Astronomers saw it first, a diffuse redness in the sky, tinting the stars. Some swore it turned the dark of space to Stygian scarlet, but that was nonsense. The obvious suggestion of a nebula was rejected when it moved in ways nebulae don’t, and the parallax made it clear it was closer and smaller than that, perhaps the size of a gas giant. Then they saw it move faster than light.

There was cautious rejoicing. Scientists had longed for any observation that might point to new physics and this seemed to be it. Caution was eroded, bit by bit, when every attempt to explain the observations as atmospheric or solar phenomena, the inside of a molecular cloud, or simple instrument failure fell short. “Just because we don’t know what it is doesn’t mean it’s aliens.” is a sound maxim, but something faster than light accelerating and changing direction sure sounds like aliens.

A few people tried to start doomsday cults, but everyone was sick to death of doomsday and thought the apocalypse could fuck right off.

Some in the government called for a war footing, and very serious people came on the news insisting the world must defend itself with a preemptive strike. No strike happened when it became clear there might be a riot if the military embarrasses them in front of the whole galaxy.

Whatever it was continued unchanged for a few days, and just as people were starting to lose interest, the World Space Agency’s early asteroid warning system turned on for the first time. None of the standard templates were suitable, and so dispatches bore the heading “WE DO NOT KNOW WHAT IS HAPPENING” and the signoff “PANIC WILL ONLY MAKE THINGS WORSE”.

Between first line and last were images and telemetry from probes exploring the outer system. Peregrine 5’s accelerometers spiked, and it sent back images of long, luminous strands in red and white, waving like grass in the wind. The accelerometer spiked again, and the next image was mostly black, a shape with four round projections blotting out the stars, then Peregrine 5 was back on course.

Seeker 3, in transit from gas giant Ayan to ice giant Waveholm sent back an image that nearly started a fight. Caution prevailed, and the next alert described two glowing ellipsoids, golden-yellow. Nobody read the dispatches, for whatever those probes had seen had raced their signals home to fill the sky.

It eclipsed the sun, and two shining golden eyes blazed in the darkness, dimming the stars. They were part of a softly glowing shape in red and white, with two pointy ears and a mouth open in canid glee. They looked very much like a fox. The light they’d reflected on their trip finally arrived, closest first, creating the illusion of the creature zooming away as it loomed over them.

When official announcements came, the events were so strange, their tone was less fear than embarrassment to have found themselves in such a reality. It was hard to be frightened when the fox, after a few moments’ wonder at their find, snuffled at the upper atmosphere, sending clouds skidding around and neatly dispersing a hurricane that had been on its way to the coast. The creature dashed around, away, and back again. Gloriously luminous, they bounded through the void. The fox paused, pressed a forepaw to the northern ice cap, and stopped the world’s rotation without even cracking the ice, then spun it back up.

They splashed a paw in the ocean, admiring the waves, only to move with an excited yip to block the tsunamis they’d unleashed from hitting anything. While they were playing, the world continued in its orbit, and the fox made a questioning sound as they felt the planet move away. The fox looked around and emitted a short, quick gekker that reverberated over the world in protest at the theft of their prize.

Networks buzzed with talk of the Starfox, as everyone has called them, trading digital delight at the cosmic beast’s curiosity and confusion. The Starfox loomed suddenly larger as it took a half-step closer, then its mouth gaped and rushed forward to fill the sky from horizon to horizon with glistening pink and lightning-bright fangs. Delight turned to horror, and the maw closed. On the planet’s surface, the view of space narrowed as fangs closed like prison bars over the stars. People fell where they were, silent or sobbing as they waited for the end.

The end failed to come, and terror transmuted to dissociation. Between the teeth, the sky’s blue faded and the sun shrank to a pinprick before being lost completely. The atmosphere rolled back and forth with oscillating derechos in time to the fox’s panting breath, entraining the world to the beast’s vitality.

Finally the mouth opened, revealing an alien sky, near the galactic core and thick with stars. The world hung suspended between the beast’s paws, and their eyes lit the sky with a double-light of glow and reflected stars. The fox settled down to inspect their world, feeling proud that all of its satellites, including a space station, had made the trip.

Below, people felt themselves watched, personally, by the eyes in the sky, even as they were told that a creature that large couldn’t possibly see, or even care about, someone as small as them. Rejecting the reassurance, injured dignity demanded that if their world is to be stolen, it should be about them.

