When I Walked Among Serpents: Yellow World, #3

By CJ Erick

He was a large yellow man in a green world.

When pirates disable his interstellar transport, Lonin, the first Timmistrian ambassador to the Co-Operative League of Systems, is forced to abandon ship in an escape pod. Now alone and lost on an unfamiliar human world, he is captured by traffickers and thrust into an international war that threatens the stability of the entire planet — and any chance of escape.

With only his untested diplomatic skills and the timeril sense that allows him to see the nature of other people, can he find his fellow travelers and gain their safe passage to their intended destination, the Co-Op capital of Smyth Alter?

Only an entire world of hostile people stand in his way.

And the dreaded alien Thinkers, killers of human worlds, are coming.

• Language: English
• Publisher: James E Mathis
• Release date: Nov 30, 2019
• ISBN: 9780991558698

Book preview

WHEN I WALKED AMONG SERPENTS

Yellow World Book 3

CJ Erick

Text copyright © 2019 CJ Erick

All Rights Reserved

ISBN 978-0-9915586-9-8

To Cheryl, who in me sees the spirit and determination I seldom feel, and guides me and my small successes along the path to greater ones. May we help to craft a better world together.

Love always.

Acknowledgements

To my writing critique group, The JEDI, who slay the foul words with laser-sharp sabers of light, and open new universes of perception and insight which both thrill and frighten. Long shall we slash and burn the feeble prose, the dreaded prologue, and the wandering plot! May the force of words be with us.

Table of Contents

CHAPTER 01

CHAPTER 02

CHAPTER 03

CHAPTER 04

CHAPTER 05

CHAPTER 06

CHAPTER 07

CHAPTER 08

CHAPTER 09

CHAPTER 10

CHAPTER 11

CHAPTER 12

CHAPTER 13

CHAPTER 14

CHAPTER 15

CHAPTER 16

CHAPTER 17

CHAPTER 18

CHAPTER 19

CHAPTER 20

CHAPTER 21

CHAPTER 22

CHAPTER 23

CHAPTER 24

CHAPTER 25

CHAPTER 26

CHAPTER 27

CHAPTER 28

CHAPTER 29

CHAPTER 30

CHAPTER 31

CHAPTER 32

CHAPTER 33

CHAPTER 34

CHAPTER 35

CHAPTER 36

CHAPTER 37

CHAPTER 38

CHAPTER 39

CHAPTER 40

CHAPTER 41

CHAPTER 42

CHAPTER 43

CHAPTER 44

CHAPTER 45

CHAPTER 46

CHAPTER 47

CHAPTER 48

CHAPTER 49

CHAPTER 50

CHAPTER 51

CHAPTER 52

CHAPTER 53

CHAPTER 54

CHAPTER 55

CHAPTER 56

CHAPTER 57

CHAPTER 58

CHAPTER 59

CHAPTER 01

Grell had the girl sent to his chamber. She was young, fifteen at most, bound at wrists and ankles, with moon-pale skin, pepper hair tied back, and eyes hidden by a black lace mask. Her pubescent body was draped in pastel veils that flowed over her tender flesh like mist over the moors. She lay on her side on the synth-skin lounge and trembled.

Her fear amused him. Draylon had done well.

He was about to begin when a hail signal came over his communications implant. The hesitant voice of the night officer, Scatch, came through, speaking in his ear.

Master?

He hissed in annoyance. Was there never a moment for amusement? He tapped his tooth and responded.

Pray that what you bring interests me. At the sound of his voice, the girl quaked even more.

Scatch cleared his throat. Master, we’ve picked up an unregistered ship in the system. She dropped from the outer jump point, and she turns directly to the inbound point. Should we catch her?

An unregistered vessel? Garrish hadn’t warned them about it. Black-market freighter?

Grell asked, What type?

Small, sir. Private passenger. Fusion-drive signal speaks of elite class, and they’re shy on the weapons. She’ll make the jump if we don’t move now.

