Tom

Tom ducked behind the shiny metal railing that lined the walkway, the twang of burst-fire plasma rounds echoing from the cold metal alcoves all around.
“Shit!”
The short green bursts of energy ricocheted off their impact points to strike again multiple times. They were shot from another railed catwalk that ran parallel to the one Tom maneuvered down, but that was a couple meters higher and five meters off to the side. Tom, squatting and running in an awkward waddle, hurried towards the protective recess around the exterior door of the cellblock. He reached the door and stooped over a control panel, frost thick on its screen. With a touch he brought the screen to life.
“How may I be of assistance?” asked the computer, it’s voice soothing and female.
Tom held a small device to his neck, which altered his voice so that it had a crackling sound to it, as though it were a bad recording, “Open—Mother o’ Christ!” he shouted, a barrage of plasma rounds managing to bounce into the recess.
“Invalid Command. Access Denied,” stated the computer, its relaxed tone seeming rather facetious to Tom as one of the plasma rounds tagged him on the rear. Fortunately the shot was weak, having must’ve ricocheted more than a dozen times, and barely had enough burn left to scorch through his pants and produce a yelp.
“I was saying,” he about yelled, pressing the device to his throat, “Open Door, you limey hump of scrap—”
“Access Granted,” the machine spoke over Tom, the doors hissing open. Tom lunged through the open doors, his actions anything but hesitant as another volley of rounds ricocheted into the recess. The doors promptly hissed closed behind him, a stray round or two managing to slip between them, skipping from wall to wall. Tom kept his head low, only raising it when the last twang of rebounding plasma had played out to silence.
Standing, Tom dusted frost from his lapels, straightening his brown coat in the process, and then exhaled a breath of warm air into his chilled hands. Slipping the small device into his pocket, he looked around and found himself in a complex of hallways. Specifically, he was in the junction of a T-intersection. Straight ahead, left, and to the right the grey-paneled hallways extended until their details were lost from sight—not that far, necessarily, in the dim blue light given from the overhead lamps. Safe, until the trigger fingers behind those plasma rifles found him anyways, Tom took a look in each direction. Featureless in the sense of their similarity, he began with a bound down the left-hand hallway.
His steps echoed on the metal grating. Every now and then the blue light filtering up through the flooring allowed a glimpse of the network of circuitry and piping that ran below his feet. Tom kept running, passing a recessed door every fifteen meters. Every side-room was labeled with a serial number, and Tom knew that each number indicated the specific section and number of each cell within the block. But he also knew that he needed still to navigate to a different area of the cellblock altogether to find who he was after. About sixty doors down the hall another hallway connected on the right-hand side, creating another intersection. Tom stopped in the juncture and paused, plainly listening.
“Hmm.”
He suddenly leapt forward with his right foot, taking the intersecting hallway bounds at a time. A few meters later he came to another door. The door was similar looking to the ones which possessed serial numbers, but was more fortified and labeled instead with text that seemed to specify the section of cellblocks that lay beyond it. “High Priority Cages,” Tom read, moving to the control panel that the door possessed. Activating it with a finger, he then pressed the speech altering unit to his neck again and said, “Open door.”
Again the doors parted and Tom passed through. The hallway he entered now was white, almost blindingly so in comparison the dimness he was emerging from. Each door that lined this hall seemed of equal sturdiness to the one he had just passed through. He stepped into the hallway smiling. So he’d found them. He went down the hallway, at first thinking each door and control panel identical.
“Forty-two,” he mumbled, repeating the number that the old cleric had spoken to him, as he looked for any mark to set the doors apart. After anxiously looking past several of the doors, he at last he spotted numbers printed in dark lettering on the top left corner of each control panel. The nearest one read fifteen, and to its left seventeen. Tom turned, finding the cells on the opposite wall marked with even numbers, and moved down the hall again, watching the numbers grow until he reached forty-two. He leaned over the panel of cell forty-two, and again used the device to speak the same command.
But the computer replied, “Invalid Command. Access Denied.”
Tom stood still for a moment, staring at the screen. But then a rough synthetic voice—the same as the one that the small device he touched to his neck produced—boomed out from behind him, “Step away from cage forty-two and put your hands up, Bill Clinton, if you don’t want to be destroyed immediately.”
He did as ordered, stepping backwards and putting his hands up. But he also turned to face his aggressors. He could see now they had come out a door he’d failed to notice on the other side of the hall—a door that looked different and apparently led to another intersecting hallway rather than a cell. There were six figures in total, each holding a plasma rifle and dressed in identical combat gear. Rounded helmets with opaque visors only made them look that much more the same.
One of the men stepped forward, rifle leveled on Tom. A white chevron on the shoulder of his uniform was the only separating mark among the entire party.
“Oh, hello boys,” Tom grinned slyly, attempting a smile.
“Silence, lawbreaker,” commanded the chevron.
“Ah, come now. I think lawbreaker is a bit harsh.”
“No, it is correct. You are trespassing on UNT detention structure Diablavista, cellblock Gamma-Twelve, Clinton. You have been captured, and you will be processed.”
“No, no, no,” Tom insisted, stepping forward casually. At once the six men adjusted their aim on him, and he raised his hands another half-vote, pulling his foot back. But he went on fast, playing oblivious to their anxious jostle, “You see, I’m merely visiting.” He pointed to cell forty-two, “A friend, in fact.”
“Explain yourself. Visitors are never allowed.”
“Well,” Tom took a breath, “I have something very important the man in that cell must know. I have to see him.” The truth couldn’t hurt, at least not a version that vague.
“Do not waste our time with your fantasies. Law declares no outside life-form may be permitted onto this planet of the United New Terran Federation without express permission from our high-command, and that no non-UNT person be allowed entry into this detention center at any time, except for the purpose internment. You have broken both these laws. This makes you a lawbreaker.” Again it was the authoritative chevron who spoke.
“Well,”
“Remain still,” the guard commanded, lowering his rifle and stepping forward. “You will be fitted with suppression shackles and rendered unconscious until the time of your interrogation.” He retrieved the described device from his belt, stepping toward Tom.
“Just…Just wait a second,” Tom said, stepping back.
He was met with the demand, “Do not move.”
“Ahh,”
Then the door swooshed open behind the six-man unit, and those in the rear began to pivot around to the entrance, aiming their rifles from the hip. But a crackling explosion boomed into the hallway, knocking Tom flat on his rear.
He stared up at the chevron in front of him, watching the man’s body whip violently back and forth as smoke began to filter up through the vents in his mask. Then he stopped moving entirely, and toppled onto the ground. The other five had done the same. In the doorway stood a woman of average height, dressed in tight black pants—they looked like leather—heavy boots, and a loose canvas jacket of brown with white leather stripes that ran from the neck, down the shoulders to the cuffs. This was over a contouring top, black as her pants though plainly not made of leather. She held at her side, as one might a large gun, a tool of sorts. A thin cord attached each of the six fallen men to the gadget. The hallway smelt of electrical smoke.
“Is that a multi-circuit start-up shocker?”
“Your good,” she smiled, “Mr. Clinton, is it?” She had amazing eyes, blue.
“And what can I call you?” Tom asked.
“You can call me Chris,” she said.
“Funny, Chris, I didn’t know you could shoot a start-up shocker,” Tom said, looking at the smoking bodies on the ground and quirking his head a bit to the side, “or kill with one.”
She laughed, raising the tool a bit, “I removed the safety. And as for killing, maybe, but they should be up and moving inside the hour. Besides, if I were you, I wouldn’t be too worried about it. To me it looked like it was about to be them or you. ”
“Right then,” Tom jumped up, straightening his coat again. “Then I think I’ll thank you for leaving me among the standing. But what sort of business do you—an officer in the Royal Navy, if that uniform you’re wearing is yours—have alone inside a UNT prison?”
Noticeably insulted by the idea she might be wearing a stolen uniform, surprise nevertheless registered on the girl’s face as she realized where Tom had said they were having their conversation. She explained, “I don’t know—I was flying my Jetstream back to my squadron’s launch bay when I was blinded,” Tom looked at her slightly and she said, “I mean there was a bright light…but not from outside—no, the cockpit windows are nearly impossible to be blinded through—it just seemed to materialize inside the Jetstream. And then—then I was here.”
“Right here? Holding that?” Tom questioned.
Chris shook her head, frowning slightly “No, ‘course not. I mean I was onboard. I was sitting plum on the floor in the middle of a transportation chamber, alone. Just after I stepped out of the chamber I stumbled across a storage closet. And then one of those…”
“Prison guards, I suppose.”
“Right, well it came in behind me, and tried to restrain me. Luckily, that’s when I noticed the start-up shocker for the first time.”
Tom said, “And you grabbed it right up, turning it into a pseudo-lethal weapon before that guard could lift a finger?”
“What can I say?” Chris said. She had a very slight smile now, “If you learn nothing else during planet-side and satellite training in the naval academy, it’s how to use repair equipment just about any which way—equipment from both the Royal Empire and Union. And that shocker wasn’t so different from some of the Union tech we worked with.”
“Not bad,” Tom said, nodding along with the brief explanation.
Chris laughed momentarily, “Gee, thanks, Bill. Anyways, I came out of the closet and that’s when I saw a group of guards hustling past where I was. When it seemed like they didn’t notice me I decided to tail them.” She smiled openly, “Good thing too, wasn’t it?”
Tom smiled at her use of his name, though let her think it was her remark that triggered the expression, as he murmured, “Ah, well, I would’ve come up with something.”
Chris laughed softly, but then her eyes locked on the floor. She motioned to the collection of bodies still spread out beneath the thin cloud of smoke that had accumulated, “But you said UNT…that makes them New-Terrans?”
“No, that makes them United New-Terrans—New-Humans, really—though they’re not so new.” He stooped over the Chevron and found the releases for the helmet. Disengaging the pressurized seal, he pulled the bulbous round helmet off of the man’s head. The face that had been hidden by the visor was so pale it glowed in the hallways light.
“My God. Do they all look like him?”
“What you see is all people, God didn’t have the slightest to do with it.” He stood up, standing beside the woman, “And yes. They all are host to identical mutations.”
The face they gazed upon was short, with a more than normal amount of forehead and no chin. The entire lower jaw was not to be found, the man’s tongue hanging below his palate in his unconscious state. A row of teeth lined what still was the top of his mouth, though there was no bottom. The lip had been sliced a way to better display the long white teeth.
“I’ve heard stories,” she breathed, surveying the features in detail, “but he’s got half a face. I mean, how does he eat?” The question had an undertone of repulsion.
“Oh, they manage just fine. This lot obviously grew up nice and strong, didn’t they?”
“I suppose they did. But is that it then?”
“Is what it?” Tom said.
She pointed the tool towards the un-helmeted head, “His face I mean. Is that everything ‘New’ about him?”
“Oh,” Tom rubbed his chin, “well, physically, there are a few mutations. They’ve got eight fingers, not ten, and they’re double jointed just about everywhere. Oh, and they possess mild thermal vision, too. Not quite good enough to allow them to live in the dark, but plenty to provide an advantage over those dependent on light.”
She gazed at the mutated head, “And it can speak?”
“No. Well, not like you and I. It has a language—“ he kicked the visor that he’d taken off the man, “but it’s the helmets that give them that nice scratchy sounding voice they have.”
Chris looked puzzled, “But if unable to speak human, why translate their speech to it?”
“Their sense of tradition is almost as strong as their hatred of mankind. That’s why they continue speaking the tongue of their most detested enemy.”
“What do you mean by enemy?” she asked.
Tom said, “Although they remain almost human, even if they have experienced a uniform change is physical design and mental capacity, they consider themselves anything but. Some six centuries ago the people who would become the first New-Terrans were merely human colonists. There was nothing to set them apart from similar colonists of their time, except for one fact. They inhabited a planet—known now as Axius—where a brand new teraforming method had been used for the first time. Of course the top Union scientists of the day had spent years developing the method, and had tested it rigorously. They were so confident they went as far as to quell any doubts others in the Union expressed about the validity, and long-term consequences of the teraforming technique, and assured the colonists and public that there was virtually no risk involved. And the planet seemed to come out suitably. Agriculture took off immediately, as well as did the plants and animals brought to the planet to populate the wilds. Despite the initially low levels of residual radiation, there was something the Union scientists had failed to predict about the process. The core of the planet itself had been transformed. The nucleus of the planet, a mass of uranium kilometers in diameter, was restructured atomically into an unknown isomer. The new core, in a silent and deadly way, irradiated the entire surface of the planet over a brief span of years—less than three generations. Illness broke out in every pocket of population on the planet, major birth defects mutating the newly born.”
Chris waited in silence, and Tom went on, “The colonists had been taken to the planet by vessels of the Union’s Colonial Project, and were left with no means of traveling beyond the atmosphere of their poisoned planet. In the same amount of time it took the people of what was becoming the New-Terran homeworld to fall into despair, the Union’s prospectors had determined that their planet lacked the rare and valuable mineral deposits they had thought would be there. As a result, by the time the people of Axius realized how dire their need for assistance had become, the lack of Union interest in their world ‘caused the Union’s propaganda doctors to contort the situation of Axius people until there was nothing but apathy from the human race with regards to their plight.”
The concern on Chris’ face showed she had a thought before she’d said, “It was just that easy, convince the entire race to turn their backs on a dying planet of people?”
