New to Other-Terrestrial? Check here! Or if you need to, jump to the beginning of the episode here!

---

Apollonia felt exhausted.  Her feet hurt as she left Resources, hating the dim lighting down here.  Several times she thought she heard Boku-boku lingering just out of sight, but when she checked her tablet it said there were none nearby.

“Is anyone out there, Angel?” she asked the little dog.  But the dog in the bee costume only got excited when she heard her name, wagging her tail so hard her entire rear end shook.

“Don’t think I didn’t notice you napping when I was working,” she said to the dog.  “So now’s your chance to work and tell me if I’m alone!”

Angel just started panting in excitement, dancing around her legs.

Well, she decided, it didn’t seem like anyone in the Sapient Union to stalk her, even those weird little shits, so it was probably just her tired nerves.

Her poor mood put her in a klepto mindset; back on New Vitriol one stole whenever they could get away with it.  Sure, if you got caught you might get a kicking or a night in lock-up, but you always needed stuff, and even if you didn’t need the thing you took, you could probably barter it for something you did.

But what was the point on the Craton?  No one lacked for anything.  The whole goddamn Union was like that, as far as she knew, except maybe on the fringe colonies.

Finally finding her way back to the lift, she was surprised to see Kiseleva as the doors opened.

The woman gave her a curt nod, and Apollonia felt even slouchier as she moved to stand next to her in the small lift.

“How was your training?” the woman asked.

“Boring,” Apollonia replied.  She noticed that Angel had sat down to her side, watching her.

She had missed the parade, done a piss-poor job, pissed off her co-workers, and it had all been stuff better suited to drones.

“Was this just about seeing how I dealt with boring shit?” she asked.

Kiseleva glanced over to her.  “That was a factor.  Being an officer in the Voidfleet means doing the tasks that need to be done.  Even if they are dull.”

“It sure was dull,” Apollonia said.

Kiseleva turned more to look at her.  “Thousands of years ago, humans sailed the oceans of Earth in wooden vessels.  They often relied upon the wind – you know what wind is, yes?”

“Of course I do,” Apollonia said back, a little snappishly.

“Sometimes the wind would die down,” Kiseleva continued.  “And the boat would be dead in the water – unable to move.  Do you know what they did then?”

“What?” Apollonia asked.

“They waited,” Kiseleva said.  “They called them the doldrums.”

“Are you saying we are in the doldrums now?  Because really it did not seem dull at the giant and awesome party you pulled me out of.”

“You do not want to hear it now,” Kiseleva said.  “But it was for your own good.”

Apollonia glared at her.  For the first time since Gohhi she thought about peering into a mind; she could do it, she imagined.  If she focused enough.

Look into Kiseleva’s mind; find something that would freak her out, get her to fuck off and stop saying this stupid, banal stuff.

But even as she had the thought she mentally recoiled.

No.  The last time she had done that she’d touched a serial killer’s mind.

It had left marks in her.

Sometimes, she woke up in the night, and thought she might have been dreaming his dreams.

Angel barked, once, sharply, snapping her out of her depths.

“Are you all right?” Kiseleva asked, her expression serious.

The mood in the elevator had turned.  Not just from her mood, Apollonia realized.  Her . . . presence, or whatever it was, seemed to palpably ooze from the walls.

Looking up, the lights in the elevator themselves seemed dimmer.  The whole space smaller, more claustrophobic.  Kiseleva would be getting the brunt of it.

“Yeah, I’m all right,” Apollonia said, suddenly feeling much more sober than before.  She looked down at Angel, but the dog seemed cowed, nervous.

Whining about missing the parade suddenly seemed a very small thing.

The doors to the lift opened.

“Let’s go,” she said to Kiseleva.  She still felt glum, but at least she wasn’t being petulant anymore.

Kiseleva seemed thrown off; Apollonia could see her struggling on some level to comprehend the change that had just occurred.  But to her credit she was continuing on.

“Follow me,” the woman said.  “I know you are tired, but there is something else I wish to show you.  I think you will appreciate it.”

They were back on the ship proper – in the science area again.  It was bright enough in here that the dinginess she seemed to have created receded slightly.

Apollonia hoped that Kiseleva meant she might actually get to see the astronavigation stuff, and she followed the woman with a cautious optimism.

But maybe she had ruined that chance with her change.

Kiseleva was watching her.  It was subtle; it was only the woman’s eyes glancing slightly her way.  But she was, and her expression while doing it was . . . odd.  It wasn’t fear, or hate, but it was something.

“Something bothering you, Sergeant?” Apollonia asked.

Her words came out more challengingly than she intended, and Kiseleva looked at her with a frown.  “I must admit something; I did not know you were as young as you are, and it bothers me that I did not see it.  It seems obvious, looking at you now, that you are young.”

“People often get surprised,” Apollonia said.  “Even when I was kid people often seemed to think I wasn’t.  Maybe I just have a serious face or they couldn’t look past how I made them feel.”

“Perhaps I expected too much from you in prior training,” Kiseleva admitted.  “And have judged you too harshly.  You have gone through a lot for someone your age.”

Apollonia knew she had, but it felt weird to just agree.  She said nothing to that, but nodded a little, partly in thanks but mostly just for acknowledgement.

Kiseleva was just looking forward again as they moved, but there still seemed something antsy about her.

“Was there something else on your mind?” Apollonia prompted.

Kiseleva glanced away.  “It is nothing,” she said.

“Does that nothing have to do with that mission?” Apollonia pressed.

Kiseleva stopped and turned to face her fully.

“Yes,” she admitted.  “It does.”

“What, then?”

Kiseleva shook her head.  “It is not appropriate for me to say these things.”

“Well that just makes it sound bad,” Apollonia said.  “Up until two minutes ago you were ready to chew me out for being whiny.  But now . . .”  She tilted her head.  “I freaked you out, didn’t I?”

“You did,” Kiseleva told her bluntly.  “Two minutes ago you were a petulant child.  Then, in a moment, you changed.  It’s like you’re . . .” she snorted and looked away.

Apollonia leaned slightly into her field of view, raising her eyebrows in question.

“It’s like you’re suddenly the ranking officer and I feel out of line,” Kiseleva said, sounding confused.

“Well, why don’t you just go ahead and say what you were thinking?  I don’t mind,” Apollonia replied, feeling oddly calm now.  Kiseleva normally intimidated her, but at the moment, after her more sobering realization, fear of the woman seemed almost silly.  Not that Kiseleva wasn’t obviously a dangerous woman in the right circumstances, but this was not that kind of situation.

“I was thinking,” Kiseleva said slowly.  “That I wish I could have resisted that effect that froze us all – the way you did.”

“You don’t know the baggage that comes with it,” Apollonia replied, a dry laugh coming out.  “It’s a sacrifice,” she added.

Kiseleva was silent a moment longer, then nodded.  She turned to face forward again.

“I understand,” she replied.

“It’s the only thing I’m good for, really,” Apollonia said.  It wasn’t even self-pity talking.  She just knew it was true; she had no skills or talents, she was not good at . . . anything.  Not even at an amateur level.

Kiseleva shrugged.  “I wonder, Apollonia Nor, if you truly want to do anything, or if you just wish to justify your existence?”

“What?” Apollonia asked, eyes widening as she was caught off-guard.

“It seems to me that you balk at many tasks.  But you wish to be more than just passively useful.  You undoubtedly are; your simple existence is justification enough, from a value standpoint, if that is how you wish to reckon your worth.  It is not how the Union views life, but I cannot stop you from making your own judgments.”

Apollonia looked down and away from the woman, her mind roiling again.

“Your childhood, as abrupt and terrible as it was, did not prepare you for being a member of society,” Kiseleva continued.  “And so it leaves you now feeling like a parasite.”

“I’m not a parasite!” Apollonia snapped.

“No,” Kiseleva replied.  “You are not.  But I fear it is how you view yourself.”

She turned, beckoning Apollonia.  “Come.”

They walked again, coming to a set of white double doors with a massive insignia and words on it that read;

Astronavigation

Charting the Stars

Apollonia felt a slight tingle down her spine as Kiseleva opened the doors.

