“Thanks, of course...” I hurriedly averted my gaze because the Morphian had started experimenting with the length and openness of the little robe, going so far as to try a complete lack of clothing, all the while attentively studying my reaction. “But still I think it’d be better to change to a more neutral appearance! Anyhow, you’re not wrong. I really have been thinking about Minn-O a lot, but it’s because my wife is currently giving a speech before the council of mages, and there’s a lot riding on it.”
“If you say so, captain,” came the disheveled Miyelonian Engineer Orun Va-Mart, now sitting in front of me wearing a grease-stained work smock and holding a set of socket wrenches in his paws. “So then, what’s the matter with Ayni? What have I done to draw her ire?”
I told her everything that happened on the Medu-Ro IV pirate station without hiding a thing, including when all the suspects were interrogated by Truth Seeker. I told her the observant and clever Translator’s suspicions about Anna. Then as requested, I recounted all the details of my relationship with Fox and our delivering the heavy and secret container to the virtual Earth. Vaa was listening extremely closely, just asking clarifying questions from time to time. When I finally finished, the Morphian said pensively:
“Now I understand why Fox chose you. You don’t feel negatively about my race, which is quite hard to find. But I still don’t think I should be apologizing to your bushy-tailed friend, because I had nothing to do with her woes.”
She changed form. Not right away, but in a few iterations, correcting the result depending on my hints and emotions. But in the end, Vaa took on the form of the anthropomorphic fox by the name of Fox.
“A strange creature. Half man, half beast,” the Morphian commented on its own appearance with surprise. “And I must admit that I haven’t yet figured out which of my acquaintances this Fox you speak of could be. Sixty tongs ago, when I entered anabiosis, mortally exhausted after being doggedly pursued by the Meleyephatian Horde’s detectives and hired assassins, there were around three hundred Morphians left in the Universe. I knew them all by name because they were all my wards. Many were also my daughters or even copies of me. But none of them could even come close to the lethal combat abilities you described. Although, so much time has passed...”
“Hold on a minute, Vaa,” I decided to clear up something I didn’t understand, “does that mean all Morphians are female?”
“No, human. Morphians don’t even have the concept of gender. To give the simplest example of how we reproduce, every individual is able to split in two in a critical situation,” a blurry motion and there were two Foxes sitting in the armchair, bearing their teeth in satisfaction. They were the spitting image of one another. “While one copy distracts enemies, usually at the cost of their own life, the second can find a place to hide. But you must understand that these are not two separate individuals, rather one with a unified consciousness, regardless of how many bodies it inhabits. Sometimes that can be useful and even necessary to survive, but in times of peace it becomes a burden.”
The fanged little Foxes recombined, and Vaa gave a satisfied smile, watching my surprised reaction.
“But under a favorable circumstances, a Morphian can also bear offspring. One time in their whole life, they give birth to around two thousand spawn. And so Leng Gnat, when you said a group of extortionists captured a starship with our young on board, it really scared me! The thing is, we once created such a ship. Our race’s greatest and in fact only hope is that our spawn on that evacuation vessel were in fact able to survive. We sent it off from a hidden sanctuary after it was discovered by our enemies, and put it on course to a place the Meleyephatians and Trillians, who don’t much care for our race, will never find it. So the idea it might have been captured terrified me.”
The Morphian sharply fell silent, thinking about something or remembering the past. So I finished her thought:
“So that means, they found...”
“No, human!” the “Miyelonian Engineer” even jumped off his seat when he heard that and started nervously pacing the cabin. “If the Meleyephatians or Trillians discovered the Morphian ship, they would destroy it immediately without the slightest hesitation! No, here we have something totally different... I don’t know for sure... I was gone too long, so I don’t know who is behind all this or how the extortionists are communicating their orders to my Morphian brethren. But the old channels of communication are still around, so I’ll try to find my surviving friends and get all the information from them.”
Danger Sense skill increased to level sixty-eight!
