Chapter 12 — by crossingthevoid 

The planet Obelara was beautiful. And dead.

Over eons, its twin suns had bleached the craggy ground which jutted up in slanted, rough-hewn stalagmites. Carved right into the rock and soil, a great temple snaked around those illogical mountains, covering the planet in massive structures of cylinders and spheres connected via tunnels which tamed the rushing wind into a gentle melody. The weave of ghostly pitches shaken from the very rock around them was mesmerizing, even with Phili shouting over it.

"It's a planet called Earth?" His fingers moved spherically, caressing an imaginary world as he struggled with the right words to communicate with the bald man. "Um...it's...blue. We think. Uh...lots of...carbon."

Clad in robes of reflective cloth that shone a rainbowed, oil-slick hue, the man gave no reply. He was a living statue perfectly at home among the stone walls.

"I have a theory." ALI chimed in from the device in Hana's pocket. "Trader Standard doesn't seem to be the lingua franca on this planet. Perhaps another dialect?"

"Um...okay. Uh..." Phili's eyes squirmed in their gray sockets as his thoughts meandered through alien verbiage. "Doolei p'mchatka—uh—Earth wuk'd?"

"It's pronounced 'wauk'd,'" ALI corrected.

"Not in Foor-ish."

"These creatures can't speak Foor-ish. Their mouths are poorly shaped to produce the phonemes."

"I speak Foor-ish," Phili insisted, "their mouths are just like mine."

"And you can't pronounce 'wauk'd.'"

"I did say 'wuk'd."

"Wauk'd."

"Wuk'd!" Phili said sternly toward Hana's hip pocket.

"You require three uvulas to produce the correct vowel. In the Mollusk sickbay, I can carve the necessary appendages from your soft palette, if you would lik—"

Sanju muttered into Hana's ear, "Shouldn't we ask him why our ship can't leave?"

Hana ignored xem.

Over the last hour spent wandering those gargantuan stone hallways, xe had noticed Hana drifting away whenever xe came physically closer. Obviously, she didn't ask xem to join her on the planet surface to make xem feel included. She thought xe might steal the Mollusk.

"Either way, I don't think he speaks that language," she said, stepping toward the monk and away from Sanju.

Maybe it's the burnt smell.

She'd almost vomited on the lander ride down. Still, xe felt like she saw right through xem—like she knew xe was really after the amber.

"Perhaps the Agonese dialect of Sidhura?" ALI continued. "They have perfected communication via the infliction of pain. Do you have a laser scalpel?"

"I don't think he'd like us using a scalpel on him," Hana said, motioning to the monk.

"Pain is universal; Agonese has spread faster than any recorded language. A simple incision below his left—"

"By all means, then, let's cut him up," Phili said.

"Just one cut. Below his left—"

"We're not cutting anyone!" Hana declared.

The monk had been sliced up enough. His green-grey cranium was heavily scarred where, long ago, ancient stone blades had cut into the skull, meticulously reshaping it into angular, fleshy panels like a geodesic dome.

"Then I have another theory," said ALI.

"Would you—" Phili said, giving a 'calm down' hand motion. "Just...let me do this."

He stared into the monk's pin-prick-pupiled eyes. Phili's telepathy was rusty, but he'd once flexed his mind for nearly seven star-cycles defending his philosophical treatise in front of the committee. Surely, he could ask someone for directions to Earth. Tensing his jaw muscles, he beamed out a mental image of the blue planet.

The monk walked away.

It was balletic: silent footsteps as the silvery fabric swayed like he was a weightless apparition.

"You appear to have miscommunicated," ALI said.

"No. He—ah!" Phili snapped his fingers. "We're supposed to follow him." Phili's feet tapped out pursuit, and the monk glanced back at him.

Then broke into a dead sprint.

His gait freed of all guile, he lumbered away, robes crinkling and arms swinging.

"Hey!" Phili called out. "Where are you—?! Is there a map this way!?!" He sprinted to follow. Hana sighed.

They ran through shafts of perfectly smooth rock that sang around them. Sanju thought of the sweet vagrant reeds back home that xe used to suck hollow and play, piping out the spritely tunes of youth.

