A Song in Ebony Ch. 01

Larson Braydon (Larry to his friends) was not enthused about entering Vish'tari space. The xenophobic bastards considered any violation of their border a hostile act and would respond with lethal force. But Vish'tari space was where Glypso 431 was located, and that was the planet where the ruins were. His little ship was as stealthy as he could make it, which wasn't saying much. Really, his only defense was going to be the planet's remoteness. He should be able to get in, do the survey, and get back out again without being seen. As long as he worked fast.

He was pressed back in his seat as he felt the retro-thrusters fire. "Two minutes to touchdown," said the emotionless voice of Carl, the ship's autopilot. Larry didn't bother touching the controls; his virtual assistant would be far faster if something went wrong. The little display in front of him showed an orange wireframe image of the terrain below him, with the Naltar temple that was his goal highlighted in bright green. The little dot representing his ship was descending like a snowflake, and touched down gently just as he heard the crunch of his craft's landing feet digging into the dry soil of Glypso 431.

"Landing nominal. Thrusters off."

Larry blew out a relieved breath and ran one long-fingered hand through his sandy-brown hair. He unbuckled himself and pulled himself out of the chair to look behind him. The interior of the ship's lifesystem was small, less than ten feet long and three feet wide. This little cell had been his world for the three weeks it had taken to make the crossing. His only company during that time had been Carl. The machine was good at navigation, but a terrible conversationalist.

He touched a control next to the airlock, and a small sample of the outside atmosphere was drawn into the airlock for analysis. "Nominal atmosphere," said Carl. "Slightly higher concentration of carbon dioxide. Recommend filter mask to avoid possible CO2 poisoning. Outside temperature well below nominal, recommend heater suit."

Larry nodded. It was a pointless gesture, since Carl didn't really have the brains necessary to pick up human social cues. He dug through the storage bins until he found the recommended gear. The suit was a one-piece coverall that carried enough heating power to keep him warm even in arctic conditions. The filter mask...that he didn't like so much. Larry had always been a little phobic about things covering his face; it felt too much like drowning.

He then picked up a small backpack that contained some rations and a weapon. The pistol wouldn't do much against a Vish'tari trooper, but he wanted to be armed anyway.

Larry was thinner than the norm, but even so the tiny airlock was a squeeze for his tall and wiry frame. He tried to breathe calmly and not panic as he waited for the cycle to finish. Once it had, he swung the outer door open and felt his booted feet crunch into the soil.

He took a look around. His ship had landed in a small depression to better hide it from view. There shouldn't be anybody within a few parsecs, but he was being cautious. The ground was all hard rocks and sand. There wasn't a trace of greenery to be seen. From his orbital scans, it looked like the planet still had enough algae in the oceans to keep an oxygen atmosphere going, but not much else had survived whatever catastrophe had fallen on the Naltar race.

"Com check," he said into his mask.

"Reading you clearly," replied Carl into his ear. "Drones have been readied."

Larry opened one of the outer storage pods and hauled out a case containing his mapping drones. He then began hiking up one of the nearby slopes. Just beyond this ridge should be...

He stopped dead as the Naltar temple came into view. It was far more intact than he had dared hope, and Larry could feel a large grin under his filter mask. The alien temple was huge, at least two city blocks in extent. The architecture was flowing and liquid. There were huge arches that led in waves towards a tall central tower. Larry looked up the fluted sides of the main tower and saw that its top had been sheared off at an angle as if by some impossibly large knife.

If his theories were correct, then this planet had been the near-mythical Naltar homeworld. Humanity and its allies had found traces of the ancient aliens everywhere, and what scraps they were able to find had revolutionized technology for all Confederation races. This was possibly the mother lode for all Naltar knowledge. What was uncovered here might finally allow the Confeds to fight the Vish'tari on equal terms.

He wasn't going to be able to do much, of course, not in the amount of time he had. But he could do a quick survey and map out enough of the ruin to make the case that a larger expedition should be launched, with proper unified military support.

Larry stared around him as he walked through what appeared to be the main entrance. The interior was just as liquid and organic as the exterior. Flowing Naltar script was everywhere. He was one of the few people who could read even a smattering of the language. He could pick out key phrases like 'mother-all' and 'source of wisdom'.

