Chapter 15

Rygia swept the area immediately in front of her, searching for the signal that had called the rescue team across six thousand light years of space. A Master of the Cluster was in peril, trapped on a tiny planet whose sun was about to explode.

She didn’t really understand the urgency; a Cluster Master was one of the most patient life forms in existence and, from what she and Star had determined when they stepped through into this plane of reality, this sun was stable, according to all their measurements. It would be eons before this phase of its existence ended. So, what was the urgency?

‘Find anything?’ Star’s sexy male voice echoed through in her head, making her smile.

‘Not yet,’ Rygia called back, sending an image of what she would rather be doing.

The atmosphere here was acrid and hot. There was no evident water vapor, yet her initial tests indicated that this planet was an ideal water collector. She decided that, if there was water here, it was most likely somewhere else. There certainly wasn’t enough air to have grown the now-dead husks of all these plants. Something catastrophic had obviously happened here, and this world was very much near death.

A faint beep brought her attention back to the search. ‘Got something...’ she called out to Star, then let the Triangulator lead her forward. She stepped lightly, her long, iridescent legs treading softly over the harsh, rocky terrain. Almost losing her balance as a rock shifted beneath a glowing hoof, Rygia hunched down, catching her balance quickly as her knees bent backward to support her.

She brightened her glow, causing her torso to radiate a beautiful purple florescence so she could see better. There was a lot of dust hanging in the air, and her attempts to better view her surroundings were being hampered by the fact that, now, the dust and smoke in the air reflected her own light back into her face.

‘Alista! This isn’t working!’ she swore to herself, and closed her eyes to concentrate and bring down the level of light she was radiating.

‘Churos! You look magnificent!’ Star’s voice echoed in her mind. ‘That halo effect is amazingly erotic. We’ll have to remember to use that in our next production.’

Star was referring to their activities when they weren’t on a rescue mission – he produced entertainment vids and she found the talents for him to showcase. Of course, he often showcased Rygia, as he viewed her as one of the most sensual, exotic beings to ever exist, anywhere.

Rygia smiled to herself, pleased that Star found her attractive. It was too bad they weren’t the same species; offspring would be difficult, though not impossible due to the available technology. But it would be pleasant to be with one of her own species and discover just how copulation occurred, but as far as she or anyone else knew, Rygia was the only one of her kind; most likely the last.

She had been found in a badly damaged ship, hiding in an incubator intended for transporting lower life forms that were evidently used for food by some species. The incubator was the only section of the ship that still had atmosphere. The ship’s interstellar drive was not functional and it would have been only a matter of a few years before Rygia would have perished from lack of water.

She remembered waking up from her hibernation and staring around her, amazed at the strange faces staring back. There were several species, none of which she recognized, but she was quite young at the time, and her studies were, at best, incomplete.

Being telepathic, communication was no problem, as long as her visitors (Rescuers? Pirates? Salvagers?) stuck to raw imagery and didn’t use language. Unfortunately, she wasn’t able to inform them of where she was from, and they were unable to tell her. Just as she was unable to recognize any of the species surrounding her, her little group of rescuers had never seen anything like her, either.

It took a while to convince them she was intelligent and was not, as one was thinking, saleable as a freak to a traveling circus just because her bones glowed so brightly they were visible right through her translucent skin. She surrendered salvage rights to her ship for safe passage to a civilized planet.

During the four years she lived with them, she made good use of her telepathic abilities to learn several of their alien languages, so that when she finally disembarked, she was able to make herself understood, which was a good thing, because the strange rubbery creatures of that planet were definitely not receptive to telepathic communication.

That didn’t mean that she couldn’t read their thoughts, however, and she was able to negotiate a standard of comfortable living with someone who found her ‘mind raiding’ talents useful in his business.

Later, as an adult (at least she assumed she was, as she’d stopped growing several years earlier), she made her way off-world to a more centralized system where many different species coexisted and she didn’t stand out so much. Of course, she was still the only one who actually glowed and there were, according to her partner, Star, millions of holo-vids of her image decorating the walls and tables of various dwellings throughout the known galaxy.

‘You’d think, with that much popularity,’ she mused, ‘somebody would recognize where I came from – or where I belonged – at least what species I am...’

