A to Z 2026 - Q - Contessina’s Collection of Human Treasures

“Here’s the thing, we fell in love with Earth, but we had to learn about it, too, like everyone else,” Contessina said.

Shelby sat staring at Michelangelo, saying nothing.

“We had our own name for the planet,” Contessina continued. “We called it Quell. We called humans, Quellians. They returned the favor, of course. They called us Centaurians, once they identified where we came from. A lot of them were overjoyed to meet us. That’s easy to forget, to overlook, I think, in all of this.

“But more to the point, it reminds me of an old story of theirs, Don Quixote. It’s about a man who becomes somewhat confused, later in life. He mounts this personal crusade, echoing a tradition he’d been reading about, an archaic reminder of the past that baffled those around him, to see revived, the absurdity of how he carried it out, how he seemed entirely delusional, interpreting everything, and those around him, in the most romantic way…

“There are those of us, and not just my people, who believe humanity mostly survived the war because they chose to view it that way, in this quixotic fashion. I made it a point to collect all these little news items, what they were telling each other, this hopelessly apocalyptic moment in their history, this insistence that they could…fight you, and survive. That’s…another of the reasons my people fell in love with them. They embraced this fight like one of the Campaigns, even when they were telling themselves it was unwinnable, that it was foolish to even try, that the leaders who kept pushing for war were somehow making things worse, that it would’ve been better simply to capitulate.

“Well, we all know how that played out. Some say they only won because of the Welborn, the Omoxians…They seek to belittle the achievement, to reduce humans to a joke, an old man dying with little enough dignity…

“As I say, I adore the story, and humanity. Maybe I’m a fool, myself.”

Shelby continued to make no comment.

(Collider, Book 1 of the Danab Cycle, available in three formats: https://a.co/d/0eU9NO4C)