The tunnel ended, opening into a vast sphere punctured by the thousands with similar passages, down one of which the monk led Hana and Phili.

Sanju stopped. A grand symphony was coursing through xeir bone marrow. The tunnels poured their tones into that sphere which smelted them down into some harmonious alloy, pure and adamantine.

A perfectly smooth stone hill rose up from the ground into the very center, like a single white dune capped with an altar.

Which was writhing.

Xeir claws barely gripping the smooth stone, Sanju scaled the hill with some effort. As xe rose higher, the music revealed more of itself, like a solar eclipse crawling toward majestic twilight. Xe had to see it completed, to hear the perfect melody that awaited at the top. As xe crested the hill, the tune wove itself into the fabric of xeir consciousness and every thought hung easily on its harmonious logic. Xe never wanted to leave that spot.

Green-grey hands rose from the squirming mass laid on the altar, from an older monk, weather-worn and sinewy with a triangle scar front-and-center on his paneled cranium. He was sick. Palsied. Sanju's eyes darted around the room and found it empty.

Was this poor creature abandoned here to die?

The elder monk saw Sanju and smiled. He pawed gently at the Hiwjshi and Sanju obliged, curling xeir claws around his gaunt, dry hand. Xeir fingers bleached a pale yellow with sadness for this being that was clearly breathing its last.

But the monk showed only joy. His lips parted in an evanescent smile as milky, golden tears eased out of his eyes. He gripped Sanju kinfully while his other hand rose, dipping its fingers into eddies of song on the gentle breeze.

"Baadloai," he whispered, overcome.

Even as his chest convulsed and his breath faltered, the monk never stopped smiling. Even as he wilted and was finally gone. His soul had merged tenderly with the music and been carried away. Sanju could feel it.

Xe could also feel xeir crest being wrenched backward.

Three monks were angrily upon him. The one gripping xeir crest was nearly shaking with fury. With one deft motion, Sanju threw him over xeir shoulder, tumbling him away. Xe kicked the second one back down the dune. The third one moved to strike but Sanju deflected, destabilizing him. He'd be easy to put down.

Then xeir bottom knee gave out. The first monk, still in a rage, had kicked it from behind. Before xe could respond, Sanju was wrenched to the ground and the monk knocked the breath from xeir lungs. The reptoid gasped and strained against the weight, but the third monk climbed on, as did the second.

Before xe could do anything, they had clamped xeir wrists into binders.

The trial was short. The stoic, silver-robed species had merely stared wordlessly into each other's faces and decided Sanju was guilty.

Now, the Hiwjshi was shackled, kneeling at the leading edge of a massive stone slab flying low over the ground. Staring out at the bleached vista, the angry monk stood motionless beside xem. At the other side of the slab, two towering guards restrained Phili and Hana while the librarian tried to convince them telepathically that the Mollusk had come in peace.

Frustrated, Phili exclaimed, "They're blocking me out! I keep asking them why we're prisoners and there's no response."

"I have a theory," ALI interrupted.

"We're not cutting anyone," Hana said.

"I believe Sanju disrupted a funeral rite."

"How do you know that?" Phili asked.

"These beings are very spiritual; their final moments are spent in solitude communing with this holy music which they consider to be the voice of God. Sanju trespassed."

"But how do you know?" Hana asked.

"They said so at the trial."

"They didn't say anything," Phili said.

"They're metalinguists. They communicate solely via posture and facial expression."

"Did they say where we're going?" Hana asked.

"Once a trial is concluded, the guilty party is dropped into the center of a vast labyrinth. Navigating the way out gives them time for reflection."

"They said that?"

"No."

"Then how do you know?"

"We're approaching the maze."

Carved straight into the rock below them was a circuitous channel, five body-lengths tall and stretching to the horizon. There were billions of turns. A few seconds for each one and you'd need a few lifetimes to find your way out.

Phili tried to reason with the monks, shouting that they were foreign citizens with rights. Hana stood silently. Her eyes met Sanju's and she unconsciously moved her arm across her hips, ready to shield her young.

She's probably glad to get rid of me, xe thought.

She was fighting her way across the galaxy toward the amber that would secure her little one's future. Once Sanju told TAS where it was, they would leave her with nothing.

Maybe xe deserved the maze.

