Two potential disasters? The level of danger had just taken a big leap. Worse, mission number three would be following the first two directly into the storm’s epicenter.

  “This place is no ordinary pitstop, and the natives who live there aren’t exactly friendly, at least not to Chitzas. But we think Humans do better. It’s why Mission Two offered a seat to your wife. And we think it’s why they survived their stop here.” Zeeno’s eyes connected to Daniel’s. “The people down there look like you.”

  Daniel froze, not sure he understood. “Humans?”

  “Humanoid. Not an exact match, but close.”

  On one level, Zeeno’s disclosure wasn’t alarming since people were conditioned by countless science fiction movies to believe that aliens were simply Humans with pointy ears and blue blood. But on a scientific level, a humanoid shape with humanlike facial features would be exceedingly rare. On Earth, the closest equivalents were apes, and they only mimicked the Human form because they were DNA relatives. To discover a humanlike species produced through an entirely different evolution would be astonishing.

  But it neatly explained Nala’s participation. The Chitzas had already visited this place. They’d met the people who lived there and had decided that bringing a Human ambassador along might be just the ticket to avoid whatever disaster befell their first mission.

  For that matter, it was entirely possible that Nala might still be on the planet at the center of the ring. The captain of Mission Two had learned something during their stop, then headed back into deep space. But if Nala had already fulfilled her role, she might have been left behind. In an odd way, it could be good news.

  She’s waiting for me there. It was a nice thought even if he had little reason to believe its truth.

  9

  Planet

  Daniel began to piece together his role in this search and rescue mission. The Chitzas hadn’t just permitted him onboard, they had invited him. And now he knew why: Zeeno said he would need Daniel’s alien diplomatic skills. Apparently, the natives at their destination weren’t especially friendly, but they looked like Humans.

  Sprig had other ideas. “When Chitzas tell all, they don’t. Candid is not in their nature.”

  Daniel absorbed the advice from a partner who hadn’t led him astray yet but who definitely carried baggage from past contact with Chitzas. Maybe everyone on Litia did. Daniel found it hard not to like the adventurous rogues, but a fairer representation had to include their caginess.

  If Zeeno was still hiding information, Daniel had little choice but to see how events would unfold. They were billions of light-years from home with Daniel entirely dependent on Chitza goodwill to turn a one-way journey into a round trip.

  He sat in his lower deck seat, staring out the side window. Vast stretches of empty space transitioned into equally vast stretches where uncountable galaxies flitted past like cottonwood puffs on the wind. The past hour had viscerally demonstrated that the universe was ridiculously, impossibly, colossally large. He’d given up trying to comprehend it all. A single brain could not absorb it.

  There had been more snacks, a bathroom break—with facilities that were bearable, if not comfortable—and even one semi-sociable chat with Beets, the ship’s forever-irritated mechanic and engineer, whose interest in Humans seemed limited to hair dyes and facial piercings.

  Sprig officially announced when they passed the cosmic horizon and, just as Professor Alosoni-eff had suggested, space at fourteen gigaparsecs from home didn’t look any different than space just outside the Milky Way. Light emitted from this region 13.8 billion years ago had simply not had enough time in the history of the universe to travel the growing distance to telescopes back home.

  An hour later—and a thousand more galaxies flitting past the window—Daniel nearly jumped out of his seat when Aussik screamed from above. “That’s it!”

  He hurried up the ladder to the cockpit. Near the center of the five-dimensional pipeline of upcoming space, a peculiar shape loomed from the darkness—a galaxy, but with a fuzzy halo surrounding it. Aussik pulled back on his red lever, noticeably decreasing the whine of the turbines along with the shudder that had been ever present throughout the ship.

  “Let’s drop down to 4-D and see what it really looks like,” Zeeno said.

  Aussik flipped several switches and pulled his red handle once more. Turbine pitch dropped further. The view outside magnified and sharpened, as if an optometrist had just flipped over another trial lens and asked, “which is better, one or two?”

