by Elin Wyn
“We don’t even know each other.”
“I’ve got a ride.” Jalok jogged back over to us. He looked between me and Eluna. “Did I miss something.”
“Nothing,” Eluna grinned. “You two have fun collecting monster goop.”
“I’m sure the Puppet Master appreciates the moniker,” I laughed, grateful to Eluna for changing the subject.
At Jalok’s base camp, a two-person aerial unit was ready and waiting for us.
“Don’t crash it like you did last time.” A K’ver gave Jalok a stern look.
“What is he talking about?” I gave Jalok a pointed look.
“Nothing. Sk’lar, you’ve become quite the jokester since entering a relationship with Phryne.”
“I mean it, Jalok. We can’t afford replacements.”
“Yes, sir.”
Jalok took my arm and helped me into the deep, narrow back seat of the aerial unit before climbing into the pilot’s chair.
“So, what’s the plan here?” Jalok called back once we were safely in the air. I pulled out my datapad that was synced to my console back at the lab.
“Looks like Dr. DeWitt has developed a theoretical serum to make hostile plant life more docile,” I shouted over the roar of the aerial unit. “She thinks blood, or a similar substance, from the Puppet Master might provide some of the missing pieces.”
“Is it really as simple as that?” Jalok looked over his shoulder at me.
“Eyes front, mister. Your bad piloting skills are not going to be what kills me.”
“Answer my question. Don’t you want me to learn new things? Isn’t that the goal of a scientist?”
“You know nothing of my goals. No, it’s not as simple as that I just wanted to put it into terms you could understand.”
Jalok made a less than graceful landing in the center of the crater. I scrambled out of the aerial unit as quickly as I could without falling face first into the dirt.
“Aren’t you trained for this kind of thing?”
“I’m trained for combat. I’m not a pilot,” Jalok said in his defense.
The ground around us shifted as the Puppet Master’s vines approached the aerial unit from underground.
“Look, you’ve got him all concerned with your graceless landing.” I gestured toward the ground as a verdant tendril poked up above the earth. I laid a finger along it.
“Don’t worry. Everything’s fine.” I told the Puppet Master. I felt his presence in my mind. Something felt off but I couldn’t place it.
“I would have assumed your companion received more rigorous training with that apparatus.”
“That’s what I said,” I chuckled and removed my hand from the tendril. It slunk back underground.
“Talking about me when I can’t listen isn’t very nice.” Jalok chided.
“The Puppet Master was just making sure I’m okay,” I explained.
“How did you get so close to it?” Jalok asked as we walked across the crater to the tunnel.
“Talking with him. Spending time with him. You know, the usual activities that form a friendship.”
Jalok pushed back a cluster of dead roots so I wouldn’t have to duck when entering the tunnel. When we arrived at my makeshift lab, he took a moment to look around.
“You always leave your stuff lying around like this?”
“It’s out of sight,” I reasoned. “Your teams know not to mess with it. If a radical or scavenger come across it, the Puppet Master will stop them from messing with it. It’s easier than lugging everything back and forth. Plus, if I keep my monitors running overnight, I get even more data.”
“What kind of data are you after?” Jalok asked.
“What’s with the sudden interest?” I asked with a small smile.
“Can’t a Skotan be a soldier and curious about science?”
“Fair point. I’m measuring the Puppet Master’s flow of energy, for lack of better term. Once we understand how he can make things grow, we can replicate it. It’ll be a big step in solving the food crisis.”
“That’s actually very impressive,” Jalok smiled.
“Thank you for the validation,” I teased. “Put your hand on the Puppet Master if you want to be part of the next conversation.”
“Is it going to be science jargon I won’t understand?”
“Maybe.” I snorted before placing my palm against the thickest vine close to me. Jalok followed suit.
“What brings you here today?” The Puppet Master asked.
“Oh, that’s unsettling.” Jalok’s hand went to his forehead.
“First time?” I asked.
“I have not felt this one’s presence before,” the Puppet Master answered.
“What he said.” Jalok jerked his head at the vines.
“You’ll get used to it,” I assured Jalok before returning to the reason I’d come here. “I have an unusual request.”
“I’m listening,” the Puppet Master said.
“A colleague out of Nyhiem believes she’s on the verge of discovery. She’s asked me to retrieve something from you to further her studies.”
“Why didn’t this colleague come herself?” Jalok asked, interrupting our conversation.
“Because he likes me better,” I jested.
Jalok gave me an odd smile and shook his head.
“I have a stronger relationship with you than almost any of the others that study me,” the Puppet Master confirmed. “What do you need?”
“Do you have blood?” I blurted.
“I do not.”
“What’s the closest thing you have to blood?”
“I believe you humans would compare it to sap. It isn’t truly any form of sap, although it does provide nourishment. There simply is not a word in your lexicon that would describe it otherwise.” the Puppet Master supplied.
“Are you all right with me taking a sample?”
“Of course.”
The Puppet Master lifted another tendril for me to take a sample from. I gathered my tools for sample collection.