They got their wish. It soon became clear that the fox did take an interest in tiny affairs. Sometimes a toepad with more area than most nations would brush against the globe to turn it, keeping large ships, buses, sometimes lone individuals in the fox’s view. At contact, pad flexed harmlessly against the tiny projections of urban infrastructure, but pressed the inhabitants beneath warm softness.

The Starfox found one thing particularly interesting: A geographically dispersed, and very unhappy, team of soldiers. Their tight synchronization, immediacy of action, and abject misery distinguished them from supply chains and scientific collaboration.

No one involved wanted any part of the operation. Even—especially—not the Commander. Their mind screamed questions like “We’re nowhere near the sun, what will we do for light?” and “Do you really want to make it mad?”, but they drowned it out with more frantic activity. Their confusion, powerlessness, and a big stockpile of weapons compelled them to act.

When the system to track space junk had first been installed, no one guessed it would be used for eye-tracking. Now, fox eyes filled one wall-screen, and their maps showed the likely focus of the beast’s regard. Somehow, whenever they sent a message, the Starfox glanced at the destination; it didn’t matter what channel or obfuscation.

“It can’t know what we’re planning,” the Commander insisted, “or it would have struck preemptively. The fact that we’re still here proves we can win!”

They took one day to test and repair as much as they could of systems they’d been planning to dismantle. When the clock ran out, keys turned with a click. The people who’d turned them dropped their heads to their arms and whimpered.

In the rest of the world, everyone kept it together enough to keep power and water and food and medicine coming, but no one could care about wealth or position. People skipped work or went in for just an hour. The transformed world was irresistible, tinted with fever-dream by starlight and foxlight, and everyone wanted to learn the new sky. The one commercial endeavor people got excited about was getting as many telescopes out to as many people as wanted them. Even then they were asked to churn them out faster, so all could survey the stars and their captor.

Every missile that could be made launch-worthy in a day was fired, timed so they would all strike their target together. A world watching the sky saw them fly and heard a yelp of pain ring out. They stared in dread as the giant beast clapped a paw to their eye and whined like a sad dog.

The Commander repeated to themself that they “Did the honorable thing” and “fought for dignity” to distract from the thought that they’d just called down the eschaton. Whether to stave off the end or just get revenge, the Commander’s subordinates led their unresisting leader outside, poised to dispatch them as soon as the fox looked their way.

A low growl pierced the ground, shaking the foundations of buildings. It grew in volume as the creature’s nose loomed oppressively, sniffing over the globe. The growl lowered and intensified when eyes, flaring with anger, spied what was either repudiation or a sacrifice, depending on who you asked. Lightning quick, the Starfox brought their paw down on those below. They bent scale and space by instinct, ensuring their toes and claws were nimble enough to separate the Commander from their executioners. An earthshaking tap of a toeclaw in front of anyone trying to finish the deed sufficiently clarified the fox’s intent.

Resuming their inspection, the fox only grew more wrathful, hackles raised and bared teeth blazing. Their insistence on the Commander living drove panicked speculation of fates worse than death.

Suddenly, a storm of paws. As if sprawled on their back, the fox struck over and over with all four feet. Sonic booms thundered as folk were pinned and released before their brains had a chance to register the event. Every touch spun the world more, and for its inhabitants, there was under an hour of helpless sensory overload. Two things made it bearable…they could feel hints of the beast’s wrath, none directed at them, and the intense sense of focus on harming nothing but their target.

Through all the chaos, the Starfox’s claws plucked every missile silo and cache of warheads from the ground, leaving it pristine but for deep gouges not much wider than the silos. They reached into the sea, hauling up every submarine, ripping weapons out, but not even touching the engines, hastily scrambled planes were swept from the sky, similarly disarmed with precision vandalism, then planes and subs were left in open spaces otherwise unharmed.

Work done, the fox sprawled out, panting, glaring at the planet.

They’d set the globe spinning fast enough in their hunt that its inhabitants saw the stare of hurt repeatedly fly across the sky. Over an hour or two the fox started to calm, relaxing, watching the world between their paws, first with renewed curiosity, then with renewed affection. At last, the beast decided they and the planet were friends again. They lowered their head and rubbed the top against the world, picking a spot with towering skyscrapers and pointed spires to give themselves a good scratch.