  What had been a hazy halo now resolved to an enormous flat ring extending well beyond the outermost arms of the spiral galaxy within its bounds. The ring had the same appearance of Saturn but without the gaps and on a scale that dwarfed any planet. It felt out of place among the collection of galaxies they’d been passing for hours. As incongruous as a ballerina wearing a truck tire.

  “Whoa!” Veronica called out from the deck below. “I guess we’ve arrived.”

  “Big sucker,” Zeeno said.

  “Never seen anything like it,” Aussik agreed.

  “It certainly gets your attention,” Daniel said. “I wonder if that’s the point?”

  “Like a signpost?” Zeeno asked.

  “Sure. ‘Come here’, it says. You pass a million galaxies that all start looking the same. But not this one. It stands out.”

  “Compute a vector to its center,” Zeeno commanded.

  “Got it, Boss,” Aussik answered.

  They sank deeper into the unusual shape. A cloud of glowing dust embedded with newborn stars filled the viewport but quickly blew past as they blasted out its backside. The surrounding ring flattened further and grew in size. Only its far side now fell within the edges of their viewport.

  “Slowing,” Aussik said. “Target ahead.”

  A glowing galactic arm resolved into thousands of individual stars interspersed by red and green nebulae and darker dust. Individual stars now streaked past as the ship zeroed in on one unmoving point in the center of the viewport.

  “Target is a yellow dwarf,” Sprig announced.

  “Same as Earth’s star,” Daniel said.

  “Slowing,” Aussik said. “Prepare for full stop.”

  Having already experienced one full stop and not ready to recommend it to inexperienced interdimensional travelers, Daniel decided to return to his seat on the lower deck. Besides, the lower deck had a view straight down, handy if they were going to land on this planet.

  Daniel barely had time to buckle up before Aussik announced, “Three, two, one…”

  Twin turbines quieted then roared into their reverse thrust mode. The ship lurched and Daniel grabbed a nearby handle which kept him in his seat but opened a bulkhead cabinet spilling a case of mini-can provisions across the floor in a loud clatter. Bright magenta flashed outside the window then disappeared. Beneath the ship, a planet appeared, blue and white.

  “Filament deployed,” Aussik called out. “Bubble burst is nominal. All stop.”

  A slight dizziness lingered, the only evidence of a dramatic restructuring of space. Daniel peered down through the floor window to a brightly lit planet of blue oceans, green-brown land, and white clouds. They were now something like sixteen gigaparsecs from home, but in orbit around a planet that could easily be mistaken for Earth.

  Sprig, helpful as always, rattled off numbers somehow collected by its surprisingly perceptive epidermis, easily converted to Human measures by whatever computer might be lodged inside its thin body. “Gravity is 9.8 meters per second squared. Global average atmospheric pressure, 1027 millibars. Nitrogen, 71 percent, oxygen 26 percent, water vapor varies from trace to three percent.”

  “It practically is Earth,” Daniel said. He glanced up to Veronica who was gathering the drink cans he’d inadvertently spilled. “If I didn’t know I was so far away, I’d argue that’s home.”

  “I’m glad you’re going down instead of me!” Veronica quipped.

  Daniel helped her gather the remaining cans and return them to the cupboard. “What, we’re not landing?”

  “Nooo. Boss’s orders, and a good thing too. This place is too dangerous for my taste, but you’ll do fine. Maybe your wife is down there somewhere?”

  If plucky Chitzas were too nervous to step onto this planet, it didn’t bode well for Daniel’s diplomatic task. But it didn’t change his resolve. “I had the same thought. She might be down there. So, if the ship stays in orbit, how do I get to the surface?”

  Veronica laughed like a dog wheezes when it gets a bit of chew toy caught in its throat. “You thought we came this far with no way to get you down there? Ha!” She pulled a kit bag from one of the storage bins and withdrew a large syringe filled with purple liquid. “Don’t worry, you won’t even feel it.”

  Beets swiveled to watch, most likely fascinated to find out if their Human volunteer would survive the ordeal Veronica had in mind. Daniel became less enthusiastic by the minute.

