by Ivan Ertlov
A funnel, a vortex through space and time, shaped by energy and physics beyond his imagination and modest knowledge.
He stares into the abyss.
The abyss stares back, with eyes of uncounted star nebulae, flashing and sparkling in the glorious, all-destroying light of supernovas.
Thousands of stars burn up in infinity.
Billions more who take no notice of it.
Time flows back.
The emergence of the cosmos, the expansion of existence itself, out of nowhere rise being.
Out of nowhere?
No, there are figures, entities, titanic shadows, wallowing in diffuse darkness on the horizon, peering covetously at the billions of worlds that will evolve in as many years, begin to bear self-propagating existence on their surfaces.
Life.
It becomes green forests, purple seas of algae, endless meadows, and the first creatures hopping across them. Fur-armoured animals swing between treetops, quadrupeds gallop across steppes, enormous tentacles swim through methane oceans.
The mind awakens.
Primitive intelligence becomes consciousness, begins to occupy ever more complex, more highly developed bodies.
Families become clans, clans become peoples, peoples become civilisations.
Countless of them perish, suffocate in the dust of their own industries, burn in the fire of their own apocalypse, are wiped out by comets as much as by the self-created sounds of madness, sometimes called Kriorrsh, then Hubutut, once also called Dubstep.
But not all of them disappear.
Empires soar to the stars, whole civilisations begin to wander between worlds and systems.
Spirit and understanding, consciousness and knowledge are spreading, colonising the cosmos.
Fertile are the peoples, and besides greed and the urge to explore, it is often fertility that drives them forward.
Openness and curiosity, lust and desire for the alien flesh beyond one's own species, for lasciviously pulsating orifices and swaying, limber tentacles. Arousal and surrender, mounds and hollows on exotic bodies, long stiff ears to hold onto in the heat of the night. Bouncing udders and taut branches, dexterous fingers and even more dexterous tongues and feelers. Billions of representatives of thousands of creatures in pursuit of the cosmic orgasm, the dissolution of consciousness in an ocean of sensual pleasures.
Frank groans as they break through the barrier, his heart racing as they re-enter normal space.
It is Dilara's voice that finally brings his consciousness back.
"Holy shit, what a ride! What a hot ride!"
He swallows and nods, casting a furtive glance at the astrotelepath, hoping she doesn't notice how his eyes try to fix all four of her nipples at once, protruding rock-hard through her pilot suit. Just as he hopes her gaze passes his crotch. Maybe not rock hard, but at least hardwood. They have arrived, and Pseudohursh lies before them, only a few light minutes away. Deceptive paradise or hell, which will it be for them?
*
"Safe flight, mates, and welcome to Pseudohursh! What brings you to us?"
Majestically, Yrsha floated over red earth and sprawling steppes, vast expanses of bush and finally along the coast when the radio message reached her. An astonishingly friendly welcome for the control centre of a spaceport.
Dilara shrugged and confirmed the connection on the haptic hologram interface.
"Trade and holidays. We'd also like to swim a few laps on your beautiful beaches, but I hear there are deadly jellyfish in the water."
The controller chuckled.
"Add to those ravenous reptiles, predatory fish as big as your ship, killer algae, and our little colourful telepathically calling slugs that lure you to the bottom of the sea. Where they then lay their eggs in your nutritious corpses. Yes, everything is a little different here. If you want to relax, I recommend beer and rum. We have plenty of that. Permission to land granted. Have fun."
And that was it — no questions about the cargo or the business partners, not even a request for the registration number. Disappointing because the Protectorate's secret service had gone to great lengths to turn Yrsha into a smuggler ship of dubious reputation, wanted on three Protectorate worlds and under surveillance on five others.
Frank flew a wide arc over what was indeed a paradise-like beach thanks to glorious bright yellow sand and palm-like plants (no doubt poisonous and deadly), veering past the ship's harbour towards the assigned landing site. However, the city below him did not necessarily look like one, but rather like a collection of thousands of low buildings, found by chance in a foray into the bush formed by tall, broad-crowned trees and dense undergrowth — a city of a hundred villages, and as such not unappealing. Dilara even seemed charmed.
