Their bodies invented something they call an 'immune system', and now the Gorvex Strain lives in their stomachs and helps digest their food even more efficiently; it's a bit like a miniature version of The System, but on the biological level.”

“That's impossible, on multiple levels. What about a psychic assault?” Aldus asked.

“Same problem as the bio-attack, except they have two minds, one of which is entirely without consciousness, which digests psychic entities, and is constantly generating new psychic lifeforms. Hmm, it's a bit like a version of The System, but on a mental level,” Dremian snorted like he'd just made a joke, “It also made them into the first, and only, as far as I know, Post-Logic species.”

“Post. . . logic. What in the world are you talking about?”

Then, Dremian started to explain the miracle, or the horror, that was humanity. About why they couldn't just fly a fleet in and occupy the Dead Galaxy and spend the next million years systematically eradicating every speck of life.

Simply put, humans did not need to understand something in order to build and operate it. The greatest fear of previous Wardens was that some moron would fly an advanced space-craft by Earth, that humans would see it, and then in a hundred years, produce a perfect replica; or worse, a better space-craft. Why?

Because humans were Post-Logic. They did not have to follow a sequential chain of events to come to an idea; they were able to generate facts and ideas which were completely unsupported by any logical framework. Worse, was that these post-logical ideas could then be used to generate a logical framework, almost as if by some sort of evil magic. A normal mind could be visualized as a beautiful tree of logic, rooted in fundamental truth. The human mind was a world with thousands of evil, floating tree-people with no leaves and sharp branches, sitting in the lotus position and radiating a kind of evil enlightenment, and occasionally laughing a dry, sinister chuckle.

“Forget about their seeming ability to come back from a single fragment of DNA from any species on Earth; or the fact that any planet that is infected with human DNA will generate an infinite variety of plant, animal, fungal, marine, and psychic life, IN ADDITION,” Aldus was shouting now, “TO GUARANTEEING THAT HUMANS WILL SOMEHOW MAGICALLY ARISE IN THAT ENVIRONMENT, NO MATTER WHAT!”

Aldus was breathing hard, he was furious, both with Dremian, and with humanity, for being impossible.

“No, forget about that little bit of non-sense. This Post-Logic,” Aldus's voice dripped with venom and contempt, “is completely impossible.”

“Yes, it is,” Dremian said, a sly look on his face, “but it's also true.” Aldus almost growled, then realized Dremian really was telling him the truth. He fell over, landing on his butt, staring at the holo-projection of the Earth.

“By Death,” he swore, “where did these things come from? You cannot expect me to believe they are natural, because there is nothing more unnatural in the universe than what you've described to me.”

“Well,” Dremian said, “you remember the Primordial War?”

The Primordial War, the first event in the universe. In fact, it was the exact moment the war ended that the universe came to be, yet, it had always existed. At least, that was what the scientists said; or rather, what the scientists said the data said. If those scientists were pressed for answers, they'd start to sweat and start using very large, confusing words before running away.

Nobody was super clear on the details of the war, and none of the original combatants were still alive; except the humans, and they'd forgotten everything.

The war had been universal in scale, and the wreckage and remains were scattered across every galaxy. Strange, impossible things, devices which seemed to operate on an entirely different set of physical laws; it was as though the rules of reality hadn't been set into stone before the war was over.

The Primordial War had a history. It had a beginning, a middle, and an end. It was the sort of war that predated reality, and consciousness, and matter. Children were told it was the war between the forces which wanted things to exist, and the forces which did not want things to exist.

For most of the war “the bad guys”, and they were bad guys, were winning. They had the home-field advantage, so to speak, because (according to the stories) nothing existed, and they just had to keep it that way.

Then, in a fit of mad desperation, “the good guys”, they were probably good guys, created a weapon greater than themselves. They were fury, the reapers of havoc nursed upon anger, born to do battle, and without compassion. More than a weapon. Born without sorrow with a crown of menace upon their head.

Human.

History, or what can be found of it, got a little funny after that. Carvings had been defaced and documents destroyed, clear evidence of a historical purge. What is clear, however, is that the humans had won the 'good guys' the war. How do we know that, because, well, the universe exists in actuality, rather than just as a probability in cosmic soup.

“How did they end up on just one planet then?” Aldus asked, “and why don't we just-”

“Aldus,” Dremian said, “shut up. That doesn't matter. Your job is easy and comfortable. Cull the humans, keep them from expanding and consuming the entire universe. Don't let them become aware that they aren't alone. Just follow the rules, and read the notes of the previous Wardens. You'll do great,” Dremian said, slowly edging towards the door as he spoke.

“It doesn't seem that hard,” Aldus said, then narrowed his eyes, “why are you quitting then?”

“Just got tired of it,” Dremian said, starting to move faster towards the door.

“Nobody gets tired of it. Nobody has ever quit. What's going on with the humans!”

“Nothing!” Dremian shouted, now running towards the exit, “I don't know anything about it! They're your problem now, I'm evacuating this galaxy and getting on the other side of the universe, fuck you!”

Aldus felt a sharp pain in his arm, looked down and saw the dart, then Aldus went to sleep. When he woke up, he was alone, and the ruler of an entire galaxy. He just had one, simple, easy responsibility.

So he sat down and started digging through the data stored in the Primordial Holo-Projector, and slowly, so slowly, he began to realize the problem. It was spelled out so perfectly in the previous Warden's data, in charts and spreadsheets, in pure math.

Humanity was going to break the quarantine around Earth within the next ten years, and there was nothing he, or anyone, could do about it.