The crunch of Star’s silicone foot on the loose surface distracted Rygia from her thoughts and she turned back to glance at him before continuing onward to follow the beacon. She smiled again, her face still turned away from him, as she viewed his image in her memory – his stocky, angular, silicone body, surprisingly flexible yet solid as stone... and warm. Unlike stone, his body radiated a comfortable heat, making him pleasant to lean against when she was tired. His hardness, and her softness, complemented each other nicely, she thought.

‘You’re thinking about me again,’ Star teased her, chuckling into her mind.

‘How can you be certain of that?’ she asked, sounding coy.

‘Your radiation flickered into the infrared for a minute,’ he explained. ‘You’ve only done that when you want to snuggle.’

‘I like snuggling,’ she sent back at him. ‘It feels... pleasant.’

‘I bet,’ Star chuckled at her.

‘I think I’ve found what we’re supposed to locate...’ Rygia sent, along with a hint of confusion.

‘What is it?’ Star asked, stepping up to stand at her side.

‘The signal’s coming from...’ she concentrated on her Triangulator, then added, ‘There’s a black box buried underneath this lava flow. It’s still functioning, which is pretty surprising, seeing that electronic equipment of this type and design are very susceptible to heat and magnetic radiation.’

Using Star’s charger to blast down to where the black box was located, the pair quickly had it loose.

‘A black box,’ Rygia replied, reaching down to pick it up. ‘I’ll see if I can activate it.’ She picked it up and immediately felt the mental presence of a Cluster Master. ‘A Cluster Master is trapped in this small box!’ she exclaimed to Star, sounding excited. ‘How under the Falls of Rygil did it get in there?’

Star didn’t reply. He was fingering his Triangulator, working out the puzzle of The Master in the Box.

‘Mental residuals of two other beings are contained here, as well as the Master,’ he determined. ‘From what I’m downloading, this world used to be lush and fertile – before it was struck by something large about a thousand of its years ago. The eco-system here was badly damaged by the impact, and much of the core of this planet erupted to the surface at that time. That would account for all the volcanoes, I guess.

‘There are a couple of large bodies of water – oceans, actually – one each to the East and West of us, and another covering the entire Southern region of this planet. For as dry as it is right here, this is almost a water world. The evaporation of all that water is what’s creating a breathable atmosphere. Sadly, we are far too late to rescue any of the incredible species that have already perished.’

‘I know how that feels,’ Rygia sighed.

‘You should see these images! The inhabitants of this world were huge!’ Star exclaimed, ignoring her self-depreciating comment. ‘It’s a shame we can’t collect a few. Seems they’ve all gone extinct.’

‘Like me, you think?’ Rygia asked, turning to look at the views being projected.

‘Girl,’ Star insisted, having already insisted on this many, many times, ‘you are NOT the last of your kind! You are simply the only one who’s ever been found. There’s probably a whole race of you out there somewhere wondering whatever happened to you and wishing you’d come home!’

‘Speaking of being the only one ever found,’ Rygia interrupted, her entire mental tone radiating fresh interest at something standing near the edge of the clearing, ‘what in the world are those?’ She pointed at two strange-looking bipeds. Their knees were formed backwards and they were much too large to be able to live in this atmosphere; at least not for long. ‘They may not be giant-sized, but they’re alive. You can add them to your video collection of exotic creatures.’

‘They’re made out of... Star adjusted his Triangulator and concentrated on the two strange life forms. ‘Meat! They’re made out of meat!’

‘That’s an incredibly low form of life, isn’t it?’ Rygia asked. ‘I’ve only seen a few meat creatures before, but they weren’t very intelligent.’

‘Do you think these are intelligent?’ Star asked. ‘They’re watching us. Do you think you can read them?’

‘I can try...’

Rygia concentrated, trying to ignore the queasy feeling usually caused by sharing minds with a meat creature. Most meat creatures emoted, using images and feelings; very few, and none that she had personally encountered, were capable of logic or even had what she would have recognized as ‘thought processes’ beyond eating, pooping, sleeping and having sex, pretty much in that order.

She first picked up emotions; an overwhelming sadness and a sense of loss; abandonment. Those emotions mirrored her own to such a degree that, at first, she was certain she was simply reading herself. Then thoughts began flooding in...

‘... What are you?... Why are you here?... What are you doing with OUR PRAETOR?... How did you find it?... Where are you from?... Where are you going?... Can you take us with you?...’

Rygia cried out vocally and sank back to sit on her knees. So many eager questions pounded at her head, and she was unable to prevent the answers from flowing out into the vacuum created by their avaricious curiosity. These creatures were not only intelligent, but they were raiding her mind, stealing her knowledge.