Tom shrugged, looking altogether unimpressed with the raised question, “If you’re truly surprised by the course of events that took then you must not be much of a scholar for human history.” He gave a slight smile, seeing the trifle of indignation that burned across her features, but he offered a more satisfying explanation before she could speak up, “Axius, at the time, resided on the very edge of human-known space. The only form of communication available to the colonists, once the prospectors had deemed the world a loss as far as the exportation of goods, were transmissions sent directly to the Union Colonial Project headquarters via a system of deep-space transmitters. So yes, with no one but the Union listening to their distress calls, it was that easy to convince the masses not to care. And all of the colonists would’ve died, if it weren’t for a doctor among them, a man of science, who developed a means of stopping further mutation. It saved the remaining colonists. But the doctor could find no way to restore the people of Axius to human bodies, and he was forced to select a template in order to stabilize the genetic code of the people. Otherwise they might create offspring vulnerable to the radiation.”
“Oh, of course,” Chris said, though it was more to allow Tom a breath than to express her understanding.
“But the template that the doctor picked had a problem,” Tom explained, “it was too stable. The humans that came to be—the New-Terrans—all but forgot colonization. They were extreme, harsh, with a penchant for chaos until one of them turned out intelligent enough to seize power. Once a military dictatorship had taken control of the planet, the New-Terrans rallied behind it, taking pride in the order through punishment the system instilled. Lacking that little bit of human that makes you lot what you are, the New-Terrans flourished in their new world order, any rebel faction squashed before it could gain a shred of power. The regime has gone unchallenged, and basically unchanged, ever since. The entire UNT united in galactic conquest.”
Chris frowned slightly, but only asked “And that’s the birth of the UNT?”
Tom furrowed his brow, looking down, “In a nutshell, I suppose it is.” His eyes popped back up to hers with a smile, “And we’ve got to get out of here. We’ll be swarmed with these boys soon, and that electric-tooly-gigawig can only do so much good.”
But he turned to look at the control panel for door forty-seven again, “If I could only get this blasted door to open.” Tom found the device still in his hand, and held it to his neck, “Door Open.”
“Invalid Command. Access Denied.” repeated the computer.
“Ah, great Moogley! “ Tom looked at the small instrument and shook it vigorously.
Chris moved in to get a closer look at the thing he held, “And what is that?”
“This? Oh,” Tom shot a look over to her, before shaking the thing again and pausing to squint at it. He explained, “It’s a vocal harmonizer—though whether or not the result can really be called harmonic is up to you—and it’s UNT design, same as their translators. Only I recalibrated this one to translate to translate plain old human, spoken with both jaw bones, into UNT speech.”
“And there’s a point to that?” she questioned.
Tom huffed, “Obviously your first time on a UNT vessel—“
“Well I said as much—“
“Anyways, yes, there’s a point. The UNT use voice to communicate with their ship computers, so they developed encoded signals in their speech. These codes are written in by the translators, with no real thought required of the speaker.”
“It’s automatic then?”
“Yes, automatic—as long as the translator’s code is of higher security clearance than the computer terminal you’re operating.”
Chris nodded again.
Tom said, “But you still need to know the precise command phrases to give the computers. There’s no room for grey areas in New-Terran thought. It’s either the right command or it’s wrong.”
Chris frowned at the panel, watching Tom stare at it, murmuring to himself. After a moment she offered, “Well, you said ‘Open door,’ right?”
“Well, that’s what they’re called, aren’t they?” Tom replied, fingers bringing up a simple menu on the command screen.
“Well,” Chris made a point of beginning her sentence, “if I heard right when that one with the white was ordering you around, he called it a cage.”
Tom froze, stare still intent on the monitor. Then he said, “You’ve got a point.” He held the device back to his neck, “Open cage forty-seven.”
“Access granted,” said the computer, and the doors slid open to reveal a square chamber of eight feet. In the center of the room was a featureless pedestal, smooth and black. Atop the plain dais rested a smooth, pale orb. It was white and opaque, like a frosted light bulb.
Chris stared at the thing plainly, but Tom ran forward, and gripped the pedestal on either side of the orb. “What’s that then, a prisoner?”
Tom nodded, “Yup, and I need his help.” As he was staring into the orb he said, “Awaken Soothsayer, I have opened your cage, and now I need your wisdom.”
After a spare moment there was a flickering that glowed as if from inside the orb, and then its pale surface came to life with pink light. A voice radiated, clear, crisp and male “Hello Tom. May I express great gratitude for the delivery of freedom.”
Tom chuckled, “We’re not free yet—but Chris can lead us to the nearest transport chamber,” he looked at her, “can’t you?”
She stammered, “Oh—uh—well, yeah.”
“Ah, and you as well Christina, thank you,” the orb spoke precisely.
“Ah, it’s Chris, thanks.”
Tom picked up the orb and cradled it in his arm. He was already making for the door, “C’mon, Chris, lead the way.”
“Alright,” she mumbled, frowning slightly. “But, wait. How did that bloody thing talk in my head? And it knew my name...Oi!” she exclaimed, pointing at Tom, “I thought your name was Bill!”

“It’s just a name,” Tom had explained as they ran down the hall, “just what I put on my papers.” He laughed slightly after this, “I swear I was going to tell you as soon as we were out of here.”
“Sure you were, Bill.”
“Perhaps,” the Soothsayer offered, “he was merely concerned about conceding his alias prematurely.”
Though he laughed again, Tom said “No, I mean it. Here, let me try now. I’m Tom Victoria,” still jogging he offered her a handshake. She laughed despite herself and accepted it. Tom added, “A pleasure to meet you.”
“But why the name Bill Clinton?”
“Oh, he was a political figure—centuries ago—more ancient Earth history, you know?” Tom winked to her, “Beside, the man and I share some common interests.”
Now they were standing in the teleportation chamber, the door having just swung shut behind them. Tom had handed the soothsayer to Chris, taking a round instrument, about the size and shape of a pen, from his pocket. He turned to the wall and faced a panel that was completely flush, and appeared nearly seamless.
Tom looked to Chris, “Now, if I can just uncover the mount-plugs where the interior control panel should be, use my gizmo to change the coordinates, and then activate the chamber, we should be good, right?”
Chris nodded vaguely, her eyes slightly widened. The orb was silent as well. He tapped each corner with the device, which hummed faintly. A loud click beneath the panel marked every tap, and at the last one the section of wall came loose, falling into Tom’s arms. He stumbled back with the load, setting it to the side of the uncovered recess. Inside wires and circuits were neatly laid, all culminating into a single plug, which was fixed to the back of the cabinet.
Tom jammed the gizmo into the plug and flipped a switch on the side of it, bringing about an electric whining sound. He jumped back in a spray of sparks, cursing loudly. There was a siren like sound in the chamber, and Tom turned to look at Chris—who found his expression less calm than she would’ve liked—with just enough time to yell, “You might want to hold onto something!” and leave her standing in the middle of the bare chamber, looking frantically for something other than the orb to grip.
The group was thrust violently into the dark, and a sensation, like water draining from their ears and noses, overcame them. Then they were sprawled on a gridiron floor. Tom was up in a flash, leaning over Chris, offering her a hand up. He was saying, “Sorry ‘bout that. Shorted the calibrex circuit, you know how that goes.”
Her blank, slightly perturbed stare suggested that she did not. But Tom didn’t seem to notice, pulling her up to her feet. She still cradled the soothsayer in her elbow, just as Tom had.
“Oh,” Chris groaned, “why does it smell like sh—”
“Sanitation and waste refinement?” Tom cut in, finishing her sentence. Then, continuing before she could rephrase his corrections, “We’re aboard my ship now—you’ll get used to the smell.”
“But…what is it?” Chris asked, her expression making clear she meant the smell.
“Oh, it’s just a residual thing. Before this became my mission vessel it had other uses.” Tom moved for two nearby stairs that led to an upper floor of metal grating, but an argument to his simple explanation arose from Chris.
“Uses?” The tone suggested that Tom reply quickly.
He stopped, hand on railing, and turned to say, “Well, just the one. It used to be a Union Stinker.” Stinkers, smallest ship among Union waste management crafts, had a notorious reputation for their odor. And with their primary function being the transport of creature-excreted waste to processing hubs, it was easy to understand why.
Chris’ mouth was slightly agape, and her expression incensed, “What do you mean a stinker? I didn’t spend eight years doing grunt work in the under decks of Royal Cruisers just to be stolen out of my Jetstream—a brand new shuttle I might add—by some loony rubbish man, and carted off in his shit-filled chariot!”
Tom returned her look steadily, apparently stunned by the explosion he’s just witnessed. But words were something that usually came rather quick to him, and he was already saying, “Hold on just a second Chris—firstly, you found me on that UNT ship, not the other way around. Secondly I hardly kidnapped you back there, and if this ship had the facilities to transport you back to that prison, I’d offer. But it doesn’t, so secondly—”
“Isn’t that thirdly?” the soothsayer cut in.
“Only if you’re counting. And thirdly,” Tom went on, “I’m not a garbage man.”
Chris had crossed her arms, scrutinizing his words as he spoke them. She said, “Well, what exactly are you, then?”
Tom laughed, turning and leaping up the short flight of stairs and lighting on one foot. Then, with the momentum, he pivoted around on his heal to face a bank of control panels, and put down his other foot as he touched a small button. Light flooded the interior of the room, revealing its decent size and round shape.
Chris found herself peering around the chamber. In the center, where she still stood, was the lowest area of the room, a clear space roughly ten feet n diameter. And around it, lining the walls of the room, was the slightly higher level of grating that Tom stood on. On this level computer consoles lined much of the outside wall, save for where a door led to other sections of the ship and where a ladder extended upwards. The ladder led up to a railed walkway above, which through the grating Chris could make out further gadgetry. The majority of the panels seemed tinkered with and altered, fitted with custom switches and parts. And yet it all gleamed, almost glittered in the light.
At Tom’s voice Chris snapped her head back see him looking at her once again, “Your question is easier asked than answered, but let me try. I am Tom Victoria, universal traveler and assistant to those who have been forgotten, ignored, or persecuted by the great powers that be—whether it be the Union, the Space Fleet, UNT, or, yes, the Royal Empire herself. And I may fly a Stinker, but with the Queen as my witness I run a clean, if odd, ship. You see,” through the whole of his speech he’d been gaining speed, his eyes twinkling, and his smile widening, “when you call this ship a stinker, you might as well be calling me Bill Clinton.”
Chris frowned, but Tom was still talking, “Think about it, Chris. No matter where civilization goes, the people living there will need to use the facilities just as sure as their ancestors once squatted in the shrubs.”
At this point Chris had cracked a smile, murmuring, “My God, he is a nutter.”
“No, seriously though,” Tom insisted, “regardless of the smell, hauling a few tons of poo is a small price to pay for a clean entry into practically any Union or Union affiliated spaceport, satellite, planet, or base.”
“You make it sound like they welcome you with open arms wherever you go.” Her smile was still present, but there was noticeable skepticism in her voice.
“You’d be surprised. With fifty-percent less excrement-processing stations and vessels than major centers of population in any given gigasector of space, you could say we’re literally a universe swimming in—“
“Alright,” she spoke up, “I get the picture.”
Tom grinned, “Good. Now if we’ve skedaddled past that particular topic, I’d like a word with Soothsay right there.” He leaned over the railing, holding out his hand. Chris obliged, stepping over and handing him the orb.
Lifting the sphere up to eyes level, Tom drew his gizmo from his pocket. He held it to the orb’s pale surface, supporting it from underneath with his other hand. He addressed it, “Sorry ‘bout the wait.”
The soothsayer made itself heard in their heads, “I do not mind. The isolation of that cell was suffocating, if reflective. I am glad to be free and observe.”
“Still—things got a little bit human there,” he grinned. “Mankind. They’ve got a great heart, but sometimes you take a little convincing.” He glanced over at Chri
s as he said this.
She snorted and spoke quickly, “You say that like you’re not.”
“Not what, human? Of course not.” He was moving the device, which hummed mildly, around the orb.
“Well you look plenty human to me,” Chris said, “and what exactly is that thing?” she spoke of the object he’d called a gizmo.
Tom still tinkered about the orb with the device, replying, “Every member of my race has one of these dandy little tools,” he wiggled the gizmo, “they’re called gizmos. We get them at birth, actually. A stock model. Each one ends up different though, because how we choose to upgrade them determines what they do. And plenty of technological races look human,” he addressed the first part of her statement, “Most are at least humanoid in appearance,” he stressed the oid. “But you should know that—surely you met a few aliens gallivanting around with the Royal Navy.”
“Oh sure, a few, but they were blue, or purple, or had horns, or bumps—or looked a lot like toads.”
“Right, those are the oidish ones.”
“But you look—and sound—like you’re from one of the Midwest colonies,” she sounded out of breath.
Tom was holding the gizmo to the soothsayer at an angle parallel to the floor. He adjusted some control on the side, and it began making little ding, ding, ding sounds, “So?”
“So aren’t you?”
“Look,” Tom said, redirecting his stare to meet her eyes, “perhaps, in my species’ galaxy, there’s a mid, and perhaps there’s a west. And maybe there’s even a point where they come together.”
“Yeah?”
“Well maybe that’s where I’m from,” he sounded curt and exasperated.
“Right,” Chris said, “so you’re alien.”
“Well, that’s all perspective, really,” Tom said, “we’re all aliens in space, if you stop and think about it.” He began moving the gizmo down the side of the orb again, but suddenly a high whining sound arose. “Ah ha! Oh, those dirty bastards. They completely tightened the gravity-threshold dampeners.”