He set his case down and took out several mapping drones. The little hovering discs gave a little chirp as they were activated, then sped off in multiple directions through the alien structure. Larry took a moment to check his datapad and make sure he was getting all of their information. He could see a three-dimensional map of the temple forming on his screen and nodded in satisfaction.

The middle of the temple had a large circular plaza with the central tower rising like a broken tusk above him. He glanced up once more, and then moved forward to the large archway at the tower's base.

In the center was something he didn't expect. It was an actual statue of a Naltar. The insectoid aliens had seemed to have a taboo about artistic representations of their own bodies. Humans had found some fragments of what was probably a medical text. It showed cutaway views of Naltar anatomy, but no overall picture. Likewise, nobody had ever found statues or paintings of Naltar.

But now here was a giant carving of one. The mantis-like creature stared impassively down at Larry as the human walked forward in awe. He looked at the base of the statue and saw a small slab-like altar containing what looked like a large green gemstone. The gem was spherical and about as big as his fist. It was nestled in a small stone cradle that held it securely.

He looked more closely. There seemed to be a faint green light that pulsed and beat in the gem's interior. It was hypnotizing, and Larry found himself leaning forward to look at it more closely.

Carl's precise voice cut into his reverie. "Warning, I am picking up a neutrino burst indicative of a large craft exiting hyperspace."

"Shit," muttered Larry. This far over the border, only Vish'tari ships would be encountered. "Warm up the thrusters. Do you have the data from the drones?"

"Affirmative. Warming thrusters. Now detecting a small craft entering atmosphere. Heading for your location. Suggest retreat."

Larry almost gave Carl some sass about stating the obvious, but it would be wasted on the machine. He looked longingly at the gem. It was stupid to take it. He was an archeologist, not a treasure hunter. But with the Vish'tari breathing down his neck, this might be the only chance humanity got to collect something out of this temple.

He reached forward and plucked the gem off of the altar. Larry half expected a huge boulder to come rolling towards him, but nothing happened. He looked up at the faceted stone eyes of the Naltar that loomed overhead.

"I'll bring this back, big guy. I'm just keeping it safe from those damn spiderwolves."

Larry turned and ran as he clutched the gem to his chest. The drones were expendable, and he didn't bother recalling them. He managed to reach the main entrance before he heard a supersonic howl of a landing craft overhead.

"Damn damn damn." Hopefully they were just doing a random patrol, and not specifically looking for-

"Targeting radar locked on me," said Carl's dispassionate voice. "Expecting incoming fire-" Carl abruptly cut off, and then a few seconds later Larry heard a rumbling explosion from over the ridge. He knew his ship had been destroyed.

He was stranded on a lifeless planet, with only a bit of food and water and one pistol. The Vish'tari didn't take prisoners, and they were for sure going to be sending down troops to make sure no filthy aliens remained on 'their' planet.

Larry tried not to despair. He might get out of this. Maybe a passing comet would take out the Vish'tari and leave one intact ship for him to commandeer. He snorted a little black-humored laugh and turned back into the temple. It would too easy to spot him on thermal scans if he was out in the open.

A distant growl reached his ears, and Larry peeked over the lip of a window. He could see four large tripodal shapes moving towards the temple. From the center of each tripod of arachnoid legs hung a furry blob that had a long snarling muzzle lined with razor-sharp teeth. Below that nightmare mouth were two dull gray eyes as well as two large arms that gripped a rifle as big as Larry's arm.

They were Vish'tari troopers. If they so much as smelled him, they'd chase him down and kill him without mercy.

Larry carefully edged his head back down and scuttled away. He was as good as dead but he wasn't going to make it easy for those fuckers.

Two hours later, Larry sat against a flowing biomechanical wall and panted. He was scared to look further down the corridor. It was almost certainly leading to a dead end. He could hear the distant snarling of the Vish'tari as they called out to each other. It was going to be over in the next few minutes. He had his gun, but at best he might wound one of them before getting shot to pieces himself. He debated over the merits of simply using the gun on himself. At least he could make it a cleaner kill that they would.

Larry pulled the green gem out of his backpack. Such a little thing to get killed over, he mused. He would ordinarily have felt more terror at his imminent demise, but he had set up this mission and knew that it might end like this.