"Look at those trees! That would be paradise for any sailor!"
Bettsy clicked enthusiastically, though for completely different reasons.
"And endless steppes right on the doorstep! That red sand - I think I'll take a box or two there as a souvenir."
Troshk shouldered his assault rifle as he looked out the window, shaking his head.
"I don't know why you are all that excited; this is actual hell. More than thirty degrees, and that in the cool area here. Who would voluntarily settle here?"
*
Apparently a wide assortment of crooks and dropouts, fugitives and adventurers of all space-faring races. They had barely left Yrsha's ramp behind when a Toronk walked past them, his roots wrapped in damp rags that offered him some protection from the blazing hot runway.
A human driver with almost jet-black skin and a rolled-up, smouldering tobacco leaf between his lips piloted a shunting vehicle with half an atmospheric glider lying on its decrepit cargo bed. With clearly visible scorches from high-energy laser guns and the telltale marks of plasma burns on the cockpit.
Yes, life on Pseudohursh was no Gulptar children's pasture, but strangely enough, all the characters who worked and loitered here had a certain light-hearted ease about them - alongside very eccentric looks.
A Borsht, armed with a clipboard and a pen on which he scribbled a note after a quick glance at Yrsha, was shaved. Head, torso and from the knee down, nothing but well-tanned skin and tattoos could be seen, which elicited a snide murmur from Troshk. Yet this was still demure compared to the Gulptar bull, who was taking his afternoon nap in the shade of a tin canopy above the fuel depot - completely free of textiles and shamelessly exposing his mighty junk.
Dilara's huge googly eyes got even bigger, and a telltale panting mingled in her voice.
"Dude! I should wake him up and ask him what he's up to tonight."
Frank paused briefly, risked a glance himself and then shook his head.
"Why is that? We have enough to do and ..."
"Methane fart on it! Look at that! That's almost half a metre, and it's still lim-..."
"Pull yourself together! We have to find Gurabsh! We don't have time for any of your antics."
Are you jealous? Maybe with a hint of envy?
Hastily, Frank shook off the thought again, almost successfully convincing himself that he was really only concerned with the mission and its priorities.
Almost.
"What a heat! The stone floor is literally glowing! By the cursed moons, I'm vaporising!"
Shaved borsht here, giant junk there, yet it was that voice from behind that made them all whirl around.
Clamouring and swearing, Florbsh crawled towards them, leaving a steaming trail of slime. Bettsy clicked in amazement - and indignation.
"We had agreed that you would stay at headquarters and get our accounting up to scratch! So how did you get on board in the first place?"
The Durash crawled a little further until he finally reached Troshk's shadow before dignifying the Metaltaster with a reply.
"The same way I got into your headquarters - I flowed in, through the outlet of the control jets. Surely it should be obvious to you that I really can get in and out of anywhere."
He paused for a moment.
"Okay, maybe not from a jar or a hermetic storage box, but you know what I mean. And you didn't seriously think I was going to pass up an adventure in the Rim Worlds, did you?"
Bettsy looked first at Troshk, then at Dila, finally at Frank, who first shrugged awkwardly with one shoulder. No, actually, one couldn't blame the slimeball for wanting to see worlds that only a few Protectorate citizens would enter in their lifetime.
"Alright, stay behind us, let me do the talking - or Bettsy or Troshk for all I care, and if push comes to shove, Dila. Just don't fuck up, you understand?"
Florbsh nodded enthusiastically with his pseudopods.
"All right. Did you actually see that bull over there? My goodness, his thing measures at least ..."
"Yes, I did. So shut up, Florbsh."
That had crossed Frank's lips more energetically than he had actually intended, but the effect was not missed. Apart from one or two leering, longing glances back over her shoulder from Dila, they reached the main road at the spaceport exit without further distractions.