He twisted his gizmo around, the whining going from annoying to ear-piercing. Chris covered her ears, and Tom grit his teeth, “Alright—just give me one second—okay, two. One more...and…Ah!” The sound ceased and Tom took a step back, letting his supporting hand fall away from the orb.
But the orb failed to fall, instead remaining where he had held it. It floated in the air, a wavering aura around it like heat rising in the sunlight. The orb, though, emitted no warmth.
“Alright, how’s that Soothsay?”
The orb began moving around in small patterns, the aura of churning air always around it, “I do believe I am in more excellent condition now then I have been in many, many years.”
Tom grinned, “Don’t mention it.”
“It can fly?” was Chris’ input.
“Well, if it’s working right it doesn’t fall.” Tom answered.
Chris either took his reply as yes, or decided not to pursue it, because she pointed to the now hovering orb and asked, “Tom, feel like explaining what that—“
But as if in an early answer to the unfinished question, the soothsayer descended in a gentle arc towards Chris, silencing her as it stopped a half-meter from her face. Its voice radiated once again, “I am a vestigial being in a universe unbalanced and strange. I am a vessel of truth, speaker or rights and facts, never of the wrongs and falsities that now run unchecked and rampant as though overwhelmingly preferred—at least by those in position to most effectively change the unsettling dynamics, and potentially lead the collective entity of this universe towards enlightenment, happiness, acceptance, and bliss.
“Ah, but these words—so concrete in my intellect—beget a comprehensible vagueness upon you, Chris. I have been titled so often, and with such frequency, that I may only reprise on a scattering of names. Of your mythologies, you might know me thus: oracle, shaman, wise man, prophet, the alpha, eye of truth, first and only witness to the light.”
Chris, as if at stricken of anything else to say, spoke softly, “You sound so alone.”
The orb began moving away, but again was heard, “Only in this time. I was one of many. I was among their eyes—and navigation beyond the stars was ours.” It continued away, moving around the exterior of the room and stopping near each control bank, its voice silent.
Looking, Chris found Tom turned away and operating a set of controls. She made her way up to him and stood at his side, watching him adjust levers. “Did that clear things up a bit?”
“Well…” Chris said, her expression still as puzzled as during the soothsayer’s words, “what did it mean?”
Tom chuckled, “Everything it said is true, if that helps.”
“Not particularly, no.”
“Then I assume you’ve heard of Drootarth.”
She looked confused, but nodded, “Sure. Every child in the colonies, if not all the cosmos, was put to bed with stories of the Drootarth—their ancient and powerful technology, their cities of crystal with columns of gold—it’s the stuff of legend.”
Looking at her while only slightly turning, Tom cracked a smile, “No, the stuff of history.”
Chris gave a frown, her eyebrows rising doubtfully, “You’ve got to be kidding. An ancient, highly advanced, civilization whose entire cross-galactic empire disappeared without a trace, they’re the Atlantians of the universe and you expect me to believe they’re real?”
“Well, they are.”
“But without a bloody trace? C’mon,” she said, “where’s your proof?”
“Currently? Floating around the bridge of my ship.”
Chris stared at his face for a moment, but then averted her eyes to the soothsayer. “You mean—“
“Yup,” Tom spoke up, “there’s you’re trace, right there.”
“That,” Chris said flatly, pointing a finger, “is a Drootarth?” When Tom didn’t blink she added, “You are mad.”
Tom made a face, shrugging. “It is,” he insisted, “but not an ordinary specimen, shall we say.”
“What’s that then?” she asked.
“He’s special,” Tom grinned, “you see, as with any civilization, among the Drootarth certain people were suited for certain tasks. And to be a seer ensured a sacrifice of the body so that the mind may develop beyond conventional abilities.”
“So, that’s not just a machine? Inside is a—a brain?” her tone was less than eager for a confirmation.
But Tom nodded, “The last Drootarth of this time.” At his words again the voice of the orb radiated. A soft laugh.
“Something funny?” Chris commented.
The soothsayer took the opportunity to say more though, “Only the passing comedy of pretense.”
It brought a ‘Right…’ kind-of look to Chris’ face, but Tom had turned his attention back to the controls. She spoke again to him, “If that is the last Drootarth, and if it really is some sort of—of mystic, then what can it do to help you?”
Tom rushed to an adjacent bank of controls and began pressing small black buttons in sequence, until he got to roller-ball, “Just wait. When we get to our next stop I’d wager you’ll be ready to understand what I’m undertaking.” Just then an electrical arc connected Tom to the panel, making him jump and exclaim, a shower of sparks following.
And Chris, doing her best to sidestep the cascading sparks, said, “Then I suppose you won’t be stopping by any Royal Naval stations before then.”
“Sorry, but don’t worry,” Tom said, finely adjusting the roller-ball “you’ll be able to catch a transport from our destination as well.”
“Where exactly is it we’re going?” she asked.
Tom had brought out his gizmo again, and aimed it at the region of panel that’d nearly ignited, and Chris could hear an alternating beep-code come from the tool. “It’s called Malastasia Red, a planet in a system of gigasector A7-4B-Oberon.”
“Oberon?” Chris said, “but that’s nearly four hundred gigasectors away from us!”
Tom’s grin had returned. He slipped the gizmo back into his pocket, and nodded, “Yes, yes it is. And this time I’ll give you a little more warning,” Chris noticed his finger now hovering over a large red button, the word ‘GO’ printed on it in bright white letters, “That railing behind you?” he went on, “You might want to hold on until we reach a cruise.”
And with that, as Chris’ slender fingers gripped the bar, Tom punched the GO-button.

The stomach churning seemed to last several minutes as every conceivable object, whether bolted down or not, rattled forward to what appeared to be shaken apart. Chris, sure the stinker was about to tear itself to pieces yelled out to Tom, but her voice was lost even to her own ears in the clattering ruckus.
Just then, however, at Tom’s casual flick of a switch the shuttle stabilized at whatever ungainly speed it had somehow achieved. Chris took a step towards Tom, but then grasped for the bar once again, falling to her knees. The acceleration had left her disoriented and dizzy.
“What in bloody hell,” she sputtered.
Next thing, Tom had knelt beside her with one hand light on her shoulder, the other holding out two capsules, “The green one is spearmint and the red one is apple.”
“Huh?” Chris opened her eyes to look at his offering hand.
“They’re for the nausea,” Tom explained, causing Chris to realize how sick to her stomach she was feeling. “It’s normal for first time riders,” he smiled.
Chris reached out and took the red pill, a small liquid filled ordeal about two centimeters long.
“Just pop it in your mouth and give it a chew. It ought to help with the smell too,” Tom said, standing and making his way for the closest terminal. Chris followed his directions, experiencing an explosion of sweet apple taste no soon that the capsule had been split. She observed him as her peered curiously at a great series of gages set in the terminal, muttering to himself at each one. After several minutes, when the taste of apple had nearly left Chris’ mouth--though the scent did seem to linger with her—Tom at last toggled a single silver switch upon the panel from down to up.
“Alright, that should do it.” He stood straight, turning to Chris, “Why don’t we run to galley for a minute or two and grab a bite. We’ll be arriving on Red in less than three hours, and I’m so hungry I could eat a hippo.”

There was a smashing clatter as the silver tray was topple violently, sending its diverse load of fine instruments scattering across the blue and white tile floor.
“What are you doing Vincent?” screamed a feminine voice, terror and shock evident.
“Shut up!” came a sharp reply, “I’ve put up with your idiotic star-gazing long enough, Azure. But now I’ve got what I need from you—cry if you want to, you silly girl—you’re not necessary anymore. If anything you’re a risk, and elimination is the only options for risks.”
On the floor, among the strewn instruments, the woman sobbed. Her lips fought to shape words as she pushed herself up with her arms to face the one named Vincent, her knees together. Her hair and eyes were a bright, clear blue, and her ears ended in sharp points. She gasped, “I—I trusted you!”
The man snorted, stepping around the jumble of devices. He stood over her, shaking his head, “You just don’t get it. Your trust means nothing to me.”
“Oh, Vincent,” she cried out at his insult, tears glistening forth.
“Oh, would you stop calling me that?” he said rudely. “I’m sick of your voice and that name.” The man suddenly shimmered, as though light shone through his skin—and then, his head tilted slightly back, the skin of his face began to ripple and became a smooth, golden-ember color that spread over entire body. And strands of a silky fiber, shinning every color, sprouted from his glowing head, carrying the appearance of long hair. But the strands did not hang, but rather floated in the radiant aura that now emanated from the man.
The woman tried to crawl back, horrified, but at last she could stand it no more, streaming, “Go back to where you came from!”
But, despite the smooth and semi-featureless appearance of his gleaming countenance, she could see his lips twist into a sneering smile as he advanced forward, seeming to glide across the floor with no steps. And just as he reached her, he extended his hand towards her, also glowing like swirling gold, and thread-like fibers shot out from the surface of his fingers and palm.
Chris jerked awake, sitting up abruptly and upsetting her empty glass. She sat at the one small table inside the ship’s cramped galley, and now found herself alone. Picking up the glass and setting it right she tried to think back. The last thing she remembered, after eating a fast meal and then denying Tom a friendly game of Hungry Hungry Hippos, was arguing with him that there was no possible way he’d gotten a Stinker to propel through space at seventy megaparsecs an hour—the speed it would take to make his arrival time at least plausible—but Tom had stuck to the Mpc/h value without batting an eyelash. After that she must have drifted off.
And now, looking at the wall clock, Chris could see it had been just less than two hours. The ship was quiet, it’s motors silent. She smiled.
“I knew he was full of it,” she thought, standing up and stretching her frame. She then went to find out why they’re standing still in space.
She made her way for the door, just to the left of the walk-in freezer-fridge and the compact cooking equipment. The hall outside the door led right to a stairway that went down to engineering, maintenance, and storage, and it led left to the craft’s bridge. Chris turned left and proceeded to the door. She opened it, reentering the circular bridge of the ship.
“Well, Tom,” she said, crossing the threshold, “about how many megaparsecs an hour are we going—“
But her eyes silenced her. Directly opposite from the door, on the other side of the chamber, a large section of wall had been repositioned to allow an awe-inspiring display of outside space. And the view was dominated by a planet and moon. The moon was a pale cobalt, which by comparison made the rich crimson oceans and blue green landscape of the world beyond it look that much more fantastic.
“Ah, nice to see you awake Chris. Those stomach pills can cause a bit of drowsiness, I forgot to mention.”
“Right.” She said, still staring at the grand vision before her. “So that must be Malastasia Red,” she at last said, plainly.
“It is. We’ve docked on their orbiting spaceport, and now we’re just waiting for permission to descend.”
“But—but how?”
“What do you mean?” Tom asked. “We’ve simply arrived.’
Chris shook her head, “But it’s barely been two hours. We were millions of light-years away!”
This time it was the soothsayer who spoke, “After a brief examination of the diagnostics I made a few suggestions that increased the speed of our voyage.”
“You’re so modest,” Tom chuckled, “he was brilliant!”
The orb again projected its voice, “Tom, you are too kind.”
Chris didn’t have much to say. Instead she moved towards Tom and the suspended orb, leaning on the railing near the station they were at.
After a quiet moment Tom spoke, “Have a good nap, at any rate?”
“I think so,” Chris said, “but there was a strange dream.”
“Really?” Tom asked with idle interest. “What was it about?”
But Chris looked lost in thought. The vivid images were already fading. She said, “Something to do with a…a golden man.”
Tom smiled, “Victim of the Midas touch, eh?”
Chris shook her head, “No, I don’t think it was quite like that. There was a woman too, she had blue hair. Ah, I can’t quite remember her name, but—“
A sharp chime interrupted her, and the entire view of what laid beyond the ship’s hull flickered. An image cut in of a man in dressed in deep burgundy clothes, a uniform of sorts. His skin was olive, and he had eyes that were orange, unreal in their brightness. The man smiled, tattoos on his face shifting, “It’s a pleasure to see you again, Good Tom. I had feared you’d forgotten us.”
“Forget—who, me? Never,” he was grinning.
“Well then,” the man replied, “let us keep this false meeting short. You’ve been given clearance to moor at the palace wharf,” he referred to a docking-complex, “my wife and I anxiously await your presence.”
A whisper was heard from the orb, as though it were more a strong thought that escaped, than deliberate communication, “How interesting…”
But the man on the screen had disappeared, and Tom was already busy darting from console to console, flicking switches, punching buttons, and dialing dials. Chris attempted to follow Tom’s actions and see how he ran the ship, but could recognize no logic in what he did. Apart from a few well labeled controls, she could not even identify the purpose of most the controls.
“He did say the ‘palace wharf,’ right?”
“Uh, yes, he did. “ Tom said, most of his focus still on a small screen at which he squinted. He added, in an absentminded matter, “That was Elescstron on the communicator, there. He and his wife, Alastasia, rule over Malastasia Red.”
“Rule?” she questioned.
“As in king and queen—yes.”
And then they began moving away from the spaceport, towards the red planet, and Chris was quiet.
Slowly they descended, the large screen remaining open. But now it displayed an image of the ground below them as they descended. They entered the atmosphere over the ocean, scarlet in the light of the sun. They quickly moved over a large continent, the details of an immense mountain range coming into sight just before they slipped into night. In absence of light, few features of the landscape could be seen. But as they neared the surface, they came over a great city where lights by the millions burned, all different colors too, like a vibrant reflection of the stars overhead.