‘What’s wrong?’ Star was immediately there, standing with his hard silicone body between glowing Rygia and the two muddy-looking animals. He’d never heard her vocalize before. He didn’t even know she could do that. It infuriated him that these – animals – might attack Rygia psychically so that she might actually cry out in pain.

‘Get out of here!’ he radiated at them, and was surprised to see them actually straighten up and step back. Then the creatures ceased their withdrawal and continued watching, concentrating mostly on Rygia, who raised her hand as though to ward them off.

Star drew his charger and fired the small weapon at them. The electrical blast struck one, causing it to fall back and stagger. It dropped to its knees, causing Star’s stomach to wretch as he saw the creature’s knees actually bending the wrong way. Dark fluids poured out of the gash in the creature’s side and the companion creature stepped away, as though to get a better look at the other’s injuries.

Then soft blue fire sprang up, outlining the injured creature, and the blast wound faded, seemingly being filled in by its companion’s energy. Star watched, as he’d never seen energy changed directly into matter – especially not meat – and especially without the usage of any sort of visible technology.

Turning away from its now-healed companion, the other creature stepped forward. Star turned his charger toward it, hesitating to press the firing button, not certain if these creatures were actually intelligent or not. It was against everything he believed in to harm another intelligent life form, but it was acceptable if one’s own life, or that of a companion, was threatened.

The charger vanished right out of his hand. Startled, Star stepped back, anxiously casting about to find where he’d dropped it. A movement from one of the creatures attracted his attention back to them.

The creature was holding his charger!

‘Be careful with that...’ he silently urged, hoping his thoughts might be understood. Slowly, carefully, he squatted down next to Rygia, hoping to get his hands on her charger. He felt extremely uncomfortable being completely helpless in the midst of a confrontation with alien creatures of unknown abilities, especially when one of them had so easily disarmed him.

Rygia had been sitting on her haunches, staring at the creatures in front of her, unable to move, attracted, repelled, fascinated and terrified. She could feel the pure energy of their minds as they touched her own. These were not meat creatures other than by choice, though why they would deliberately choose such an unattractive substance to contain themselves, she had no idea.

‘It is who we are,’ one of them spoke into her mind, using her own language. ‘Rather, these forms are what we once were, thousands of years ago, I think. The Praetor can likely explain it better. Can you talk to it?’

‘What are you?’ Rygia asked, ‘that you can assimilate so quickly? No one knows my language. I’ve never spoken it, so no one has ever heard it. How is it that you know? Have you seen others like me?’

Murielle blinked, surprised by the fierce emotions pouring from that beauteous creature of light. ‘She’s as lost as we are,’ she projected to her twin.

‘Probably not ‘as’ lost...’ Miranda grimaced, straightening up to test the firmness of her newly created torso. ‘She has an alien companion, and a way out of here! At least, I hope it’s a companion and not the light girl’s owner.’

‘Either way, we have a way out, now, Murielle argued, ‘if we can convince her to take us with them. They are two different species, so it seems unlikely that they’re xenophobic or anything...’

‘Most likely, they came for the Praetor,’ Miranda replied. ‘They walked right to it, following that device in the light girl’s hand, like it was signaling them or something.’

‘Yeah,’ agreed Murielle. ‘That’s the first I’ve seen of that thing since the comet hit. It’s been buried since then. We could get inside it – to dream – but I’d lost track of where it was, physically.’

‘PLEASE! Have you seen others like ME?’ the light girl pleaded in the twins’ minds, radiating fierce anxiety and hope, mixed with fear.

‘No. I’m sorry,’ Miranda whispered in reply, ‘We’ve never seen anything as beautiful as you. Well, except for the sparklies...’ She sent an image of the little human-like creatures with gossamer wings who guarded the eggs.

‘Rygia, I suspect that these two creatures are not what they seem,’ Star thought privately into Rygia’s mind.

‘What do you mean?’

‘You think you see two of them,’ Star continued, ‘but they are completely identical. That alone is impossible in the natural order of things, but also, here...’ he stepped forward to show her the display on his Triangulator. ‘They seem to be reptilian in nature, rather than the harmless warm-blooded creatures you see before you.’

‘You believe they can change their form?’ Rygia asked, stunned that there was a life form that might actually be able to do this.

