The cabin on the Merry Crabbe was tiny and contained no more than a cot for sleeping, and a wall mounted desk for seated study. Like the other living areas on the small courier ship, the irradiating walls provided a comfortable level of physical warmth along with a yellow-tinged light. The multi-directional nature of the room's lighting meant that the few homely trinkets sitting on the desk - including a model of an antique cartoon cat - cast little or no shadow, giving them a flat unnatural look from certain angles. Small panels of virtual material floated around the walls in three-dimensional relief providing snapshot visuals of the Grimes family at play; moving memories for the ship's Captain and usual occupant of the room.

Much to Peter Grime's dismay, he had lost his personal retreat. For the week since the skirmish, his cabin had become the brig for the paralysed auger Riggs and her attendant and fellow elite, Denver.

The chemical-induced paralysis affecting the prisoner was designed to target specific muscle groups, and while fully awake and alert, Riggs found herself totally immobilized able only to look and blink. Lying on a cot that was too small, her bare feet dangled uncomfortably off the edge, and her head lay awkwardly pushed up at an unnatural angle, by the large, bulbous metallic rams horns.

Denver had assumed an equally uncomfortable position leaning against the adjacent wall with his legs lined up along the desk's bench seat. Any physical discomfort he masked with his characteristic stoicism further hidden by a wrinkled and damaged face; the features of which were almost impossible to read - just the way he liked it.

The room was quiet aside from the measured sound of breathing from Denver's collapsed nasal cavity. Most of the others on the ship who looked in from time to time would have thought the augers were occupying the space bored, dazed and disengaged. However, unknown to them, the augmented humans were fixed in a frenzied exchange of information and ideas. Communicating via built-in bi-directional threads, the augers were sharing and making up for almost twenty years of disparate experience.

A few others on the ship were aware of the augers' ability to communicate systematically, C-Buck knew that the augers were cooking something and wanted a taste.

"Knock, knock!", The Skyean scientist and moonlight spy appeared at the open cabin doorway, his wide charismatic grin fetched deep dimples in the sides of his cheeks. The augers, however, were immune to the pleasantries of typicals, but C-Buck saw their expressionless eyes move in his direction, so he knew he had their attention. "So kiddies, who feels like sharing?" Denver's eyes rolled, and Riggs looked to the ceiling and closed her lids.

"Okay, I get the picture." C-Buck stepped into the room and looked around, "Hmmm, talking about pictures. Get a load of the Grimes family, is it just me or do they all look like penguins?" He made the side wing shapes with his arms and flapped, "Awk, awk, awk."

Denver took the bait, "C-Buck, you have developed an annoying tendency for zoomorphism. It would be fine if your jests were harmless, but I feel there is a malevolent quality to your personality that thrives on the unprovoked hurt of others."

"Na, its not all that bad." he replied, "We Skyeans prefer animals over people you see; so assigning bird-like qualities to the fat retard out there, is a great compliment." He paused before continuing carefully, "What kind of animals do you think you two are?"

"Enough of this bantering rubbish. What do you want C-Buck?"

"Fair call old man. I'm here for an exchange." The spy leaned back on the wall by the doorway and crossed his arms, flexing his muscular pecs through the stretched fabric of his sheer skivvy and pushing biceps up with the tips of his fingers.

"Showing off one's physique, may be an effective manner when initiating mating negotiations, but I'm afraid your to-die-for genetically enhanced body means little to us here."

"Oh, Denver, why so harsh? Ok, let's cut the crap. I need to know exactly - point-by-point - what is going on in that Orr Refinery that we're heading towards and what are we going to do in order to ensure that we are able to make it home in one biological piece?"

"And in exchange?" asked Denver.

"In exchange: I tell you exactly what I've found out about that crown of orr our friend there has sitting on her head. Believe me, you *will* want to know."

"Hi, fiends! Room for one more? Eww, what's that smell?" Ven Verde poked her head into the space and wrinkled her nose ."Maybe I'll come back!"

There was a scratching sound from under the cot just as the smell hit Denver and C-Buck hard. Denver made a pained face and Riggs would have winced had she not been paralysed - although there was a panic readable from the look in her eyes.

"Man, that's bad!" cried C-Buck.

Denver explained, "It's that fucking cat. Every day at this time it sneaks under the bed and does its shit of the day."