Then they were again over darkness, Tom turning to Chris and saying, “Alright, we’re on the approach now. We’ve just moved over the Palatial Gardens.” In the time it took to cross the gardens, which were of the same uncommon proportions as the rest of the palace, Tom quickly explained how they were to leave the ship at a platform on the edge of the gardens, and then be escorted to the meeting chamber of the queen and king.
Chris absorbed this in silence, wondering whether or not she was prepared to socialize with royalty. But before she could brood too much over it, Tom had exclaimed and the ship had gently lighted upon the ground. Tom pressed a button, which closed the large screen, and then walked over to the section of wall beneath it—the one stretch of the exterior which was not peppered with controls.
“Okay, Chris, here we go,” On the side of the control bank adjacent this bare stretch of wall was a sizable lever, which he pulled from up to down. At once the wall near him began folding along lines hidden in its seams. It extended downwards, forming an angled walkway that reached most of the way to the ground. A short stepladder shot out to complete to exit.
Tom smiled at Chris’ expression, “A bit more of my custom ingenuity,” he said with a smirk, “But come on. We’ve got a rendezvous.” And he was out the door.
Chris ran over to the top of the exit ramp, but suddenly stopped. Beyond the doors, spread out before her on the well-lit landing pad, were more than a six dozen men. Each carried a complexion similar to that of the man she’d seen just moments before, and hosted their own unique tattoos. And each was dressed in an ornate uniform, standing at attention and awaiting their descent.
But just then Tom snapped her out of her trance, causing her to look down the ramp to him as he looked back up to her, “Do these Malastasians really know how to great a guy, or what?”

All the way through the palace Tom talked quickly with one of the men who had greeted them at his ship. The man had a dark complexion, purple eyes, and hair that spiked towards the sky and glistened in the light. Chris attempted to follow the conversation for the first few paces, but before long she became lost in the complete strangeness of their surroundings.
They passed into the palace from the gardens by a torch-lit passageway through the exotic and peculiar vegetation. It formed a canopy so dense overhead that not even the bright blue moon could be seen, and in several places vines hung down, heavy with the burden of plump fruits. Chris had just begun to worry that perhaps she had misunderstood some alien denotation of the word palace when they at last broke free of the growth. The sight that greeted her, although somewhat different than the images she had seen of her majesty, the Queen’s Royal Palace of homeworld Earth, still awed the girl with its grandeur.
Where the jungle passage gave way to a large open space, a pathway of black rock began. The jagged, shattered looking pieces of stone had been puzzle-worked together into a beautiful trail that sparkled like obsidian as it wound toward the near shoreline of a dark lake. Structures loomed over the lake, the torches that hung from inside them casting wild shadows far across the rippling surface of the water. The land tapered gently into the cool water, a bridge of crafted stone—set with same twinkling black rocks—granting surface from there to the first of the mighty towers.
Tall, and of the same porous stone as the bridge, each of the towers on the lake were thirty meters across. They were built up like smooth columns, but hollowed inside where the large flames hung. And as they passed into the first tower, Chris gazed in wonder at the fine details etched upon the very walls. At the center of the space a group of people sat and laughed, goblets in hand, hardly seeming to notice the procession—which had shrunk so that just a few of the planet’s men now accompanied them. But before Chris could make out anything else about the others, she’d moved her way around the edge of the room, with the others, to a staircase that they ascended.
Once they had reached the second level of the tower, they left the spiraling stairs and moved to another door, and another bridge. They passed through a few more of the large towers in this fashion, ascending one more flight of stairs as they went. In one of the chambers hung a brilliant chandelier, its crystal’s not clear, but glowing every conceivable shade. And in another, three stunning women sang a haunting melody to the plucks of a young man on some stringed instrument. All three were hardly clothed, but remained entirely oblivious and at ease as they made their way through the room, Tom and the other man still speaking. At last they came to a larger tower, from which a wooden bridge ran out of. As soon as they had stepped upon the bridge, Chris could make out that they were crossing now onto the lake’s other shore.
The building on the shore was built of solid, deep-grained lumber, many of the floors stone or tile. The first chamber they entered was a grand reception hall, four long bent seats positioned around a large brazier, whose coals shone emerald. And waiting there was the man Chris had seen before leaving the ship, in discussion with another man who looked to be a terran or the normal sort.
Oh, fancy that, Chris mused, there’s the king.
She suddenly felt less encircled, and looked around to find that their marching party had now diminished to just Tom, the man he’d been only just stopped speaking speedily with, and herself. The remaining others had stopped to stand before the enormous and open wooden doors of the entrance chamber, their backs turned.
The king waved his hand, dismissing the man he was speaking with, who turned and began striding briskly from the chamber. He was dressed in plain, but expensive looking clothes and was evidently unsatisfied with the way his conversation had ended, for he looked as though he would blow past them without a moment’s notice. But just as the stranger reached the doorway, where the assembled men parted for his exit, his eyes brushed over Tom’s face. He stopped on a dime, stone still, his gazed locked on Tom’s features. Tom returned the stare, a puzzled look coming over him.
After what seemed like an uncomfortable amount of time to Chris, the unknown man proceeded forward in his same brisk, stomping gait, leaving Tom to murmur, “Strange,”
Both he and Chris stepped towards the king as the man’s footsteps faded behind them, and Chris asked, “What was it?”
“Oh,” Tom muttered, “it’s nothing really. That man just seemed familiar to me—and he certainly seemed to see something in me. Elescstron,” Tom said, “who was that man who just left?
“No one of importance,” the king said, “merely one of the many scaly politicians I must see in a day. But I cannot tell you how good it is to see you, Good Tom,” the man said, his expression changing to a smile as he stepped forward, arms spread open, and embraced him.
The men separated after a moment, Tom saying, “The same of you Elescstron, it’s been far too long—especially under the circumstances—I hear things aren’t going well.”
“Things are…deteriorating, Good Tom, faster now than ever. I sent Captain Abrahmoss to meet you,” he gestured to the other man still standing quietly, “so that you might have a chance to digest some of the more recent turns in events”
“And he has,”
“Lovely, lovely. You may be dismissed now, Captain.” The man nodded, turning and leaving at once. “My queen will be here soon—she regrets to keep us waiting, but once she arrives we will bring you completely up to date. Perhaps, while we wait, you may acquaint me with your companion?”
Tom look struck, “Oh, but of course! Silly me, bringing a guest to the heart of the palace without a proper introduction.” He chuckled, “My manners, really. Elescstron, I would like you to meet Chris…Uhm, Chris—“
“Chris Johnson, thanks Tom,” she broke in, eliciting an almost embarrassed laugh from him. The other man smiled as well.
“And Chris, this is King Alastasia Elescstron, ruler of Malastasia Red and its associate planets and satellites, second only to the queen, Alastasia herself.”
“And, Good Tom Victoria, a finer introduction I myself could not have given.”
The voice came from a pair of violet curtains, the artisanship of their threading showing in how they rippled seductively to the side, revealing the speaker as she entered the hall. She was tall, taller than a human. Her robes were an attractive and similar in color to Elescstron’s, but her skin was very dark, appearing somewhere between a burnt brown and true black. She moved gracefully, as one would imagine a queen to, Chris thought. The texture of her skin was profoundly different, and her body’s strength apparent in how her flesh shifted step to step, but none of this offset her strange beauty. Eyes, overwhelming in their steely-vivid intensity, lips that only paled at their intimate fold, high, full cheekbones, and long wine-dark tresses of carefully braided hair—these were the features of this queen, and she was beautiful.
“It is always a pleasure to meet anyone Good Tom brings to our door,” Alastasia now stood beside her husband, “may I extend my humblest greetings, Chris Johnson.”
Chris, still lost in her silent appreciation of the queer woman, was suddenly put on the spot by the direct dialogue. She tripped over her words, “I—err, well—yes, your Majesty, and I am enthused to make your company.”
The woman laughed, and even that, the sound of her laugh, was so foreign but alluring that despite the feeling of having just shoved both feet firmly in her mouth, Chris smiled. Alastasia said, “Please, call me by my proper name, I insist it. Titles of that sort seem so unbecoming to me.”
Chris nodded, “Well, it is a pleasure, Alastasia.”
Tom then said, “Now if we’ve all been introduced, as much as I hate to spoil the pleasantries, I believe there are some pressing issues to discuss.”
“Quite so,” replied Elescstron, his queen nodding in agreement.
But a grin came over Tom’s face, and a twinkle came into his eyes, “Well, actually,” he said, putting his fingers to his lips and producing a startling whistle, “there is one more party who needs introduction.”
The pair of rulers had just had time to exchange a curious glance when, in response to Tom’s cue, the soothsayer came hovering into the chamber through one of the open windows. Chris had hardly noticed the absence of his presence, but realized at the same time that he had probably not been far from them during their entire walk through the palace. The reaction from the lord and lady was immediate.
“Praise the gods,” Alastasia muttered, “you’ve actually found it!”
Elescstron was overjoyed, “A true, living, Drootarth relic. Unbelievable.”
Tom glanced at Chris, murmuring at an almost inaudible level, “Told you so,”
“Forget that,” Chris replied, “how did you get him to make an entrance like that?”
He scoffed, “You think he can’t talk to just one of us if he wants to?”
“The two of you are already keeping secrets from me, huh?”
“Actually,” Tom said, “we planned the whole thing while you were asleep.” And Chris rolled her eyes.
But Alastasia and her husband either did not notice this quick exchange, or chose to ignore it, for they were at the soothsayer with questions immediately.
“But—but where did you come from?”
The orb settled to a level roughly at that of their heads, and became heard, “I came from the peace of deep space—the deepest of space—and there I had infinite ability to search the depths of my wisdom for insight. In this state, however, I was unable to foretell, or even plainly see, the nearest events. My intellect was focused on the void. This was why those men—the New-Terrans—were able to take me so easily with their probe.”
“Unbelievable,” reiterated Elescstron.
Alastasia spoke, “Then that’s where Good Tom found you? Among the New Terrans?
“Among them? Yes, yes,” The soothsayer slowly agreed, “among them as their captive. Their simple scientists rendered me incapable of motion before I had realized my situation. Despite this ingenuity on their part, however, they were still ignorant of my identity.”
“Horrible,” Alastasia said, “but I fear any sympathy for your ordeals may seem childish to you. May I just express my delight that Good Tom has garnered your release.”
The orb answered, “Your kindness is written across the stars.”
Alastasia’s expression made clear the flattery of this comment, but Tom took the quiet moment as an opening to speak, “Elescstron tells me the situation here is becoming dire.”
“Yes,” the king said, “the plague has spread to nearly every corner of our planet, Good Tom.”
“Indeed, in any place of populace, two in three suffers from the disease,” Alastasia added.
“Bloody hell,” Tom murmured, “that bad?”
“Worse,” she said, “our citizens now die from the illness by the thousands every day.”
“It has truly become scourge to this planet,” Elescstron said, “and we are only one of the few worlds threatened by the plague. Some are still not as infested as ours—but some are worse, even.”
Tom’s lips moved nervously, his jaw appearing to grind as he asked, “And do you know, is it true that the plague has completely eradicated life on some worlds?”
“Well,” Alastasia hummed, “some planets have been so encumbered with the illness that they have been quarantined. At all times these places or under observation, and all crafts that try to enter or leave are destroyed.”
Tom spat, “As in killed? Murdered? That’s ludicrous!”
“Good Tom,” her tone dissented, “you well know this is undertaking of Red, nor any other planet of the Malastasian system. It’s the collective will of the Union and her Royal Empire, and thus it is inter-galactic law. Red itself is in threat of this forced isolation,” her voice dissented of Tom’s reaction, but the immense sadness on her face revealed that she had just confessed the true source of her angst. She went on, “But to answer your initial question, many have begun to speculate that in the number of planets now quarantined, some are completely lost—home now only lifeless carrion, and in time bones and dust.”
“Lord,” Tom said, “let’s hope the soothsayer can deliver upon our assumptions.”
The soothsayer was strangely silent, so Chris cut in, “I hate to always to be playing the ignorant one, but what are you talking about? Is this plague just in this system—or your neighbors as well?”
The royal couple exchanged murmurs. Chris said, “Pardon?”
“Oh, excuse us,” Elescstron said, “but we cannot help but notice your attire.”
Chris looked down at the uniform that she still wore, almost gawking in puzzlement.
But Tom spoke up, saying “You’re quite right,” to Alastasia and her husband. He spoke again, “She’s been in—what did you say, Chris? Eight years grunt work—so that’s another two in training.” He’d been looking at his eight extended fingers, but then popped out his thumbs, declaring, “Ten years—It’s not surprising you haven’t heard of the plague. Sure, rumors about it are running rampant among civilians now, but back before you entered training there was hardly a whisper. You see, it’s been and still is the policy of both the Royal Empire and the Union that there is no plague. Hence these quarantines, I’m guessing.”
“And you’d be correct,” Elecstron said.
Chris asked, “Well, how can you be quarantined if they deny that there is a reason to take such actions?”
“Oh, even powers as great as the ones that create laws whole galaxies must follow can’t ignore hundreds of millions getting sick, going bonkers, and causing mayhem.” Tom went on, “They just greatly under-report what is happening, blame what they can’t hide on ‘galactic pollution’—whatever the hell that’s supposed to mean—and rely on the nature of people to remain ignorant, rather than burdening themselves with truth. No matter how many rumors circulate, the Union knows that even those who believe the most far-fetched of them will still fail to act, to actually stand up and do, or even say, anything.”