But there was much more to this one!
The reservation of the exiled Hursh was indeed a city, at least if one interpreted this term very generously, but it lacked any sense of confinement, of dense coexistence, of hectic crowding. No, everything was open and spacious, the buildings seldom more than three or four storeys high, and everywhere in between grew the trees, which were exotic on the one hand and strangely familiar on the other.
Representatives of all the Protectorate peoples - okay, apart from Grirrsh - mingled with the haggard Hursh, once pale, now painted crimson by the sun, who went about their day's work with astonishing serenity. Street vendors advertised their wares, food and drink, light shirts and ridiculous-looking hats with little talismans hanging from their brims on strings. If you believed the market talk and local superstition, a magical defence against pesky insects.
Frank did not even know one or the other species from the Manualo Obskurum of the Mining Consortium, and often when two figures were connected by a leash, he was not sure who was the pet and who was the owner.
But maybe it was just a very openly displayed sexual extravagance? Hey, no kink-shaming, please!
Fine road dust mixed with even finer yellow sand, and some coarser red soil, carried here by the wind for hundreds of kilometres, formed a layer on roads and buildings, monuments and parked vehicles. The colours seemed to shift, bathing the whole scene in a red-yellow-orange light regardless of its actual appearance.
Somehow almost post-apocalyptic, but at the same time cosy - and this seemed to be contagious.
They realised that everything here was a little slower, more relaxed. The overdressed, over-excited wellness gurus in the holonet, who hawked watered-down and dumbed-down general knowledge for horrendous sums of money, would probably have enthusiastically called it "deceleration".
And for the first time in their convoluted career, they would have been right.
Any hustle and bustle seemed completely alien to the inhabitants, and on all street corners and in those parks that they could see from here, simple barbecues stood on which meat and vegetables of questionable origin sizzled away, fired by visibly relaxed figures with synth-wrapped beer bottles.
A gaunt black giant of unknown species, seated on the ground with his three legs cross-legged into a tangled knot, played exotic melodies on a guitar-like instrument, while his voice painted vivid, colourful images into the listeners' consciousness despite the foreign language.
A boisterous, latently drunken mood hung over the whole city. Not as if a special holiday or a parade was coming up - no, it seemed as if this was simply the normal state of affairs. A middle-aged person in plain street clothes staggered down the pavement arm in branch with a Toronk, two Borsht sat with a bottle of frugal wine in the shade of one of the giant trees, and a heartily drunken Tarjah ...
... threw himself from one of the higher buildings to their left. Frank held his breath, barely suppressing a sharp cry of terror. But it was no tragic accident, no suicide attempt. Halfway down, the tree glider flipped up his ears and hovered in an elegant loop over the street, eliciting a longing sigh and an envious look from Dila.
At least until her purebred congener crashed headfirst into the wooden superstructure of a very inviting-looking building and slowly slid down the façade.
Not that he was particularly bothered by this. Giggling, he got back on his feet, staggered briefly to the left, then to the right - and finally straight through the front door of the hotel.
Hotel?
Indeed, that was exactly what was written above the heavy wing door in faded colours - simple letters of Talash that were easy for any being to learn. Florbsh gurgled thirstily.
"I think we should have a look in there. If not for information, at least to rehydrate ourselves - and book rooms. Who knows how long we'll have to stay on this ember of a planet."
And he was absolutely right about that.
*
What exactly did Frank expect?
A dubious pub, boasting the kind of atmosphere one usually only found in the Last Wormhole or similar venues in the galaxy. But here, it had to be even more lawless, with that casual criminality and brief outbursts of violence that one encountered only where the nearest police force was light-years away.
But that was precisely what was missing.
Pleasantly upbeat music emanated from well-hidden sound foils; the air was discreetly smoky but not stuffy, smelling of beer and wine, hot, fatty food, sweaty armpits, tentacle glands, and segment sheaths of dozens of visitors who were not too particular about personal hygiene. Two Hursh were playing a game of holohockey as slowly as they were pedantically on one of the decrepit flickering tables to their left; a couple of unknown reptiloid species were sharing some kind of flatbread on a sit-down bar overlooking the street.