"So where's the hygiene routine? It should be on top of this crap - literally." asked C-Buck

Ven Verde replied, "I think Evenjevy has the small one, God only knows what he's doing with it."

"You mean, what he's doing to it." offered C-Buck.

"Ha ha, always one to make light in an emergency." Ven Verde observed just as one of the hygiene routines whizzed into the room and the under the cot from where the ginger cat shot out just as fast. Almost instantly the bad smell was replaced with a pleasant scent. They heard the frying sound of something being molecularly dismantled under the bed.

"Ah that's better." said Verde relieved.

Riggs blinked in agreement.

"Yeah, that was disgusting. I can't believe penguin has lived on this ship for twelve years and had a cat drop feces under the place where he sleeps. J.C. I can see an airlock accident coming on. The question is, does the cat go? Or the penguin? Or both?"

"Settle C-Buck. Now, if I recall correctly you guys were just about to exchange some useful animal free information when we were interrupted."

"We? If I recall this was a private discussion between yours truly and said augers", asserted C-Buck in playful response to Verde's assumption, nodding towards the others in the room.

Verde gave him the evil eye, "You were saying?"

"But! Since you're so damn gorgeous Ven, I can't see why you shouldn't be the first to know what the hell's been going down at the refinery." He motioned to Denver, "Go on, tell her D."

"And about the orr?" asked the auger.

"Yeah, that too. But you first."

"OK. Riggs agrees." Confirmed the auger, "A fair exchange."

The auger proceeded to explain the events of the last five years as witnessed by Riggs first in her capacity as Administrator of Agency's secret outpost and then as the captive of the orr experiment gone wrong. He explained how the uncontained quantity of the alchemade element they called 'the doll' had read and duplicated the neural patterns of Emma Yee and its development of superhuman intelligence and, so it seemed, sentience.

At Riggs' request, Denver skipped the details of how she became under the control of the golem and murdered the population of the outpost. He did however, describe how the golem tortured the Churchman; crucifying him atop the skeletal remains of the outpost's settlers.

He described the arrival of the courier pilot Max Jones and the apparent taming of the golem in what Riggs described as "some parody of human relationship". Finally, Denver related the details of the final scene that Riggs had witnessed and the details of Riggs' escape.

C-Buck was especially interested and asked many questions about the properties of the orr material and details of the unconfined experiment.

Several hours had passed by the time Denver had completed his relay of the events at the orr refinery. Verde had assumed an uncomfortable sitting position on the floor by the doorway. C-Buck had acquired and was sitting on one of the hygiene routines like a stool.

They both stood and moved around on the spot to get the blood circulating through numb limbs. C-Buck offered his summary of the situation, "Well that's like completely weird." Accusing no one in particular, "And so you're just happy for us scraps of flesh to wander into the home of a homicidal man-made god and ask for a quantity of orr? Oh, and then walk back out on our way home? Now that's the craziest crazy I've heard all day!"

Verde also had a question, "Let's face it y'all, it does seem like we're in a tough spot. D, what does Riggs believe we could get from an encounter with this orr monster?"

"Riggs shares C-Buck's reservations and is against the idea in general. But, she says that if the one, Max Jones, lives then he may be the key to a reasonable interaction with the orr construct."

"So what about this ghost of Emma Yee that seems to have persisted somehow somewhere?" asked the Ophiuchian Captain.

Denver replied, "Looking at the events of her physical death, it seems that she had become trapped in a dry run test designed to destroy the orr construct. She was within a chamber with a small quantity of pure, uncontaminated orr when containment was raised. A w-field was generated around Yee and the orr, and a local phase operation initiated on the field. The result was an immediate rift of her physical form to a random place in three-dimensional spacetime and her certain death. The orr, however, did not rift and was later consumed by the orr construct. In essence, the test went as planned. Unfortunately Emma Yee herself should not have been inside the containment chamber. Riggs says that the orr construct prematurely triggered the test."

"Sure, but this does not explain the ghost." insisted Verde.

"I think, I can," added C-Buck somehow transformed by the story of Emma Yee's death. He continued speaking with authority, "I believe it has to do with the phase state of the orr. You know that the orr that has been described here, in its active natural state, is a liquid.