Hmm. He was interested. Not a freighter, private line, no flight plan registered. Avoiding the normal trade routes. Something to hide. Still could be black market, but of a deeper nature. Alien sex traffickers? Whatever it was, it was worth a look.

Scatch said, Captain?

Grell gazed at the girl, now cowering with her cheek laid on the cushions. She would wait.

Call the day shift awake and ride. Cut the bitch off. Let us see what she’s hiding.

CHAPTER 02

Captain Andrew Alder puzzled over his latest assignment, as he had several times on the voyage. Bring supplies to a distant frontier system and return to Smyth Alter with one of the indigenous natives, the new ambassador.

Not an unusual mission in itself, just unusual for him. Disquieting.

At age 42 Standard objective, he’d worked his way into a low-risk career, running routes much closer to Smyth Alter. Why send him to the edge of the galaxy now?

His vessel, the CSS Helena Keil, was small for an interstellar, 150 meters long and 50 wide, with two thirds of that consumed by the drive, life-support systems, and crew quarters. The passenger compartment held room for about 20, designed for single-jump journeys within the Halo, the sphere of star systems that comprised the hub of the human-occupied universe, and home to 80% of the expanding population.

Sixteen passengers made the trip out, twelve of which were human. The others were all humanoid and able to survive in an Earth atmosphere of 80% nitrogen, 20% oxygen, and 50% relative humidity, although one of the nonhumans required bulbs of carbon dioxide to feed the symbiotic blue-green algae that blossomed in small cells just under her skin.

The captain and crew were provided very little information about the outbound passengers, save that they were contractors and trainers en route to a fledgling star system on the outer edge. Their cargo was marked Top Security but didn’t require any special handling, and the carrier folk loaded it with little hesitation.

Of their returning passenger, he was told nothing. However, prior to disembarking, two rows of passenger seats had been replaced with a single larger flight chair, considerably larger than those designed for humans.

For this mission, Alder was required to report directly to Co-Op Central Command, an eyebrow-raising change in protocol in itself. He was instructed to make a series of indirect jumps, zigzagging back and forth across known space. Flight plans for each successive jump were transmitted to him only upon arrival from the previous one, and all previous data was deleted from the onboard AI system and guidance systems by a remote source.

They exited their sixth jump just outside the planetary disc of a common yellow star, dubbed only Zeta on their AI’s galactic model. The next set of instructions that came through didn’t hold another jump vector, instead directing him to decelerate and initiate an orbit around the fourth planet.

And thus, Alder and the crew learned of their final destination.

Data queries of the system revealed little. Of the Earth-like fourth planet, almost nothing. The automatic data feed that ordinarily transmitted physical and astronomical data back to CASA, the Co-Operative Aeronautical and Space Agency, ceased transmitting upon their arrival.

So, the system was under tight blackout protocol — dark space. In old air forces parlance, an Area 51, a highly restricted system kept in the shadows and out of the normal trade and military transport routes. Unusual, but there were others like it. Alder was curious but refrained from requesting more information. Discretion was key to dealing with the Co-Op space authorities. His judgment and administrative prudence had steered him to his first commission at the young age of 27. He liked to think he’d proven his worthiness on more than a few occasions, but best not to test his value.

The ship made orbit over the fourth planet, a yellow marble with blue whorls and an icing of swirling white clouds, in just over 15 hours. The landing shuttle, full to capacity with cargo and passengers, cleared the hangar doors two hours later. Storms on the planet’s surface would force a quick turnaround. Alder took a sleep cycle and found upon awakening that Central Command had transmitted to his attention one data packet with more particulars about their mission.

The planet was called Timmistria by its natives. Its atmospheric, gravitational, and spectral indices all registered better than 9.0 on the Branson-Cantori scale, meaning no special provisions were required, and a hazard index of 7.5, in the Strong Risk category. The colony of Earth humans was established six years earlier and numbered about 200. The colonial government was robust and functional. The planet held two intelligent native races, and relations with them were described as nonhostile with qualifications.

