The Unjoined

The Story

To the Confluence, humanity is the most terrifying species in the galaxy. Not because humans are violent, though they are. Not because they are unpredictable, though that too. What terrifies the Confluence is something far more fundamental: humans are alone. Each one isolated in a single skull, cut off from every other mind, unable to share emotions or merge consciousness with their kind. The Confluence calls them the Unjoined. They have watched Earth for centuries, equal parts fascinated and horrified. Keth is an engineer assigned to the observation program. His mission is simple: study the humans, maintain his cover, file reports. He is not supposed to be noticed. He is certainly not supposed to fall in love. Vera Chen is a systems integration engineer who sees through Keth's disguise on day one. What begins between them as curiosity becomes connection, and what his people call contamination becomes something the Confluence has no word for. When Keth returns home, he carries the weight of human feeling in a mind designed for consensus. His testimony before the tribunal will force his people to confront questions they have avoided since the catastrophe that nearly destroyed them: What is lost when minds merge? What is gained when they remain apart? And what if the Unjoined have discovered something the Confluence forgot?

Major Themes