The Morphian fell silent. At a certain point, I felt a foreboding prick in my heart. By all appearances, the dangerous Vaa thought she said too much and was seriously considering sending me to respawn to get a potential witness out of her hair. I got on guard, preparing to grab my Annihilator and stun the Morphian psionically, but Vaa decided against her plans and even started to feel ashamed.
“Sorry, Leng Gnat. At a certain point, I started to think you might be behind the whole blackmail racket. It just looked too suspicious, you always being nearby ‘by chance’ and all. But no, the timelines don’t add up...”
“Vaa, allow me another question,” I decided to change the dangerous topic. “I’ve heard a lot about the Meleyephatians exterminating the Morphians. In fact, I have heard two diametrically opposed stories of those events. Could you maybe tell me what really happened? You would have been around for those times, after all, as far as I understand.”
“Yes, I was around. And really, why not tell you?” the Morphian agreed with ease, seemingly even delighted to surface from her onerous thoughts. “I wasn’t the one who suggested replacing the leadership of the Meleyephatian horde with members of our race, but the plan to take control of one of the most fearsome governments in the Universe looked so rewarding and vastly promising, that all Morphians agreed to it unanimously. Yes we understood it was risky, but it was our historic chance, our destiny. And not just that. Even knowing that the operation was a failure and ended in calamity, if I could go back in time, I would make the same choice again. I would just make sure to give a few well-timed pieces of advice and orders to my friends to help avoid the blunders that became our fatal ruin.”
What? I couldn’t believe my ears! The Morphian race had practically been annihilated. Its last remaining members were hiding from retribution in the game that bends reality, basically as NPC’s. But the lesson hadn’t stuck. In fact, Vaa the Morphian was itching for the chance to do it all again. She just would have tweaked a couple of details of a plan that led to the near extinction of her race! That was simply unthinkable to me! That was exactly the same as Adolf Hitler in 1939 finding out about the fall of the Third Reich six years later, then declaring to the citizens of Germany: “Yes, it will be a disaster, a defeat that will claim millions of lives. But I still want to do a bit of fighting! I’m just gonna change one thing. In 1942 I think I’ll try moving a couple divisions from the Rzhev region to Stalingrad. Then it’ll all be a real ass-whooping!”
“Oh, I can sense your indignation, human,” Vaa laughed, easily reading my emotions. “For you, a member of a different race, it can’t be understood. But you need to understand our society, our history, our psychology. After all, why should a Morphian kill other creatures and take their place? It isn’t only for nutrition, after all. That is too primitive and does not require filigreed mastery in the art of imitation. No, our purpose is to replace powerful enemies with members of our kind and, after determining how their group or even race behaves, to safeguard all Morphians from attack. The whole past of the Morphian race, all our ancient tablets and precepts were leading up to that very ATTEMPT. We could have taken all the races enslaved by the Meleyephatian Horde and instantly become potentates of the Universe. To me, that lofty goal was worth the risk!”
I shook my head, not agreeing with the debatable conclusion. But the Morphian wasn’t interested in what I thought. What’s done is done, and the past can�
�t be changed now. So Vaa continued:
“Quietly and inconspicuously, we eliminated and replaced more than forty thousand rulers, fleet commanders and military leaders of the Meleyephatian Horde with our own. And we devoured their corpses as to leave no trace. I myself replaced the ruler of the Rowonti-Tor system, Queen Tishhh-Ukhshhh.”
A moment later, the Miyelonian Engineer was gone and a huge eight-legged giant spider was standing in my berth. Atop her natural chitin armor, she was wearing Relict Energy Armor – almost the same as mine but refitted for a Meleyephatian instead of a human.
“But then our grand plan fell through... Minor slip-ups and irregularities that may have gone unnoticed on their own started piling up and that allowed the Meleyephatians to uncover the conspiracy. The Morphians tried to resist for some time by stopping the spread of the wave of information, taking news channels under control and instituting a harsh regime of censorship. But there weren’t enough of us to stop the leak and replace everyone who discovered the truth. Just think, if we had replaced just thirty or forty more individuals, our plan would have come off and the Universe would belong to the Morphians! But the information did end up leaking, and our attempt ended in catastrophe. The Meleyephatians struck back fast and hit hard.”