He was finally given information about his passenger. The Timmon ambassador was described as humanoid, 50% larger than human average, and compatible with Earth atmosphere and gravity. Though the Timmon were less technologically advanced than most new Co-Op inductees, DNA analyses had predicted that they and another related indigenous species, the Delerin, would score 10-30 points higher than the human average on the Stanford scale. The new ambassador spoke Galactic Standard fluently, a notable achievement in itself.

The shuttle lifted from the planet earlier than planned to avoid a quickly developing storm system, and Alder was awake when it docked two hours later. Although occupied with navigation, he observed the eight passengers remotely from his private console room as they boarded.

The ambassador came aboard last. He was indeed a large humanoid, with an impressive physique, pronounced but proportional facial features, and intensely yellow skin. In his white tunic, he reminded Alder of a Srin Sarban deity. Of course, the Srin had a deity for each day of their 500-day year, so finding a resemblance to one of them wasn’t difficult.

But still, Alder found himself attracted to the impressive alien sidling uncomfortably through the passenger compartment. There were no restrictions limiting the crew’s interaction with the passengers, and Alder would find considerable downtime on the return voyage. This ambassador looked like an interesting person. As a professional, Alder would try to refrain from seducing him, although this was an area where his self-discipline was decidedly weak.

When the passengers were all seated and oriented, Alder nudged the craft from its orbit and began what he expected would be a multi-jump voyage back to the Halo. He considered allowing his crew a few more hours of recovery time from the exhausting outbound journey before initiating the first jump, but his temporary sponsors at the Co-Op command vetoed that idea, transmitting the flight information to him immediately and making it clear they expected the vessel at the second jump point in 25 hours G-Mean Time.

Outbound under fusion acceleration, the ship passed within 10,000 kilometers of Timmistria’s odd red satellite. The moon’s scarlet surface was a roiling mass of clouds, lit from below by some wicked infrared source, like a stormy red dwarf star. Alder had never seen anything like it. The universe seemed to always serve up surprises and incredibly beautiful natural art.

The first jump was long, taking them to another point well out on the arm of the Milky Way. He tried to find their new position relative to the Zeta System but found there was no reference point for that system remaining in the ship’s AI galactic model. The previous location had been wiped from their data array even as they had jumped out of it. Area 51. Dark space.

As he set up their next jump, Alder reminded himself to not question his superiors about the mission. While he worked, he couldn’t refrain from observing the alien ambassador on one of his displays. The man’s large, amber eyes with their streaks of darkness were particularly alluring.

CHAPTER 03

Lonin stooped and drew his shoulders inward as he passed through the outer door of the shuttle, something he’d learned to do almost instinctively whenever he passed through entryways designed for humans. This was a small door even by their standards, and his shoulders brushed the sides as he squeezed through.

He stood just inside the doorway, really three separate closures with narrow spaces between — a triple air lock, his friends would have called it. He was temporarily blinded as his eyes adjusted from Timmistria’s early afternoon light, and he allowed the red and yellow flashes of the sun’s afterimage to diminish.

The air in the shuttle was cool and parched, with a very faint odor of humans and their body perfumes, as well as mechanical chemicals Lonin could not identify.

Ambassador?

The female voice came from the shadows ahead of him. The temporary blindness passed, and he was able then to see dark shapes, the villagers who, like him, had chosen to leave Timmistria. They were seated in orderly rows on either side of a narrow walkway.

Ambassador, may I show you to your seat?

A young human female who barely came up to Lonin’s elbow appeared next to him in a small alcove filled with machines. She wore neatly cut garments of white and red cloth that seemed to hide her shape, as well as a practiced expression and timeril that hid her thoughts. Unaccustomed to his new title, it took him a moment to realize she’d been speaking to him.

Yes. And then he remembered Cara Harvestmoon’s words about that odd human behavior called manners. Yes, please.

Certainly. Follow me, please.