  He held up a hand. “Before I’m needlessly skewered, it’s only fair that I know what I’m getting myself into. Who are the people down there? What did they do to your first mission? Sorry, I’m going to need some answers.”

  “No problem.” Veronica put away the syringe, then yelled. “Boss?”

  Zeeno dropped down the ladder full of energy now that the piloting part of their mission had completed. “Ready to go?”

  All eyes were on Daniel.

  He pinched his index finger and thumb together. “Not quite. I need a full briefing. I don’t even know what you need.”

  Zeeno shrugged. “It’s simple. Hop in the drop tank, pop down there, meet the locals, and find out what they know. When you’re ready, we’ll pull you back up.”

  It wasn’t exactly a full briefing. Oversimplifying fit Zeeno’s style, but at least he wasn’t being tight lipped.

  “And the injection Veronica has in mind?” With Nala’s life and so much else on the line, Daniel could deal with alien first contact and whatever dangers might come with it. But he’d never been comfortable with needles. Veronica showed the syringe to Zeeno.

  “Aw, that’s just for your comfort,” Zeeno said. “Keeps you calm while you’re in the drop tank.”

  Daniel waved him off. “Let’s dispense with the doggy downer. Tell me about the tank.”

  Zeeno waved a paw through the air. “No big deal. Chitzas do it all the time.”

  “You’re a little smaller than me. No offense.”

  “And you’re bigger, no offense. Don’t worry, you’ll fit, we took the seats out.” Zeeno slumped to the floor with his back against the wall. He sighed in a big way. “Look… this part of the plan works better if Chitzas are not involved. Trust me, you’re the right guy for the job. Hell, your wife did it, right?”

  Daniel imagined Nala climbing into a drop tank for a fiery reentry down to an alien planet. Actually, it wasn’t hard. Just last year, she had jumped into a mile long vertical tube high above the Jheean citadel on the planet Bektash… without a parachute.

  “We have the landing coordinates. We even have a contact name: Osperus. Just ask around, I’m sure you’ll figure it out.”

  “But make sure you bring back the map,” Veronica added helpfully.

  “The… map?”

  If he’d been text messaging, he would have added a dozen question marks at the end. His guides had had fifty billion light-years to explain themselves. He wasn’t going another fifty feet until they told him everything.

  Daniel crossed his arms, leaned against the bulkhead, and glared with growing irritation over what had become routine Chitza concealment. “Spill it, Zeeno. All of it.”

  Zeeno held up both paws. “Okay, okay. It’s nothing we haven’t already mentioned. The last mission learned something when they stopped here. And yeah… we kind of know what it was. Not exactly, mind you! We don’t have a copy because the dataset was too large to send across our 4-D filament. But it was a map of some kind. We think! We don’t know.”

  “And this map will lead us somewhere?”

  “Uh… yeah. To a boundary of some kind. Might be a wall or a cliff. But whatever it is, the last mission went there so we need to go there too.”

  “Where we’ll encounter a gamma radiation blast?”

  “Hey, it’s a rescue mission. Danger is part of the deal.”

  Daniel paused in thought. Zeeno was right about their mission. It almost didn’t matter where the previous ship had ended up, their goal wouldn’t change.

  While Daniel thought, Zeeno continued. “Look, that 4-D ring isn’t natural. There’s something special about a planet that’s in the exact center. We could be on to something big. You want to know too, don’t you?”

  The captain looked as hopeful as a car salesman who really didn’t care which model and options the customer picked as long as he drove something off the lot today. Appealing to Daniel’s curiosity in addition to his rather obvious desire to get his wife back was exactly the pitch Daniel couldn’t—and wouldn’t—refuse.

  “Okay. I’ll go.”

  Zeeno hopped up. “Good plan.”

  “But Zeeno—no more secrets. Give it to me straight so I know what I'm dealing with. We'll make a better team.”

  “And spoil all the fun?” Zeeno held up his paws. “Yeah, yeah, all right. We’ll make you an honorary member of the crew! Surface Reconnaissance Commando, there you go. We’ll give you a uniform with bars on your shoulders when you get back. Just uh… make sure you bring back that map.”

