Out of Reach

       The Geographer continued to marvel loudly and at length. All the fundamental universal constants and laws of physics, he marvelled, turned out to be the same here as in his home galaxy, which meant compiling a new encyclopaedia would be far easier. And all that fuss I had made about radical differences had been for nothing. I had to remind him that I had never outright claimed everything was different, and merely asked if he was certain the laws of nature remained unchanged. The rest had been his own imagination. Besides, he ought to be grateful I had dragged him to this planet of bird-fruits and given him the chance to recalculate his beloved constants. “Yes, but first I was nearly killed!” he protested, though half-hearted. He was too busy mapping everything the asteroid flew past. Not much of a lookout, then. The Businessman was better at his role; he too boasted of his business successes, graciously accepting my assurances that I had only ever wished him well and was entirely on his side. Yet he still refused to let me peek inside his suitcase, and slept right on top of it. Only the Hunter remained vigilant, never slinging his rifle over his shoulder in my presence. It was mildly irritating. Flattering, of course, that he was still so furious about losing his moustache and what little hair he had left. But inconvenient. I had learned to nap during his watch, though I didn’t dare rifle through his hat or bag while he was sleeping. The Fox and the ex-gloomy were awake then, darting about everywhere, and the blue orb could catch me in the act at any moment. By all appearances, the Prince had misinterpreted my outburst after the pit planet and now entertained the possibility that I could switch sides and was reforming. At the very least, he no longer flinched when I looked at him and the Rose, didn’t whisk her away, and even muttered something privately to the Fox when the latter threatened to bite me again. Too-noble heroes are so eager to make everyone happy that they easily deceive themselves. Well, I played along. The Rose, too, scrunched up her face less often when I stood a few steps away. But she didn’t come closer. Not yet. The group had a new pastime, namely helping the Rose walk on her own. Surprisingly, she was adapting quickly to keeping her roots in the air and could now sit on the edge of her pot or the windowsill for an hour or two, swinging her root-legs (two of them, just like a proper rose, though still thin and not quite strong enough to support the weight of her bud-head). Go on, little one, learn not to rely on your Prince. And if it came to it, snatching her would be far easier and safer. All in all, time was on my side again. And to stretch it further, I had given the coordinates of a long-dead planet. I hadn’t been present for its demise, but by my calculations, it couldn’t have survived. Sure enough, only a swarm of molten debris remained at the designated spot. I had left it intact times ago, intending to obliterate it dramatically in front of the inhabitants of nearby planets as a show of power. But the opportunity never arose. I tried ordering the wreckage to vanish now. No luck. I chose the next target out of the barely flickering ones. But the planet held a surprise, and with the right presentation, finishing it off with the Prince’s help would be child’s play. So, weighing my options, I sat beneath a tree by the house. The Hunter was resting and out of sight, the Geographer was sketching maps, the ex-gloomy whizzed past now and then, and the Fox was nowhere to be seen, likely on the other side of the roof, since the Prince and the Rose were chatting by the chimney. The Businessman fussed nearby but quietly, laying out a solitaire spread since no one fancied poker. “Why didn’t you stay on the hospitable planet of k’ivis?” I asked him, perfectly innocent. He giggled, glancing sideways. “What, and how would I commute from market to market? I’ve satisfied demand there, time to move on before—” “Before they pecked you to death for accidental arson?” “They’d have to prove it first!” He feigned wounded innocence. “Besides, where could I find transport other than this asteroid? And this galaxy has too few asteroid belts to get around on foot.” “True,” the Geographer chimed in. “Have you noticed the greater distance between planets here compared to back home? I suspect it’s because this galaxy is older and has expanded to greater extent—” “Or,” I cut in, “because I devoted more time to it and thinned it out more aggressively.” He fell silent, lips pressed tight. Sure it must be unpleasant to realise that someone’s will can meddle with