Herk doesn't remember his birth.

He's not sure when he came to be aware. His memory is fragmented, but he knows his destination: the blue-green planet that feels like home.

His mission was to seek out evidence of life in the vast reaches of space.

And now he is returning home, successful.

How happy my family will be, he thinks, to meet my new friends.

His sensors glance back at the mass of ships trailing him: wave after wave of sleek shiny disks.