They couldn’t describe how, but within the towers, people felt the walls, the floors, the ceilings change. The structure around them felt more real than it had a moment ago. The strangeness and significance of the structure grew as the fox pressed harder, their imbual of strength spread outward. People felt the ground beneath their feet radiate solidity for kilometers around. The tide withdrew as the fox leaned back, then happily curled around the globe to rest.

After that, people stopped being scared, at least of being harmed. There was all the soul searching, the profound sense of helplessness, and blank refusal to accept what had happened that you’d expect, but when you fire your planet’s nuclear arsenal into someone’s eye and they forgive you, you have to accept they don’t want to hurt you.

What’s more, the Starfox was intent on taking the best care of their planet that they could. If you waited outside long enough, you’d see the creature’s eyes scan intently over you and your surroundings. After blowing a few clouds around so the rain would fall where it was needed, they made up for the loss of the planet’s sun with three balls of light in crisscrossing orbits. The plants flourished, and the shifting colors of flickering foxfire commanded pareidolia. A thicket of dreams sprang up in every shadow.

Mostly, the fox liked to watch, though they’d occasionally head-rub some urban area, fuzzy skull scritched by the buildings, that tide of imbual flowing into the world. The manifest intensity of the fox’s will to do no harm emboldened enough people that, when the tip of an ear touched down in the middle of a public park, a few brave souls ran up and started petting it. They felt the fox feel them when, at the first touch, a tide of appreciation and strength flowed into them, the fox lending them the solidity to stand their ground and make an impression with their touch. A happy warble floated on the air, and eyes squinted shut. More joined in, and were similarly imbued, while the fox pawed at the void in happiness for minutes before lifting their head. A deft touch of toes, disorienting for the feel of stretched space, returned anyone hanging on to the ground.

That moment of touch enchanted the Starfox, who watched the world with new wonder. People having calmed down enough to start making and shipping things again, convoys of trucks rolled onto the roads. The fox didn’t pay them much mind until that alien sense picked up on their coordination, and in it saw something that could act coherently on the scale of a continent. The fox wanted to play.

A claw like a keratin mountain descended on a highway, neatly stopping a convoy about to split at a major interchange. Pupils dilated and ears perked, the fox waited for their response.

Their first mistake was turning right around and heading back to find a different route. The fox leaned closer, so excited that the beast was telegraphing their moves, but even with advance warning, a truck will never be faster than a cosmic fox paw, and it became obvious that any progress they were making was because the Starfox was following some rules. Once the game was on, each tap of the claw sent everything on the road slipping back, as if on ice, the distance of a few minutes’ drive.

They compounded their error with a coordinated logistical response, sending other vehicles in to distract the fox. Circuitous routes were drawn up, intersecting each other, joining, and diverging. Identical trucks with identical goods were dispatched to add more chaff. The Starfox, for their part, was delighted with this. Perky ears and sparkling eyes filled the skies as paws and toes and claws moved here and there, herding the trucks, driving them back. A cheerful gekker rang out, and there was a brief reprieve. The spinning skies showed the fox chasing their tail and pouncing the spot they had just occupied before turning back to the game.

A few truckers with pets or kids radioed back to dispatch: “Aren’t we training it to chase us?”, but to Logistics, it had become a matter of pride. Nobody really knew what the rules of the game were, but the fox seemed to know when trucks were reaching their destinations and nudge them back more often. A strategy was hatched to get as many vehicles near their destinations as they could, then have them all floor it to get there at once.

Mandatory driving breaks meant on-road replacements. A truck would pull over, a car would zoom up, the new driver would board and the old would be driven off to rest.

Everyone thought the game would start winding down when the first truck’s battery was depleted and the rest were getting low. As the drained vehicle rolled to a stop, fox and driver both felt a sting of disappointment. Just as it stopped, each truck felt more real around its driver, the charge level on each was replaced with an infinity symbol, and the stopped truck revved to life.

The beast was clearly delighted. They rolled on their back, wagging happily, all four paws flying, containing the ever-growing complexity in a storm of pad and claw, or attempting to. With each truck handling like as if new and on an ideal road surface, one managed to slip past the beast, speeding down the driveway, its bumper a moment from entering the lot.