Unlocking Sanju's hands, the monk still seethed. Xe'd seen that look before.

A long time ago, TAS had sent xe and xeir partner to some backwater planet whose inhabitants worshiped a waterfall. When xeir partner dammed it up to prove their god false, the people reacted badly. Sanju had barely survived. The look on their faces as they clawed xeir partner from the transport as it lifted off was the same look the monk was giving xem now.

"We'll just come back with the lander and pick xem up," Phili said.

"That seems unwise," ALI countered. "If the stones on this planet can fly, any of the thousands we see around us could crush the lander before it even reached the maze."

"We have to do something or Sanju's never gonna get out of there," Phili said.

"I have a theory," ALI chirped in response. "Sanju, listen closely. You only have one chance—"

With that, the angry monk shoved Sanju over the side.

It was blind luck xe missed the stone wall on the way down. The floor beneath xem was covered with a red moss that crept waist-high up the walls and left the surrounding air stultifyingly sultry.

Chest heaving, the monk glared down at xem as the stone slid from view, leaving only the oppressive deep blue above.

First, Sanju jumped, digging claws into the wall trying to scurry xeir way out. Every scratch in the stone bled a translucent, viscous fluid that steamed a saccharine gas which made Sanju lightheaded and made the wall too greasy to climb.

So xe ran, tearing red spores up from the moss with every step. Xeir heart pounded with each turn: left, right, left, left, right, le—

Xe tumbled, slipping on fresh moss that liquified under xeir weight. Xe tried again, but landed on xeir back after a few strides. So xe'd be walking as so many others had, eroding a tiny strip of splotched ruddy brown into the red flora under foot.

Interspersed along the walls were scores and nicks dug into the stone, like survivor notices pinned up in the wake of a tsunami. 'Dearest Pjingba, if you find this message, know I love you always' by the hundreds, myriad languages earnestly chipped into rock. They were slowly fading as the clear fluid washed over them, coaxing up the stone to fill in the gashes like scar tissue.

There were goodbyes, regrets, defiant polemics. And a symbol. Two arrows brushing past each other. This was the third one xe'd seen; the same symbol over and over, accompanying pictograms that told the story of two brothers.

With a woman, they journeyed across the cosmos spreading the good word of their deity who promised utopia at their journey's end. They were a family. Always caring for one another. Until familial love became romantic. The brothers fought for her attention and even began to sabotage each other. Then they stumbled on Obelara. When the monks took the younger brother into custody, the older brother saw his chance.

"Left."

Sanju jumped at the tinny voice.

"Left is exit."

Xe hadn't noticed the gold sphere. "H'ver. Where did you—Nevermind." The droid could easily glide above the maze. "Give me a leg up."

The droid reconfigured itself into a prosthetic leg.

"No—give me a boost up the wall."

"Too heavy."

"I'm trying not to be offended. Would you just try it?"

The droid hesitated then formed a handle that Sanju gripped.

H'ver pulled. Sanju leapt. They reached a hand-width from the top, but it wasn't enough. The whole way down, Sanju dug claws into the stone.

"Too heavy."

Sanju looked down the hallway to xeir left. "How far away is the exit?"

H'ver told xem. Hiwjshi lived long enough that xe had time to navigate the maze. But xe'd still have no way off the planet. That meant there was time to spare.

"Find this symbol," the reptoid told H'ver, pointing to the dual arrows.

"Left is exit."

"I heard you. Find this symbol."

They tracked the rest of the story along the walls. The woman rejected the older brother; it was the younger she truly loved. The older could see that if he and the woman continued the journey alone, they would eventually part ways. Their family would be gone. So he asked to be imprisoned in place of the younger. He gave up his freedom to keep his family together. Even if he never saw them again.

"He escape?" H'ver asked.

Hell no, Sanju thought but said, "I hope so."

H'ver looked down the hallway. His tone dropped a gloomy octave. "Exit too far."

Sanju grimaced.

"Exit not too far for Sanju," H'ver assured xem.

"It's not that." Xe grit xeir teeth as xeir suit rubbed xeir regenerated skin raw. A painful reminder of another botched mission. Xe grimaced again, then gouged the wall in frustration.

"Sanju ok?"

