Somewhere between Orion’s shoulder and the silence beneath Saturn’s rings...
The Grand Assembly of the Sentient Accord was in session — all thirteen dimensions folded into a single point no wider than a pine nut. Yet inside, it was vast: echoing halls of gold-veined meteorite, judges shaped like everything from wind to latticework light.
Johny Sky stood — or floated — at the center of the chamber, looking slightly disheveled, his suit half-melted from Earth’s ozone, one boot squeaking quantum dust with every shift.
“State your designation,” intoned a being made entirely of rotating vowels.
“Johny Sky. Sub-tier technician. Galactic Terraforming Division, Metals and DNA Branch.”
A collective murmur. Somewhere, a creature blinked its hundred eyes in unison.
A crystalline judge flickered. “You stand accused of unlicensed genetic tampering, unauthorized primate enhancement, planetary negligence, and—” it paused dramatically, “—leaving behind a self-replicating species with delusions of godhood.”
Johny shrugged. “Well, I mean… they were flinging poop and climbing trees. I gave them fire. Wheels. Syntax.”
“Syntax?” screeched a gas cloud wearing a sash. “You taught them language?!”
“They were already grunting! I just polished the verbs!”
The gallery erupted.
A monolith displayed Fred’s first inscription: “Why?”
Burned.
“Was that your doing?”
“I just left the blueprints for soap,” muttered Johny.
The judges huddled, warping time around themselves in a blurry coil of probability and ethics. Finally, the Head Judge — an enormous orb filled with nebulae and soft lullabies — declared:
“You were meant to harvest ore and observe. Instead, you ignited consciousness. You broke the Prime Directive of Non-Mirroring. You made them… like us.”
Johny tried to protest. “But they dream! They build! They ask questions! Isn’t that worth something?”
A silence heavier than a neutron star filled the hall.
Then — unexpectedly — the oldest judge, who hadn’t spoken in ten thousand star cycles, leaned forward.
“And they made… music,” it whispered. “Even I don’t know how they did that.”
Suspended sentence.
Johny Sky would be returned to Earth — in human form.
“As punishment… or reward?” he asked.
The judges only smiled.
“You’ll find out.”
And that’s how a tired old technician found himself reborn in a Miami apartment, wondering why elevators still smell weird, why his knee hurts, and how, somehow, he remembers the stars.