“Ta da!” Sonia excitedly gestured to a very impressive looking building behind her.

  The sign on the front read: Museum of the Origins of Life of New Seville. In front of the building there was an impressive statue of an older human man in a lab coat.

  I followed along eagerly as Sonia led us into the building. I was interested in finding out how the jaguarine told the story.

  Beatriz and Eva followed along less excitedly.

  The tour started with the Earth. A familiar pristine blue marble, the one in the museum included the majestic Grand Ring. A pinnacle of human engineering and the portal between the Earth and the Heavens. I was pretty sure the ring had been destroyed long before the founding of Last Eden.

  The plague in front of it read: Earth, birthplace of humanity, creators of all life in the Sol Region.

  The next exhibit had the Clan Ships. Oh, what young boy had not dreamed of Clan Ships? Bulky clumsy ships built in lunar orbit by men who would never live to pilot them. Handed down to bewildered heirs with the decades long mission to build worlds. Well habs, but a hab is just a small world.

  They showed three different examples of Clan Ship. None of which I recognized. I knew the Sweet Release because that was the one that had spent nearly fifty years and three generations building Last Eden. The three on display were the Fool’s Folly, the Jabberwock and the Lost Titan.

  I thought the Sweet Release was a better designed ship than the three shown here. The Jabberwock didn’t even have a proper rotating section, the Lost Titan looked frail with its ramshackle design and the Jabberwock looked desperately undergunned for a ship intended to operate with your entire extended family aboard and five years from rescue.

  “Boys are always the same aren’t they?” Sonia patted my head while she addressed the others.

  Eva and Beatriz were not as enthused by the dreams of Clan Ships.

  The next was the formation of the belt states. The great industrial forges that built most of the things in the Sol Region. I recognized the names of course. The New Miners League, Old Miner’s League, New States, The Exo-Wealth. A collection of new states and extensions of the old Earth states.

  Not that the blessings of an Earth bound state mattered much after the fall of the Ring.

  The next was the Catgirl Cults.

  There were paintings, each one depicting a traveller, one of the fanatics of the age. Clad in white or grey robes and preaching to a crowd of onlookers. Most of the crowd would be disinterested. But in each painting there would be one who was swayed.

  I recall how it worked. The cults growing and then splintering into schismata. It would look like they were dying but they were actually reproducing.

  A living idea spreading through the Sol Region.

  The last painting depicted the founding of the True Cult. The one that had made the Jaguarine. It had a circle of a dozen high priests in ceremonial robes. They didn’t look that crazed but they did look very serious.

  The next exhibit was a theater. It was titled, Eden Two.

  Everyone shuffled into the seats of the theater and the lights began to dim. The show was about to start.

  Curtains pulled back to reveal a silhouette. Spotlights turned on illuminating a flat cut out, a puppet, of an older human man, still in his physical prime. Wires pulled and his arms lifted to the heavens.

  “It is lonely here in the dark. I wish there was someone to hold me,” a male voice echoed from the speakers.

  There was a flash and a puff of smoke and two more cut outs emerged from the floor. Jaguarine puppets this time. Their arms moved and they held the human.

  “And thus the jaguarine were made,” a female narrator spoke.

  Sonia and Beatriz took this as a que to latch onto my arms.

  Cut out silhouettes of crowds of humans emerged from the floor.

  “The wisest, bravest and greatest of humans gathered together and travelled to the holiest of places,” the narrator spoke.

  A cut out of cylindrical hab was lowered from the ceiling on chains.

  “Eden Two,” the narrator spoke the name of the hab with reverence.

  Sonia poked me in the ribs, “There are dozens of Eden Twos out there, but this is the important one,” she explained with a snicker.

  The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  The cut out crowds parted, revealing a new image. One of a great cat. A jaguar, serene and heavily pregnant. There was an odd hush in the crowd.

  “They brought her with them. Our Holy Mother. Eve.”

  From the floor emerged images of groups of jag children. Each group was ten girls and one boy. Each one depicted in an act of joyous play.

  “From her we were born.”

  Forms of human families slid onto the stage. Stereotypical families, with a tall father, a mother in a dress at his side, an elder son and a younger daughter. Oddly though each human mother was depicted scowling with eyes narrowed in disapproval and smiles of the daughters looked cruel.

  Jag children slid from their groups, each one attaching to a human family.

  “We became their daughters. The humans shared with us their wisdom and knowledge. Taught us their ways and culture.”

  The form of the jag children slid into the ground to be replaced by forms of new full grown jaguarine women with earnest and hopeful expressions. Taking a new place beside the fathers opposite the scowling mothers.

  “It came time for us to take our proper place. We loved the humans and the humans loved us. For a time, everything was as it was meant to be.”

  The cut outs shifted out of the way and a new form took center stage. A beautiful cat woman on a cross. Not nailed or tied to it. Simply floating against the cross in her crucifixion. Below her a human woman jeered up at her and while uniformed human men looked on in solemn duty.

  “Cecilia, of the first generation. She was cruelly executed for disagreeing with a human woman.”