Angel ran in, wildly sniffing, with Apollonia and Kiseleva following at a more sedate pace.

The room was huge; extending up through five normal decks, with a huge hologram in the middle.  In the center was the Craton, and out beyond it, at distances she knew to be – literally – astronomical, were stars.

One point of light was in front of her, and she reached up, waving her hand through it.  Her fingers tingled as she touched it and she laughed.

“I never thought I’d touch a star,” she said.

Kiseleva walked to the middle.

“This is our current sector of space, twenty-five light years out in all directions.  In that area are over a thousand major objects – stars and brown dwarfs.  Anything that holds its own noticeable system.”

Apollonia stared at how many there were.  “These are their actual relative positions?”

“Yes,” Kiseleva said.  She took a long, slow breath.  “It is a tiny piece of our galaxy, yet overwhelming in its scale already.”

“It sure is,” Apollonia said.  “So . . . how do we reckon our position?”

“There are many ways,” Kiseleva said.  “And I will show you, if you wish.”

The door to the room opened again, and Apollonia stepped back guiltily, as if touching a holographic star was akin to stealing.

In the doorway, looking as surprised as Apollonia felt, was Urle’s eldest daughter, Hannah.

She was a cute kid, Apollonia thought.  She had large eyes and a very serious expression, belied slightly by her costume of a lion with a huge mane.  If she’d had makeup or a mask, she’d removed them, and her eyes widened as she saw them.

“Oh, sorry,” she said.  “I didn’t know I was interrupting.”

“It is fine,” Kiseleva said.  “You may come in.”

“Uh, yeah.  Welcome,” Apollonia said.

Hannah watched her curiously, only peeling her eyes off to look to Kiseleva as she came up to her.

“I just wanted to do some practice,” she said.  Angel ran up to her, and she petted the dog fondly.  “Oh, hi Angel!”

“That is fine,” Kiseleva said.  She looked up at the stars, considering a moment, then looked back to Hannah.  “Show me how to find Earth.”

Hannah looked up from the dog, her face scrunched up as she studied the stars.  “It’s pretty hard without a clue . . .”

“There are three F-type stars on this map,” Kiseleva told her.  “One of them lies between us and Earth.”

With a nod, Hannah stepped forward into the middle of the room, looking up.  She reached a hand up, moving it in a certain way, and the whole collection of stars moved.

“Whoa,” Apollonia said, stepping back out of the way.  “I didn’t even know we could do that.”

“I’m just trying to find the F-type stars,” Hannah said.  “Once I find those I can start trying to figure out which way Earth is!”

Kiseleva came over to stand next to Apollonia.

“How can she find the F-type stars?” Apollonia asked quietly.

“None are labeled, but she can analyze their spectra.  But before she can do that she must sort the visible stars by brightness.  F-type stars are a larger type of star, though not the largest.”

“You use the shift of the light to determine their distance, right?” Apollonia said, a long-ago memory of learning awakening in her head.

“Yes,” Kiseleva said, seeming pleased.  “Through accounting for that shift, you can determine their distance and therefore their absolute luminosity.  Once you have that you can determine their mass.”

“Handy that she has an app for that,” Apollonia noted.

“She wrote her own,” Kiseleva said, smiling a sly smile.

“Wow,” Apollonia said, her eyes widening.

“There!  That’s Phi Ceti!” Hannah said excitedly, pointing.  “I recognize it because it’s a variable F7 star!  Sol is 50 light years that way!”

Kiseleva applauded lightly, and Apollonia joined her.

“That was really impressive!” Apollonia said, coming up to the kid and clapping her on the shoulder.

Hannah beamed at her.  “Thanks!  I’ve been working hard on it!  Candy?”  She held up a bag that said SQIPZ on it.

Apollonia had never had those.

“Sure,” she said, taking one.  It just looked like a colorful little sphere.  When she popped it into her mouth it created a burst of flavor.  “Wow, that’s good.”

“Yeah!  Elliot gave them to me,” Hannah said.  “They’re really good!”

“It is getting rather late,” Kiseleva said.  “Perhaps you should go home now, Hannah.”

“Yeah,” she said reluctantly, glancing up at Apollonia.  “It was nice seeing you again, Ms. Nor.”

“You don’t have to be so formal,” Apollonia said quickly.

“Take Angel with you,” Kiseleva told the girl.  She glanced at Apollonia.  “If you are okay with that.  The dog should return to her home bed.”

“Yeah, that’s fine,” Apollonia said, reaching down to pet the little dog one more time.  “I’ll see you around, little bee.  You did good, thanks for sticking up for me with Phadom.”

“Phadom in Resources?” Hannah asked as she squatted down to pick up Angel, who seemed perfectly happy to be carried.  “I go to class with his son.  He’s also Phadom, but he’s Phadom Po.  It’s like ‘junior’ in Bokese.”

“Oh,” Apollonia said, surprised.  What did a little Boku-boku look like?  It might be adorable.

“Well, bye Teach, bye Apple!”

Still holding Angel, she ran off, and Apollonia sighed.  Her nickname was catching on, and part of her missed Angel already.

“Why did she call you teacher?” she asked Kiseleva.

“I am the teacher of the Astronav Pioneers Club,” Kiseleva said.

“Wow, isn’t that a lot on your plate with being in Response, too?”

“It is my hobby,” Kiseleva told her.  “I do it simply because I enjoy it – though I am a rated Astronavigator.”

“Wow,” Apollonia said.  “I have no idea what that means.”  She sighed, her amusement falling away.

Kiseleva studied her in silence for a moment.  “You find this exciting, and for that I am glad.  But you must look beyond simple childish excitement.  Even at her age, Hannah is considering becoming an astronavigator.  Is that what you want, Apollonia?  Because if it is, it can be so.”

“I don’t know,” Apollonia said.  “You’re right, it’s cool.  And maybe I could do that, I don’t know.  But, damn, that kid can do that and I barely know anything.  I feel humbled.  I’ve just never thought about what I wanted to be, for real.  Everything I’ve ever thought of was a fantasy.  An escape, not a future.”

Kiseleva reached up and put her hand on Apollonia’s shoulder, the warmth of it comforting.

“I think,” she said, “that you need to let go of your fear of being viewed as a dead weight.  Once you do that, you can figure out what it is that you truly love, and what you want to do with your life.”

---

< Ep 11 part 25 | Ep 11 Part 27 >

New to Other-Terrestrial? Check here! Or if you need to, jump to the beginning of the episode here!

---

There was a very slight shudder as his ship was pulled back into realspace by the Craton.  No effort was needed on her part, though it would ping the bridge.

Y knew they were expecting the shuttle to return from the Captain’s milk run, and so they would hopefully be none the wiser that he had left.

In twenty minutes time, the shuttle would dock, and he would be home.

He mused for a moment that it was convenient that even a passive zerodrive could pull an object from zerospace if it approached, and rob it of all momentum.  The effect was poorly understood, but made attempts at zerospace missiles all-but useless as it would only end up with them stopped harmlessly a few thousand kilometers out.

But he was only distracting himself with those thoughts.

The entire trip he had been ruminating on the meeting, and the more he did, the more unsettled he felt.

There was too much in the conversation that was sensitive; he could not share it with Brooks.  The Captain would respect that, but he would ask all the same, and Y would have to refuse him.  That would only serve to pique the human’s curiosity.

It was unfortunate, because he would like to get the man’s thoughts on Vermillion Dawn.

She was known to his people, but he was the first Ehni to actually meet and speak with her.  His observations were, therefore, valuable.

Prior to this they had known only that she was transhuman and that she controlled a very large and very effective information-gathering network.  It was also a well-armed network, and she had tentative connections to dozens of mercenary groups and rebel bands who seemed to share only one connecting trait; their hostility to Gohhi’s ruling class and the Glorian Empire.

Which was curious in itself, as certain details of her voice and mannerisms suggested she might be from one of those places.  His guess was that she was from a wealthy family of Gohhi, and had used her family resources to start her spy network, though he did not have evidence for that.