She moved easily down the aisle, small hands touching the top of each chair, her pale yellow hair a curved bonnet that rode rigid and unmoving on her head. He tried to imitate her quiet grace, which was difficult in the human-sized cabin. His elbows barked every hard edge, and he couldn’t decide whether to walk with arms down stiffly at his sides or held high so they cleared the chair backs.

In the end, he turned sideways and shuffled along with his arms held outward, afraid that he resembled a penderin stepping between stalks of mature banbil grasses in pursuit of sentilil nymphs.

Another female voice said, It’s kind of a tight fit for a Timmon, isn’t it, Mr. Lonin?

His eyes had darkened and adjusted fully, and he could clearly see the face of the woman who had spoken to him. He remembered her name as Janet; she and her husband sat together, side by side in the small chairs. The man had suffered a jenil rash that wasn’t healing, Lonin remembered, and another human disease — allergies, they were called — that left him routinely wet-faced and coughing.

Yes. Again, he remembered Cara’s words. But I look forward to this travel with great ...

His mind struggled for the correct word in his language and yielded only casin, which would translate inappropriately to the Galactic Standard word tragedy. After a lengthy pause of serious discomfort, in which he stood with his mouth open and his arms outward like the branches of a tree, the villager rescued him.

Expectation?

He nodded stupidly. Yes. Expect-ation. Thank you ... Janet. How is George today?

She nodded with a broadening smile, and Cara’s words came to him then, from weeks earlier as she had schooled him for his new role of ambassador, in her office in the settlement village of Fairdawn: When you speak to people, Lonin, use their names. Remember their names. It will totally disarm them.

Janet said, He’s stable right now, Mr. Lonin. Thank you for asking. Hopefully, the doctors at Smyth will be able to clear up his respiratory illness. It’s been touch-and-go for the last two months.

Lonin smiled and nodded, knowing so little about this place they were going, Smyth Alter, or the meaning of the words touch in go, but seeing hope in her eyes and a warm glow about her. He struggled but managed to remember the words he was to use in a situation such as this.

Good luck, Janet. Good luck to you and George.

Her smile filled her small face, age wrinkling the skin at her eyes and mouth. Her timeril seemed to expand in waves of soft pink. George, his mouth and nose hidden behind a white cloth mask, rolled his head to look at Lonin and winked his wet eye.

They all knew but didn’t say that his days on Timmistria would have been few had he not been given this chance to leave. To admit this would have meant nothing to Lonin’s people. Death was natural and eventual. For humans, there was much more emotion in such talk.

George managed to speak through the mask. Thank you.

The small woman Lonin had been following was farther up the narrow passage between the seats. The other five human passengers sat in these chairs, nodding at him as he passed. His thoughts were on the chairs and their size. They were not much larger than the small seat he had occupied in the two-person helicopter he’d ridden in with Paul Saarinen. Remembering his aching back and joints from those flying trips, he was relieved to find the small woman standing before a much larger chair.

He asked, This is for me?

Yes, Ambassador. I believe the village manager requested it. The company sent an inquiry for any special accommodations required.

What is your name?

I’m Janira, Ambassador. I’m the lead flight attendant for the Helena Keil.

I will remember it. My name is Lonin.

The small woman’s face turned a pale shade of kahl (red, the humans would say), and she bowed her head a little. She seemed to be embarrassed. Lonin was puzzled.

If you will be seated, Ambassador Lonin, we will prepare for departure. There’s a bad storm approaching, and we need to lift off. They’re expecting winds of 100 kilometers! I hope your people have shelters.

Lonin nodded and settled himself into the chair, which was wide and deep enough for him but too low and softer than he was accustomed to. He should expect this. Living among the humans, he should expect a lack of comfort at times.

The one called Janira left him, attending to others in the cabin. He was not sure what the word departure meant and truthfully hadn’t understood much of what the woman had said. It would have been helpful to have someone who understood and spoke both the human language Galactic Standard and the Timmistrian language, which had no name. Cara had called such a person an interpreter.