‘Yes. You must beware. These do not show their true faces.’

Rygia stood, thinking for a few seconds, then decided to confront these duplicitous beings. ‘Show me your true form,’ she insisted.

‘What?’ Murielle asked. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Show me what you really look like!’

‘Light One, I do not understand...’ Miranda replied, unable to keep her upset at such a strange request out of her message.

‘You have said you have eggs,’ Rygia explained, believing the two creatures already knew what she wanted and were just stalling for some unknown purpose – perhaps waiting for reinforcements. It was also clear to her that these creatures were guarding the Cluster Master, perhaps preventing it from leaving, somehow. ‘In addition, we have scanned your cells and determined that you are not even warm-blooded, but reptilian in nature. So I want to see your true form.’

The four of them stood for several minutes, silently glaring at each other. The two pairs of beings were sending thoughts back and forth to each other, of course, and getting more nervous as time passed.

‘We should leave,’ Miranda thought anxiously at her sister. ‘These beings don’t trust us. One’s already shot at us...’

‘That’s it!’ Murielle exclaimed. ‘They are the aggressors! The point of argument is that they came here...’ She stopped, and focused her mind on the light creature standing tensely in front of them.

‘Can you tell what they’re thinking?’ Star asked nervously. ‘The one is still holding my charger. Do you think she knows how to use it? Do they plan on killing us?’

‘Will you STOP?’ Rygia shouted back at him. ‘I’m going crazy listening to you! Reason it out, will you? They may not be showing us their true forms, but you SHOT one of them, and they didn’t retaliate! That shows intelligence. It also suggests they’re peaceful and they don’t want to fight.’

‘But they’re holding a Cluster Master captive,’ Star argued. ‘Don’t you think that’s aggressive? That would be an act of war, anywhere else...’

‘But we aren’t anywhere else,’ Rygia reminded him. ‘We are on an unknown world, here. The jurisdiction of the Cluster may not...’

‘Why are you here?’ Murielle asked, opening her mind so that both could understand her. Realizing that the LG (the Light Girl) wanted to keep her language private, Murielle asked the question using images rather than raw speech. ‘I can see that you were called to this place, and that you search for a mind of unequaled power. What you found, we call a Praetor. It belongs to us.’

‘Our civilization has several Praetors,’ Miranda added, ‘but there is only one in this place and time. We require it for our survival. You may not take it as you intend. We will die, otherwise.’

‘What you call a Praetor,’ Rygia explained, duplicating the thought-images the alien creatures had selected, ‘is known to us as a Master of the Cluster. There are hundreds of Masters spread throughout the galaxy, providing order and peaceful coexistence between our many species and worlds. This one called to us, requiring rescue.’

‘Yes!’ Star jumped in. ‘Rescue from you, obviously! Despite the fact that you had buried it underneath tons of lava in your feeble attempts to hold it captive for your own diabolical reasons, it managed to send us an emergency signal, telling us where it was located.’

‘Star!’ Rygia thought privately at her companion. ‘Behave yourself! Stop accusing them of things you do not yet know!’

‘The Praetor has been in this time and place for thousands of years,’ Murielle replied, ignoring the more immature of the alien pair. ‘Yet only now it sends out a distress call. Am I mistaken? Or did it take you a thousand years to get here?’

‘I apologize for not understanding before,’ Rygia offered, ‘but your imagery did not originally include the expanse of time involved. To answer: No. We received a distress call... four of your days ago. Due to the distance involved, It required two days for the Master... for your Praetor’s message... to be received. Thought is not limited to light speed, as it exists outside the boundaries of three-dimensional space.’

‘We understand,’ Murielle replied. ‘Still, you cannot take the Praetor... Our lives depend...’

‘You can take the Praetor!’ Miranda interrupted, her emotions jangling with hope and excitement. ‘But... you have to take us with you. Otherwise, you condemn us to death in this dreadful place!’

‘But...’ Rygia was confused. ‘This is your world! How can it be dreadful to you?’

‘We were abandoned here by people we thought were our friends,’ Murielle explained.

‘We were betrayed and left behind to die,’ Miranda added.

‘Rygia! They’re changing!’ Star sent urgently. Quickly, he stepped behind Rygia and pulled her charger from her belt holster.

‘What are you doing?’ Rygia exclaimed, grabbing at the weapon as Star aimed it at the two alien creatures. ‘Stop that! They’re peaceful!’