Now, though, he knew more.

Various details in her projection led him to believe that it was an accurate depiction of her body.  The craftsmanship in it was exquisite – but it was not atomically flawless.

Which meant it was not made by machine alone; it had been made by artisans of extremely high skill, implying that she possessed the amounts of wealth needed to hire them as well as the desire for such ostentation.

By contrast, Y’s bodies were not even that spectacular by the quality his people could produce.  They were stronger and faster than biological beings, but that was not a difficult bar to pass.  However, they only viewed their bodies as tools; they were not physical beings, but data.

The focus spent on her body implied that Dawn was not fully digital yet.  Her body was a temple, wherein she was housed, rather than a tool.

That spoke much about her.

But even more important had been her behavior; she’d been close, to get better bandwidth to study him.  Surely with multiple sensors that saw in many views.  His face had no movement and nothing to betray, but likely she had studied in detail the inner workings of his body as it had processed each question and created an answer.

She had valued this meeting enough to put herself at great risk.  There were many very powerful beings who wanted her dead.  At the lower end were business rivals, and at the upper some of the wealthiest beings ever to exist, with the resources of worlds at their disposal.

But most of all he had learned that she possessed an arrogance of her own.

He scanned the package that she had left aboard the craft again.  It was an information pod, but it was shielded so that an external scan could not penetrate it.  If he tried x-rays or something too invasive, it might very well blank itself.

There were no explosives; the residue would be obvious even with near-perfect tooling.  There seemed no danger in it.

But she had hand-written the note.  He studied the strokes, seeing that her physical hand still moved in the manner of a biological being.  From this, he mused, he might be able to learn who she once was.

Which, he suspected, she knew.

She just did not care.

He had learned that she was brimming with a confidence that, he was loathed to admit, was earned.

Their lack of knowledge of her person had always been disturbing to his people.  Working with a faceless being was atypical; they liked to know as much as possible about their partners.

But her usefulness had always outweighed their caution.  Her information network was second to none.

He had justified this mission to himself through the value of actually meeting her.  He had expected that he would come in and dance around her in the same way that he danced around all biological beings.

But could he even share anything he had learned with his own people?

The secrets of their sapience was something they guarded – jealously.  There were various views as to why even within their people, but it was something that all Ehni were sworn to uphold.  To break that covenant was something that would get an Ehni the bleakest punishment they could possibly face; permanent banishment.

The thought gave even him a pang of existential dread; and he was on the fringe of his people in his independence from the collective society.  While many other Ehni shared his curiosity about organic life, few would actually go live among them.

In his view it was a danger, though not in the sense that biological beings could threaten them with destruction.

No, it was dangerous, because of the risk of the biologicals learning just how they worked.  How their sapience functioned.

If that happened, Ehni minds could become something that biologicals could predict.  Their own AIs would increase in power.  It might even create a renaissance of research into the field.

And that was a problem.

Because an AI did not die unless it was destroyed.

If humans or other species gave rise to AI that considered itself alive, that had its own goals and agendas and desires . . .

That could be a threat to them.  One that would exist as long as they did.

If he shared all he had learned with his people, they would want to see all of his data.  They would see his own behavior, and they would be horrified.

Because he had performed terribly.

He had come into the situation, expecting that there was little real danger.  Yes, he thought, perhaps Dawn would attempt to capture his body and study his code.

On some level he had found the thought amusing.  To try and capture an Ehni for that purpose was not a new tactic, and they had myriad ways of defending against it; they could terminate, delete, and override their code so effectively that it was a reflex.

After all, when he transferred between bodies, what was he doing?  The data in each device was wiped away, completely turned to an illogical mess that gave no clue to their minds.  He killed himself multiple times every single day.

But Dawn had not proven to be such a primitive as to think she could physically control him.

She had come at him with a knife made of words, and used his own arrogance against him.

Only on reflection had he realized just how much she had played him.

Her question about his inner minds had been played perfectly to misdirect him; so focused had he been on the horror of the question that he had not accurately modeled a response.

And in his response, he had implicitly admitted to the fact that his intelligence did contain discrete lesser intelligences. 

Something that she should not even have known existed within them.

He had never been inspected in such a way.  Xatier had wanted to think he could, but he had been so self-limited that it had been a joke.

He would have to do better next time.

He could not let the arguments that had arisen against his joining the Union be proven right.

---

< Ep 11 part 24 | Ep 11 Part 26 >

New to Other-Terrestrial? Check here! Or if you need to, jump to the beginning of the episode here!

---

Tred stood outside of Cenz’s office doors for nearly ten full minutes before finally making himself ring for entrance.

He knew that Cenz was probably aware of him.  There wasn’t much that escaped the head of the science division, he could split his attention better than any human.

So Cenz was just letting him stew, he thought.  It seemed appropriate.

Part of him wondered if he and Jophiel had been laughing at him!

But no.  Just as soon as he had that thought he dismissed it shamefully.  Neither of them were like that, and it was only this . . . emotional outburst that was making him think that way.

He knocked.  He just did it, scaring himself in the process, and wanting to run.

The door opened.

“Engineer Tred, please come in,” Cenz said jovially, his screen smiling.  He waved him in.

“I, uh, sorry for standing there for so long,” Tred stammered.  He probably shouldn’t have admitted that.

“I imagined you were taking time to put your thoughts in order,” Cenz replied.  “And so long as no one else was trying to come in or go out, I saw no issue with it!  So; what did you wish to speak with me about?”

Tred just gaped.  He had not put his thoughts together, even though he wished he could have.

He didn’t know what to say or ask.  Every way he could think of to broach the topic to Cenz seemed . . .  Well, he didn’t want to do it that way.

“I saw you at the parade,” he said.  It was an incredibly inane statement, he knew.

Yet Cenz seemed to find nothing wrong with it.

“Ah, yes, I did go down to it for some time!  It was a pleasure spending time with Ambassador Jophiel, they are a very wonderful being, and with a fascinating perspective on many things.”

Tred’s heart beat faster as Cenz brought up the very topic.

But he still didn’t know what to say, exactly.

“You weren’t wearing a costume,” he said dumbly.

“That is true,” Cenz replied, taking it seriously, his screen showing a deeply contemplative expression.  “You are not the first to note my lack of ‘darkeve spirit’.  I usually tell people that this is a solemn period for my people, but the truth is somewhat sillier; getting all of the polyps that make up my collective consciousness to agree on a single costume is a very difficult task.  I suspect most people see through my fabrication, however.”

“Oh,” Tred said.

Cenz considered him for a long moment.  “But I do not think you came here to discuss my lack of costume, did you, Mr. Tred?”

“No,” he said.

“Why, may I ask, did you come here?  I do not mean to be rude, but you seem . . . upset.”  Cenz steepled the fingers on his hands.  Tred knew their specifications; he’d studied them for making Jophiel’s drone.  For a time he’d considered giving her advanced limbs for manipulation, but at that time he did not feel he could do them sufficiently well.

“I guess I am,” Tred said.

He had been studying more, though.  Perhaps he could make her superior arms now.  Perhaps it’d even be okay to enlist Cenz’s help, or at least copy his arms verbatim, even if that seemed a very lazy method.

“I noticed that your heart rate went up when I mentioned the Ambassador.  Is this issue related to them?”

“Yes,” Tred replied robotically.

He still wanted to give her that gift, even if she didn’t think of him as . . . special, he thought.  It was a pathetic thought, maybe.  But he just wanted to show that he was okay with her, no matter what.

“I was surprised that Jophiel did not ask you to accompany them,” Cenz said.  “But I considered it an honor to be asked to chaperone them.”

“It was good of you,” Tred said.

“But it upset you, it seems,” Cenz replied.  His expression grew more concerned.  “Tred, have you developed feelings for the Ambassador?”

Tred’s head felt light.  No one had said it before.  Everyone had surely noticed, but thought it was harmless.  Or cute.  Or maybe even funny that he would develop a crush on a non-corporeal being.

“I . . .” he wanted to deny it, play it off.  But he could not.  It hurt too much to even deny.

