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He was so... quaint. I can't really think of another word to describe him. Another human word that is.
He was a complete wreck of emotions the first time I had laid my eyes on him - his own eyes darting back and forth across the reflective glass, searching and searching, but never finding. Never being able to satisfy his human curiosity.
I find this heightened level of curiosity to be unique among his race. Of all the other planets I've supervised in my time alive, no matter if they were as advanced as human beings or even more advanced in technological assets, not one hosted a race as hungry for answers as human beings.
They're quite the delicate little things if I'm being honest. Of course, we ourselves are by no definition of the word immortal, but Ricky's species has such soft flesh - able to be penetrated with even the dullest needlepoint. It's a wonder they've been able to exist for as long as they have. I do not admire them for this, however. Even if they're able to persist without extra biological protection, it is simply the drive that all life experiences. The drive that is, in fact, the very reason life exists at all in this vast void that we call the universe - a will to survive. They aren't wrong when they say "life will find a way", and neither is Ricky when he quotes this phrase when referring to the less-than-optimal state of his crops.
No matter, I suppose.
The stars aren't meant for man.
Such quaint beings. Believing that just because they've discovered planets far from their reach with their telescopes that they're meant - no - destined to inhabit them in the future. They aren't wrong in believing there is other life in this universe as well, clearly. I've made as much information available. They are not, however, destined to reach for those planets, or even so much as the nearest star. I may not admire this race, but I do envy it. Their children can go where we can never follow.
I rarely have the luxury to dwell on self-indulgent thoughts, but even I can't help but wonder what the overmind truly is. Is it alive? Is it by any meaning of the word a living being? Or is it simply an entity existing for the sole purpose to cycle consciousness throughout the universe? Would there be as much life if it weren't for the Overmind? Is the Overmind like a black hole - sucking, inhaling, drinking, stating itself until there will be no potential left? I've learned to give up on seeking answers along time ago - not just to these questions, but also to any others I had pertaining to the vast beyond.
Ricky and his kind, on the other end of the spectrum, will never stop pondering, and at the same time will never have all their questions answered. Why do they rattle themselves like this? Why do they keep asking the same questions about space even though they know those questions will never be answered? I must admit, in the context of my conversations with Ricky, I had all the answers for him. I could have satisfied that yearning, aching feeling in his mind that hungers for knowledge. I could have fed him all the information he'd ever need to know about this black, velvet nothingness that his little blue marble floats in. I could have answered all his questions so he wouldn't have been left to wonder like I once had.
But I didn't.
I didn't because it wasn't practical of me to do so. He would not live to see the end of his world, thus there was no need to explain to him truly why we were here.
I didn't...
...at first,
I shouldn't have.
But I did eventually.
Why?
I told him the last time he was flown up to meet with me that I considered him a friend. However, the very word friend is a human language term, and did not relay to Ricky fully the meaning behind my statement, rather I only used the word because in his language it was the only word that came to as close of a resemblance of what I considered him.
Him.
The "chosen one". The "blue collar prophet", as his people like to call him.
The one whose mind never ceased to buzz with sublime curiosity. The one who, though may not have been all too pleased with me during stage one of supervision, spoke to me with awe radiating in his voice and eyes every time we engaged in conversation between a glass wall. The one who I not only considered a friend but a respectable companion and a brave lifeform. The one who, for the first time in a long time, made a light chuckle escape from my vocal chords when he showed me the political cartoon of all my possible appearances against the glass wall, my favorite being the centipede.
It was interesting to see him up front and close for the first time - a human, that is - rather than gazing down at their race from my ship in the atmosphere. A part of me wanted to remove the glass just to see the unique expressions and emotions that only humans were capable of conveying.
It was he who I thought of as the notes carried throughout the high ceilings of my ship and the invisible rotation rings of this solar system.
"How terribly, terribly quaint." I remember saying to myself as I stared at the ships steering module.
"Onto the next."