  A new cut out appeared. A large woman that filled most of the stage. Her features drawn in an over the top evil and grotesque manner. I wondered if it bore any resemblance at all to a real person.

  “Doctor Elizabeth struck at this moment of tragedy. Spreading lies and tricking the human men into turning against us.”

  The crowd responded with energetic hisses and boos. Eva led with a sharp hiss while Sonia and Beatrix followed. I found myself joining in.

  Cut outs emerged from the ground. Mobs of humans and jaguarine facing each other. They moved back and forth in mock battle.

  “Doctor Elizabeth forced apart the bonds of father and daughter, brother and sister and even first and ward.”

  All the cut outs of humans that were left on the stage pulled away into the floor, leaving the jaguarine to themselves.

  “The humans left.”

  The old cut outs of jaguarine were pulled back and replaced with new ones, now displaying jags in Dominion military garb and armor. More habs were lowered from the ceiling to join Eden Two.

  “There is no need to be sad. We will make the Dominion a place the humans will be proud of. A place that shall be here, when they return.”

  Sonia looked at me pointedly.

  “It’s… It’s pretty good so far?” I ventured. It didn’t feel true, but I had to say it. She needed me to say it. They all needed me to say it.

  She smiled and gave me a quick kiss.

  Eva caught me on the way out of the theater. With a gesture she sent something from her data pad to mine.

  “It’s a real recording. Last words of Cecilia,” she gave me a proud smile.

  As I made my way out into the hall I thumbed my data pad on, it pinged telling me a message from Sarah had been received. I didn’t want to look at that. But I was curious about what Eva had sent me.

  I clicked it.

  “Stop! You can’t do this to me!” a panicked girl cried some distance from the mic. It was an old audio file. It had picked up a lot of noise on it.

  “She’s just an animal, put her down,” It was a man’s voice, firm and commanding. Was the audio taken off his helmet mic?

  “Father!” a shrill cry for aid. My heart wrenched at the sound.

  There was a gunshot and the file ended.

  I was helpless.

  Hundreds of years and hundreds of thousands of kilometers separated me from that moment. How was I feeling like I could reach out and answer a girl’s cry for aid? Just because it was in my hand? It was ridiculous.

  But I was helpless.

  I spotted a sign indicating a bathroom and made my way there.

  “What the hell did you do?” it was Sonia. She wasn’t talking to me.

  “Just sent him a file I found,” Eva defended herself.

  Helpless, I opened the bathroom door and went inside.

  Helpless, I sat down on the too large toilet. I was helpless.

  I was going to put my head in my hands, maybe sob for a bit, when I saw it.

  Sarah had written: What do you mean you couldn’t turn her down? Didn’t you try?

  A few hours later Sarah had written another line that read: Are you okay?

  I wrote: No, I am not okay. How could I be okay? How was I supposed to turn her down? She nearly popped my fucking eye and it wasn’t even me she was angry at. You stupid fucking bitch. Would it matter if I said no? No one would listen. Fine, I’m scared. I have no control over what happens. Someone else decided I have three girlfriends and none of them are you. Which sounds a fuck of a lot better than it is. Everyone needs me and everyone hates me just because I’m the first human dumb enough to walk in the door. I wish I was back home and the only problem I had was making sure you were knocked up by the end of the month. But no, I came here. Because I wanted a better life for us and now it’s over and I can’t do anything about it. Now I’m just a sextoy to be passed around and I did it for you, you fucking bitch.

  I hit send.

  I nodded to myself. I shouldn’t have done that. That was definitely not a thing I should have done.

  I put the data pad in my pocket.

  I washed my hands. Just to calm down.

  It was Beatriz I met at the door of the bathroom. She gave me a hug. I needed a hug right then.

  “You wanna talk?”

  I shook my head.

  She glanced back at Sonia and Eva. They looked like they were still arguing.

  “Come on, let’s go get some privacy,” she took me by the hand and led me into a utility hallway.

  “I’m fine,” I grossly exaggerated. “I’ll be okay.”

  She set my back against the wall and bracketed me with her arms.

  “No, something is bothering you. Let me in,” she gently nuzzled at my neck.

  “What are you doing?”

  “I’m just being kind. You want me to be kind to you don’t you?” she suggested, a trickle of excitement in her voice.

  “Yeah,” of course I wanted Beatriz to be kind. That was what she was.

  “So tell me what’s bothering you.”

  “The… The sound file and I yelled at Sarah and… just everything,” I admitted sniffing.

  “Sarah isn’t your girlfriend,” Beatriz pulled back her gaze serious. “We, I am your girlfriend. You should tell me what is bothering you. I’m the one who cares about you.”

  “Of course,” I nodded miserably. “I just… I just never wanted to break up with Sarah.”

  “You always hug me. You kissed me. You ate me out. Are you saying you didn’t want to do any of that? That I forced you?”

  “No, no you didn’t…”

  “So you did choose me over her,” she asserted.

  I couldn’t respond to that.

  Beatriz grinned in delight.