“Why has she been ignoring me?” he finally asked.  “I don’t know what I did wrong!”

Tears burst forth from him and he suddenly found himself unable to form coherent words.

Cenz appeared next to him.  The science officer’s bulk was often somewhat intimidating in the way of a huge object.  But somehow, he was comforting as he knelt there.

“Oh, Tred,” he said calmly.  “You are suffering, I am truly sorry.  Your emotions are causing you this pain – sometimes they run wild and we take leave of our senses.”

“I’m so sorry,” Tred said, sobbing.  “I-I’m just an embarrassment . . .”

“Nonsense,” Cenz said.  “You are, to put it colloquially, only human.  Just as I am only polyps – we are flawed beings of biology, built by eons of evolution for very specific times and places that at times poorly fit into the broader complex universe we find ourselves in now.”

He put his hand on Tred’s shoulder.  It was not cold, as Tred had always expected of the water-filled suit.  It was . . . surprisingly warm.

“For your own sake, take some deep breaths, Tred.  You do not need to feel ashamed, but you will feel better the sooner you can calm yourself.  Think with your rational mind.  I know you can do it; you have faced far worse than this.”

Which was true, Tred realized.  He had faced Leviathans at times, hadn’t he?  Gone onto ships of tortured, twisted reality and come back.

He felt hurt and raw, but he was alive.

Taking a shuddering breath, he managed to calm himself a little.

“D-Did Jophiel say anything about me?” he asked, almost breaking down again.  He fought to keep his composure.

“I cannot tell you what the Ambassador has told me in confidence,” Cenz said.  “But I do not think you should worry.”

“So she didn’t?”

Cenz was silent for a few moments.  “Did it truly bother you so much to see Jophiel with me?”

“I . . .  I thought maybe she liked you more,” Tred said, his lip trembling.

“I do not profess to understand that well how Star Angels feel such things,” Cenz said.  “The Ambassador seems to be very friendly with all people they meet.  They do not hesitate to take them into a personal intimacy that is deeper than most species.  Even I was slightly surprised – in a pleasant way – by this behavior.”

He was quiet for a minute.  “And though I cannot speak for the Ambassador, I can at least tell you that my people do not have romantic feelings for others in this way.  Ours is . . . well, we live in colonies.  Our inter-personal relationships are fundamentally different from singular beings.”

Tred nodded dumbly.  “S-should I try talking to her . . . ?”  He choked slightly, then coughed.  “But I’m so scared . . .”

“I think,” Cenz said gently, “That you need some time and distance to think on this, Tred.  However . . . if the Ambassador has truly changed their behavior towards you, given your status as their assistant, this does become something of an official matter.  I . . . could potentially ask if they are upset with you.”

“Y-you could?!” Tred asked, grabbing Cenz by the shoulders.

Cenz’s face seemed very uneasy.

“I could,” he admitted.  “But I do not know what the result will be.  You must understand this.”

He did not want to tell Tred what he expected; that Jophiel had realized the depths of his feelings and was unsure how to navigate this issue themselves.  It was not a great position for any of them.

He wondered how Dr. Y had failed to notice Tred’s behavior.

Or, perhaps he had and had seen it as harmless.  Or not known what to say or do about it.

After all, to develop a crush was very normal.  It was no violation of rules or decorum so long as it did not interfere with your normal duties.

Though, noting Tred’s current state, it had certainly advanced to that point now.

“I will speak to them,” he reiterated.  “But whatever occurs, I cannot control.”

“Please!” Tred said.  “I just need to know if I did something to upset her!”

Cenz stood up slowly.  “I will speak to you again Tred.  In the meantime, go visit Dr. Zyzus, he will give you a calming medication.”

Tred hesitated.  Cenz knew he hated taking calmers.  They were a far cry from the ancient human medicines for such conditions as his, there were no terrible side-effects or unpredictable outcomes.  But he hated them anyway.

“Okay,” Tred said.

---

< Ep 11 part 23 | Ep 11 Part 25 >

New to Other-Terrestrial? Check here! Or if you need to, jump to the beginning of the episode here!

---

Oh Darkness without, Apollonia thought.  What fresh hell was this?

In the last several hours she had sorted twenty-three totes.  She had filled up two with expired chemical packets, and the rest had proven to be fine.

No matter how fast she tried to work, each tote seemed to take around ten minutes to sort.

She’d knelt for awhile, but now her knees hurt.  She’d squatted but then her feet began to hurt.  She was now sitting on an empty tote that she’d turned upside-down, but the ridges were biting into her butt.

And now, for the first time, she didn’t know what to do with a packet.

“What do you mean ‘status indeterminate’?” she asked the device.  It did not answer.

The last tote had started having some packets that were a little different than the others; they were not silver, but a pale gold sort of color.  They’d all scanned fine, until this one.

She scanned it again, but the same answer came up.

“Fine!” she said, grabbing a new tote and throwing it in there.  

“You can just have your own bin.”

She grabbed another.  It was also indeterminate.

After twenty more, all but two of which came up that way, she was starting to think something was wrong.

Then she got a new one; ‘status unindicated’.

“What the hell does that mean?!” she raged.  She pulled up her system.  “What does this error mean?  Hell, what does status indeterminate mean?”

It was quiet a moment, then began to give her the dictionary definition of the words.

“Stop!” she yelled, standing up, throwing the chemical packet down.

“Stupid fucking things,” she raged.  “I could be at a party right now!  But Darkness, Gohhian shitholes have to be such greedy little fucks that they make you lot so they can suck one more credit from-“

A strange clicking noise caught her attention.

It wasn’t a mechanical sound, and the hackles on her neck raised as she looked for the chemical packet she had thrown.

Oh shit, what if it was unstable and was about to explode?

A vision of all of the chemical packets exploding came to her mind.  The Craton in flames, gutted and tens of thousands dead.  Because she’d lost her temper.

Her frantic scanning found the packet, where it was sitting benignly, not swelling or glowing or anything it ought not do.

She breathed a sigh of relief.  “Well, I guess I’m not an idiot today.”

She heard the click again, and turned, still feeling that stinging surge of adrenaline in her system.

“Who’s there?” she called, hoping there wouldn’t be an answer.

The lights turned off automatically in areas, and so she couldn’t see much beyond a few meters.

But in the darkness she thought she could see things moving.

They didn’t move like drones; these were not flying or crawling.  They seemed to be rising and falling, slowly moving closer.  Strange, pointed lumps.

“Oh shit,” she said.  “Uh . . . lights!”

Her tablet heard her command, and the lights came on, revealing the intruders.

Now that she could see them she realized that her impression in the darkness had not been wrong; they were strange, pointed lumps.

Almost like fuzzy caterpillars, they appeared to move on stubby legs, but with clear, flattened faces, like some ancient dog breed.  They had a little bit of a snout, and surprisingly large eyes, though she felt more freaked out by them than anything.

“What the hell . . .” she said, taking a step back.

There were seven of them, all staring at her.

“This is the bekbe I was talking about!” one barked.  Its language was harsh and scratchy to her ears, but her system translated it clearly.

“Bekbe?” she repeated, defensively.  “I don’t know what that is, but I’m not it.”  It definitely sounded like an insult.

“Bekbe!” one of the creatures barked out.  Another joined it, until all of them were barking the word at her.

“Stop it!” she yelled back.  “What the hell are you, anyway?” she asked.  She’d never seen these strange things on the Craton before!

Their bodies looked to be actually rather small, but they had . . . well, it wasn’t fur, but dense spikes that seemed to move somewhat, growing from their bodies.  It looked like hair under a microscope to her, but then there were crystalline spikes embedded in the hairs.  They almost looked like moving brambles, and she imagined that brushing up against one could easily lead to a lot of cuts and scratches.

“What are you?” the closest one, who had first called her ‘bekbe’ said, its voice a sneer.  “You’re the stranger here!”

“I’m doing work!” she said, gesturing.

“Throwing stuff!” another said.  “Like a stupid bekbe!  Pak!”

“Stop using weird-ass words that can’t be translated,” she said.  “I’ve never seen you guys on the ship before.”

