Kaiju Agonistes

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The watchseed is planted in a watery hemisphere of a watery world. The place spins around a yellow star, wearing its magnetic field like a proud little hat. It’s ridiculous with life.

Hence, a watchseed, with the best of intentions. Let’s give the seed-planters that much. They mean well. Crawling from star to star at not-quite-c, they make their surveys, consult their charts, launch a seed now and then. Old thinkers, they make an endless circuit of the galaxy on behalf of young thinkers. Young thinkers are rare and precious and must be protected, particularly from themselves, because young thinkers are stupid as hell and prone to misadventures with anything they can dig out of their planetary crusts. Hydrocarbons, radioactives, anything.

This planet is rich in ingredients for misadventure. Down goes the seed.

Two hundred thousand solar orbits, more or less, pass quietly. Then the watchseed wakes up with the unmistakable taste of an atomic weapon in its mouth.

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