  Daniel had to chuckle. Chitzas had their quirks, but in the end, they were earnest players with enough enthusiasm to complete almost any task. This mission seemed crazy at times, but in an odd way Zeeno and his crew had shown every reason to believe they’d be successful. Now it was time for Daniel to contribute.

  “If the map is down there, I’ll get it. I understand why we need it.”

  “To find the previous crew.”

  “Exactly, but there’s one thing I don’t understand… why did they want it?”

  “Great question.” Zeeno waved Daniel down to his level. Daniel squatted. “Okay Commando… since we’re now sharing every little thing, I’m going to let you in on a bit of Chitza lore.”

  Veronica gathered closer. Sprig perked up on Daniel’s shoulder. Even Beets swiveled in her seat, looking on with interest while their captain continued with his latest reveal.

  Zeeno’s voice lowered to a whisper. “Chitzas are not just thrill seekers. I know… shocking. You see us as Danger Game medalists or maybe those guys who strap rockets on their back… you know the type. But we’re not those guys. It’s not even pride that drives us, though that’s part of it. Litian-nolos don’t have it. I don’t think Humans have it either. We call it akona.”

  Veronica and Beets both nodded their heads.

  “It’s close to your word, zest, but more personal. It comes from a place that’s hard to describe and can’t be ignored. We do it because we have to. For a Chitza to disregard their akona? Unthinkable.”

  Daniel made eye to eye contact with Zeeno, then Veronica and Beets. These were passionate explorers, humble in their place among the stars, but full of pride in their ability to tease out whatever secrets the universe held. He admired them. And now they were asking for his help. He wouldn’t refuse.

  For whatever reason, the people on the planet below reacted better to Human visitors. Sort of an alien form of white privilege. Daniel’s qualifications had nothing to do with science, his attention to detail, or even his ability to see the big picture when others couldn’t. Daniel was Human. And that, apparently, was good enough.

  10

  Alone

  Another pulse shakes the place where Nala floats, sending a shock wave through its air with an audible thump that sounds and feels like a powerful ocean swell pounding a rock cliff somewhere below her feet. It is the fourth such pulse since abandoning the ship and separation from everyone else.

  Below. It has no meaning. She is suspended without gravity. There is no up or down. She’s been here for at least twenty-four hours, an elapsed time measured only by the thirst building in her throat and the grumbles in her stomach. The brilliant light is gone now. White has dimmed to grey. The temperature has dropped too.

  Scattered debris floats all around and provides a sense of distance. This cloud, this bubble, this whatever-it-is measures a hundred meters in width, maybe more. She spies what look like provisions floating among the debris. The collection of cans and packages aren’t far away, but she can’t figure out how to move herself in that direction. There’s nothing to hold onto, nothing to push off of. She tries blowing air as a method of propulsion but that only makes her dizzy.

  She does a few zero-g somersaults, stretches, and knee bends in an attempt to stay warm. So far, the air is holding out—one positive thing about her imprisonment.

  “Onner!” she yells again. She’s sure she heard Onner’s voice when they bailed out, but not since. The others seemed to have drifted away. If this is 4-D space, perhaps the lingering energy from the gamma blast has split it into multiple pieces, carrying her friends away as new bubbles pinch off. It’s a distinct possibility, but she can’t be sure.

  As expected, there’s no response to her shout. But movement catches her eye. She twists around just in time to snatch a flat disc drifting by. It’s the data disc that Aussik pulled before they abandoned ship. He slipped the disc under his body strap, but it must have come out in all the chaos. Does it mean Aussik is dead?

  “Please don’t be dead,” she tells herself. She yells once more, “Aussik!” Her voice disappears without an echo.

  Minutes pass. “Do something,” she tells herself, then has an idea. She takes off one shoe and twists until the floating provisions are directly behind her. She winds up and throws the shoe, which disappears into the grey cloud. She twists around but can’t tell if her position relative to the food has changed.

  Not satisfied, she removes the other shoe and tries again. There’s still not much progress toward the goal.