It came to him then in a flash of insight that, of all the people on Timmistria, the most skilled interpreter was likely him. His skill was small, but he was the best in the galaxy. Cara predicted he would need all of his skill often, and he began to understand why.

May I have your attention, please?

Janira stood at the front end of the small room, or kithin, or whatever the inside of this flyer was called. She stood as tall as her small human skeleton allowed, with her shoulders drawn back and her head angled upward. Her expression seemed both practiced and natural, and she held herself with a poise of one much older. Her timeril was very quiet, the color of seawater.

She was for Lonin a lesson. Her manner relaxed him, as she assured all of them she was there to take them through the flight. He would observe her and learn.

The captain has informed me we are ready for departure. Please stay seated, as there may be a slight change in the apparent gravity. Motion sickness is not usually a problem on these shuttle flights, unless someone is prone to it. Anyone here concerned? If so, I can give you a temporary vertigo blocker.

No one raised a hand or otherwise responded. Lonin didn’t know if he was prone to motion sickness, but the idea concerned him. How would he know? What would this affliction feel like?

Janira said, No one? Very good. There will be a short signal, and then we’ll be on our way to dock with the interstellar vessel, CSS Helena Keil. Good flight, everyone!

She came down the aisle again, doing things as she went, checking the belts that held the other passengers in their chairs, showing Lonin how to don his own belt, instructing them all in her quiet, unhurried voice. After that, she went to a small seat set apart from the others, one Lonin would learn later was referred to as the jump seat. It would always be an illogical name, in that he would never see someone jump from such a seat, or into it, or perform any other act involving jumping anywhere within close proximity.

There was a soft musical tone, and then the throbbing vibration that was a part of this place bloomed into a muffled growl.

Lonin had observed several shuttles lifting away from Timmistria, and the sound had been an angry roar that deafened one’s ears, the sound of a pack of cremin baying. He was surprised to find it much quieter on the inside of the ship than on the outside.

On the front wall of the cabin, a large window opened, startling him for an instant. He realized it was a video screen, like those in the Co-Op colony’s communications center, but this one as wide as a Timmon’s outstretched arms and half as tall. Cara had taught him about the human camera, a small machine that gathered light from things and remembered it. In fact, Cara had given him a photograph album as a present just before he’d boarded, containing photos of his friends, both human and Timmistrian. It troubled him unexpectedly that those photos would be all he would see of these important people for a long time. And he had no idea how long that time would be.

A similar camera captured the view for the large screen. It was pointed downward from the spaceship and showed the landing pad and forest falling away. They were rising faster than the helicopter, but all Lonin felt was his body pressed gently into the seat and his shoulders and neck pulled down toward his chest by an unseen weight. If this was motion sickness, it was not a serious thing, milder than the gut-wrenching sensation he’d felt when Paul had driven the helio hard.

The view on the screen was another matter. Timmistria fell away with increasing speed. The view was troubling and brought strange and unpleasant sensations to his head and stomach, but it was also fascinating and he couldn’t look away. Already the treetops blurred into a uniform field of terl and brahl (yellow and brown), much higher than he had flown in the small flyer, a sensation both uncomfortable and exhilarating.

Their flight took them not only upward but also across Timmistria’s face. The open patch where the forest had been cleared away for the landing pad moved off the bottom of the screen, and new lands moved downward from the top. There was little change for a time as they passed over the familiar fields and forests of Lonin’s homeland. Thin shining ribbons of streams and rivers crossed the screen, followed by the wide mirrors of lakes and boggy swamps and patches of forest in the colors of golden melon and ripe citrus. Smaller dark shapes traversed the scene, flying animals soaring beneath the shuttle. Lonin wondered what these creatures thought of the huge screaming beast that streaked across the sky well over their heads.