That faint pulsing glow appeared again in the center of the gem, and in spite of his danger he leaned closer. The glow became brighter, and the pulse became a swirl. Larry's nose was almost touching the surface of the gem by now. The glow became a helical coil that rotated and spun. He stared in slack-jawed fascination, his predicament completely forgotten now.

And then the deafening feminine voice sounded in his head.

[HI THERE! WHAT'S YOUR NAME?]

The voice was colossal and yet bright and cheerful, as if it came from a schoolgirl the size of a planet. Larry grunted in shock and pain as he dropped the gem. It rolled out into the corridor and he made a dash for it. He scooped it up before it could roll very far...and then, as he straightened up, he saw the snarling muzzle of a Vish'tari at the far end of the corridor.

The alien didn't even hesitate. The rifle in its paws flashed once, and Larry felt his left leg give out from under him. He sprawled on the floor and stared down in horror at the giant chunk of flesh that had been taken out of his calf. The edges were cauterized from the maser beam, so he wasn't going to bleed to death right away, but still...

Then the searing wave of pain hit him and he screamed. The Vish'tari drooled as it moved closer and aimed for his head.

The deafening voice came again, and it was no longer cheerful.

[NO! MINE! NO HURTING WHAT'S MINE!]

The alien reeled back in shock. It had clearly heard the voice as well. Larry saw something like a giant black rope reach out from somewhere behind him. The ropy appendage swirled around the large alien and lifted it off the floor like a ragdoll. Larry could swear he saw panic in its features before the black rope squeezed with irresistible power. There was a loud crackle as multiple bones shattered in the alien's form. A huge gout of purple blood and internal organs shot out of its mouth. The black limb wrung the corpse like a man trying to get the last bit of toothpaste out of its tube. Blood and offal rained down onto the floor of the corridor.

Larry fell back on the floor and let unconsciousness take him.

He had dreams of running, of struggling, of being smothered in a black ooze. There was a gentle and crooning voice that soothed him and kept it all from becoming a horrible nightmare. Finally Larry woke with a gasp. He sat up and felt a jolt of panic as he remembered once more the Vish'tari gun pointing at his head, the alien's huge muzzle snarling at him...

Larry breathed deep and tried to calm himself. He looked around and saw that he was lying in a bed which was sitting in an average-looking hotel room. A lamp near his bed cast a warm light over his surroundings. Somehow he was alive. Or he was dead, and this was the most boring afterlife ever conceived. Or maybe it had all been an elaborate dream? He threw back the sheets and stared down at his legs.

From his left knee to his ankle, his leg was encased in what looked like black plastic. Larry reached forward and hesitantly tapped it with his finger. The material, whatever it was, felt warm to the touch and rigid. His near-death in the temple had definitely not been a dream, then.

He carefully swung his legs over the side of the bed and stood. He could feel a little twinge from his left calf, but otherwise his legs appeared to hold his weight just fine. He looked down. He wasn't wearing any clothes, but he figured that was the least of his problems right now. Maybe there was a bathrobe somewhere?

Larry took stock of the room. The space had one strange feature that he could see right away. There were no windows. Otherwise, it reminded him of many hotel rooms he'd stayed in during his life. It had the same beige-tinted walls, the same worn carpet, and the same uninspired artwork. There was no vidscreen, however. There was only one door out of the room, and he carefully walked forward to investigate.

The door led to what looked like a standard hotel bathroom with dull fluorescent lighting overhead. There were even little bottles of shampoo and conditioner on the counter next to the sink. He picked one bottle up and saw that it had an odd curlicue logo in black and green. He tried to unscrew its cap but couldn't. On closer inspection, he saw that the cap wasn't a separate piece. This was just a bottle-shaped object.

Larry set the bottle down and took a closer look at the bathroom. Now that he thought about it, there were no seams or gaps anywhere. He got down on his knees and inspected where the toilet met the floor. It was all of one piece. He walked out and investigated further in the bedroom. The investigation confirmed his initial observations. The bed had no separate frame, it just grew from the floor like a stone slab. The pictures weren't hanging from the wall, they were picture-shaped objects that slightly extruded out of the wall. The wardrobe in one corner was, like the shampoo bottle, merely a formed lump of material.