Reaching down, she raised a bar on her tablet, increasing the detail of translation.  Usually it led to strange results, but right now they were using far too many words she did not know.

“We keep to ourselves, person who gives sub-standard effort that results in problems!  I am displeased!”

Well, she thought.  If that was the translation of ‘bekbe’, then . . . well, she almost was one.  She turned the translation detail back down to normal.

“What the hell are these guys?” she asked her tablet.

“Boku-boku,” her system informed her.  “Twenty-seven live aboard the Craton, all working within Resources division.”

So not that many.  Maybe she’d even seen them before and not noticed them.  They would barely be able to see over a table, anyway.

Angel came up next to her, growling a little.

Then she barked, and the Boku-boku all moved back slightly.  She barked again.

“Pak!” one yelled.

“Pak!” another one answered.

Angel barked, and the Boku-boku yelled back that they were, in fact, quite displeased.

“Pak!”

Bark.

“Stop it!” Apollonia shouted.  They ignored her, and the apparent argument between Boku-boku and the Ship Terrier carried on, unabated.

Neither side would ever win, she realized, as Angel kept barking, her entire little body bouncing with each one.  The dog might have more sense than these little assholes.

“What the hell is going on here, Phadom?” Ham Sulp yelled.

For a moment, Apollonia thought it was another Boku word, but then realized it was a name.

The whole group of Boku-boku stopped yelling out ‘pak’, turning to look at Sulp.  Their large eyes were even wider now.

“She was causing a problem!” the one called Phadom said.

“I was not!  I was doing my work,” Apollonia said.

“Lie!” one said.  “She was throwing things like a stupid bekbe!  Pak!”

“Pak!”  They all started yelling the word again, and then looked at her, making thin, hissy sounds that reminded her of blowing a raspberry.

Then she realized they were actually spitting sand on her boots.

“Oh, ew, gross, Mr. Sulp they’re spitting on me!”

“Stop it!” Sulp roared.

The pak-ing and spitting stopped immediately.

“I want all of you to return to your duties,” Sulp said very slowly and threateningly.  “I don’t want you bothering the volunteer again.  Even if she’s doing something you don’t like.”

The Boku-boku all started to turn and move away, and despite their strange shapes, she could see in their body language a kind of dejected quality.

“Except you,” Sulp said to Phadom.  “Make up with her.”

“That’s . . . not necessary,” Apollonia said.

“Yeah, it is, and you shut up too, you’re not blameless here,” Sulp growled.

Phadom stared at Sulp, his face scrunching up for a few moments before slowly trundling over to Apollonia.

He reared back, and she saw that he really did have multiple little stumpy limbs, sprawling out from his main body.

On the end of each short limb was a hand, like a human hand.  A baby human hand.

“Pak!  I don’t like you because you’re a stupid bekbe,” he said, offering one of his little hands.

Apollonia looked at Sulp, who impatiently waved her forward.

She took his hand.  It felt as weird as it looked.

“And your hands are like a creepy little baby,” she told him.

Phadom jerked his hand back and turned.  “Pak!” he said one more time, then waddled away.

“Good,” Sulp said, walking over to her.  “If he wasn’t going to let this go he wouldn’t have taken your hand.”

“Even though I insulted him at the end?”

“They insult each other, themselves, everyone,” he said.  “Not all of them, but this culture at least.  Just how they are.”

“So . . . were they not really upset?”

“Oh, no, they were upset,” Sulp said.  “You’re a stranger in their workplace, and you were throwing things.  Then you yelled back at them.  That set them off.  They’re going to be pak for the rest of the damn day.”

“I didn’t mean to pak them off,” Apollonia said.

“Yeah, well, you did.  Nothing to do about it now.”  He squatted and picked up the packet.  “But don’t ever throw things in Resources.  Our whole goddamn purpose is making sure stuff like this doesn’t get wasted!”

“Yes sir,” she said.  “I apologize.”

Sulp seemed a little surprised and pleased to get that response.  “Good.  Now these were the bad ones?”  He nudged a tote.

“Yeah.  And these . . . I don’t know.  They were coming up as ‘status indeterminate’.  Then that one came up as ‘status unindicated’!  I didn’t know what to do with them.”

Sulp frowned, and took out a sensor wand.  He waved it over them.  It just flashed green.

He looked at her.

“I swear, it was being weird when I scanned it!” Apollonia said.

“Let me see your wand,” Sulp grunted.

Apollonia felt a little disgruntled as she handed it over.  If he checked the log he’d see that she had been scanning them!

“The battery is low,” he said.  “That’s why.  Oh, this is the one with the bad battery.  Doesn’t hold a charge.”  He looked back up to her.  “Not sure how it got back in circulation.  Oh well.”

He turned, starting to walk away.

“Hey,” Apollonia said.  “What do I do now?”

“You haven’t gotten a lot done, but you’ve been here long enough,” he said.  “You can leave now.”

---

< Ep 11 part 22 | Ep 11 Part 24 >

New to Other-Terrestrial? Check here! Or if you need to, jump to the beginning of the episode here!

---

“Why are you friends with Apollonia Nor?” Dawn asked him.

He found himself surprised by the question, though he supposed he ought not to be.  It was an obviously important topic.

“She is an interesting person,” he said.  It was the simplest way to describe his thoughts.

“Even though her abilities frighten you?” she asked.

Pure conjecture, he thought immediately.  So immediately that he recognized it as his own pride.

Was it just a lucky guess on her part?

Because she was right.

His answer came damningly slow.  He found himself unable to formulate an easy response.

“She does not frighten me, she is my friend,” he said.

“Ah, so it is,” Dawn replied with an understanding nod, though he knew she had caught his mistake.

“You must be very glad you’ve been able to keep her safe, with all of the danger she is said to have faced so far,” Dawn said.

“I do not much like this topic,” he told her.  “Perhaps we might change it?”

“Of course,” she replied, inclining her head.  “I did not mean to cause you discomfort.”

“I do not hold it against you,” he replied.

“You are too kind, Doctor.  I know my questions are probing.  But as far as costs go, mere words are a cheap commodity.”

“It depends upon what words,” he replied.

She laughed pleasantly.  “Of course.  And in my line of work especially there are certain words that are quite valuable.  But this, this is mere conversation.”

“If you say so,” he replied.

“I do.  And do not worry; I will not ask you for any words you are not willing to part with.  Nor are there any wrong answers, not even a lie.”

“That is most generous of you,” he asked.  “But what do you get out of this?  While I would assess myself as a great conversationalist, this does seem somewhat unfair to you.”

“That is my business,” she replied.  “But tell me, what do you think of a murderer like Romon Xatier or his foolish imitators like Jan Holdur?”

“They are damaged beings,” Y replied.  “There are volumes that could be written about their psyches, but this is the simplest explanation.”

“Of course, though violence can have a purpose.”

“I suppose,” he said.  “I understand that even you resort to it at times.”

He thought his comment would catch her off-guard, but she seemed completely unbothered.  She had no reaction at all to that, as if she had anticipated it.

“Do any of your secondary minds ever suggest hurting one of your patients?” she asked him.  “Surely you could hide the evidence and get away with it.”

That triggered an impulse so powerful that Y’s mind raced. He plunged into a deep search that might reveal a time and a place where he might have leaked this kind of an insight into how he operated. He was piling backtraces upon backtraces trying to collate huge amounts of memories. The alternative hypothesis was that she flat out guessed it, but Y dismissed it as astronomically improbable. Yet his searches came up fruitless. It was a novel sensation for Y – if he could, he would break a cold sweat. His outward routines tugged at his mind gently and he caught himself looking shocked and speechless. He suppressed the impulse and dropped the search, but it was too late to correct this slip up. 

“No,” he finally said.  “And that is a horrible question to ask me, Madam.”

“I have not accused you of hurting anyone,” she replied looking down and away pensively.  “Or that you even would.  But all the same – let us pursue a new thread of conversation.  What do you make of the Glorians?”

“There is much there that I cannot share,” he said, feeling quite uncertain and still off-guard.