The domes of hills broke the surface of the forest in places, some rolling and covered in grasses, some craggy and born of gray rock. These were the Nahl Selekil, the Gray Bones as they would be called in the human tongue, sometimes called Timmistria’s Backbone.

He found he could name most of these places, though he had never seen them from above like this, never flown higher than the colony’s small helicopter could go, which had been a height of only several tens of meters. He remembered something Paul had told him before he’d boarded. Cara had instructed this ship’s pilot to fly over a place that he and Paul had once visited together, one of the great valleys of berl shillil — green life, one of the greatest such places, known as Shill Wellin.

Even as Lonin thought about the place, wrinkles of tan rock began to roll down the screen like muddy ocean waves, and a crooked green canyon chased them. Down the screen scrolled the highlands, grassy emerald hills and woods crossed by the threads of several rivers, ribbons of white fire in the midday sun. Into view swept the narrow curving arm of a vast lake, blue as the eyes of a dahl serpent, striped by the parallel scars of huge waves driven on a southerly wind.

The wellin was a cleft in Timmistria’s constant yellow surface, a glowing green split in the skin of a pale amber berry. He loved the Shill Wellin and his travels there, days spent hunting and observing the unbelievable abundance of plants and animals, nights spent hiding from those same creatures or, when it was safe, following the tracks of stars across the sky. On some nights, streams of multicolored light danced and waved over the twinkling stars, and Lonin puzzled over what it all could be, if there was meaning in the short-lived stars that blazed brighter than the others for only days.

Watching the entire valley from high above, scrolling down the screen and disappearing at its edge, filled him with both wonder and sadness to be leaving it behind.

Then a deeper regret gripped him — Shawn Harvestmoon, who had also hiked to Shill Wellin with him and Paul, was not there to see it. The young man would have enjoyed this show even more than Lonin. But this friend was gone, having given his life for his people, and now he resided with the other great ones, the long-dead leaders Teiron and Tironin, the heroes who’d fought and died to secure the long era of peace between the Timmon and Delerin.

There was comfort in knowing that Shawn was now where he belonged in death, sailing in the beautiful songs of the black star at the center of their universe, the end that awaited all those worthy. Lonin set aside his selfish sadness and embraced the sense of joy that he had lived in the time of and known one of the greats, the one who proved his own people worthy, binder of the Timmistrians and the Alien Humans from the Sky, a legacy of fellowship that would last forever.

His friend Paul’s words came to him again, spoken during the difficult time when the arrival of the evil man, Dench, known to the Timmistrians as the Red Beast, had driven a wedge between the Timmistrians and the human colony. You would do well to protect this colony. When the Thinkers come — and they will — humans will be the Timmistrians’ only hope to preserve your freedom.

Paul had talked about the Thinkers, strange aliens with large heads and cold hearts who were the humans’ enemies, locked in a war across the vastness of the galaxy. Despite Paul’s description, Lonin couldn’t see the Thinkers in his mind, and he couldn’t fathom their lack of regard for others. His curiosity piqued, he thought it would be interesting to meet them. But their cold brutality would likely make such a meeting impossible.

His mind also showed its weakness in that he couldn’t picture the largeness of space. He’d seen the Bahl Tegir (Black Sea) and its vast openness of water and sky where those realms touched each other. But the space beyond Timmistria’s surface was something entirely different.

The humans had taught him about the great distances from Timmistria to her largest moons, Thoran, Dartan, and the Red Eye, Dreyaten, and the even greater distance to their sun, Semeril Terl. And yet these were small compared to the distance to the nearest star, which was a sun like Timmistria’s own. Lonin’s mind was too small to hold all of that vastness.

He’d said as much to Paul one day, and his friend’s response had been less than comforting: Don’t worry about it, Lonin. I have seen the distance and traveled it, and I still can’t grasp it. Not many people can.

But presently, Lonin was seeing more of it. The video screen view had moved back farther from Timmistria’s lands, which rolled downward on the screen like a bolt of cloth, wrinkled and wadded up in places, with woven patterns of the colors terl and kahl and even dahl, sometimes sprinkled like stains and sometimes splashed like large twisted patches of color painted over large areas.