Vaa the giant spider jumped forward fast as lightning, and her ghastly mandibles clamped shut around my neck. At the same time, her many arms wrapped around me, rendering me motionless. It all happened so fast I didn’t even feel fear, much less take any defensive actions. My Danger Sense was dead quiet as well, so there was no real reason to be afraid. Fortunately, it was not a full-blown attack – the Morphian was just demonstrating another of its body’s abilities, and illustrating what it looked like when a Meleyephatian “struck fast and hit hard.”
The giant spider unclenched her mandibles and retreated. I felt my throat unconfidently with my hand but no, it was all fine. I didn’t find any wounds. Hrm... I was never afraid of spiders before. Even the biggest spiders. But now I couldn’t even look at the dangerous creature without shivering. Especially given that Queen Tishhh-Ukhshhh looked truly ghastly: her sharp fangs, glimmering with toxic slime, her dozen unblinking eyes, the deadly spines on her four agile and strong front legs. The giant spider was a dangerous predator all on her own. But if you add an outstanding intellect and impressive psionic abilities, which the Meleyephatians were famed for, she was a true death machine.
However, the Meleyephatian ruler’s appearance was not what I wanted to discuss with the Morphian. Instead I asked:
“Vaa, I see that Tishhh-Ukhshhh wore Relict armor like me. Where did that come from?”
To my enormous surprise and pity, the Morphian had absolutely no interest in the topic of ancient artifacts:
“I can’t say for sure. Most likely from one of the Relict outposts. Around that time, the Meleyephatians found a few objects of the ancient races drifting through space. It said so on the news. But I never paid much attention to the topic. I didn’t understand all the fuss, and I still don’t. So some vanished races left a bunch of old junk behind – what’s the big deal? Us Morphians see no use in it. Morphians can wear clothing and armor, but that old suit, as far as I remember, required a few skills I lacked, so I did my best to get rid of it quickly as well as a few other compromising articles. By the way...”
Wow! The giant spider’s eyes were mobile! Just like a snail’s or crab’s, her eyes extended out of her head on thin little stalks and all turned to me at the same time, while the giant spider’s face was still turned the other direction! I didn’t know Meleyephatians could do that.
“I thought up a way to thank you for your help, Leng Gnat! First of all, I will not kill you. You have probably already realized that. Technically, Morphian rules state that anyone who has witnessed our true nature must be dispatched at once. And, let me be frank, at the outset I was planning to take down your whole crew as soon as the starship entered dock at the space station. Your respawn time would have been long enough for me to get through control and hidden safely in the endless corridors of the massive station. But I was stopped by the fact that Fox let you live, deviating from accepted practice. So I thought a bit and decided I would do the same.”
Holy crap! Pretty weird to suddenly find out, someone wanted to kill you and most likely also eat you instead of expressing their gratitude. After all, the Morphian had spent this whole flight smiling sweetly at me and all the other members of Team Gnat, all while thinking over the most effective way of killing my whole crew. Vaa then, having returned to the form of Anna from First Medical, continued:
“Second, Leng Gnat, given you’re interested in the artifacts of the vanished races, I know of a stash spot you might be interested in. Here are the coordinates. I hid the Queen of Rowonti-Tor’s armor suit there along with a few other ancient items! The hiding spot is in Meleyephatian space. But you are a neutral Free Captain, so they shouldn’t detain you.”
Chapter Seven. Backed into a Corner
WE WERE ASSIGNED to dock 11 this time, but the dispatchers again gave us a hangar practically at the very center of the huge discoid Kast-Utsh III station. And as far as I could tell from the docking license, its dimensions were just as modest as the last time. I suspect that after the Tolili-Ukh X frigate miraculously made it into the tiny hangar before, the dispatchers added a note to their database reading, “holy crap, it actually fit!!!” And now, from here on out, my starship would probably always be given spots just like this one.