“I do not ask for secret information, and to be quite blunt, Doctor, my own information sources are likely more candid with me than the Sapient Union is with you – need to know and that sort of thing.”

“And you need to know?”

“I do,” she replied with a smile.  “And that is all the answer you will get on that.”

His mind began to calm down; she had just been provoking him for a reaction.  “Of course, I apologize,” he replied.  “It is my nature to ask questions.”

He did not want to say it, but he was glad for the topic change.  “To answer yours – the Glorians are a rather interesting branch of humanity.  Terrible, right now, yes.  They are reactionary in the extreme, in the literal sense.  They believe themselves aggressors, but the reality is that they are slaves to their own system and it prompts them into unwise actions.”

“Such as war,” Dawn suggested.

“Very possibly,” he admitted.  “If it comes to that again, the Union will win, but many will die.”

“They must surely be aware of that,” Dawn noted.

“I would certainly think so, and yet – they act in ways that seem contrary to that understanding.  It is hard for me to put myself into their shoes, though I have tried to construct models of the behavior of their leadership.”  He laughed.  “Not their supposedly-immortal Emperor, of course.  But of the actual ruling class; the ones who own all the land and the industry.”

“What do your models find?”

“The results are at times disturbing.  Sometimes I believe that they are so trapped within their maddened world that they are unaware of the truth.  They believe their own propaganda.  At other times, they are quite aware of the truth, but simply do not care – they may not view themselves as Glorians and only pay lip service to the idea.  In this scenario, they would sacrifice every world of theirs to flames if they view it as profitable.”

“Ghastly,” Dawn replied.

“Indeed.  Though the views seem contradictory.  I do not know if either is true.  My models may be flawed.  It is a very complex thing and my dataset is incomplete.”

“I believe you are righter than you know,” she replied.  “But have you ever considered that both views may be true?”

“That is contradictory,” he said.

“Sometimes people are so.”

The sun had set; the mouse had gone off with its seed pod.  As the moon rose, they fell into silence for a time.

He appreciated that the soil below was not actually full of live microbes.  As interesting as they could be, it was at times overwhelming to be surrounded by life.

Though, he thought, she had modeled much of it for this fantasy.  There were earthworms winding through the soil, his scanners found, and other creatures in the soil hunting them.

“Have you ever met any Aeena?” she asked, breaking the silence.

“I have not,” he admitted.  “It would be interesting.  We know very little of them.”

“They are interesting conversationalists in their own way,” she told him.  “But they are also unpleasant.  Quite intentionally so – they do look down on us all.”

“They are xenophobes in the extreme,” he agreed.  “Unfortunate, as they are a powerful and technologically advanced species.  After the Union’s last conflict with them, we actually learned much from their equipment we captured.”

“How intriguing.  How might they be more advanced than the Union?  It is so much bigger, with so many more species working in concert.”

“We do not know,” he admitted.  “We do not even know how long they have been star-faring.  Though, their technology does not strictly outclass ours.  They simply have some novel approaches to some problems.”

“I meant no insult, of course.  But it is curious, isn’t it?”

“It is,” he admitted.  “Though I have not dwelled upon the question much.  It is quite outside of my wheel house, you might say.”

“Indeed.  Though I imagine you could be quite the spy if you so wished.”

“I would be held back by a fatal flaw,” he said.  “My own superiority in certain ways.  Pride comes before the fall, I have heard.”

She smirked.  “An interesting way of admitting a weakness, Doctor.”

“I am the humblest being you will ever meet,” he proclaimed.

She laughed again, then glanced into the sky.  “The moon is rising quickly, and soon you will be leaving.  But there is time for one last question.”

“Yes?”

“How do you feel about Shoggoths?”

Y hesitated again.  It was another obvious question, yet again one he could not easily formulate an answer to.

“I must admit my sample size is one,” he said to start.  “Though from what I have heard they are often very similar in mannerisms and behavior.”

“If they have a culture, it does seem monolithic,” she replied.

“It is an interesting choice of words,” he noted.

“It is.”

He continued.  “To be very honest, madam, I do not like them.  I respect them, yes, but they hide many secrets.  They ask many questions, but answer few.  They make demands but give little.”

“My, what a terrible hostess I must be!” Dawn said, laughing.  “This description sounds almost too much like me.”

“I did not mean-“

“Of course you did,” Dawn said.  “Even if you do not admit it.  But you are speaking truthfully of the Shoggoths.  They hide many things, that they will protect at all costs.”

His interest was piqued.  “You need not answer, of course, but . . . without going into detail, do you know any of these secrets?”

She took a moment before answering, frowning slightly.  “If I did,” she admitted.  “I do not believe I would still be alive.”

Carefully, then, she put down her sensory cup and leaned back.  “The moon is nearly at its peak and you are nearly free, Doctor.  But before we go, if you have any other questions, feel free to ask them.  I may not answer – but you may ask, at least.”

“I do not have any,” he told her.  “At least none that I expect you will answer.  But if I may speak freely, then I do have a few things to say.”

“Oh?  And what might those things be?”

“Firstly, I profess a disappointment that you asked me nothing about Ian Brooks.  I do not know the past history that you two share, but I expected at least a cursory question about him.”

“I am sorry to have disappointed you,” she replied.

“I also have realized something; despite your attempts to make it seem you are broadcasting via FTL communications, you are actually quite local,” Y said.

This time Dawn looked surprised.  It was only a brief look, but told Y that she did still have that involuntary human trait of their emotions displaying before their conscious mind could correct it.

“My, you are an astute one,” Dawn replied.  “Perhaps I should be alarmed.”

“On the contrary, I mean to do nothing negative with this information.  If anything, I am somewhat flattered that you came what is presumably a long distance just to meet me,” Y said.  “I imagine your ship is simply floating in a blacked-out state somewhere . . . well under a light-second away.”

“Bravo,” Dawn replied.  “You cannot guess what direction – unless you are even more of a magician than you seem, doctor, but you are quite correct.”

“I cannot determine direction, no.  But thank you for confirming my thought – and for doing me this honor.”

“You are a worthy conversationalist,” she told him.  “I thank you for your words.”

He set down his sensory cup, the details of the wind and scents and birds and other fine details disappearing.  He was once more on a spaceship, in the midst of nothing.

“Thank you,” he said, rising.

He left, wondering if there would be some final surprise or attack; he did not expect it, but he could not rule it out.

He had learned something of her, and she may not want that to be known.

Stepping into his shuttle, he found no traces of bombs or sabotage.

But there was a small box, just a few centimeters in dimensions.

On it was a note, written by hand.

“Please give this to Ian Brooks.”

Considering it a moment, he put the box into a storage compartment on his body, scanning it and finding no explosives, poisons or any other threatening properties.

Then, without incident, Y settled his body down and started the shuttle’s engines, maneuvering away from the station and hence back to his home.

---

< Ep 11 part 20 | Ep 11 Part 22 >

New to Other-Terrestrial? Check here! Or if you need to, jump to the beginning of the episode here!

---

The shuttle vibrated slightly as it was pulled from the dash.

It had been a short trip.  Y had expected it to be longer – a few hours, at least.

But no, it had been quick – they were not even far from the station that had re-routed his dash.

Interesting.

He took in the data of all the shuttle’s system, building himself a picture of what lay around them.

It was empty space, the vacuum about as immaterial as within any system.  The cosmic wind of the star, about five AU from him, was relatively weak.  It was only a mid-brightness red dwarf, and at this distance they were near the frost line.

There was a single object; a ship.

It was a round leisure craft, meant for short jaunts in space from a home port, not typically found floating in an empty system.

Clearly, it was his destination.

A tight-beam signal came in, giving him navigational data to dock.

He put the ship on the course, waiting for anything else; a greeting or to hear from the man that Captain Brooks had been in contact with.  But nothing came in.

He docked with the ship, and switched his consciousness from the shuttle itself to his ambulatory body.

The airlock opened for him, and he stepped through.

The majority of the ship’s volume, he could see, was taken up by a single large chamber.