"I'm angry." That plork, Makuy. Xe had to be close. Xe always was. Always swooping in to take credit. To take the amber. Sanju's amber.

"Not angry."

"Yes I am. I'm furious."

"Not angry—"

"Why shouldn't I be? I do all the work and that plork gets the credit, the promotion, the bonus."

"Not angry; yellow."

"Huh? What do you mean?"

"Yellow."

Sanju looked down at his arms. The skin was bleached a pale yellow. Sadness.

Xe'd joined TAS because xe believed in justice. If xeir superiors got ahold of the amber, they would skim xeir share and impound the rest. Hana would get nothing. She was fighting her way across the galaxy to provide for her young and she would get nothing.

The plork was right. Rinja. Sanju had been too naïve to see what the agency really was.

"Last symbol," H'ver said, farther down.

The final pictogram portrayed a planet with two people on it and a ship approaching with one more. The older brother never stopped trying to escape. He never stopped fighting to keep hope.

Like Hana fighting for her young.

Her rinja.

Sanju was lightheaded again. From the gas steaming out of the wall xe'd gouged. It wavered and wiggled in the air as it rose up, out of the maze.

Sanju pulled xeir suit off and began tearing it apart.

"Boost me up again," xe said.

"Too heavy."

"I'll make us lighter."

Moments later, xe had the suit's thin metallic insulation torn out of it and pinned together at one end. Xe dug claws into the wall while H'ver ignited the rising gas, expanding it into the silvery balloon.

After xe'd filled it, H'ver pulled Sanju over the wall.

Sanju found Hana and Phili in a chamber containing a vast, spherical machine the size of an ark ship. It emitted no sound or discharge; no motion of any kind. Just a single, pulsing red light.

"You're twitching your nostrils too much," ALI said.

"I am not," Phili replied.

"Arch your eyebrows to imply curiosity."

Phili was having a staring contest with a monk.

"I'm arching my eyebrows," Phili muttered, holding his mouth as still as he could.

"But you're tensing your lips. That implies hunger."

"My lips are tense because I'm talking to you!"

SLAP! The monk hit Phili.

"Now you've offended her." ALI chided.

"What did he say?" Hana asked. She was grimacing slightly, arching her spine, hands on her lower back.

"He asked for directions to the nearest toilet and announced his intention to dine on what's inside."

Phili rubbed his cheek. "You still haven't told me why we're doing this."

"This machine is keeping the Mollusk here," ALI replied. "It replicates wave-function collapse into a specialized eigenstate with infinite wave attributes and zeroed particle attributes, then returns normalizes the function over a spherical distribution, leaving a valley of wave attributes leading and trailing."

Phili looked at Hana.

"It bends light around the planet. It's what's hiding the planet and what's causing that silence anomaly we flew through."

Phili and ALI continued bickering; the monk stood between them and the master switch, a lever below the pulsing red light. It seemed simple. No biometric port—no DNA test, retina scan, breathalyzer. Just a lever.

SLAP!

"First Mate, you seem to excel at offending her," ALI chided.

Sanju pulled Phili behind xem and stepped forward to the monk.

"Sanju!" Hana said, surprised.

"Where'd you come from?" Phili asked.

"ALI, how do you apologize in their language?"

"Tensing the anterior eye muscles while curving the edges of the mouth should suffice." Sanju did as instructed. The monk tilted her head and—

ZZZZzzzzzkkkkkktttttt!

She collapsed in a heap of shimmering fabric. Sanju tossed Hana the stunner xe'd picked her pocket of, then xe pulled the lever down and the machine hummed to a stop.

Xe snapped xeir handcuffs locked through the safety and bent them over, pinching the TAS logo in half across the lever, so it couldn't be turned back on.

"That'll buy us some time," xe said.

ALI chimed in: "As I expected. Agonese was highly effective."

The light flashed yellow. A watery, high-pitched pulsing sound flooded the room. An alert.

As they ran from the temple into the punishing Obelara sunlight, the alert was still sounding, the tunnels were still sending their haunting melody into the air and H'ver was excitedly chittering to ALI. By the time they were in the lander, the chittering had become a gravely, sandpaper clatter.

Hana couldn't take it. "What are you guys doing?!"