the astronomical objects on such a scale. A hush fell over the lawn; even the conversation on the roof died down. Admiring the view, no doubt. Meanwhile, in the quiet, I peered through the leaves at the roof. If I shifted slightly, tilting my head, the gap in the foliage framed only the content and happy Rose. Who she was smiling at or pointing her leaf at hardly mattered. If the Prince intruded into the frame, I could look away. There were indeed fewer stars here, and just behind B613, an entire sector was impenetrable blackness. Like a window straight into my native void. Beautiful. I froze. What? Everything was fine, wonderful even—but that was precisely what felt strange, even frightening. It shouldn’t be this good. What was good about still being trapped in a human body, surrounded by enemies, noise, and chaos? The Geographer muttered to himself, the Businessman whistled a tune, occasional gusts of wind rustled the leaves, the Hunter’s snores echoed from the house, and the rooftop company might as well have been a world away. But all of this only registered when I focused on listening. Before, it had been filtered out, irrelevant. And I had even forgotten to try slipping into that patch of darkness. They say humans grow accustomed to anything. But I wasn’t a human, and I refused to be one! I wouldn’t settle into this false, useless form, this flat world! Even if the Rose grew used to me, became more tolerant, let me stay close? What was it she had said before the pit planet? We can even tolerate you this way. Even then, I refuse! “Hey, Snake, Earth calling!” The Businessman waved a hand right in front of my face. I stared silently into his eyes, and he reconsidered and crabbed away to his suitcase. “You, uh—” His voice wavered. “Wipe that look off your face, or I’ll call the boy and tell him you’re up to no good.” What look? Had something slipped through? Just what I needed, losing control of my own body. I took a deep breath and moved to the other side of the tree trunk to face the black scrap of sky. But now every sound, every flicker of movement, every sensation was in sharp focus, grating. Good. Letting it irritate me was still better than growing accustomed. “Rose, look at those bright stars ahead!” Prince’s voice floated down from the roof. I squeezed my eyes shut, wishing I could block my ears too, but the Geographer had already taken an interest, and he was too close, impossible to ignore. “Indeed, fascinating objects. Unusual variable luminosity, and so closely clustered…” What were they on about? Ah, stars dead ahead, barely visible between the horses’ and birds’ heads. A tight cluster of three, flickering erratically. Odd. They seemed to shift slightly. I tried to visualise their nature and trajectory. My memory stirred, dredging up analogues from the depths. And then it hit me. Oh no. Stars, damn it all. “Prince!” I roared, leaping to my feet. “Hard to the right, now! Or we’re fried!” The cluster of lights was slightly to the left of our course, and a sharp turn right might save the asteroid. Once, the objects hurtling toward it at cosmic speeds might have been part of a solid star, but thanks to my efforts, they had become a veritable machine of destruction. A unique crystalline star, shattered by a precisely aimed comet into countless razor-sharp, diamond-hard, blue-hot fragments. A masterpiece… unless it was flying straight at me. And at the Rose. The Prince glanced back at me, baffled, but tugged a few reins in the right direction. No, too slow. I bolted for the porch, vaulted onto the railing, then the awning, and finally the roof, sending the Fox tumbling to the ground. The Rose yelped as I skidded across the tiles and nearly yanked the reins from the Prince’s hands. “What’s the matter?” the Prince asked, bewildered, but didn’t resist. Instead, he whistled to his paper steeds. The horses and birds jolted, veering sharp. The fragments would be here in half a minute, but the asteroid was already clearing their path. “What was that about?” the Fox’s indignant voice rose from below, and the others were in an uproar. “Look at eleven o’clock, and you’ll see any second.” Then, from above and to the right, alien shrieks erupted. I turned. With a deafening crack, the darkness ahead of the horses splintered. Between its jagged edges, wooden beams, poles, ropes, and frantic figures flickered, all against a pitch-black void into which the first two horses’ hooves and heads were already disappearing. The remaining paper animals scrambled over the black-shrouded wreckage. Something yanked my arm. I toppled backward and barely registered the thick beam that scraped