Chris looked slightly taken aback, but only offered another question, “How did it all begin? Where did it come from?”
“We’re not sure—no one is,” Elescstron replied, understanding that she referred to the diseases source.
Tom expanded on his answer, saying “It all started about six-teen years back, in a part of the universe far from here. The origin is unclear, but somehow this disease spreads across space at a rate unlike anything I’ve seen before. It seems to somehow permeate any given sector of space without a clear pattern of introduction, at least no pattern of any known science. And it kills in a strange way.”
Grim-faced, Chris said, “Does it?”
“It starts normal enough—there’s a fever, chills, aches and all that—but that’s it gets strange. The victim’s arteries and veins become enflamed and unusually visible, and then they begin the real descent,” Tom said somberly, “they go mad.”
“What’s that then? The sick actually act different?”
“No,” Alastasia spoke up, “not different. Alien. They become insane. Prone to violent outbursts of confusion, with either no memory of who they were, or a profoundly distorted one.”
“It’s mad,” Chris said, “I mean, literally, it’s mad? An entire planet can die of insanity?”
“Not of it,” Tom corrected the statement, “but it’s a major factor to the break down. No society can withstand having the majority of its population thrust into lunacy.”
“No…” Chris agreed, shaking her head slowly. She looked as though something occurred to her, though, and said, “Wait, isn’t there a story about the Drootarth facing an epidemic of madness? What was it called…The touch of insanity—yeah, that’s it. Didn’t the Drootarth find a way to combat it?”
Tom was grinning, “Absolutely stunning. I knew there was a reason I saved you back in that UNT prison.”
“Pardon me?” Chris said flatly, “that’s not how I rememb—”
“Never mind that now,” Tom cut in, “you’re entirely right about the Drootarth.”
“Yes, quite.” The soothsayer hovered around the group, causing them to pivot and watch the orb as his voice radiated, “The account was script among our archives even when I was in youth—but the qualities of the affliction you describe are undeniably alike that which once plagued our race.”
Again the rulers exchanged meaningful glances, then Alastasia smiled, “Then you are convinced that this is the same affliction returned?”
The orb whirred around to rest at speaking level with the queen, “Yes, there is no doubt. The illness of stained blood and disturbed minds—the touch of insanity—has fallen on the stars again.”
“But that’s not what killed you,” Chris obviously had more to say, but the bluntness of her words seemed to hush her. She tried again, “I mean, obviously you’ve survived, but in the stories I’ve been told your people found a way to cure the disease. I mean—no one really knows what cure the Drootarth found, but people often elaborate on the story with their favorite theory.”
Tom agreed, “Yes, that part about the cure is always vague.”
“Yes, this is also true.” The soothsayer agreed. Then there was a sigh—a sound that was different in that it was the first he had made that was not a word, and said, “And what you mean is clear. Surely I hold in my intellect the antidote to this plague—but it is not so.”
It was Elescstron who said, “Do you not know how your civilization combated this disease?”
“Yes; that I do know, and can explain. The work of our most remote herbalists brought to us a plant of mystic qualities. This herb, in its natural and unaltered state, was vaporized and spread through the atmospheres of the most infected planets. The effect was immediate. It is even known that once the cure had been administered to the most far-gone regions and worlds, the disease began to retreat much like it had inexplicably appeared, becoming purged from places where the cure had never been taken.”
“A powerful antidote,” Tom said.
“Indeed, but it is not a convenient one. I hypothesize that it exists still, but my culture could not cultivate the evasive plant, nor synthesize successfully the cure from it. We did not invent a name for it—instead we called it what it was, salvation. It is only found in remote reaches of the cosmos, on planets free of technology and destructive organisms. Salvation appears as a long thorny vine, the fruit of which are numerous and delicate flowers of gentle blue. But even where it can be found, the vines of salvation never grow in cluster bigger than three or four, and only grow on the highest, but snowless places of elevation—this often places one growth thousands of units from the next.
All that remains in my library is the detailed description of the plant—and the incredibly specific conditions in which it might—though often does not—flourish.”
“But this disease must be fought…it must be destroyed,” Elescstron spoke forcefully, though the longing look that came across his visage betrayed the degree of desperation in this certainty.
Tom had showed no such expression, though. “And It will be, Elescstron, I swear it,” Tom said, looking to the orb and speaking, “Surely, you do not mean to say that we cannot combat this plague at all?”
The orb whirred closer to Tom by centimeters, “No, not in the least. The act of retrieving salvation will require a voyage to a strange corner of this universe—this is to be undeniable truth. As for just where it can be found, I…” the Orb trailed off, leaving the four people gathered in tense silence.
At last, just as the royal couple and Chris shifted their gazes from the soothsayer to Tom, who merely gave a hint of a shrug, raising his eyebrows, again the orb’s voice radiated, “,,,Yes, I can locate the plant. But even my direct power of foresight is limited—an instrument, I require. A visual amplifier of uncommon strength, one that will allow my sight to reach to the edges of what you know to be civilized space.”
After whispering shortly with her husband, Alastasia said, “On this world, and in this system we have many observatories. On Malastasia Blue’s moon, Siris Blue, a galactic imager of the Clandestine Eon still resides—could this provide you with sight enough?”
The oracle floated down a few centimeters, seeming to indicate it’s negative reply before it spoke, “Regrettably not. The technology you speak of is old, yes, a strong instrument from a time of universal prosperity—but it does not possess the power I need. I fear that no amplifier, regardless of its quality, will suffice if it is of a common origin. What I require, if it is to be found, will be the original creation of one dedicated to the observation of the cosmos. It will be something unique, something special.”
A sudden light came to Tom’s eyes, “Of course! I know just where we can find what you need.” Everyone’s attention acme to Tom as he explained, “An old friend of mine—a delightful girl--is the owner of a device that I am sure will perform perfectly for you, Soothsay.”
“Forgive our curiosity,” it was Alastasia who spoke, “but might we ask you the identity of this friend?”
Tom nodded, “It is no secret, of course. Her name is Azure. Her observatory—and home—is on one of the asteroids of the Lazarus satellite-belt. She…”
Tom went on talking, but Chris’ jaw had gone slack. Why did that name sound so familiar? She’d heard the uncommon name before, and recently. Then, like a punch in the stomach it struck her. I had been in her dream

Within minutes Chris and Tom had returned to their vessel, escorted by their original entourage, in addition to Elescstron who took leave of the royal chambers to see them out. Alastasia had begged their pardon, returning to her duties, ones she described as, “never-ending.”
With Elescstron’s parting words, “Farewell Chris, and God’s speed to your cause Good Tom. I wish you both, and you, Oracle, a fast and safe return,” Chris mounted the steps and entered the stinker, Tom following and sealing the entrance with a pull of the lever. Above them the soothsayer easily moved.
Tom and Chris exchanged a exhausted look, each letting a breath slip from their chests.
“So,” Tom said, “what do you think of it?” he smiled, “I mean, this whole king and queen, palace, meeting royalty thing?”
Chris shook her head, muttering a indistinct reply as Tom chortled, moving to a panel and pressing a few switches in series. But Chris’ lips turned up at their corners despite her, and she moved near to Tom. She had held her tongue then entire walk back, thinking of nothing but her dream and the blue-haired girl in it.
“Tom?”
“Yes?”
Chris waivered in her conviction for a moment, fearing that she’d seem silly bringing it up. Just as Tom looked up to see what she wanted, she started, “The girl you know, who we’re going to see—Azure?—does she, well, does she have blue hair?”
Tom began laughing at once, shaking his head, “Azure? Blue hair? Nah! What clued you in,” he chuckled, “is there anything else?” He looked back to the control panel.
“Well,” there was another pause, “it’s just that the girl—the that I had a dream about—her name was Azure—”
Tom was looking at her now, scrutinizing even with his furrowed brow “Pardon?”
Sure she’d just made a fool of herself, Chris stammered, “Ah, never mind, forget it—it was nothing.”
“No, no” Tom said, “you’re dream—the one you had in the galley, before we arrived here—what did you just say?”
Chris was surprised by his interest, but answered, “The girl in my dream, I remembered her name. It was Azure, and she had blue hair.”
Tom licked his lips, still intently studying Chris as though he was watching her words rather than listening to them, “I thought you said something about a golden man? What was that?”
“He wasn’t really gold,” Chris started, “he looked normal, but turned sort of—fiery!—yeah, his skin looked fiery but smooth, and it glowed orange, like molten gold. He was yelling at the girl—Azure—before he changed. And he attacked her just as I woke with his—with his hands.”
He shook his head mildly, as if in disbelief, but he said only, “We’ve got to find out what happened.”
Slightly confused still, Chris said, “But—I mean, my dream actually happened? I saw real people, in a real place?”
Tom gave the slightest shrug, absorbed physically in piloting the ship away from the ground. He said, “I don’t know. But it can’t be mere coincidence. To think so would only be an excuse for not recognizing the pattern here.”
“Pattern?” Chris asked.
Again without looking to her, he replied, “There’s always a pattern. Chance play a much smaller part in the universe than most believe. But it might as well be predestined fate, if you can’t recognize the patterns.”
Chris frowned, “What do you mean predestined?”
“Well, if you are ignorant of the patterns—of the way things work—then you are controlled by them. To rise above the influence of things like this, the first step is recognizing the pattern.” Tom grew quiet, as if to allow his words to resonate with Chris.
At last she said, “So if we can understand what’s going on here, Azure may still be alright?”
Tom sighed, concern evident on his face as he quickly looked to Chris, “I really don’t know, Chris. But we’ve got to get out of here and on our way so we can find some answers as quickly as possible.”
With that his attention was back to the control panel, the engines of the ship coming alive. Chris spied the soothsayer orbiting the center of the round chamber, as though watching, or waiting, for something. The vessel raised off the ground slowly at first, but shortly after Tom closed the communications window, he spoke again, “We’re going straight out or the atmosphere, not out at an angle, so you may want to—“
“Hold-on?” She was already gripping the center railing with both hands.
“So, you are getting the hang of this,” and without hesitation he punched the GO-button.
No sooner had the stomach wrenching process of acceleration started, though, than the ship was brought to an abrupt stop. Already several kilometers from the planet’s surface, a ray struck the vessel and held steady on it, utterly stupefying its motion. The soft-blue neon glow of the beam penetrated even inside the stinker, inside of which both Tom and Chris had been flung to the ceiling of the control chamber, where they now laid half-dazed in uncomfortable contortions among the pipes and bulky circuit boxes.
A voice boomed over their intercom, and the screen came to life—only evident because light poured out from the cracks around its cover—and Tom and Chris began to regain themselves. They heard, “Why is there no visual?”
Tom was ready to answer, hotly replying, “Because the screen is closed, and you’ve stuck me to the opposite end of my ship as the control to open it, you ignorant oaf!”
The overpowering voice spoke again, “Regardless—You have been halted by order of the Union, and are ordered to return to the planet of your immediate origin. This planet has been put under intergalactic quarantine by the collective powers of the Union and the Royal Empire, and any attempt at escape or evacuation will warrant your destruction. Especially a ship of this class—probably filthy with the pollution.”
“Oh, come off it!” Tom was yelling, “You know as well as I that it’s a virus down there killing all those people, and that it doesn’t spread conventionally either. I do, however, think you should release us. I am on a union charter right now, and I’ve got a lot of waste to pickup or your buddies in gigasector Pan might run out of places to stow their shit.”
“That’s enough! All this is irrelevant,” the voice was so loud Chris grit her teeth, “you’ll be returned automatically, broadcast terminated.”
Chris groaned a little, rubbing her ears, “What the hell is going on?”
“It’s a grav-inversion laser. That’s short for gravity…and as you can tell, it’s inverted it.” He shifted his body around, saying, “You can stand. It’s just a little difficult to balance.”
As Tom rose to his feet, Chris tried to stand, but fell back to her rear. She settled for sitting up, watching Tom. She asked, “And this is normal for you, is it?”
Tom was wobbling back on forth, trying to keep his feet under him as he stood straight up, “Not exactly—but it’s the only way the Union has to stop a ship instantly—so I’ve experienced it before.”
“It’s not a very pleasant way,”
“Well, it’s better than the alternative. They blow us up,” he laughed, looking steadier on his feet. He said, “The idea is we can’t reach any controls once they’ve stopped us, but fortunately I’ve seemed to land very near to the gravitational-control gasket.”
Chris looked to see a gauge with its needle spinning around aimlessly, a pipe running from this gauge with a round handle. Tom strained, his fingers reaching the control just barely. He twisted it slowly in the clockwise direction, “Alright, gravity ought to return to normal, and at a more delicate rate, too.”
It was a strange sensation, from sitting on the ceiling to floating around the middle of the room, to laying once again on the actual floor, and feeling gravity again depressing your body in a natural way. The blue aura had significantly lessened inside the ship. Chris heard Tom, “Sometimes it’s nice to have an unconventional girl, she could hear him patting one of the control panels, but his voice and the action sounded some distance off.
She rolled over to see why this was, and was suddenly falling from the suspended catwalk. She managed to somehow grip the edge of the metal grating, the thinly cut grid digging into her fingers as her weight swung against the sharp metal edge of the walkway, cutting her vest along its side and scraping her ribs. She hung there the, ladder to the flour several feet off. Apparently, she had not descended all the way to the floor—yet.