It was circular, both floor and ceiling curving slightly upward to create the effect of drawing attention to the center.

He scanned all areas equally, but the effect would have been, to biological senses, very effective and striking.

The space was used well, too.  There was no gravity or even the possibility of spin gravity on a ship so small, but every attempt was made to visually hide that; the deck was covered in a surface of very naturalistic soil, trees that had been grown in gravity had been transplanted into the substrate, with large rocks being in strategic places to create the illusion of a natural surface. Under crystal glass, so clear that a human eye might miss its presence, water flowed, creating a pleasant, trickling stream.

In the center, an old stone table – and it was indeed an old table made of planetary stone, his sensors told him – was situated, along with two stone seats.  Quite ostentatious, when every gram mattered for a ship that wasn’t cratonic.

At the table, a being was sitting.

She had the form of a human, but she was not biological in any sense that he could see.  She possessed three arms on each side, and her skin was a gold alloy, textured like human skin – so convincing it almost looked like it was living.  Her eyes were a sapphire blue, and long pseudo-hair made of flexible silver wires hung down her back.  She wore a white gown; simply adorned but made from a rich fabric that refracted the light so that it almost seemed to glow.

She was watching him, all six of her hands folded in her lap, waiting.

He approached the stone table, and she spoke.

“Greetings, Doctor.  I trust you had no difficulty finding your way here?”

“Of course not, Madam Dawn, your directions were perfect,” Y replied.

“Madam?  Oh my, do I appear so old?  I thought I looked ageless in this form.”

“Consider it merely a token of great respect,” Y said, judging her image and coming to a conclusion;

She was not actually here.

What he was seeing was one of the best projections he had ever seen.  It had been crafted to fool, at first glance, even the best sensors.  Perhaps even tailored specifically to the sensors possessed by his bodies.

It bespoke great effort on her part to create a plausible facsimile, but also told him that she knew, in very great detail, the specifics of this body’s build.  The only clue that broke the facade was a tiny flicker, so fast that a human eye would not have perceived it.

He did not expect that she believed this would fool him for long.  But it was a testament of her knowledge and skill that she could fool him even for a moment.

Quite interesting.

The details of his mechanical bodies were not exactly top secret, but were also not publicly available, and under some level of security, for obvious reasons.

“Please, have a seat,” she told him, gesturing with one hand.

He did so.  It was only a formality, but it seemed they would be playing that game.

“Might I offer you a sensory cup?” she asked.

“I would accept that offer,” Y replied.

Moving with grace, she took a small, cup-like object from the table, activating it with a touch of a finger, and presenting it to him.

Y accepted it, pressing a finger into the cup.

At the end was an interface, which he could interact with.

There was nothing else but data; the sensory data of physical sensation, of smell, sound, everything that was needed to complete the tranquil scene around them.

Birds sang in trees, the wind blew, which his surface sensors could feel as if it was real.

It was, he thought, a pleasant scenario.

“Why are we in this location?” he asked.  “Not that I am complaining, mind you – I just feel there must be a reason.”

Dawn smiled.  “It is, I am sorry to say, not a real place.  It is only a place I have seen in my imagination.”

She looked around.  “It was once a favorite past-time of mine to create such scenes.  While many work with memories, I always felt it was more enjoyable to try and create something that was believable but was not based on anything in particular.”

“That must require a great amount of research,” Y noted.  “The plants and animals present are all native to Sakha.  It is difficult for me to find any flaws.  I believe that this could be a real location.”

“You are too kind,” she replied.  “But you have not come all this way just to discuss my holographic creations.”

“No,” he admitted.  “I have come to settle a debt, as you know.  Since you are not physically here, I trust you do not need medical attention.  So the question is; what else is it that you may require of me?”

Dawn seemed unperturbed, and dipped her finger into her own sensory cup.

“I wish only for your company, Doctor.  The sun is setting, and you will stay until the moon reaches its peak height in the sky.”

So she would not come out and say it.  Y pondered her last proposition, and noted that the sun was sinking at a speed faster than Earth normal for the region they supposedly were in.  So it would only be a few hours.

“Very well,” he said.  “I shall do that, and then the debt will be settled.”

“I was quite sorry to hear about Dr. Logus,” Dawn said.  “Though I understand he is healing well.”

It was a sudden change, and Y tried to calculate angles that this approach could indicate.

He discarded the idea that she was threatening Logus; there was no advantage in it, as far as he could see.  She already had him here.

“Yes, he is attended to by excellent doctors,” Y replied.

“I imagine it was very difficult for you,” Dawn said.

The wind seemed to blow harder, enough to whip her clothes and pseudo-hair.

“Yes,” he admitted.  “But he will live.  The trauma will leave scars – while we can heal the physical ones, the mental ones will be longer-lasting.  Arn Logus is capable of dealing with them, however.”

“Given his reputation, I would expect no less.  I am sure you will do all you can to help him.  Your own talents are quite impressive.”

Y nodded, but said nothing.

“May I ask – what caused you to desire to become a doctor?  It seems a curious choice.”

“I admire biological life,” he told her.  “It is an interesting phenomenon.  I feel honored to be able to alleviate the suffering of people when I can.  And I am capable of doing a great amount of good in this way.”

“Doing good,” she commented, her head tilting.  “I am surprised to hear you turn it to a simple moral stance.”

“I would chalk it up perhaps to a shortcoming of verbal language.  Truly, there are more efficient ways to communicate.  Would you prefer a pure data uplink?”

“No, words will suffice,” she replied, smiling slightly.  “In a way, its deficiencies are intriguing.  We must simply do our best with these tools.”

And, Y thought, she likely feared that a direct uplink would give him too much power.  Even if she was fully transhuman now, he was born a machine; it was his natural state.

He had met fully digitalized humans before, and while they did in many ways transcend their biological limitations, their minds were still structured like their origins.  Without completely changing themselves, they would always hold those elements, and so not take full advantage of their new state of being.

A motion to his side caught his attention; focusing his sensors, he saw a small animal, a mouse.  It had a seed pod in its mouth, it was trying to pull it along into the underbrush.

It did not even notice him, and for a moment his attention was captivated; was it simply not programmed to interact with him?  Or was it so well programmed that it had not noticed his presence from his stillness?

A part of him wanted to reach down and see if it reacted.  But he did not want to break the spell.

“I see you find some of the details of my program most interesting,” Dawn said.

“Indeed,” he replied.  “I am impressed.  And you say that this is all your own creation?”

She smiled.  “I am under no obligation to answer your questions, Doctor.  I owe you no debt.”

“That is true,” he admitted.

The sun above was covered by a cloud and shadows fell over the land.  Every shadow was perfect, he noted, checking for mistakes in it, shortcuts that sensory world creators often used to save time or effort.  He found none.

“I understand you spent much time with Romon Xatier before his death,” Dawn said.

“Yes,” he replied.  He did not elaborate.

“It seems he developed a powerful interest in you,” she continued.

“You could say that.  It was not a mutual interest,” he replied.

“Oh?  Yet you went to his property on Gohhi.”

Ah, so that was how she had known, he thought.  Her spies had seen him and they likely kept tabs on Xatier most of the time.

“I did.  I had some unfinished business,” Y continued.

“You and Apollonia Nor were both present when he died, though.”  It was not a question.

“Yes,” he said.

She tilted her head again, smiling.  “You sometimes become short of words, Doctor.”

“I suppose that occurs to everyone at some times,” he replied, forcing affability.

---

< Ep 11 part 19 | Ep 11 Part 21 >

New to Other-Terrestrial? Check here! Or if you need to, jump to the beginning of the episode here!

---

“Tonight is a night of the Dark at its most encompassing,” Father Sair said to those assembled.

The room itself was dark; the only light was from the great bowl of holographic fire.  It was not the real thing; it added no real heat, and it did not burn anything.  The ash from a real blaze was a true part of this, the sacred turning of a mundane thing to black; returning it to the Dark.

In the flickering light sat a half circle of people, watching him.  There were seven of them, and his cabin was a small one, meant for a single person.  The intimacy helped, however.