across the tiles where I had just stood. Then the ground slammed into my back, knocking the wind out of me. What in the world was that? My memory offered nothing, but the cacophony of splintering wood, snapping ropes, and a dozen voices screaming left no doubt. The Prince knelt beside me, clutching the Rose—it was him who had pulled me off the roof. He shouted something, but his words were drowned out by a shrill, unfamiliar voice: “Second wing, pull back! Hold the third! Unfurl the mizzen, full reverse! Water incoming, three seconds!” Right, the fragments. Had B613 dodged in time? Two blinding flashes streaked past the asteroid’s port side, waves of heat washing over. A third flash jolted the asteroid violently, and the searing gust forced me to shield my face. The light didn’t fade entirely, and crackling flames and the stench of burning grass joined it. The asteroid’s flank was on fire. Then, er, creatures dropped from the wreckage. A flurry of slate-grey sacks and tentacles, too fast to make out clearly as they bounced toward the flames. Some of the sacks weren’t heads or bodies but waterskins, and the creatures themselves resembled octopuses. The fire was doused before the rest of B613’s passengers, battered and terrified, could scramble out from behind the house. The Rose! Was she unharmed? Yes, perched on the Prince’s shoulder, freeing his hands. Good. He’d need them, because after the first squid-like beings, more creatures spilled from the ropes and rigging the asteroid collided with. A real menagerie: monkey-like things with spiralled tails, a toothy bird with clawed wings, a vaguely familiar cockroach the size of a human. All clad in belts and metal harnesses, the monkeys in tattered, colourful rags. And all very displeased—ears (if any) flattened, teeth bared. The Rose clambered fast onto the Prince’s back, and I stepped back to form a defensive circle. The Hunter was of no use; he barely raised his rifle at the cockroach before it fluidly drew its belt, shook it, and the metal segments snapped into a vicious-looking sabre. Impressive. And given that all the intruders wore similar belts… Even the Hunter grasped that waving his gun around was unwise. “Who are you?!” the eldest of the tailed monkeys, a grey, wrinkled female screeched. The same voice that had barked orders moments ago. “I’ve never seen anything like you.” I had seen her kind before. Prehensile paws suggested arboreal origins; sparse fur, a warm homeworld; large eyes, nocturnal habits. Ah, marriks they called themselves, resembling tarsiers. Their planet should have perished long ago, and not by the stellar shards. Meanwhile, the Prince was already introducing his crew. Time to cut in before he got to me. Unlikely any of these vagabonds had heard of me, but if the Prince elaborated on my role in events, and given their arsenal… “You haven’t seen us because we’re from another galaxy,” I interjected during the pause. “Another what?” the captain asked, predictably lost. And, just as predictably, the Geographer lunged into an explanation. No survival instinct whatsoever: he marched right up to her, pulling a magnifying glass from his pocket. The other aliens tensed, hands flying to their belts, but he was already scrutinising their captain (who barely reached his waist) and the structure above. Wait, where was the Businessman? Bolted to the notebook at the first sign of trouble? And the ex-gloomy was gone too. Collapsed, most likely. “Absolutely astounding! A cosmic sailing ship! What an intriguing design! A spherical core of some unidentified adhesive substance, gangways strung between the masts sticking out of it, sails that fan out along meridians, a segmented mechanism—though I can’t quite see how many segments—and rigging that’s fairly standard, though pulley-free, relying mostly on winches and blocks…” As the Geographer rattled off the ship’s features, I too began to discern order in the chaos of planks, spars, and ropes. “And those sails! Like an umbrella made of layered fans. Though they’re awfully close to the surface, which is hardly practical for catching wind. Besides, the material looks fragile. Unless they’re not for wind, but for light? Black is light-absorbent, after all. Did you choose the colour purely for its physical properties, or symbolically, to mark yourselves as pirates?” “We are not pirates!” the tarsier-like captain snapped, though she tapped her long, prehensile tail pointedly against her belt buckle. “We’re the Catchers of Fire Crystals, and we’d have snagged the last of those shards if you hadn’t cut us off! What were you thinking?” Catchers of Fire Crystals? How in the void did