He wondered if they were in orbit, that delicate balance between speed and the tether of gravity, or as Paul had described it, the state of falling forever but always missing the ground. He guessed they were not in orbit yet because the land continued to move away from them, the wrinkles in the cloth of the surface growing smaller and closer together, the patches of color smaller as well.

And then something odd happened. They had been flying along well above the clouds, and then it was as if they had been freed. The land curled in upon itself and the edges of the screen tucked inward into a circle, with darkness cupping it. What had been wide and flat became a circle, a ball. Timmistria ceased to be a vast plane and became like a stone marble the human children played with, or like the eye of a shenifil, perfectly round and shot through with marvelous color. This marble shrank for a time and then no more. They were in orbit.

Lonin didn’t know how long they would orbit Timmistria before docking with the larger transport spaceship that would carry him to Smyth Alter, but he used the time to study Timmistria and identify the places he knew. As the shuttle flew from lilin to lilerin (east to west), the lands he had traveled once over the course of weeks passed below in a few instants.

There was the vast forest of Cantanil Certil, where he’d spent weeks as a young ranger, killing fremil deer for his kithin. To the west were the endless marshes of Cantanil Clatinol, a haunting lowland of miasmic vapors and vicious dragonflies the size of pandaril. And then came the oceans, Estin Tegir and Esterin Tegir, separated by a narrow and dangerous land bridge, hunted by large sea predators. These places were immense, taking the Timmon and Delerin weeks to cross on storil-back, and yet they passed beneath Lonin’s eyes in moments.

The places of land were largely open and lighted by the sun, not shrouded by clouds. The seas were different, vast pools of yellow or pale blue water, painted over their surfaces with the white whorls of storms. The Southern Ocean was known for its savage weather, and the sea peoples who lived there ventured not far out into its waters. The land bridge forming its northern rim was frequently raked by high winds and deadly surf. Lonin had endured one tropical storm while traveling there, feeling the power of Timmistria’s nature more clearly than at most times in his life. She chose those times to give his people just a glimpse of her ponderous strength.

But from this vantage point, he could embrace the beauty that her fury wrought. In these observations was understanding. The Timmistrians knew art and music, but Lonin now understood more than ever that the act of creation, whether in Timmistria’s violent weather, in the complex web-weaving of a predatory insect, or even in the humble craftwork of his people, was always at the cost of hardship for others. The storms that sculpted the rocky shores brought harm to the fish and flying things and plants that lived along the beach. To cut flowers for adornment was to remove them from the source of their life’s blood. To weave a grass hat cost the plant’s blades their life.

No matter how benign an action, no matter what beauty it produced or what peace and bliss it inspired in some, others suffered. There was truly no creation without suffering. Perhaps the only perfect creations were those entirely in the mind. And even these were often born of pain.

Paul had spoken at times of the celestial events that had created Timmistria’s physical form and that of her sisters, the creations of stars and planets, the dreaded beauty of Dreyaten, the brilliant dazzling light from a black star or an exploding star, a nova. These things were beautiful in their way, and they left behind vast clouds of vapor and dust that could be seen from great distances and appreciated for their exotic beauty.

But they killed, left destruction in their wake.

And then suddenly the scene on the ship’s display changed and a shadow moved across Timmistria’s face, like an eyelid closing. Lonin was startled at first but then realized he should have expected this. They were crossing to Timmistria’s night side, where Semeril Terl didn’t touch. But the lands there weren’t completely dark. Thoran and Dreyaten were alive in the night sky, behind and above the shuttle, and cast the land in a pink glow. A great land-bound sea, one Lonin had never seen and couldn’t name, glittered with white and red sparkles. To the north was a land of painted shadows, perhaps a mountain range. Some were painted pink on their tops, snow, he guessed, a thing he’d seen only when hunting and trapping furs in the far north. Other peaks glowed more insistently with red fire and smudges of gray — fellinil, or volcanoes in the human language, more of Timmistria’s destructive and creative beauty.