“Is everything all right?” I asked when my hands made contact with the Puppet Master again. Jalok gave me a quizzical look and knelt down beside me. He placed his hand on the Puppet Master near my own.
“I suppose I cannot hide my troubles when our consciousness’ are linked,” the Puppet Master replied.
“You can tell me if something’s bothering you. We’re friends after all, even if I do run the occasional experiment on you.”
“I can step away, if you’d like,” Jalok offered.
“That won’t be necessary,” the Puppet Master said. “What I have to say pertains to you.”
“What is it?” I pressed.
“I felt a presence through the cosmos the other day,” the Puppet Master explained. “One I haven’t felt in ages. It was a warning from one of my species. They must’ve used the last of their energy to contact me. Something was sapping their energy, their lifeforce.”
“Does this have something to do with the Ancient Enemies you told me about?” I prompted.
“I’m not sure. They never answered my signal back. But there’s a possibility that the Ancient Enemies are involved.”
Jalok
I tensed up as I heard the words ‘ancient enemies.’
Fen hadn’t known much about it, but her words had been ominous. That didn’t surprise me. Intergalactic beings that seemed to have as their enemies something as powerful as the Puppet Master?
An ominous tone was to be expected.
“This signal you’ve received, how do you know it was a warning?” I said, not exactly sure on how to interact with the Puppet Master.
I had always seen Dottie say her words out loud but, somehow, I had the impression it could read my thoughts.
“I believe you would call it a feeling,” he explained, his disembodied voice almost dreamlike. I felt his words inside my head like tendrils, curling themselves around my own thoughts. The experience was unsettling. “We d
on’t communicate like you do.”
“That’s not very helpful,” I muttered.
“You are correct,” the Puppet Master continued. “Any other time, and their message would have a clearer meaning. But we have been growing weak. Dying, if you will. I might be the only one that’s left of my kind.”
Its words remained neutral and steady, but I could still detect a note of sadness underneath all of it.
Maybe it was just my imagination. After all, I couldn’t fathom how it’d feel to be the last one of my species.
“You said something was sapping their energy. Is that something the Ancient Enemies can do?”
“There are many things the Ancient Enemies can do.” The Puppet Master’s tone remained calm, and that was making the whole thing even more unsettling. How could it remain so calm when talking about such a thing?
“Alright, and what exactly do you know about them?” I insisted. “Fen mentioned doom and despair, but that doesn’t tell us much. But she did mention that they were around even before the Urai had developed interstellar travel.”
There was a slight pause, almost as if the Puppet Master was thinking.
“Doom and despair, yes,” it finally said. “The Urai would know of it, although their version of things might be different than mine. I was already awake even before the Urai called themselves by that name, and the Ancient Enemies were already a name that wise species wouldn’t utter in the dark.”
I wasn’t liking any of this.
First it had been Fen, with her stories of unspoken terrors, and now even this omniscient vine creature seemed to fear those Ancient Assholes.
I thought of pressing the Puppet Master for more, but I knew I wouldn’t get much out of it. He was being cagey about the whole thing.
“Is there anything else you can tell me about those Ancient Enemies?” I tried one last time, and the Puppet Master’s was a curt one.
“Not much, but yes,” it said, and then there was only silence. I took that as its polite way of saying that he’d say more, but not to me.
Knowing that all this was above my paygrade, I reached for the comms unit in my belt.
“What are you doing?” Dottie asked. Surprisingly, she had been silent as I talked with the Puppet Master.
“I’m contacting HQ. This stuff about the Ancient Enemies...it’s worrying, and I think it’s time the General starts focusing on it.”
Dottie said nothing at that, but I could tell she wasn’t exactly happy.
Whenever the General needed to work with the Puppet Master, her scientific studies became a secondary priority.
Still, I hoped she would understand.
I was about to turn the comms unit on when a couple of vines gently wrapped themselves around my wrist. I jumped back, surprised, but the Puppet Master’s soothing voice quickly made me relax. “No need for that,” it said. “I can connect you directly to Sk’lar.”
“Alright,” I said, not exactly sure on how to deal with the fact that the Puppet Master knew I intended to call Sk’lar.
Probably it could be useful, but it still creeped me out.
I waited as it worked its magic, and I felt as if my own thoughts were being pulled down a long narrow tunnel. I felt slightly dizzy and lightheaded, and then thoughts that weren’t my own echoed in my mind.
“Jalok?” I heard Sk’lar’s voice, as clear as if he was standing next to me. “What in the—”
“Just listen to me,” I cut him short. I was slightly weirded out with this telepathic connection thing, and I didn’t want it to last long. “I need you to get in touch with General Rouhr. It’s urgent.”
“The General? What’s going on?”
“I...I’m not sure,” I admitted. “But it concerns the Ancient Enemies. I think it’d be best if he came down here to the Puppet Master.”
“Alright, I’ll pass that message along,” he said. “But the General’s out right now. It might take a couple of hours before he gets there.”
“I’ll wait.” As if guessing I intended to end the connection, the Puppet Master’s vines finally let go of my wrist, gently brushing against my skin as they slid out. “Seems like we might be here for a while,” I told Dottie, and she pursed her lips slightly.