Tom hopped over the railing, into the center of the room. He centered himself under Chris, stretching out his arms and saying quickly, “Are you going to fall?”
Chris tried to tighten her grip on the flooring, pulling herself up, but immediately felt the edges of the floor begin to cut her fingers and squeaked, “Yes!” as she released the decking, and fell onto Tom. They sat in a pile for a moment.
“Thanks for the warning,”
“Oh stuff it, “Chris said, looking at her fingers and wincing, “now we’re even.”
The Soothsayer hovered nearby, as though in observation of them. He had remained unaffected by the bouts of gravity manipulation.
Tom stood up painfully, and then helped Chris to her feet. He brushed both her and himself off, “Are you alright?”
“I think so…I’ll know in a minute.”
Without waiting to see her wound, he strode to a nearby console and cursed, observing the various displays, in particular a square touch-screen that he consulted briefly.
“Everything he said was right,” Tom said, “we’re going back. Even if we could completely break the grav-inversion laser, they have us completely locked with their primary weapons—we’d be dead before we could reach a speed fast enough to escape.”
Chris sat on the step up to the outer level, inspecting the slight injury on her side, “How long will we be stuck here? If everything we talked about on the surface is true, we know they have no means of intention of helping this planet in the near future.”
Tom shook his head, “Don’t worry, we won’t be here long. We can’t afford to be.”

The Union, rather than dropping them back onto the palace’s landing zone, deposited their vessel at the pandemonium-filled spaceport of Ulerig, the capitol city of Malastasia Red. Moments after they had landed, and their ship had been released from the control of the Union’s laser, they were ordered by the spaceport commandant to place their craft in the assembly pool; all space-ready crafts were prohibited from flight until further notice from the Union.
Tom maneuvered his ship to the spaceport’s assembly pool, which consisted of a grid of broad painted lines that ordered the tarmac into huge squares of various dimensions, large enough for different spacecrafts to be put to rest in. He softly put down the stinker, and powered down the engines, in a boarder square of the assembly pool.
Taking a quick look around the inside of the ship, Tom looked unhappy. Chris supposed that this might be the last time they the last time they set foot the ship for a while, and though she wasn’t keen on saying so much in words to Tom, she had a concern, “You wouldn’t happen to have a shirt I could wear? My jacket seems alright, but I tore my top almost all up one side.”
His eye’s shooting to her side, Tom nodded, “Aye, I do. Sure you don’t need anything for those scrapes?”
“I think I’ll be fine,” she said.
Tom explained where the cabinet—the one in the back left room, on the right-hand side, behind the bookshelf, but not the one on top—was, where she could find some clothes to look through. And Chris found the large, dark chest in the very third place she looked.
“We’ll have to work on those directions,” she murmured, opening the wooden box which groaned in protest. Inside were many women’s clothes—most much more feminine or colorful than Chris would have preferred. She settled for a plain t-shirt that she found buried at the bottom—a blue shirt, with the Superman logo stamped largely on the chest. She was about to close the large trunk when she noticed a thick charcoal garment folded in one of the corners. She picked it up, and found the heavy article to be a long, floor length coat. The fabric felt soft like cashmere, and when she tried on the coat it fit well to her shoulders. She removed her torn top and put on the shirt, deciding to also fold the coat and put it over her arm as she went back to the bridge.
Upon entering, she spied the soothsayer floating around Tom’s posterior, which stuck out of a hole in the grid-steel flooring of the center of the chamber, where a had been shifted. She moved to the railing that lined the center and leaned there, watching him scrape the toes of his shoes up as he strained to reach something.
“You alright, there?”
An indistinct mumbling came back, and Chris tried to make out a word in the sound, but couldn’t. She said, “Pardon? That wasn’t very clear.”
With a grunt of exertion Tom pulled his front half up out of the floor, and turned, his gizmo gripped between his teeth. A light was shining out of the gadget, and he took it from his mouth with a hand, replying clearly this time, “I said I was fine, just having a bit of trouble getting this out,” he held up a small, yellow cartridge that had silver connectors on one end.
“Oi, what that then?” Chris asked, a brow raising as she watched Tom kick the piece of grating gingerly back into place.
“Well,” Tom said, “you see, this is now a 185 ton block of useless metal plating and circuits. With everything about this ship that isn’t—well, factory, shall we say?—there’s no plausible way it can be started without the right computer ignition switch,” Tom grinned.
“And you’re holding it,” Chris said.”
“Exactly,” He placed a cover over the switch’s silver connectors, stowing the playing-card sized object in a jacket pocket.
The soothsayer commented, “So the ship becomes a keyless door.”
“But why can’t they simply make another—well—key?” Chris asked.
“Well, first they’d have to find the slot—not that they couldn’t, but it’s not in a traditional location, to understate the facts. And secondly,” Tom went on, “it’s not a sparkplug or a fuse, any old switch won’t do. It has to have the right instructions, and the instructions for operating this ship are not simple.”
Chris nodded her understanding, and Tom moved to the door level, bringing down the exit ramp. Once they had reached the ground and stepped a few meters away, they turned to look back at the ship. Tom fingered his gizmo, the door to the case remotely closing, and then slipped the device into his pant-pocket. They both continued to watch as one of the gravity-laser turrets on the spaceport control tower, aiming at Tom’s ship. The laser connected with his ship, lifting it gently into the air.
“Would you look at that,” Tom said.
Chris nodded again. The sight of the laser cutting through the dawn—for it was dawn in Ulerig—was breathtaking.
“It beautiful. The Malastasian’s know how to make a good gravity beam,” he was smiling, “nothing like that sloppy electrified Union abomination we got hit with up there. Look how different the blue is.”
The deep blue ray illuminated the stinker like a blue bulb, which it gracefully shifted inwards, towards the perfect, and empty parking space in the parking-lot of galactic cruisers.

From the tarmac, they could only move into the chaotic bedlam of the spaceport’s terminals. Before they entered, however, Tom turned to the oracle that whirred along beside them, and presented a bag that Chris had not noticed before. With no dialogue, the soothsayer descended into the bag. Chris was about to question this when she realized that there was a good chance that not only Tom and the rulers of Malastasia Red, but also others more versed in mysteries of the universe than herself may be capable of recognizing the living relic for it’s true value.
They had entered the spaceport and had been inside for less than a minute before they were packed tightly against one another, and an assortment of other panicking passengers. As a large, scaly mass of purple flesh brushed along Chris’ backside, she turned to Tom, demanding, “Alright, where in bloody hell are you taking me now?”
Tom tugged Chris along by the arm, making his way for something that she either couldn’t see or recognize as worth their effort to reach. Although he didn’t speak, he continued to pull her with him. At last they reached a table in front of a small bistro, the eatery closed with a sign hung that read, ‘Out of Everything.’ Without hesitation, Tom jumped onto the table, crouching and placing a hand on Chris’ shoulder for balance.
“Tom,” Chris said, her tone suggesting he reply.
“I’m just getting a look at what’s out there,” he scanned the far reaches of the spaceport’s interior, before at last breathing, “Ah ha.”
He hopped down from the table, and looked at Chris who still looked like she was waiting for an answer that would satisfy her. So he explained, “I’ve just seen a friend from the palace—I can’t think of why he’d be here, other than to see us—so I think we’d better go and see him.”
And Tom was off again, dragging Chris in his wake. As they reached the far end their particular terminal, she spotted a familiar face. With black spiked hair, and violently purple eyes it was easy to recognize the man Tom had spoken with during their walk through the royal palace.
Chris tugged on Tom’s arm, bringing him to a stop and pointing, “I think that’s him there.”
Glancing, Tom nodded, “Aye, that’s him.”
They made their way around a hovering-seat that supported a colossal bag of green jelly, in which were suspended what looked liked various organs, including three hearts and more than the right amount of eyeballs. On the other side they found the dark-skinned from the palace, shaking his head as he watched the bag of good jiggle away with the vibrations of the hover-craft.
“Some might try and tell you that getting turned into a bagged-abomination is the immortality that all of our ancestors dreamt of,” it was clear he was talking to them, though he still watched moving obstruction, “but I think I’ll keep my legs, just as long as I can.”
“You don’t have to say that twice,” Tom said.
The look on Chris’ face was disgusted, “You mean that used to be a creature like you or me?”
“Yes, it used to be,” the other man answered, “and it still thinks like one, too.”
“I’d rather die than be turned into a blimp,”
Both Tom and the man laughed, and he said, “Indeed, and you’re not the only one. Industrocore swears that it has solved the problem of death, however, and for some the temptation of that promise is too great to resist.” There was a moment of silence as they watched the thing disappear into the crowded spaceport.
“Semaj,” Tom was speaking to the man, “we must get out of here.”
“I know your ordeal,” the man, Semaj, said, “and I assure you arrangements are being made as we speak. But right now, we need to get out of here.”
“Alright,” Tom said, “but what’s the rush?”
The man gave a half smile, “That union warship that stopped you wasn’t just any vessel, it happens to be under the command First Officer Regner.”
The dopy expression on Tom’s face gave away his surprise even before his words, “That slimy excuse of an organism was made First Officer? And he’s here?” There was almost an audible groan from Tom, “You’ve got to be kidding.”
Semaj was openly smiling now, stark white teeth flashing, “I wish that I was, Tom. But unfortunately this is no ruse. I think we best be moving,” he looked into the packed interior of the docking-station terminal, which had come now to a virtual stand-still, and added, “or, at least doing our best to blend in.” With that the man turned, his head of rigid black hair moving away into the crowd, and Tom and Chris weren’t far behind him.
They made their way down the corridor of terminals at a painstaking rate. Constantly they were bumped or jostled, and several times they almost lost sight of one-another due to erratic movements those around them—apparently they weren’t the only ones in a hurry to get out. Even the vendors who would normally been overjoyed by the captive consumers, peddling their useless wares, had instead packed up or closed shop, and were also seeking to evacuate the building.
At last they reached a much wider passageway, a lofty glass ceiling at least a hundred feet high revealing the dark morning sky, light just beginning to show from the rising sun. It s less crowded here only because of the massive dimensions of the place, but it allowed for enough space or Tom to slide up next to Semaj as they kept moving, and say, “It isn’t just us passengers and pilots, they’ve ordered everyone out.”
Chris, who had moved up close to the two men caught Semaj’s less than enthusiastic verification of Tom’s remark, “Aye, they have. And I’ve got a theory why, but you’re not going to like it.”
“Well, I still better hear it,” Tom said. ”Your theories usually test out, after all.”
Semaj was smiling, “Usually? Are you still sour about that mix up with the Neo-Neptunian crawlers in that tavern on Orfus-Six?” he chuckled. “You can’t let anything go.”
“Uh-umm,” Tom cleared his throat, “I’d rather not talk about that now—or ever, for that matter—but if you’re done reminding me of why I ought to knock you one over the head, maybe you could tell me just what it is that I’m not going to like?”
“The man who was leaving the royal chambers as we arrived, do you remember him?”
“Aye, the earth-man,” Tom recalled the terran who had given him such a stare-down.
“Yes,” Semaj nodded, “he’s the Union Ambassador to Malastasia Red, and to me it seems as though he must’ve recognized you.”
“But could some random Union lackey—“ then it came to him, where he had recognized the terran from. The man had been there when he was tried by the Penal Grand Jury of the Union, he had even testified against him. Tom even recalled him name now, Buckely, First Mate Buckely. Tom swore, “And you think he tipped off Captain—“
“First Officer,” Semaj corrected.
“Right. And you think Buckely tipped him off?”
“I’d almost bet on it,” he replied.
The three of them moved into the center of the massive space, to where there ran a moving walkway. They continued walking along the causeway, Tom saying mutedly, ”But then that means that they enacted this quarantine just to trap me here?”
“Yes,” Semaj said, “I think so.”
“In what loving god or deities name?” Tom asked, sounding astounded., “I mean, I’m hardly that big of a fugitive! I still have charters with union vessels for heaven’s sake. And they can’t possibly know what I’ve knicked from the UNT—no offense,” Tom said towards the bag, who gracefully responded, assuring that none had been taken—and that he agreed that the Union was still clueless of his existence.
This response from Tom brought visible surprise to Semaj’s face, who asked, “You mean, you don’t know about what happened after you left Regner’s ship?”
“Hardly,” Tom said, “if you recall I was escaping from a lifetime banishment, bestowed upon me that very same day by the Penal Grand Jury—escaping from trumped up charges, and a mountain of witnesses who would say anything Regner told them to.”
“Doesn’t change the fact you were convicted of the crime when you jumped ship,” Semaj said, “and if that’s not enough, you knicked something that day, too—didn’t you? A central fuel-cell from the engine of Renger’s vessel.”
Tom said, “Well of course I did, I couldn’t have them recapturing me before to jump into hyper speed. Not to mention that selling that part to that caravan of Nogov traders I ran into on the way back almost made that whole ordeal worth-while.” They moved to a ramp—also constructed as a moving causeway—that ran the same direction as the walkway they had been on, but leveled off twenty meters above. They climbed the ramp, coming up under a domed glass expansion of the already elevated ceiling.
“Well, of course,” Semaj said, a hint of mockery in his voice, “but what I suppose you didn’t stop to think about was that was the only fuel-cell within a quarter-million gigasectors capable of powering that ship.”
“Oh?” Tom said, obviously not impressed by the development.