Pilot San-Doon looked so concentrated and serious it gave me goosebumps. With Gerd Any translating commands from the dispatchers, he professionally directed the maneuver thrusters to turn the Tolili-Ukh X frigate around, reduce speed and, strictly following our provided vector, bring the ship to the dock’s capture area. A slight shiver followed, letting us know our ship was firmly held by the gravity crane and we could turn off our engines. Only after that did the Pilot wipe the tension from his face and allow himself to smile:
“Leng Gnat La-Fin, I did it! I have to admit, I was not expecting I could do that!!!”
I gave the pilot an encouraging shoulder pat. Good job! Perhaps it wasn’t quite as confident or quick as main pilot Dmitry Zheltov would have done, but what mattered was that he did what needed to be done. Experience and mastery would come with time.
And again the gravity crane dragged our starship down a two-and-a-half-mile-long tunnel at an impossibly slow speed. And although this was San-Doon’s first time on a space station and he was positively gaping in surprise, staring wide-eyed and commenting in delight on the endless rows of exotic starships in the hangars, I was already used to it. Furthermore, I had something more important to attend to. The Navigator and I were trying to figure out the hiding spot coordinates Vaa told me, which I had faithfully recorded on a piece of plastic with a felt-tipped pen.
“No, no. Other side,” I corrected Ayukh, who started entering data into the navigation system from the rectangles scratched into the back side of the plastic. “Turn it over. I wrote on the other side with blue pen. But wait... What is that? Is that actually legible Miyelonian?”
The experienced Navigator gave a rumble of satisfaction and said it was the coordinates of an object moving along a fixed trajectory. Well, well! Now that’s a surprise! When Vaa the Morphian started giving me the number, I simply couldn’t find anything appropriate at hand and took down the info on a piece of plastic I pulled from my inventory, just on the back side. I should have shown this shard of plastic to the Navigator right after finding it in the pirate captain’s berth. We could have solved this now ancient mystery and figured out what secrets the head of the Pride of the Bushy Shadow was hiding.
“Here’s what’s written in marker” said the Navigator, zooming in on his work monitor. And right before our eyes unfolded a map of a lifeless planetoid pocked with innumerable craters. “Meleyephatian space. Approximately forty days’ flight for our frigate. The Rowonti-Tor system, sixth satellite of the second planet. Somewhere around
here,” a set of crosshairs pointed to one of the small craters.
Ayukh stroked his nose with his paw in thought, checking the numbers on the plastic again and staring at the screen, after which he added:
“The last number is negative, which must mean the point is located beneath the surface. Something is buried there and not too deep!”
That sounds exactly right! The stash of ancient Relict artifacts was buried not far beneath the surface of an uninhabitable planetoid. Although... it was pretty far from us. Forty days in flight. No matter how badly I wanted to reach the ancient treasure quickly, we were too pressed for time to waste forty days each way. No, that was a luxury we couldn’t afford.
“Okay, and the second set of coordinates? The ones scratched into the plastic?”
This time the Navigator spent a longer time calculating, but eventually finished up and said:
“The uninhabitable C9004/AW system, which has a small black hole next to a double star. It is considered unstable, but the first of the stars won’t be swallowed up for at least four hundred million tongs. There are no planets in the system, just an ice comet, which has a very elongated elliptical orbit centered around the system’s center of mass. By all appearances, the coordinates do not point to the comet’s core, but one of the small objects in its tail. It’s hard to say what it is exactly. The scratches here only give orbit period and a precise time.”
“Is it far from us?” I asked without particular enthusiasm after his last answer. But this time, Ayukh’s replay perked me right up:
“To cop a phrase, it’s stone’s throw. It’s the next system over from Kasti-Utsh. Just one ummi’s flight. A bit less even.”
Ugh, why didn’t I show this piece of plastic to the Navigator before?! We could have been looking for this treasure instead of sitting around out practically penniless on a Miyelonian station for the next few standard days, awaiting our crew. But clearly the black hole system would be our next destination right after we got the crew back together and intercepted the Dark Faction freighter near the station.
A Jump into the Unknown (Reality Benders Book #5) LitRPG Series Page 9