There were no other doors out of here.

He sat on the bed. At least it felt like a proper bed. Larry felt the first twinges of panic as he tried to rationalize his strange situation. Maybe the Vish'tari were holding him prisoner? No, that was nonsense. The Vish'tari were hopeless xenophobes, trapped by a cruel quirk of neurochemistry into a reflexive and total hatred of any species that wasn't them. They could no more 'take him prisoner' than he could imagine a five-sided square.

Wherever he was, it wasn't normal. Maybe they (whoever 'they' were) had listening devices installed. Larry cleared his throat. "Hello?"

He was nearly knocked flat on his back by the response.

[DARLING! YOU'RE AWAKE!]

[SHIT, THAT'S TOO LOUD]

[SORRY, Sorry]

[How's this? Still too loud?]

It wasn't a normal voice. It simply seemed to be, like it didn't need to do anything as boring or pedestrian as travel through space to reach his ears. At least it was now at a normal conversational volume. When it had first spoken it had felt like his head was going to explode from the inside.

"Fine, you're fine," he stammered. "Not too loud at all. Where am I?"

[With me. You're safe now, darling.]

"Okay...where are you?"

[I'm here with you, silly. All around you]

Larry almost began cursing, but took another deep breath. "Okay. You were the voice I heard in the Naltar temple, after I somehow activated that gem."

[Yep, that's me!]

He looked around. Now that he thought about it, where was that gem?

[The gem is safe. It was part of me, after all. I don't need it to talk to you, now that you're with me.]

"With you...so I'm assuming that I'm no longer on Glypso 431, right?"

There was no response.

"Please, just level with me, okay? Where am I now? Who are you? What...what the hell is going on?" He squeezed his eyes shut. He was not going to panic, damn it. Larry gripped the bedsheets and tried to focus on his breathing.

He felt a gentle, almost hesitant touch on his thigh. Larry started and looked to his right. There was a woman sitting on the bed next to him. She seemed formed of black obsidian, except for her eyes which were a solid glowing green with no iris or pupil. Her face was catlike, with a snub nose and angular cheekbones. She was eerily beautiful. Larry glanced down and saw that, in contrast to her face, her slim body was indistinct and half-formed, a statue-like abstraction of a woman's body. Her bottom and the back of her legs seemed to be fused into the bed itself. He started to get an idea of where exactly he was, and he began to be afraid.

He was with this...person. Or rather, he was within this person. He was dealing with some sort of large and powerful entity in which he was encapsulated like a fly in amber. Everything around him - the bed, the carpet, the walls, even the weird cast on his leg - was formed out of the same black material as this avatar now facing him.

"Is this better?" said the woman. Her voice was the same that he'd heard before, although now it sounded like a normal voice. "I imagine it is more comforting for you to hear me through air pressure modulation since you are used to that. Although it's less efficient than simple mind-touching like I was doing before."

"Yes, it helps that I can see who I'm talking to. So, whoever you are...hang on, let's start with the basics. Do you have a name?"

The woman canted her head. "Mmm, sort of. You can call me Izastetlhrandopolthrunf. That's what my play-friends call me."

"Play-friends. Do you mean the Naltar?"

"Yes, that's what you call them."

"Izasteal...crap, can you say your name again?"

She smiled and placed a black hand on his bare thigh. "Of course! Izastetlhrandopolthrunf." Her hand was much warmer than he had expected and felt softer than mere flesh.

Larry fumbled a bit more with her full 'name' and gave up in frustration. "Is it all right if I call you Izzy?"

"Of course! A diminutive form of my name indicating familiarity and friendship. Just like your friends call you Larry." She squeezed his thigh. Was it his imagination, or was her hand creeping higher?

"Yes, exactly. I hope we can be friends, Izzy."

"I know we will be, Larry! I haven't had a new friend in ages! The...Naltar haven't sent anybody to play with me in forever!" She paused. "You're not a Naltar. Do you know where they've gone to?"

Larry wasn't sure how to gently break it to her. "I'm not sure. We haven't ever come across any of them. From the combined knowledge in the Confederation, it looks like the Naltar died out about fifty thousand years ago."