“You’re worried about the Ancient Enemies, aren’t you?”
“Not exactly,” I shrugged. “It’s not my job to worry. But I think it’s time for the General to start doing some worrying of his own.”
“Right.” The lines on her forehead deepened slightly, but then she just sighed audibly and shook her head.
Tucking a stray lock of hair over one ear, she then grabbed her instruments and returned to her tasks. I sat by a rock formation as I watched her work, and she spent the next couple of hours carefully collecting sap out of the vines.
As she worked, my eyes took in her figure in a manner that wasn’t exactly professional.
I had tried to forget about that little moment inside her bathroom, but it was impossible to do so.
Her slender figure, her naked skin, and the warmth of her mouth...all those things were far too powerful for me to ignore. In fact, the more I tried to push them to a corner of my mind, the more they insisted on pushing their way to the front.
“Get a hold of yourself, Jalok.”
“What was that?” Dottie asked, looking up from her instruments, that curiosity of hers making her eyes brighter. I looked back at her, not saying a word, and my heart started beating just a little bit faster. She was beautiful.
Clearing my throat, I looked away from her.
“It was nothing,” I said. “Just thinking out loud.”
“Didn’t know you could think,” she laughed, an amused smile on her lips as she teased me.
Before, I would’ve been annoyed at her sassiness, but now...it was almost endearing.
“I might be a brute, but I have a brain.” Folding my arms over my chest, I locked my eyes on her.
She was about to say something when the sound of heavy footsteps started echoing throughout the tunnel. I laid one hand on my belt, ready to reach for my rifle, but relaxed as General Rouhr stepped from the shadows into the cavern.
“Jalok,” he said, and I straightened my back and saluted him. “At ease.”
“Did you come alone, General?”
“Sk’lar’s waiting outside.” Walking straight toward the large vine, he reached for it with his open hand, his fingers gently touching it. “I’m going to ask you to step outside for a moment.”
“Very well, sir.” Exchanging a quick glance with Dottie, I made a slight gesture that indicated for her to follow me. She looked at Rouhr, curious, but said nothing as she walked past him. “C’mon, let’s give the General a little privacy.”
“What exactly is going?” She whispered, laying her hands on my arm.
The hair on the back of my neck stood up on end as I felt her fingertips on my bicep, and I had to suck in a deep breath so that could regain my focus.
“The General’s being cautious,” I explained. “Just like the Puppet Master. You’ve probably noticed it by now, but your plant friend is pretty hesitant about sharing what he knows about those Ancient Enemies.”
“I noticed, yes.”
“Whatever information he has, he probably doesn’t want it to spread. It would probably cause a panic, I figure.”
Ahead of us, the bright light of a warm day cut into the darkness through the tunnel’s mouth. “I’m sure that the General will let us know what’s going on. He just needs to assess the intel firsthand before making a decision.”
“I don’t like all this secrecy,” Dottie sighed. “That’s not how you should handle information. And, definitely, that’s not how you should make a decision.”
She made a slight pause then, and I could almost hear the gears turning inside her head. “But if the Puppet Master trusts the General...well, I guess these two know what they’re doing.”
“We’re talking about a battle-hardened General and an overpowere
d planetary being,” I smiled. “I’m sure they’ve got it under control.”
At least, I hoped they did.
Dottie
“What are you going to call that sappy stuff you harvested?” Jalok asked. “Goop?”
“I think blood is the most straightforward thing to say until we have an in-depth analysis of what it’s comprised of,” I replied.
“You’re funny when you speak rationally.”
“How else am I supposed to speak?” I chuckled. “By the way, you’ve become a remarkably accomplished pilot in the last two hours.”
“I don’t know about accomplished but I’ve had extensive aerial training.” Jalok looked over my shoulder with a smirk.
“Asshole!” I barked out a laugh and smacked him on the shoulder. “So that bumpy landing was just to rattle me?”
“I have to do something for entertainment. Scientists are incredibly boring.”
“I take offense to that!”
“You were never in any danger,” Jalok assured me. “Watch this.”
He landed the aerial unit with feather-light grace.
“Was that supposed to make me less annoyed with you?”
“No. I just wanted to prove that I know what I’m doing.”
Jalok hopped out of the unit and extended his hand to help me down.
“I’m going to take these samples back to the lab for analysis. Want to come?” I offered.
“I am obligated to do my duty and protect you,” he replied.
“Oh that’s right,” I said with a face. You have to be around me.”
“It’s not that,” he protested.
He would have said more but he saw the mischievous look in my eyes as I stuck my tongue at him.
“Sk’lar to Jalok,” his comm system abruptly interrupted us with a crackle.
Jalok looked at me as I waited for him. He walked off a bit as he began to discuss matters with his superior.
Eventually I gave up.
“I’ll meet you in the lab,” I said quietly, getting his attention. “I need to go!”
Unable to leave his conversation, Jalok reluctantly nodded.
“I’ll be there soon,” he whispered. “Stick to the main roads. No alleys.”