“Yes,” Semaj said, “which is precisely why Regner couldn’t avoid the titan missiles that the Penal Grand Jury launched from planet-side to blow you up.”
“Oh?” Tom said again, but this time amused in tone, and with a smile creeping over his lips. “Titan missiles, as in more than one?”
“Yes,” Semaj again replied, “three of them.”
Tom burst out laughing, a wide grin spreading undr his hand as he tried to stifle his amusement, “Brilliant! I couldn’t have planned it better. I mean blown out of the sky by their own panel of judges, allowing a condemned, but most importantly innocent, man to go free? You can’t tell me that isn’t a dripping with poetic justice.” He stopped laughing, as he whispered excitedly, but the grin was still glued to his face. “I’d always wondered why that was such an easy getaway,“
Semaj snorted, “Aye, because every Union vessel, and most available ships from the Royal Empire, were busy for the next eighteen hours scouring the wreckage for survivors in bubbles,” he referred to the rooms of a space-structure that are capable oof becoming air-tight, and thusly of supporting life even after the main body of the structure is torn apart. “Not that the titan’s left many bubbles. Regner, of course, lived.” The bridge of a galactic destroyer took immense amounts of damange before becoming compromised.
“I wish I could have seen the look on his face,” Tom said.
“I admit, it was priceless,” Semaj was doing his best to wipe the grin off his face, “but perhaps you understand now why I think Regner is trying to corner you here. You know the man, he never leaves a score unsettled. And an utterly annihilated Galactic Destroyer is a hell of a score to settle, no matter the rules of the game8.”
In the brief silence that followed Tom’s smile faded, as the more serious implications of his newly understood rivalry with Regner, and perhaps because of Regner the entire Union, began to weigh on his mind. Not that he had ever been over-friendly with the lot—but that was a different matter than having to worry about any peon he;d ever met recognizing his face and sounding alarm bells.
He looked to Chris, to see her gazing out the domed glass that surrounded the second-floor walkway. Below them stretched the city of Ulerig, to the horizon, but not as Tom had seen it before. The industrialized city—normally a far stretch from the natural tranquility of Alastasia’s palace—seemed even further removed than normal. The familiar place seemed almost alien to him, and it took him few seconds to figure out why.
It wasn’t the fires smoldering themselves out among the ruins of their blackened victims, nor was it the curious haze that hung above the city, casting a ruby glow over the city as the morning light that trickled through. No, what was so strange, was that even at this early hour the streets should have been full of people all milling about, and making their way to school or work or wherever they were always going at this time of morning. But there was no one to look at as the moving floor continued to take them forward. The streets were desolate.
Chris broke the silence, speaking, “It’s…It’s a striking city, but it seems so…”
“Eerie,” Tom offered quietly, Chris nodding. The word described it well.
Semaj sighed, “It is hardly the place I learned to love as a child, before I had ever seen the surface of another world.”
“It’s startling,” Tom said, “it’s gotten so much worse since I last visited.” He thought of the relaxed—if grave—manner in which Elescstron and Alastasia had spoken on the epidemic hardly an hour ago. Their words, ‘two in three’ hardly described what he was looking at now. It seemed as if everything in the city had stopped—he couldn’t even make out the outline of a bird in the sky.
“But that’s why you’re here, isn’t it Good Tom?” Semaj said. Chris noticed the funny tone in which Semaj used the title that the royal couple had addressed Tom with, but he spoke again before she could dwell on it, “To right what has gone so terribly wrong?”
Tom didn’t say anything for a moment, only stared out the glass as the conveyor-floor moved them along. He looked forward after a span and said, “I’m here right now because the Union—apparently Regner specifically—has stopped me. And by the looks of things,” he gestured mildly forward, “they don’t intend on letting me out of the spaceport, either.”
No more than a hundred meters ahead they could just make out the end of the walkway, and through the impatiently trudging crowd the crisp, blue uniforms of Union enforcers.
“Damn,” Semaj muttered, “I thought that our men would be able to keep this Union scum off the surface longer than this.”
“Why are they even here in such force?” Tom asked.
Semaj gave him a critical glance, “I thought we’d covered that—you.”
“No,” Tom shook his head, “what I mean is this is officially a quarantine, right? Not a man hunt. That looks like a wall of blue ahead of us, what possible reason could they come up with for landing that many enforcers on Red?”
“Since when did the Union ever need a reason to act it’s will? Just an excuse,” the knowing smirk on his face was not a pleasant expression, but all the same he went on when he saw that Tom was about to raise the issue again, “the Union and the Royal Empire decided it was necessary to send a limited number of agents to the spaceports of intergalactic-trading planets that have been isolated, in addition to the ships that are patrolling just beyond our skies right now. And it seems they’ve used this for their own means in this instance. Forgive me if I don’t sound too shocked.”
Apparently Tom wasn’t shocked either, with the explanation. “Tricky, cheeky bastards. I’ll take it there’s no plan B?” he asked, looking back to Semaj. They were only fifty yards off now.
“Not yet, and there won’t be if you keep interrupting me—but honestly, we seem more or less trapped.”
Both Tom and Semaj began looking around, as if some secret panel in the glass would real itself. Then, at the same precise moment, both of their gazes landed upon the narrow foot-and-a-half wide gap between the hand-railings on the side of the walkway and the glass that covered it. Chris could see the idea forming before either had said a word, and could not contain her skepticism, “We…we can’t jump, it’s got to be fifteen meters to the floor.”
“Maybe it is,” Tom said, “but I think that tree coming up on the left can’t be more than seven .”
Chris could make out the tropical looking cluster of foliage approaching as they were moved nearer to it, “It still looks like a hell of a long way down to me.”
The tree was almost below them now. “What do you think, Semaj?”
Ahead of them the enforcers loomed, the individual troopers now distinguishable from the line of blue uniforms.
“Well…” Semaj said, “Jump!”
Semaj had disappeared over the railing almost before Chris realized he had even answered. Now Tom was on his way over, already slipping between the handrail and the thick glass, appearing to plummet out of sight like a stone. She couldn’t believe her eyes. The tree passed beneath her as she bent over the side of the guardrail, Tom beckoning wildly from the prongs of the tropical-looking tree.
She hesitated, for a moment she played with the idea of taking her chances with the enforcers. But no, she’d seen her with Tom, and even if they weren’t exactly soldiers of the Queen’s caliber, Union muscle like this would still recognize her in a heartbeat. She glanced up and the parked enforcers, who were approaching now more rapidly than ever, and knew she had very little choice, “Of, for fuck’s sake,” she muttered, turning in what she hoped was a inconspicuous fashion, and fighting her way a meter back through the crowd of travelers until the tree appeared to be directly below her. Taking a deep gasp, as though it might be her last, she vaulted over the railing.
Below, Tom braced for Chris impact. He’d become ensnared in the serrated leaves, much sharper than they’d appeared from the walkway. Apparently Semaj had known as much, though, for he had lithely avoided becoming tangled. His feet were hitting the floor just as Chris’ were knocking the wind right out of Tom.
Gasping for breath, Tom wheezed out, “Y’know what? You’re not nearly as light as you look.”
“Just what is that supposed to mean?” Chris snapped back, trying to turn and face him but finding herself snagged just as securely as he in the tree.
From the base of the tropical tree, just above the volume of the crowd that swirled around him, Semaj shouted, “Settle it later! You need to get off of there now, you two are a sight.”
At that precise moment a spearhead of blue-clad enforcers came in through the terminal gate, splitting the crowd of stranded travelers with surprising speed, evidently in an attempt to reach the spectacle in the tree which had begun to attract attention. Seeing this, the stuck pair began to struggle. Tom gave Chris a strong push, pulling her garments free of the tree’s grip, and allowing her to slide between several prongs and half-shimmy, half-fall to the floor.
Tom had just torn himself free, and had risen, preparing to leap when a voice boomed out from the mass of blue uniforms that had somehow already encompassed the tree.
“Hold it right there, Thomas Victoria. You are under the arrest of Union Patrol, and you will not move.” The man who spoke was short, and sporting neat, curly hair and a straight-line mustache, both dark black. On his head he bore the three-pointed hat of a Patrol Chief.
Tom had frozen at the command, the forty five enforcers now gathered around the tree possibly inspiring his obedience. He rolled his eyes, turning towards the slight Patrol Chief, “For heaven’s sake, the name is Tom.”
Practically spitting at Tom’s reply, the officer retorted, “Your name is the least of my concern,” the short man raised one hand to steady his hat which was falling off with the rising volume of his voice, and raised his other hand until the shock-rod it held was pointed at Tom, “well perhaps to avoid further confusion I should just refer to you as ‘Prisoner,’ seeing as how that’s what you are now! Now shut up and climb out of that blasted tree.”
Trying his best to ignore the command, but still appear cooperative, Tom realized that Semaj and Chris had somehow escaped before the tree was encircled, merging with the crowd. Tom looked around for them, subtle in the attempt as every eye in the place was on him. The enforcers had formed a perimeter around the tree, pushing the already crowded travelers even closer together.
Just as he was wondering if he would spot them, Tom noticed a huge fuzzy form on the edge of the Enforcers. The creature was a huge, six meter tall gobjuar. The gobjuar were common among many traders, who purchased the giant apes from the genetics company that produced them. The brutes made great pack-animals, and could double as a bestial bodyguard if things got rough. The apes could even be ordered in any color—this one was hot-pink, with his feet, hands, and face fading into a cotton-candy blue. Just beyond the furry animal’s head though, a glint caught Tom’s eye. Pressed into a corner across the terminal, by a door marked ‘EMERGENCY EXIT’ and a vending machine were Chris and Semaj. Semaj was using a necklace he had pulled from his shirt to catch the light and throw it to Tom.
They made eye contact, and Semaj mimed as though he were going to open the door, indicating with a jerk of his head for Tom to make it to them. “Easier said than done,” Tom thought, gauging the distance to the door to be a good twenty meters. He began looking for a means to reach it.
“Are you deaf?” The voice of the Chief Enforcer demanded, “I said get your silly ass out of that tree, Prisoner!”
Tom looked down at the man, and then glanced up at the bottom of the long moving walkway from which they’d all just jumped. A grid-work of crossbars supported to platform, and though these bars were beyond his reach the chandelier-like lights that were suspended from the then hung down a couple meters. Tom fathomed, that if he got a good jump, he just might be able to get a grip on the light.
Raising both hands in the air, Tom looked the Chief Enforcer in the eyes and said, “Alright, alright. For fuck’s sake, I’m not the best tree climber on Malastasia Red, do you think you could hold on to your pantyhose?” Tom glanced quickly to the light, thinking swooping thoughts of swinging through the air as the livid Patrol Chief composed himself to shout back.
“I don’t give a rat’s ass if you can’t tell your asshole from your elbow. Shut the fuck up and get out of that that tree before I blast you out! It’d be no hide off my back if you had to fall out.” The short man was red in the face, and waved his shock-rod around in little circles thumb seeming to quiver over the firing button.
Tom, seeing his opportunity closing, took a step back, balancing on the fronds of the tree and preparing himself speedily. Then, spinning around to face across the terminal towards the hanging light and his companions, he took two short steps, springing upwards. An instant murmur rose from all those watching as Tom flew through the air, straining to reach the chandelier. A roar then arose from the enraged chief, who spun his arm around, re-aiming his shock-rod. Tom managed to grip the bottom of the lighting fixture, and swung his weight forward with his hips.
As Tom felt the chandelier moving, however, something seemed stiff. The cord on which it hung, that Tom had assumed to be flexible, seemed not to bend like some jungle vine—but rather, it bowed like a spry, springy shaft of bamboo. The cord flexed with Tom’s weight, but not as far as he’d hoped, and before he could release the light, the stored energy of the flexed lamp’s cord was released, causing the chandelier to spring back towards the tree. Giving a holler, Tom was violently jerked back again just as the Chief Enforcer finally punched fire with his thumb, sending a stream of sparking and crackling electrical arcs through the air.
Chris gasped, Semaj grimacing as the shot skimmed Tom’s shoes. The cord of the light, which had bent back until Tom was nearly over the same tree again, now shot him back in the direction of Semaj and Chris. Another blast of electric current narrowly missed Tom as he reached the pinnacle of the chandeliers bow, but this time Tom released the light, continuing to be propelled away from the tree. But far short of reaching the opposite side of the terminal, Tom fell into a fluffy bed of thick, hot-pink fur.
The pack-ape reared up, raising his arms into the air over his head as Tom clung to the giant animal’s back. Tom remarked the peculiar smell of fresh strawberries, which seemed to come from the beast’s hide or fur. But the perfume was stricken from his mind when an arc of electrical current from the Patrol Chief’s shock-rod hit the ape squarely in the ribs. The shot even sent a jolt down Tom’s spine, and caused the pack-animal to turn towards to mass of enforcers. The enraged animal roared towards the Chief Enforcer, seeming to forget about the man still clinging to his back. The blue uniformed enforcers, seeing how angry the creature had become, began to retreat from the brute. Some used their own shock-rods to crack off shots at the mass of fur, but each additional hit only seemed to further piss off the creature, who appeared no more hurt by the blasts than he would be by a pop gun. But as the men tried to flee from the pack-ape, whose chest-sized fists began swinging down on them, they found the terminal had become far too crowded with the addition of their numbers, leaving no room to step back. They began pushing clumsily against one-another, trying to make space for their withdraw where there was none.
