Welcome to the Journal of Now and Forever. This Journal is a collection of my Star Control and Star Control 2 fiction. Note: Some of this material is, by necessity, extrapolation from the slim information provided by canon sources.

New fiction is posted first at My Livejournal before it appears here. This story is in response to 15 Minute Ficlets' Challenge #93 and First Lines 1000's Challenge #7.

It should hurt, but it doesn't.

Six months since the Hierarchy took over, and by now, the days feel normal. Human beings are adaptable, and no matter what the citizens of Earth might say, Androsynth are still human beings. Just as adaptable to new, and sometimes horrible, situations, able to make it feel normal.

So Nick's chest no longer feels tight, and he doesn't feel a need to crawl into bed and hide, and he doesn't have to see a doctor anymore. Even the numbness seems to have faded into the background of his life. At least Repair & Replace has it pretty easy; Jack seems to have kept him on even when some of the other R&R people got reassigned to work that the Hierarchy deemed higher priority. He's been doing the same job now for more years than he cares to think about.

He's been trying to take care of Dean, too. He's concerned Dean is working himself to death. There's still the weekly Church meetings; as de facto head of the church, Dean insists on handling those. That's on top of the workload prescribed by the Hierarchy.

In some ways, Nick thinks, perhaps he's better able to handle this than Dean is. When he first realized how different their backgrounds were – how Dean had grown up "nearly human", compared to himself – he hadn't known what to think of it. It had sounded easier than what he himself had gone through, but also somewhat hard to believe. It was weirdly out of Nick's reference, and it made him nervous.

But now that they were slaves again, after the initial shock and depression had faded, Nick had to admit to himself that the Hierarchy could be much, much worse. The Hierarchy demands a lot of the Androsynth, but leaves their private lives alone, doesn't care about the Church at all, makes sure everyone gets fed and has minimum required rest periods – there is a lot of complaining about that, but it is not, strictly speaking, detrimental to health – and is upgrading all the ships. Some enterprising Androsynth have already figured out a few minor Hierarchy technologies, although so far they revolve around warfare and ships: weapons, engines, communications, and so on.

So Hierarchy rule promises a hard life, perhaps, but not an unlivable one. The Ur-Quan demand obedience in all Hierarchy matters, but as long as they receive this obedience, they do not torture, they do not kill. This is much better than Nick had hoped; the nightmares have not quite gone away, but they are minor now, and after a flare-up of monophobia, he is functional again. Which is a relief to everyone, including himself.

But Dean, now, how much different is this for him? Perhaps it's his first real taste of what the other Androsynth experienced on Earth so long ago.

Then again, there's the faith thing. Perhaps that's what keeps him going, seven days a week, twenty-five hours a day. Nick doesn't know whether it's for good or for ill. It's easier to just know that this is how things are and this is how they're going to be for the foreseeable future.

At least, in a sense, they're vaguely free. The Ur-Quan have better things to do with their time, it's said, than to constantly shepherd their slaves along. So once the Androsynth have been brought up to Hierarchy standards, they'll probably get to slow down. And maybe, finally, they'll get the Earthlings they need.

Nick hardly knows what to think of that. It's always been a "someday we'll do it" pipedream, but as the years went on and the Earthlings stayed close to their home planet like ticks on a belyaev, the dream stretched out farther, and life got comfortable. He knows – Jack told him – that the Androsynth are complying completely with the Ur-Quan, in order to start the conquest of Earth as soon as possible.

About the worst thing that could happen in that plan is that Earth would cave faster than the Androsynth could grab some Earthlings. If Earth surrendered quickly to the Ur-Quan, and chose the slave shield, the Androsynth would be just as stuck as they were now. Nick doesn't know if slave-shielded planets have Starbases, or whether anyone from said planets staff them. It could be, if the Ur-Quan steamrollered over Earth forces, that the Earthlings would be locked up without any chance for, as the euphemism goes, acquiring genetic samples.

Nick thinks all this while hanging from a steel roof beam, trying to get the pipes back together before the next shift comes back to this building and all the toilets get used more or less simultaneously. At least there's still plenty of spare parts, he thinks, as he finds the right fitting in his bag. Six months is hardly enough time to run out of parts. Of course, the manufactories aren't going to make any more for a while, until everything the Hierarchy wants done gets done.

He wonders, for the first time in years, how long he will live. How long any of them will live. In the chronological, normal-lifespan sense. He himself is well over half a century at this point, but still appears, and feels, about twenty-five. The youngest Androsynth are chronologically in their thirties; the oldest ones must be nearing a hundred, presuming any of Hsien Ho's first generation survived to make the Exodus to Eta Vulpeculae 2. And, the one late advisor aside, nobody seems to have aged much or suffered any of the age-related diseases so plaguing humanity – sorry, Earthlings - at the time of the Exodus.

They were given immortality, but of course it's not quite what they want...

Nick pinches his thumb in the pipe fitting, but hardly notices, given his thoughts.

It should hurt, but it doesn't.

Comments? Email me: laridian at aol dot com