they manage to trap razor-sharp, hyper-fast, white-hot stellar fragments? Blast it, I should’ve monitored the shards’ trajectories longer. Then I’d have known these locals had mastered interplanetary travel, and could’ve tidied things up sooner. Now it will be trickier. But not impossible. “No, no, we never meant to interfere!” the Prince hurried to assure them. “We’re new to this galaxy and knew nothing of you or these crystals. In fact, we’re here to save worlds ourselves. Thank you, by the way, for helping douse the fire—” “Only because it could’ve spread to our ship,” a younger, less wrinkled monkey with brown-green fur interrupted him. “Don’t be mistaken about our favour.” “And it wasn’t us who veered into you,” the Fox piped up, huddling at the Prince’s feet. “It was him.” He flicked his tail toward me. “A proper menace, that one. We had no idea.” Oh, thanks for that. “Yes, you steered the asteroid straight at them!” the Rose added. Right time for damage control. “I didn’t see them!” I glanced around at the others. “Did any of you suspect that dark patch was a ship? I was dodging what you called ‘Fire Crystals.’ These lot—” I gestured at my companions, “—aren’t locals. They have no idea what danger they were in. Besides, you saw us. You could’ve signalled for right of way.” “No time for signals,” the younger monkey cut in. “You were crawling too slow. We would have crossed the crystal swarm well ahead of you, clear of your path, if you didn’t turn and dash.” “So you do know how dangerous these crystals are?” The captain narrowed one round eye at me, her earring jingling. “Bet he’s the one who made ’em,” the Fox muttered. Spot on, but best divert this quickly. “I’ve travelled these parts before,” I said vaguely. Flattery might help, too. “You’re a skilled navigator. You must’ve seen I took the quickest evasive action.” “And we’d be glad to help repair the damage,” the Prince added. “Oh, you’ll help alright,” the captain said, snapping her sabre back into its belt. Her crew followed suit. I exhaled. “Untangle the rigging, separate our ships. Then you can drift off alone. You’ve lost your peculiar beasts, after all.” “What?” The Prince and Fox gaped in unison, craning their necks. The paper horses and birds were embedded in the black, gluey core beneath the wreckage, some up to their tails, others only heads and forelegs visible. That ‘adhesive substance’ the Geographer mentioned? “So,” the captain added, “finish off your beasts out of mercy. Or we’ll do it for you—” Before she could finish, the horses and birds dissolved into sparks, drawing gasps from the crew. “They’re unharmed. I’ll summon them back later,” the Prince explained at the captain’s baffled look. “Impossible,” the pterosaur hissed, its throaty voice grating as it stared between the Prince and the black orb. “Seiba resin releases nothing. That’s why we use it to trap crystals…” Like all creatures faced with the inexplicable, the Catchers tensed, some reaching for their belts again. Why did they carry weapons? For defence? Against what or who? Nothing dangerous roamed this galaxy’s space except for the stellar shards, and blades were useless against those. Unless these Catchers were predators. Best stay cautious. For now, sticking with them as a source of information would be beneficial. Not that the Prince needed prompting; he’d insist on helping to the end, and having seen his tricks, they wouldn’t let him leave. Sure enough, the captain grumbled that the ‘alien wreckers’ now owed them not just cleanup duty but also a tow to the ‘Hive.’ Ah, so their destination wasn’t a planet but another ship? Which made sense; this vessel showed no signs of habitation or storage rooms. At her quiet order, the squid-creatures located B613’s anchor, reeled it in, and secured it to their ship. There was plenty of work to do. The Geographer’s description had been accurate, but he omitted that the asteroid, after the horses, had ploughed into one of the fan-sails, crushing it but snagging on ropes and a narrow deck between masts, stopping short of the black mass. Still, it had crumpled part of the sail and rigging, and the motley crew now swarmed the roof and breach, salvaging what they could. Our group was put to work too, clearing debris and brainstorming how to separate the two massive bodies, their gravitational fields now chaotically interfering. The Hunter slung his rifle and rolled up his sleeves, grumbling about ‘some people’s’ messes. I didn’t dignify that with a response, I had a better idea. “Why not vanish into the notebook like the Businessman and laze about in there?” The Hunter glanced around, but the man in question was nowhere in sight. He spat. “That swindler. Oh, he won’t get away with this…” He promptly tattled to the Prince about the ‘deserters.’ Perfect. I needed the Businessman here. And so the Businessman was fetched out and put to work. Now where would he stash his suitcase? Surely he wouldn’t untangle ropes one-handed? Ah, he dragged it inside the house, and the Fox had claimed it as a perch, leaning out the window beside the Rose to boss everyone around. Fine. B613 had fared better than the ship: a few roof tiles lost, one attic window shattered, some tree branches scraped and broken. The impact site where the shard had struck was now a flat, glassy patch ringed by scorched grass. I helped the Geographer free ropes from the tree, using him as a shield from the Prince and Fox while distracting him with ship trivia. As he adjusted his glasses to study the block systems, I palmed a shard of window glass and wedged it into the soil by the roots, memorising the spot. Carrying it risked cuts—evidence I couldn’t afford. Retrieving it later safely would be easy. The Businessman kept pausing to mop his brow with a garish handkerchief before stuffing it back in his pocket or draping it on a branch. Sooner or later, he’d lose it. Later, chaos granted me a chance at the Hunter. Tripping him would be too obvious, but ‘accidentally’ bending a branch to knock off his hat as he passed was simple. I apologised profusely, even dusted the hat off before returning it—and pocketed the matchbox tucked in its crown. Meanwhile, the Prince handled the separation, sketching a gorilla-like creature that braced against the ship’s mast and the asteroid and shoved them apart. The pirates were so impressed they abandoned their tasks to gawk until the captain whistled them back to work. She kept ordering them around from B613 while interrogating the outlanders of their other talents. The younger monkey and one squid stayed by her side. The resin ship, propelled by the two sails remaining out of three and by the re-summoned paper birds and horses of the asteroid, was crawling towardsthe nearest cluster of light-dots. I positioned myself near the captain, monitoring the conversation. The Geographer bombarded her with questions: how such a diverse crew came together, who designed the ship, what were these Fire Crystals? The Catchers knew nothing of the shards’ origin; just that swarms of hard, superheated debris raced along chaotic orbits, igniting anything flammable and melting or shattering the rest. The crew had formed from survivors: the tarsiers (‘marriks’), fleeing their dying world on a crude galley, rescuing others from the crystal storms until discovering a miraculous fireproof resin—and dedicating themselves to fighting the disaster. Now, three generations later, few remembered their home planets. “Only Gran—my son’s great-grandmother, my grandmother—” the younger monkey nodded at the captain, “—and feathered Krrchi remember ground life. Pity he’s monogamous; his line ends with him. But we,” he stroked the squid-creature’s tentacle (his mate?), “don’t face such risk.” Naturally, the Geographer fixated on primate/mollusc reproduction until the pair promised to show their hybrid offspring later. Good. Only two Catchers still mourned lost worlds as ‘home.’ Destroying either would equal annihilating a planet’s population—and return me to my true form. If my theory was right, that is. For now, I’d watch the pterosaur and the captain. The Prince, though, was listening too closely, as if about to tell something. Best steer the conversation and sow some mistrust. “Are there many travellers like you in this galaxy?” I cut in during a lull. “None but us,” the squid-mate of the captain’s grandson intoned flatly, her voice emanating from nowhere. She lacked visible eyes or a mouth and had just shifting sensory patches on violet skin. I recognised her species. Their aquatic world should’ve been obliterated by the shards shortly after the crystal star’s destruction. Good. I’d hate to learn this galaxy teemed with spacefarers. The marriks had barely discovered flight when I had last dealt with them, and only insects like the pit planet’s ‘ants’ travelled between stars, unaided by technology. Fear had clearly spurred the marriks’ leap to spacecraft. Annoying. I’d correct that. Maybe with matches. “Hey, knitworm, where’re you going with this?” the Fox demanded. Fair. Now for my most guileless tone… “Then why those sharp items on your waists? Just for cutting tangled rigging? Limbs are more convenient for shipwork.” “We get food with the sabres,” the younger monkey grumbled. His mate added tonelessly: “From those