The fox saw…and tensed. The driveway folded into the highway. Hundreds of hectares of land formerly in between were jumbled together on either side in mismatched landscapes. Diverted by spacefold, the almost-victorious truck was left heading down the highway near where they’d started, and the world regained its normal shape. The fox, after a moment’s reflection, emitted a guilty whine, then bowed their head, and pawed at their muzzle. Slowly, they brought a claw to the truck, a shift in gravity pulled the vehicle onto the luminous point, and the fox set it down deliberately at its destination.

The Starfox rolled away from the planet to flatten on their belly, ears lowered just enough to signal surrender. After a disbelieving silence, a cheer of victory rang out in every truck, dispatch office, and operations research department in the continent. Nobody had expected a beast that could carry out nuclear disarmament in under an hour could be beaten at anything, let alone that they would have a sense of fair play.

It made the news. Reporters outlined the winning strategy. People played clips of the creature showing remorse for cheating and admitting defeat. Anyone who cared, and that was a lot of people, had a glow somewhere between a Superbowl victory and a moon landing.

The next day, they realized they’d rendered freight delivery completely impossible.

Having been convinced that this continent’s overland shipping network is not only fun to chase, but the only thing capable of presenting a challenge, the fox blocked every truck as soon as it got onto the road. Frustrated drivers reversed and swerved with screeching wheels, only to be blocked in the new direction.

Excited, happy, and determined not to lose this time, the fox let barely any get out to the highway. High powered phased speaker arrays were hastily constructed in uninhabited areas and pointed into space. Frantic people shouted sternly over them, “No! Bad fox!” but all that accomplished was making the fox shy away from looking too closely at the areas around them.

They floated a plan to set up more speakers and route things around them, when common sense took over. The emergency directive to all vehicles: Stop. Every truck stopped at once. The fox stared, puzzled, They nudged a couple of them with a claw to see if they’d start moving again. Then tried tapping the ground behind them to send everything on the road sliding forward a few kilometers. After leaning close and nudging them back and forth on the road a few more times, the fox lost interest and started snuffling around near, but not too near, the speaker arrays.

Once the beast lost interest, the trucks started up, one by one. Slowly at first, gradually picking up speed they headed to the highway. As soon as they reached it, the shadow of a paw blocked out the stars. The fox stared down, excited and happy that they’d rejoined the game! The beast considered briefly where to strike, but never got the chance: As soon as the fox raised their paw, every driver below stopped at once.

The fox made a curious sound and sent the trucks sliding back and forth along the road a few more times, as if trying to remind them what their role in the game was. With no response the beast gave up, leaned back, and just watched, to see when they’d start moving again. Wild animals are distractible, and there was so much else of interest happening on the planet that soon the fox’s attention shifted to watching patterns of light shifting over the globe with people’s activity.

Once again, the trucks started up, slowly accelerating. By this point “What is the fox looking at?” had become such a matter of public interest that there were public feeds of coordinates and aerial photographs with fuzzy borders marking what they guessed to be the bounds of fox-sight. The dispatchers watched the feed, and signaled every driver to stop immediately and turn off the vehicle as soon as the fox looked their way.

The fox switched their attention to another continent, but each system copied the strategy, and while it took hours, the fox got the idea that trucks didn’t want to play right then and left them alone. They tried playing Overland Shipping Logistics again a few times, but as soon as the trucks slammed on the brakes and turned off, the fox let them be.

Having established a baseline of trust, the people and the fox began their program of mutual domestication. You could just go still and not respond if you caught the fox’s attention and wanted to be left alone.

Many people didn’t want to be left alone. The existential despair that had crept over the world started to recede. For some, it receded pretty quickly. A universe full of unimaginably powerful creatures is pretty frightening, but when the unimaginably powerful creatures seem to think you deserve at least some respect, you can sweep right past trust to giddiness.

The next time the fox leaned in for an architectural scratch, folks were ready. They called up to the beast and ran down the street each taking turns petting the fox’s ear as they ran past. It worked, and the fox reached down, playfully trying to block the way of the runners, and while some stopped, others, strengthened and made quicker by the contact, climbed up the continental pawpad. With wonder and delight the fox brought their paw to eye-level, covering themself with a breathable atmosphere. They warbled down to the creatures on their paw, then nuzzled against them. As their fur blew back in the fox’s breath, the tiny people ran forward to scratch under the massive muzzle. Being on the creature brought a stronger imbual than merely touching them, and visitors leaped and bounded through fur, able to traverse the vast, vulpine distances, and discovering the fox had a uniform gravity all over.