H'ver stopped the sound long enough to say: "Telling story. From wall."

"Well knock it off. I can't even think," she said.

"Captain, there's a craft headed toward us at high speed," ALI said.

The forward display activated, revealing a magnified image of a stone slab flying. The angry monk was the sole rider.

"Just take off!" Phili shouted.

"We don't know that craft's abilities," ALI countered. "There's a chance it could easily disable us."

"It'll definitely disable us if we just sit here," Hana said, starting the launch sequence.

"I have a theory," ALI said.

Phili's eyes widened with exasperation. "Please tell me we can disable this 'theory' subroutine when we get back."

"I really hope so," Hana grumbled, shaking her head. The engine hummed to life.

"We should remain on the ground," ALI insisted.

"They could re-start that planet-cloaking device any second," Phili said. "And we'd be stuck again."

"Correct."

"So there's no reason to stay on the ground!" Phili shouted over the rising engine noise.

"Sanju is no longer onboard."

Hana and Phili both turned to see Sanju's seat empty. The lock on the rear hatch re-engaged with a hiss as H'ver looked on helplessly through the porthole.

Sanju was heading straight for the oncoming stone. The monk wanted xem, not the others; the agency had made xem bend enough rules. Xe couldn't let the others get hurt because of xem.

The slab landed, shanking the ground as it plumed out a dust cloud. The gritty air scraped at xeir closed eyes.

As the cloud cleared, xe saw the monk's silhouette and xe raised xeir arms to defend xemself, but the monk didn't approach. He simply stood, milky golden tears running down his cheeks and his teeth grinding with rage.

Why doesn't he strike?

In the monk's eyes, Sanju found zealotry, the righteous fury of one whose very soul has been encroached upon. When xe looked at the monk's forehead, xe found a different story.

It had a triangular shaped scar front-and-center.

Xe'd seen other shapes: horizontal lines, circles. But only one other triangle, branded into gaunt, dry skin.

He's not enraged; he's grieving.

Sanju lowered xeir arms then flexed xeir anterior eye muscles and curved the edges of xeir mouth. The apology didn't placate him but Sanju didn't know any other words of condolence. Though xe might know one that could bring him closure.

"Baadloai," Sanju said.

The monk's eyes widened. His jaw relaxed and he took in a deep gulp of powdery air. There was still pain in his face but the anger slid away and he slowly nodded.

He was standing perfectly upright, face stoic and robes rippling, moments later, when the lander lifted off with Sanju aboard.

"How'd you calm him down?" Hana asked.

Sanju shrugged. "Maybe I gave him back something he'd lost."

Hana nodded with a smirk. There was more to this Hiwjshi than she'd first seen.

As they exited the Obelara atmosphere, Phili asked, "Where to from here, Captain?"

"Get outside the anomaly. After that?" She shrugged her hands, gesturing 'who knows.'

"I have a theory."

Phili was adamant: "No more theories, ALI."

"As you wish," ALI replied. "H'ver did tell me a fascinating story."

"Yeah, what story was he talking about?" Hana asked Sanju.

"Carvings on the maze walls made by somebody left behind. It was a love triangle. Three people looking for their promised land."

"That's my theory," ALI interjected. "I've translated the name of his intended destination." The multi-screen flashed a single pink word that made Hana's mouth drop open:

EARTH

"The carving also listed coordinates. Shall I lock them into navigation?"

When the Mollusk eased out of jump, a planet emerged from the blackness of the forward screen the way Hana's son had on the sonograph, a speckled murkiness that slid away revealing life. Hana put her hands to her mouth and laughed. She hugged Phili. He hugged back. Sanju watched as the two rested heads together, grinning and giggling.

Then, to xeir surprise, Hana pulled Sanju into the embrace.

She clutched xeir ribcage while Phili put his arm softly over xeir shoulders. A few seconds later, H'ver rose up, squeezing between all three. Hana belly-laughed.

For a moment, the four of them merged. The human part blushed a delirious red, the reptoid a matching joyous crimson. Sanju never wanted to leave that spot.

Then the first torpedo struck.

Dedicated to the crew of the intrepid USS Writer's Relay, for their bravery and fortitude in putting up with me