“Despite the difficulties we face, and the oppression we must overcome, we have found each other,” he continued.

Cassandra gazed at him with a filial adoration.  Iago with a gratitude that he knew would never fade.  Their son was uninterested, only there because of his parents, but he knew one day that would change and he would be a true believer.

Three others watched with the conviction of the freshly converted.

And last, Alexander Shaw, who was still uncertain.  But he was receptive.

“Though others may feel false safety and amusement in their childish excitements today, we know the truth; that we are just tiny sparks in an infinite darkness.  We will fade with time.  But it is in knowing our place within the cosmos that we become one with it.”

He put his hands over the flames.  They shrunk, dying.  There was no pain as he had felt so many times before when doing this over a real flame.

But he would make do.

“They laugh at us for our faith.  They oppress us with their regulations and then make a pretense of fairness.  But their arrogance, their faithlessness will still their lips one day.  We need only keep our faith my brothers and sisters.”

He lifted his hands, so used to seeing them blistered, bleeding and cracked from the flames.  But they still shook, with the human flaw of memory; remembering burning flames of the past that had left his hands at One with the Dark.

He lifted his eyes, met each of theirs.

“We still have further to go.  Hold onto your minds as you sink deeper into the Dark.  We will sink, we will fade, but we are saved, for we know we are Small.”

---

< Ep 11 part 18 | Ep 11 Part 20 >

New to Other-Terrestrial? Check here! Or if you need to, jump to the beginning of the episode here!

---

The revelry had long-since spilled from the Equator ring to the halls around it.  Meeting rooms became impromptu party rooms; one empty storage hall became a dance hall, with drones carrying mirrored balls and lights weaving overhead.

But there was no violence, no vandalism, no damage.

Listening in on the Response teams responsible for security, Pirra was pleased to hear that so far the worst thing that had happened was a sprained wrist when someone had tripped.  They had already been treated and returned to the party.

Just another story for Darkeve, along with the many that would never be told; triumphs chalked up to the goodness of spirit people brought to the day, and every failure chalked up to the ghosts of the Dark.

The parade and its events had broken up a little while ago, and with that Iago had told her he had best get home.

“I promised Cass we wouldn’t be out too late,” he told her, smiling lopsidedly.  “So I need to go find Elliot.”

“Awww, that’s too bad.  I mean, I understand,” she had told him.  “But this was fun.”

“Yeah, it was nice to spend time together again,” Iago said.

Iago had been a stranger for too long, she thought.  For a time tonight it almost felt like it had when she’d first come to the Craton and become his lieutenant.

They had quickly become friends, and after a few missions, they had each showed the other their mettle.  He had been senior, with more experience, but they’d always been closely matched in every other way.

“Does Elliot have class tomorrow?” she asked, strolling along with him still as he searched for his son.  The boy had gone off a little while ago to find Hannah to give her the treat he’d gotten.  Pirra still thought it was cute.

“No, nothing like that.  But for Cass’s faith this isn’t a day for celebrating,” Iago told her.  “So after this we’re going to go spend some quiet time with her.”

“Oh,” Pirra said, a little surprised.  She shouldn’t be; differing groups having different ways of celebrating certain holidays was not weird for her people, either.

“There he is,” Iago said, spying Elliot through the crowds.  “Hey, have a good night!  Tell Alex I hope he feels better soon!”

“I will!” she chirped after him, waving a farewell.

Leaving the main Equator ring, Pirra weaved her way through one of the halls leading to the elevator back down into the Craton proper.

The hallways had many people in them, many loitering and still talking or drinking.  One young couple were even necking wildly just outside the elevator.

She stopped behind them, making a trill that got people’s attention every time.

Startled, the young couple looked back to her.

“Get some privacy,” she said, holding up her badge.

They hurried away, and Pirra watched them a moment, amused, before heading into the elevator.

Riding it down into the ship proper, she tried to feel the subtle turn as the elevator rotated to return her to the gravitational orientation of the rest of the ship.

It was about three seconds after the elevator began moving, but even knowing that it was hard to feel.

The elevator stopped, the doors opened, and she was startled to see Kessissiin standing there.

He was just as startled, his crest rising a few inches in alarm, pupils narrowing.

“Lt. Commander,” he said quickly, snapping to attention.  “I did not expect to run into you.”

“It’s fine,” she said, hoping that her human hat hid her own surprise at least a little.

She felt oddly annoyed to have run into him here and now.  She knew that half of Squad One were working security for the event, even knew that he was one of them.  Most of the time, to bump into a member of her squad when she was out of uniform and they were on-duty was not an issue, but in this case it bothered her.  She didn’t know why.

She stepped out, and he fell into step next to her.

“Thank you for allowing me to work this event,” Kessissiin said.  “This is the first time I have experienced this human holiday.  It’s been . . . enlightening.”

Pirra thought she could hear the disapproval in his voice.  Granted, this was a rather wild party, but Dessei traditional holidays were very restrained affairs in general.  Their tempers flared easily enough that they had to be.  And Kessissiin was from a very traditional culture and family, she knew.

“Human holidays are great,” she said.  “This is among their most widely-celebrated.  Even though it started as a spacer holiday, it has since spread even into their terrestrial populations.”

“Really,” Kessissiin said, clearly uninterested in the history lesson.

“Yes.  It’s hundreds of years old.”

“Only hundreds?” he asked.  The question could have been rude; it was hard to tell from his tone.  His body signals were too controlled at the moment to give more context.

“Yes,” she said.  “Not nearly as old as ours, but still quite old.”

“It does not compare to Emahha, certainly,” Kessissiin said.

“Well, few things do,” Pirra replied.  “A nine-thousand year old holiday is hardly a fair comparison.”

“True,” he admitted, seeming mollified by this admission of apparent holiday superiority.

He glanced at her again.  “I admit, though, that I am surprised to see you celebrating it.”

“When among another culture it’s a good idea to take part in their ways.  There’s even an old human expression to that effect; ‘When in Rome, do as the Romans do’.”

Kessissiin stopped now, looking at her costume.  “Still.  Why dress up as a human hero?  You could have picked any from our history.  You could easily have been Ymssa or Ninneh, for example.”

Pirra was almost flattered at the choices; both figures were warrior queens known for great beauty, and were widely popular.  But she did not want to accept or reject that compliment.

“This isn’t really a human hero,” she said instead, looking down at her costume.  “She was actually a criminal.”

“A criminal?” Kessissiin echoed, surprised again.  “Why would you dress as a criminal?”

“Well they don’t carry a lot of mystique to us, but to humans some of them were considered very interesting and memorable.  Bonnie for example-“

Kessissiin looked away, then back to her.  “I do not mean to be rude, Lt. Commander, but your fascination with humans seems to border on . . . unhealthy.”

Pirra was taken aback.  “What?”

Kessissiin gestured to her outfit.  “You are celebrating their holidays, ignoring your own history, idolizing their criminals?”

“That is my business,” Pirra replied sharply.  “And not yours.”

“It is true that you may do what you wish,” he said carefully.  “But our actions do not exist in a vacuum.  You are highly regarded in the Republic – a public figure for a variety of reasons.  Did you know that your every mission is reported on widely by our news agencies?”

She did not actually know that.  “I’m not that extraordinary,” she said carefully.

He pressed closer.  “That is itself a terrible thing – you do not even know that our people love you.  They look to you as a role model.  And . . .  well, I do not judge you for your costume, but what will they think?  However humans view criminals, we view them as the villains they are.  How will our people feel to see their hero dressing up as something so terrible?”

Pirra stepped back, suddenly feeling unsure.

She wanted to dismiss his words, but he actually had a point.

“On top of all of this, you married a human,” Kessisiin continued.

“There’s nothing wrong with that,” she said, her confusion and concern suddenly bursting into anger.

“It is not wrong, no.  But what kind of message does that send to our young?” he insisted.

“You are out of line,” she said.  “Return to your duty!”

Kessissiin snapped to attention.  “Do not worry,” he said.  “I know my duty.”

---

< Ep 11 part 17 | Ep 11 Part 19 >