Dark wood and simple, scratched polymer surfaces dominated the furnishings, which appeared cheap but by no means tasteless. The bar was dominated by a mighty tap, a good six metres wide, intricately iced and glistening on the lines. Whether brewed, pressed or fermented - whatever was served here had to be poured just above freezing.
A good sign.
Sure, the riffraff of dozens of spacefaring races gathered on the tables positioned somewhat in the semi-darkness and seclusion, shady characters exchanging meaningful glances among themselves after observing the newcomers more closely. No doubt every single one of them would slit their throats for half a mineral unit, but for the moment, they seemed peaceful.
Perhaps because they had not yet sensed any money.
Frank recalled his formal rank, led by example and mentally pulled out his wallet until he stood at the bar and wondered if the bartender was on break.
No, he wasn't.
With a loud splash, a tower rose from the overweight, wide vat that stood on the floor behind the counter, filled with water and ice cubes of questionable colour.
A mountain of flesh, sheathed in soft skin that shone a deep, moist purple, a figure with dozens of tentacles, two of which rested on the counter and pulled the rest of the body upwards. Dark, infinitely deep eyes gaped at Frank, and slowly the beak opened, revealing a tongue with a thousand tiny teeth.
"Good booze, friends, and welcome to Pseudohursh! What can I get you? I've just tapped a fresh cask of Toohee, which I can recommend to any thirsty traveller. If he can pay. You can pay, can't you?"
Frank had not missed the lurking undertone in the last words, and he nodded hastily while placing a small bar of coltan on the counter.
"Of course! We'll take three big glasses of this Toohee, plus a jug of wine and a shot of the strongest stuff you have. Make that one a double."
The octopus-parrot creature chortled in amusement until its gaze met that of Dila - and the plump body shook amazingly quickly, no, even vibrated.
"All right, three toohee, a bottle of house wine and the engine cleaner special. Anything else?"
/> Frank hesitated briefly. On the one hand, he had to get used to the stretched Talash that the beak gave off mixed with cawing sounds. On the other hand, because he had to resist the temptation to move in with Dila, which she would surely take the wrong way. Or, even worse, exactly the right way.
"Oh yeah, we need three - no, four rooms."
"Rooms?"
The uncomprehending expression in the eyes of the tentacle-armed bartender irritated him.
"Yes, rooms. Or suites or flats for all I care. Whatever you have available. This is a hotel, isn't it?"
The movements of the octopus on duty slowed, and the suspicion returned to his voice.
"Are you here on behalf of the peacekeeper? Is this some kind of test to see if I'm complying with the conditions?"
More confusion came down on Frank, and Troshk took a step forward, alone to ensure calm with his appearance.
"We have no idea what you are talking about. What conditions? And what the bloody moons is a peacekeeper?"
The bartender croaked awkwardly but visibly impressed by the Stormcommander and the weapon dangling casually at his side.
"Sorry, sorry, I just thought - you must know that here on Pseudohursh, every pub calls itself a hotel because it's easier to get a liquor licence that way. It works with restaurants, too - if you sell some reheated slop, you can serve wine with it. But don't worry, of course, we have rooms, they just haven't been booked for months. I'll get them fixed up for you guys, no problem."
The drinks appeared on the counter in no time, and the host shuffled on nimble tentacles towards the wooden stairs.
Florbsh crawled forward, took a big gulp from his glass of Toohee and turned to face his employers, a subtle disdainful bubbling in his body.
"That was really stupid. See those guys back there at the gaming tables? They've been watching us since we walked through the door, probably assessing whether it's worth robbing and assaulting us. And we've just outed ourselves as greenslimers who don't have a clue about local customs. I might as well hold this bar up, just like that, and shout loudly ..."