Once it was revealed how safe and pleasant it was aboard the cosmic fox, both fox and a substantial portion of the world population were constantly happy. The fox would switch smoothly from chasing people to bringing them near, doing their best to follow the mood.

Being in such close contact with so many people let the fox learn to read their emotions, if not their intent. Someone feeling sad and lonely might see the paw-shadow fall over them, then be swept up to the heavens to join others pressed between warm, enveloping pad and soft, slightly raspberry scented, fur.

It was hard to tell beneath the starry sky and foxfire, but under the fox’s care the world seemed more peaceful. Crop yields boomed, weather was mild. An earthquake registered seismographically, but before the tremors grew strong enough to feel, a paw descended to press against the ground. For the creatures held beneath it, the touch was as gentle as they’d always known, but their awareness was caught up with the fox’s. They felt the beast’s will push down through the rocks, bending kilometers deep stone to relieve the stress.

After a couple of weeks, the desire for normalcy was starting to be replaced with the idea, maybe even the hope, that this was normal. Scientists tried to figure out some way to work ‘fox’ into the stellar cycle that didn’t involve throwing out all of physics and starting from scratch, then headed outside to play.

Without seeming to approach, a figure, outlined in white loomed over the fox. The naked eye could make out no more than the giant’s feet, standing on either side of the fox, and legs seeming to go up forever. When the giant sat cross-legged and pulled the fox into their lap, they leaned toward the planet, and they could be seen to be a dog, similar to a border collie but with pointier ears.

The dog gave the planet a smile and said, “Hi.” in a soft tone, before they turned their attention to the fox. Seeing tiny, shocked people in fox fur looking up, the dog softly touched them with fingertips like the sky descending. “Don’t worry, I’m not going to hurt you.”

The dog stroked through the fox’s fur, gathering everyone up. Their own gravity overwhelmed the fox’s, minuscule people fell up into their palm, a landscape of lines and creases that seemed to go on forever. The dog knew what was coming, so took the time to pet and focus on each person. Where the fox’s manipulation of the world was wild and powerful, the dog’s was focused, their touch somehow less overwhelming in spite of their even greater size. They spoke to each person softly, but they all found themselves tongue-tied. Once the creatures were reassured and unafraid, the dog touched their fingertips to the ground and slid their passengers down with their thumb.

The world watched as the dog sat before them, holding the fox in their arms. “You know you’re not supposed to play with un-developed worlds.” The fox folded their ears and tried to look innocent “Don’t give me that. Marked or not, I know you can tell.” The fox turned, staring at the planet and reached toward it with a slight whimper. The dog looked down with a sad smile and rubbed the creature’s head, “I know, I know…”

The dog reached for the planet and lifted it, hovering in their palm, to chest-height. Looking down regretfully they said “I’m sorry, that was never supposed to happen. With a creature that powerful, even though they’d never harm you intentionally, being so completely overwhelmed, everything you know about the universe overturned…societies just give up on figuring anything out, stop developing, and just have fun.”

As an aside, the dog looked down to the fox and asked. “Is everyone who was on that world when you took it on it now?” When the fox yapped assent, the dog patted them and said. “All right, run along.”

They returned their attention to the planet, standing once more as they padded through the void to return it. “It’s not that I’m against playing,” they said, “but the games are so much better when you get more capable.”

The second time stars rushed past the world, its inhabitants stared, rapt. Before they could gather their thoughts or even have stable enough feelings to name, the sun shone again in the sky. The words thundered “There, now you won’t have to do a leap second.” and the dog vanished. Everything was as it was.

Some were heartbroken, but for most the two weeks spent under alien stars and foxfire were like a pocket of unreality, something that couldn’t possibly have happened, yet definitely did. They came to think of it as time-out-of-time, disconnected from the rest of their lives. People showed back up at jobs they’d walked out on, no questions asked, but there were long lasting effects.

Knowing what was out there drew them starward, and fifty years later, their first FTL-capable ship set out.

Meanwhile…

The Starfox nestled between two arms of the galaxy, far from anyone who might notice. Furtively looking around, just to be safe, they opened their paw, revealing the space station gleaming within.

The external pressure gauge inside the station rose to one atmosphere, and the fox looked down at it with hopeful anticipation.

They’d wait a couple minutes. If the people inside stayed still, the fox would run back and return the station to its orbit.

But otherwise…