"This is one of the things that I was going to explain. Here -," he took a step over to where Riggs was lying and tapped one of the horns. "It looks like a solid, but this orr is in a atomically tempered state. The individual atoms of a set of common, stable isotopic orr elements have been arranged through a process of atomic alignment. It is actually still a liquid, but i bet tougher than most solids known to us today.

"This technology exists only in alchemic theory and is only possible using a liquid state and to-date theoretical element. I'm confident that the proof is rock solid - we alchemists know it as Atlan's Theory. What this means is that our precious, valuable orr has a very particular quality-."

C-Buck paused, giving the others in the room the opportunity to catch up with his science rant.

"-of non-phasibility. That's right, orr, in its natural state will not phase, or at least not as we would like it to. Once again, it's all a theoretical something. We hadn't yet found the element that fits, but from what I've analysed here," he tapped the horn again, "it seems like we have a real candidate.

"Essentially this means that it would be impossible to undertake interstellar travel while carrying orr. The bosonic pairing that we use to form wields or use in anti-gravity is the same principle that alters phase on orr. It's not that orr atoms don't have a matching bosons, it's just that we think that the bosons are paired in an extra-dimension. Not the dimension that we use for travel, or the one for information storage and access."

Verde was particularly dumbstruck by this new C-Buck, who she had known as a crew member, but never seen intellectually switched-on like this. Twelve years of deeply repressed bedtime fantasies; desires at being close to his perfectly muscled body manifested as a spontaneous flush of groin piercing warmth. Their eyes connected ever so briefly, and Verde thought, Damn it C-Buck, I'm too busy for this, bring back your stupid self.

C-Buck continued concentrating on his line of thought and seemingly oblivious to Verde's flash of inner conflict, "So, besides meaning that the whole plan to transport orr from this system to elsewhere is doomed to failure, what does this have to do with the ghost? Well, I contend that as Emma Yee was exposed to the orr, the substance was attracted to the energy of her brain waves. It almost instantly copied and modeled the neural patterns of her brain - like bringing order to the natural chaos of the element's most natural state - this orr is an information sponge.

"When the phase was initiated a portal was created. A portal to its own phase dimension: this Aether. The energy and pattern that was Emma Yee became active in this other place. She said it herself; she was forcedly linked to the point in time and space where the accident took place. This anchor is the point of the portal. I'd say she can access our spacetime due to some naturally occurring phenomenon, possibly the chroma flickas that float about. But i'll need time to study and confirm that idea.

"Well?" Asked C-Buck surprised by the following silence.

"Riggs would like you to confirm that she will not be able to phase travel with the horns?" Denver conveyed the question.

"No, this alchemic temperedness is an anomaly. But as far as we understand it, the locked alignment of atoms that share a common stable isotope mean that the element has been made inert. This atomic reliability allows normal placement of matching bosons and perhaps, alignment beyond the boundary of multiple dimensions." He reached down and gave the horns a little shake, "Give me these babies; access to a Zeus processor; and twenty years of research time and I may be able to say for sure.

"What the most amazing thing here is the realisation that we came here looking for something that would enhance our ability to think. But! What we've found is a mechanism for evolving the way with think. Perhaps, this orr is the key to the next step in human evolution? Perhaps, Emma Yee is the first of a new non-corporeal human condition?"

"Maybe, or maybe C-Buck you are just one crazy ass'd cat." Drying sweaty hands, she ran her palms down the side of her uniform, inadvertently outlining the ample curves of her figure, "We'll need to think what we must to do from here - consider our options, so to speak."

Having caught sight Verde's innocent preen, C-Buck grinned, completely back to his salacious self, "Well my Captain. Whatever you decide I will follow." He made a rude gesture, "Think of us as joined at the hip."

Denver saved Verde the discomfort of having to respond to C-Buck's harassment, he stood and tapped the Skyean's shoulder, "Thank you Alchemist. There is much to consider given your learned insights. Also, Riggs has a message for you."

"Yeah?"

Denver continued with a smirk, "She says that you ignored her warning and fondled her horn. Now she owes you a broken hand."

"Oh." C-Buck instantly lost grin state and rubbed his wrist - the target of the auger's original warning.

"She wants to know. Would you prefer the left or right?"

C-Buck left the small room in a rush, leaving the augers with Ven Verde's snorting giggles.