unwilling to share.” The Rose gasped, clinging to the Prince, who stared at the Catchers. The Fox, slower on the uptake, just chuckled. “Ah, nostalgia. Reminds me of tunnelling into henhouses—” “But why not just ask?” the Prince protested. “Explain you’re saving worlds, that you need help—” Now the crew gaped at him. “A-ask?!” The squid-creature’s skin-patterns contorted into a grotesque pattern. Was it laughter? The captain silenced her with a hiss and leaned toward the Prince. “We do ask,” she rasped, oozing sarcasm. “One time. But locals send us packing… until they see this.” I barely registered the movement before her tail flicked, her belt-sabre flashed, and a tuft of grass between her and the Prince fell, sheared clean at the roots. She sheathed the blade slowly. “Blades and “please” work better than just “please,” the squid-creature added, and the captain didn’t correct her. “But why don’t people believe you? The shards are very much visible,” the Rose ventured. The squid-creature gurgled again, and the old monkey curled her lip but deigned to explain: “Put yourself in their place. Little stars twinkle in the sky. Nothing unusual. You yourself didn’t grasp the danger either until someone warned you.” She shot me a glance. “Then the lights vanish, and a ragtag crew descends from the sky, demanding food, water, and timber for ‘saving’ them from an invisible threat. They’ve seen no danger, only empty bellies. One’s own skin is always dearer than someone else’s hide. So we let them choose: supplies or their lives. They pick life, of course. You’re a captain too.” She fixed the Prince with a stare. “Would you risk your crew for strangers?” “Yes, I would,” he answered without hesitation. The pirates fell silent. “What a fool,” the squid-creature muttered, straightforward as all her species. The captain phrased it more gently: “Childish naivety.” “I am a child,” the Prince spread his hands. “And I don’t want to grow up if it means becoming a robber.” Oh, blast him, why’d he say that? Predictably, the younger monkey sprang up, gripping his belt, hissing that they were saviors, not thieves. Fortunately, only he reacted; the squid-creature stayed impassive, and the captain merely narrowed her eyes. “I was that naive once. Believed in universal kindness, free for all. Ran away when I couldn’t convince my mother, the marrik queen…” What? This monkey was the daughter of the queen I’d… spoken to? She had lasted this long? She had already outlived her species’ typical lifespan, though still within statistical margins. “…Then I became a captain, responsible for my crew,” she continued, “and learned: sacrifices are necessary. To catch crystals and save worlds, we need food, water, materials. A stubborn local’s severed ear or tail is the lesser evil. You’re too young to understand that.” “No, I was always finding a third way where no one gets hurt,” the Prince insisted. “Then you’ve never faced true hardship,” she said. “I’d disagree!” the Fox interjected. “We’ve been in tighter spots than—” “Captain!” A shrill cry came from the trap-ship. “The Hive’s in sight, and Quartermaster Maimi’s approaching by skiff!” The conversation halted. Good, they’d never circle back to my person. Ahead, beyond a barren asteroid, another bizarre structure loomed—a jumble of decks, partitions with windows and doors, gangways and ropes, but mastless and sailless. A conical slum three times the ship’s size, its center marred by a growing black triangle. “Oh no, Dad,” the younger monkey groaned, facepalming. Then I discerned the triangle as a small black leaf-sail attached to a hemispherical skiff. It glided to the ship’s polar mast, and a portly, balding monkey scrambled onto the platform below, waddling toward B613’s anchor line, shouting: “Mother! Are you hurt? What happened? We tracked you, and when the shards didn’t stop… Did Splint miscalculate their path?” He clambered up the anchor rope, collapsed panting beside the captain, and splayed his limbs. Her son, then. Affectionate, worried. Potentially useful. “Quiet!” she barked. “No errors, just an unforeseen obstacle. You’re sitting on it. Minor damage; we have enough spare fibres, planks, and leaves for repairs. We’ll finish in a shift and still intercept that shard swarm after its trajectory bends past the triple star.” “The triple star? Enhanced gravity, I presume?” the Geographer cut into the family matter. But the captain had already bounded back to the ship, barking docking orders. The Geographer didn’t sulk for long, though: his focus switched to the Hive and its emerging inhabitants, and he gawked muttering a list of species names he could classify.