The view on the main screen changed again, this time moving to a camera pointing in a different direction — upward at the night sky, which was deep ichor in color and filled with burning sparks of white light. Filling the middle of the screen was a dull gray levellin — a javelin head, moving at a terril’s pace against the intense alien backdrop, as if broken from its shaft and thrown into a bowl of berry preserves. The levellin was the spaceship they sought, the interstellar that would take him to the place of council at Smyth Alter.

Like the night sky that framed the levellin, his destination was a thing that his mind wouldn’t wrap around. A place of billions of beings — tayin of tayin of tayin, in his language. He tried to imagine so many souls in one place and failed.

The flight person Janira announced they would be docking with the larger craft. Lonin was fascinated watching the larger ship expand to fill the screen. As the view came closer, the surface began to show more and more details. It wasn’t like a true spear point; bulges and cavities circled it in several equally spaced rings. The skin was not smooth like a ferrenil’s but rather marked from top to tail by narrow channels or veins. Further breaking the surface were rounded knobs, like the eyestalks of the malaranil, a large amphibian of the shallow bogs, and pointed spikes, like the listening organs of Timmistrian insects.

So much of human technology resembled the way of Timmistria’s living things, the wings of pandaril, the eyes of the stantil spider, the digging tools of the burrowing subantil. Humans were adept at taking the designs Timmistria or her sisters laid before them and turning them for their own uses. His own peoples, the Timmon and Delerin, had learned these lessons much less, despite Timmistria putting all of this knowledge in front of them.

In their months together, Lonin had questioned Paul endlessly about science and technology, and why one race of peoples became advanced like the humans had, and another like the Timmon did not. The reasons were never satisfying. The Timmon, like many others, had not learned to fly, had not left the protection of their own world.

But they needed to learn now and quickly, or risk being consumed in this war between the humans and the Thinkers. If the Timmistrians didn’t learn to fly and join the community of the Co-Op, they wouldn’t survive as free peoples.

This. This was the work before him. This was the reason he was being sent away into the dark distances of space.

This work. Teaching his people to fly.

CHAPTER 04

The shuttle docked with the CSS Helena Keil, the levellin, and the passengers were asked to transfer over and move to larger private rooms on the ship.

This move affected Lonin in a way he didn’t expect. To step from the shuttle onto the larger star ship, he was leaving behind the last carriage that had stood on Timmon soil. He had toured a shuttle in the past as it rested on his world, but now he had entered an entirely new environment, one that held no connection at all to his home except for the tenuous pull of gravity that held it in orbit, a force that this carriage would easily defeat.

He was not returning home. Not for many days. His return time was unknown. There was a chance he would never return.

His cabin was not as large as his kithin in the Timmon village of Dlith Teironin, but it was much larger than he needed to feel comfortable, and he was shocked to learn that it was larger than those given to the other passengers.

He was being treated as a deminin, a leader, and this was upsetting. He insisted he be allowed to change rooms with the older human couple, but the woman Janet politely refused. She instructed him that as ambassador, he should expect special treatment, and that to refuse it would be to insult his hosts. Defeated, he kept the room.

Once aboard, the passengers were given a tour of the Helena Keil and then were led to a room with a large table. There they were treated to a safety orientation, led by their flight person from the shuttle, Janira.

After introductions, she began. If the ship suffers a loss of pressurization, a safety officer will escort all of you to a secure area protected by redundant bulkheads, where you will be safe until the emergency is resolved.

Janira spoke as if she were very familiar with the words, as if reciting a Timmon child’s verse, like one used to teach the names of elders in the kithin.

Lonin raised his hand and asked, What is ... ‘bulkhead’?

She seemed surprised by his question.

"Ambassador, it is ... the partition, the wall, between two sections of the ship. If we have a leak, it will isolate the leaking section