Tom, feeling a subtle shock every time his colossal pink mount was hit, decided to shove off of the animal. Pushing with both arms, and then kicking off with his legs, Tom launched himself off of the animal and onto the heads of some nearby travelers. The gobjaur began trampling enforcers in an effort to reach the short chief, the giant sizzling fur-ball sending men flying with his forceful strikes. Tom was shifted like a crowd-surfer over the packed travelers, who pushed his weight off until he came down on the floor in the space where the pack-ape had just stood.
There were dazed looking enforcers nearby, and some ran towards Tom, though it was only because they putting steps between themselves and the gobjuar, which was now behind them. They had not because noticed Tom. The tightly condensed crowd quickly filled the space around Tom, further removing him from the attention of the enforcers as he began wedging himself between the various persons. He was pleasantly surprised by how little resistance the travelers gave him as he pressed between them. They were utterly absorbed in the scene of mayhem that had begun in the middle of the terminal. And stealing a glance back over the heads of some strange tripedal alien, Tom could see why.
At least ten of the enforcers were now strewn across the ground, being half trampled by the rest who were still shooting vainly at the ape. The gobjaur’s pink coat only sizzled and smoked with the electrical strikes, as though it might catch flame at any moment. The Chief Enforcer half hid behind the tree, yelling at the top of his lungs for a, “real fucking gun!” as the outraged ape threw one of his men sideways against the tree, shaking another brutally by his leg. But Tom tore his eyes from the scene, pushing on past the distracted interstellar travelers. He reached the corner where he had spotted Semaj and Chris and found them still standing there.
Semaj pushed open the emergency exit, which sounded an alarm that was hardly heard over the ruckus of screaming enforcers, flying bodies, and the roaring gobjaur. All three of them pushed through the door, entering a long, narrow hallway with pipes and conduit running overhead, and a polished smooth floor beneath their feet. Every now and then a hallway or door presented itself on either side, but from where they stood they could see no one else in the hall. Semaj began trotting ahead, “Follow me,” he said, shaking his head mildly as he looked to Tom, “That was quite a show back there Tom, I haven’t seen anything that entertaining in a long time.”
Chris was shaking her head, “It was incredible. I can’t believe you didn’t break your neck, or get it from one of those shockers.”
“Oh, come now. The Union can’t win every day. Besides, I’m just talented in these sorts of things,” Tom said.
Semaj chuckled, “Talented in chancing out of sticky situations by the nape of your neck? I suppose you are rather good at that.” The comment elicited a giggle from Chris.
“Yeah, well what do you say we just get out of here before we run out of giant monkeys to distract them with, eh?” Tom’s slight smile betrayed his tone.
They turned right, down a hallway that was marked by an orange circle on the wall. As they continued running, Semaj said, “It’s been a while since my days shuffling luggage around this place, but I’m pretty sure there’s access to the sewers not far from here, near the trash chute.”
“Great, I was just starting to miss that smell…” Chris remarked.
They passed a sign that read ‘WASTE DEPOSITORY,’ an arrow pointing in the direction they were running. “That means we’re close, I hope,” Tom said. “I’m sure they’ve noticed the alarm and open door by now.”
“I think we are,” Semaj replied, “it should be just another few dozen meters, at the end of a short hallway marked with a blue moon.”
No sooner had Semaj said this, it seemed, then they arrived at a hallway on their left-hand side, a faded blue crescent painted on the wall to mark the branch. Only one bolt remained in the wall from where an older sign had hung below the symbol. Semaj stopped for a breath at the intersection, saying, “See, aren’t you glad I’m with you? The blasted sign for rubbish pit isn’t even on the wall anymore! You two would’ve been lost if—“
The crashing sound of doors flying open startled the Malastasian quiet as enforcers beginning to pour out of both the doors they had just ran past, and those ahead of them. It was obvious they had been found and cornered by the speed at which the hall was filling with blue uniforms, leaving no way place to head except for the trash chute—and hopefully, the sewer.
“We are much obliged, Semaj,” Tom said, “but I think it’s time we cease the cheerful chatter and get the fuck out of here.”
The three tore off down the only clear path, cries of, “Stop!” and “Halt!” pounding in their ears, as well as the firm assertion of the enforcers that the three of them were already under arrest. The hallway was a short one, and only thirty meters later, they hit a tiny, five by five meter room. A monstrous red machine in one corner, Semaj panted, was the trash compactor that shot waste down the chute. But on the opposite side of the chamber, between two cluttered storage lockers, was a hatch on the floor.
With the yells of the enforcers already loud in their ears, Semaj crouched over the rectangular hatch, suddenly exclaiming, “It’s been sealed shut! The bastards must use a different access now,” he yanked on the handle as if he hoped the caps of the rivets would merely pop off, and allow the hatch to swing open. This did not happen.
From his rear pocket Tom produced his gizmo, pushing between Chris and Semaj, “Rivets? How many? Ah, just get out of the bloody way, you two.”
Twelve rivets sealed the sewer entrance shut, three on each side of the square hatch. Tom lowered the end of his gizmo to the head of the first one. A nearly-blinding flash of yellow light snapped from the end of the tool, and the head of the rivet shot off like a ricocheting bullet.
Semaj and Chris ducked for cover, both raising their hands to protect their heads. Tom went rivet by rivet, causing the metal heads to bounce wildly around the chamber, all the while the sound of the enforcers rushing down the hallway growing louder.
“Help me with this,” Tom said hurriedly, gripping one of the hatch’s handles as Semaj and Chris obliged him, taking hold the handles and pulling the sewer cover off of the torn rivets. The opening that appeared was scarcely more than half a meter wide, and the odor that seemed to surge up from the dark hole put the mild smell that lingered around Tom’s ship to shame.
Tom and Semaj exchanged glances, as Chris merely stared the sewer entrance down, frowning at the gaping dark hole. The roar of the Union grunts was overpowering, and at that instant a torrent of the blue uniforms tore into the chamber, each man armed with at least a shock-rod, though Chris was pretty sure she could make out at least a few plasma pistols clenched in angry black-gloved hands.
A voice broke free from the clamor of the aggravated guards, making itself heard and causing the men to quiet, “We’ve been ordered to take you alive, Tom, but Regner could care less about your navy tart, or this two-bit Malastasian boy, and we ran out of patience one big fucking ape ago. Step away from the hole, or we’ll do whatever it takes to stop you.”
“Alright, alright,” Tom said, standing and raising his arms above his head, his gizmo disappearing slyly into his sleeve, “I guess we’re going with you.”
“I’m just glad we’re not going down there,” Chris said, shaking her head as she looked towards the black hole.
Tom looked at her, saying “You might not be saying that once you’ve met Regner.”

The three captured fugitives stood against the far wall of a bare, sterile room. On the opposite side of the chamber, clustered around the room’s only door, stood six brutish looking enforcers. They were the size and type of man that made the crisp blue uniforms their bulk was crammed into look more cute than proper, and made the shock-rods in their hands seem completely unnecessary.
“Good gods,” Chris whispered, “where did they drudge up these ancestors?”
Tom shook his head, “I don’t know, but I’d rather get cozy with that gobjuar again than that lot.”
Semaj was quiet, leaning in the corner and looking slowly around the room with a brooding expression. Besides for themselves and the guards the only other object in the room was a shiny metal table, not large and positioned in the center of the room, though there were no chairs around it.
The parade through the back halls of the spaceport’s holding room had been a blast. Not only were they escorted by a group that easily outnumbered them by ten, but a wall of perturbed looking enforcers seemed to follow them as well, creating a lined walkway the entire way. They’d been searched for weapons immediately, and though they confiscated a blade and two other enigmatic items from Semaj, they found nothing on Chris.
Upon searching him, Tom managed to keep his gizmo hidden from the men. They did look, however, inside the brown satchel he carried. Inside the bag, the soothsayer had darkened, emitting no indication it were alive at all. The enforcers looked at the object like some mechanized grapefruit. Fairly convinced it wasn’t a bomb, though, they left the inscrutable but harmless-looking ball in Tom’s care.
Shooting a glance at Semaj, Tom thought the pondering, almost puzzled way in which his the man was staring around the room was strange. This seemed to slip past the large guards, who stared so fixedly ahead, and moved so little, Tom began to suspect they had learned how to sleep with their eyes open. But Semaj clearly had something on his mind.
Suddenly Tom felt a presence come into close proximity to his being, and looked in surprise at the bag, knowing the soothsayer had returned to his physical shell. It’s voice spoke, and the way in which Chris eyes snapped to Tom’s face, connecting with his, he knew that she heard him to, “Semaj has recognized this chamber from his recent past, from his time among this staff of this facility. The room, at that time, was a place to eat meals and take breaks. What he has remembered more importantly, though,” the soothsayer said, “is that when he used to sit in this chamber and eat his food, he would hear the elevator passing just beyond the wall that is on his left. The elevator shaft is on the other side of a thin plate of fixed, metal walling and nothing else.”
Tom looked at the wall, inspecting the quality of the metal. If his gizmo could cut it, it would take for too long—it was out of the question. The shaft might be less than two centimeters away from where Semaj stood, Tom thought, but it might as well be out the door and down the hall for all the good it would do them.
Chris bit her lip, coming to a similar conclusion just as the door to the chamber shot open with a hissing noise, causing her to jump and glance to the figure that entered. Her surprise quickly turned to awe, though, as the larger-than-life man stepped into the chamber. Two men in some sort of officer uniform were hot on his heels, and as soon as they’d entered the six oafish fellows blundered through the door one after another. If this man Regner’s dress, and the way with which he carried himself, were anything to judge him by than his ego was surely bent double in the effort of having fit through the door.
He was of normal height, and mildly athletic in build, but the man had an air about him that made him seem to dwarf the six stacks of muscles that had just filed out of the room. He had thick, golden-brown hair that was cut short—but not too short. A mustache groomed perfectly to the corners of his mouth was the same color, and so were the eyebrows that were shaped so perfectly it betrayed the vanity behind their undeniable tending. But the effect was considerable. His mere presence seemed to demand cooperation and respect as he stood in the chambers center, next to the table, a hand on either hip. He was quiet, and so were his two friends. His hazel eyes were locked on Tom, who returned Regner’s wordless gaze with equal zealousness.
“I’ve been waiting to have you under my thumb for some time, Tom Victoria.” The statement was made flatly, but emphasized by the solemn way in which Regner said it, and the fashion in which he leaned forward onto the table, spreading his hands flat across tabletop’s metal surface. “What have you been up to?” Regner asked at last, when Tom said nothing, “You’ve been off the radar for months, Tom, and that just isn’t your style.”
Tom was short. “So I’ve been busy,” he said, leaning forward from where he stood against the wall, his hands coming to rest mockingly on his hips—for lack of a metal table to press them upon. He said, “You want to make something of it?”
Regner laughed, causing Tom to fight a grimace from spreading over his face. The sound of the man’s pompous mirth was nearly enough to make his head pop, but he tried to ignore the sound. Chris and Semaj were wordless, both watching carefully as Regner ignored their presence, speaking only to Tom.
“Well, we can play games as long as you like, Victoria,” Regner said, bearing his teeth in grizzly bear grin. He easily rolled his shoulder back as he took his hands from the table, standing erect and walking around the table until he stood directly in front of Tom. “You see, I’ve got a little something up in my ship—“
“Your ship?” Tom broke in, a grin stealing his lips briefly, “That’s funny, because last I heard the Lusitania met her fate at the wrong end of three titan missiles. So I’m not sure what ship you’d be talking about, Travis.”
It was hard to tell what got his goat more, hearing the name of his destroyed vessel, or being bitingly called by his first name, but the smugness was at least momentarily gone from his well-groomed face. Tom had said nothing about how he’d learned these facts no more than forty minutes ago, but looking at Regner Chris doubted this would have waned the officer’s anger at all.
Regner licked his lips coldly, eyes still locked on Tom’s though without the winner’s sparkle they’d had when he entered, “You know damn well Tom that since that—that—that incident—”
“Oh, that’s what your calling it now, eh? Incident,” Semaj chuckled from his corner, causing Chris crack a smile, and causing Regner to wrench his eyes off of Tom to look at him.
“That’ll be enough out of you, you Malastasian plague-dog,” Regner roared.
Semaj scoffed, “I thought there was no plague, only ‘isolated cases of space pollution.’”
The First Officer put his hand on the butt of his plasma pistol, saying in a grave, calm voice, “One more word and it’ll be your last, filth. I ought to put you down and have you removed anyway, before I catch whatever your kind has down here.”
Semaj raised his hands and closed his mouth to indicate he would say nothing further, but Tom broke in causing Regner to look back towards him, “You say that like there aren’t ten-thousand planets of humankind out there, sick, suffering and going mad from the same disease.”
“Don’t tell me about the state of my Union, Victoria. Patriots like us,” he gestured in a way that indicated himself and his two companions, “have nothing to learn from the likes of terrorist scum like you.”
Tom merely shook his head, thinking he rather terrorize than bolster Regner’s precious Union any day of year.
Regner, however, went on talking, mistaking the momentary silence as a sign of having the conversation once again under control, “Anyways, after that incident,” Regner shot a glance at Semaj, who fought a smile but said absolutely nothing, “as you well know Tom, I was promoted to First Officer. I have ten ships newer than the Lusitania under my command now, Victoria.”
“Yeah, about that,” Tom said, asking “Does the Union normally have policy of failing upwards? Or do they just make exceptions for good-looking imbeciles who are as exceptionally under-skilled as you?”