The Starry Sphinx

by V X Lloyd

  A strange sound up ahead, loud but brief, like the yips from the wolves he had been hearing, but much too loud and digital-sounding to be anything emitted by an animal.

  He slowed.

  A circle of white stars appeared in the sky, at first faint, gradually crescendoing until each star grew more and more luminous, and the night sky seemed burst with piercing snow-bright whiteness. He squinted and slowed the RV, no longer able to see.

  The sky strobed even brighter, and Moony had to close his eyes entirely, and he used his hands to cover them, yet he could still see the brilliant, pulsing lights. It was as if his inmost mind lay naked to them. Seconds stretched into months in which his mind fought against the lights, until a time came in which their brightness dimmed, and though they continued to pulse, Moony was able to tolerate the rapid strobes. He found the courage to uncover his eyes and look out the RV’s windshield at the strange Mexican night sky.

  The circle of stars belonged to a football stadium-sized hoop. They were lights ridging the circumference of some tremendous object descending towards him. At first, he thought, like some giant neon sombrero descending onto him, some terrible object that had come to dominate him. But no, the object was no longer descending, and it was no sombrero. It was smooth, green colored, liquid-metallic. Looking upward at it, he saw in the glossy surface the reflection of the campground, the beach, and the road, with a garishly large quintessentially American RV he recognized to be his own. From the center of the huge object a circular aperture opened, and a sort of spotlight shone down directly on him.

  And just like that, he was no longer on Earth.

  *

  Moony was not altogether sure what he was a party to in his new environment. It reminded him of being in a hospital but also an aquarium. There were multitudinous beings, all appraising him. Of that he was sure, even though he was not really sure what they looked like. Hundreds or perhaps thousands of independent consciousnesses, appearing very luminous, moved in the air around him. The air felt thick, a viscosity something like floating in gelatin yet without any sense of it slowing his movements.

  A moment passed in relative silence, and he was able to comprehend his surroundings a bit better. The beings were not unlike jellyfish, though from what he could tell they did not have long stinging tendrils. They were in a vast chamber which seemed much, much larger than even the football-field sized craft that had abducted him. It could have been any size. It was as if the entirety of North America was encompassed in a tremendous bright dome. The walls seemed white, but they could have been gold and they might have been metallic or blue. Everything teemed with intelligence and perception. Nothing here could be hidden: Moony's whole body and mind were under trillions of microscopes. It was intense, but somehow not overwhelming. They seemed capable, unkind, and definitely alien.

  He tried to speak. As soon as his mouth was about to move, he found that there was no need. The thoughtforms which he sought through words to convey floated outwards from him and were picked up by the luminescent beings. They seemed very interested in the thoughtforms, which conveyed his question as to where he was, what he was doing here, and what they wanted with him.

  He received his answers in the form of a hazy inner knowing. He was on their ship, which was not only a ship but also somehow at the same time a portal to their home world. The beings, called Qualids, claimed to be from someplace also called Qualid. They regarded Moony as a rebellious teenager.

  Because of their nonlinear relationship with space and time, they knew Moony was going to be here, and they had calculated that Puerto Peñasco was a good spot for discreet abduction.

  They carried a vibe of astute coldness. From what they said, they seemed moved by superior disappointment but also admiration about the situation with Moony, who was an alien human yet had not learned his place in the pyramid of linked minds. They disapproved of the Sphinx's meddling in Earth affairs. They spoke to him in nonverbal lines of psychic dialogue, one jelly speaking for awhile, followed by another jelly that finished the other's statement and also respond to it.

  "You must follow the balanced consent of The Enclave," one said.

  "For your benefit, we remind you of the error of your ways," a second jelly continued.

  "For your benefit, we also affirm what you suspect about The Gypsy," said another. "With one hand she offers you power, with a second hand she wages war on the Sphinx. And with her other hand she plays chess with the Qualids."

  "Humans have but two hands," corrected a jelly.

  "Perhaps you are right, yet our analogy stands," maintained the other jelly. "And behold this tracking software she has installed into his cerebral cavity."

  "Hmm, yes, this software must be aborted. We cannot have our whereabouts compromised by those who serve the Dark One."

  "Hold still, human, so that your cerebral cavity may be purged of malicious software."

  Moony, terrified, had no trouble standing there frozen. He didn't feel anything happening. Only a second passed, and the jellies resumed their onslaught of rapid-fire telepathic conversation.

  "With your freshly repaired cerebral cavity, cognize this fact, human. The path of The Sphinx is already cursed by the dark one. Yet if you follow the path of the Gypsy, your way will be cursed by The Enclave, which means us. We, the Enclave, will curse you if you follow the Gypsy."

  "You must thwart both Gypsy and Sphinx."

  "All of your kind were doomed long ago to serve the Dark One's pyramid of minds. Such matters have already been settled."

  "The Sphinx's power lies elsewhere in the galaxy. The Earth is no longer her domain."

  "Therefore, you must serve The Enclave. We are the force of neutrality in the galaxy."

  Moony made note of the reference to neutrality that seemed to align with the description from the checkered potion recipe. He called on the Sphinx but no response came.

  "No, no Sphinx. The Enclave already offers you support. Ask what you need and you will be given what you deserve. In return---"

  "The checkered potion," Moony interrupted. If he hadn't spoken up, it wasn't apparent that these jellies would just keep talking forever. "I need the checkered potion. You know, for... for the Enclave."

  The thick air grew tense. Thousands of jellies trembled at his statement and exchanged confused, perhaps embarrassed glances. "We have no such potion in our possession that we desire to give you," one admitted.

  Others among them changed hue somewhat, pulsing from orange to green. He had the impression they were becoming aggravated about something.

  "We do not deal in such things as potions. These belong to ages past. As you will see, your potion is but relic and symbol, nothing more."

  "Perhaps instead the human would prefer to submit himself to The Enclave."

  "Yes, who are you to make such a request from us?"

  "Yes, your allegiance is not known to us. Therefore you work for a rogue agency."

  "Seeking rogue advice is not the way of The Enclave."

  One red jelly looked especially agitated. In Moony's way of describing things, this red jelly looked "butt-hurt."

  It was making its butt-hurtness known. "This human cannot be trusted to operate his own sentience. He will not adhere the way of the Enclave with any probability of success."

  An orange jelly got right in Moony's face. Moony stayed stock still, not wanting to make any sudden move that could be deemed offensive. "Will you not adhere?"

  "Yes, adhere, human one."

  "The human shakes his head to say no, but no is not the correct answer."

  "The correct answer is to serve the Enclave and adhere."

  "It is his head that betrays him. The betrayal of adherence can be isolated in its physical center by removing the head, and thereby removing the source of non-adherence."

  Many jellies agreed, their colors pulsing more rapidly green.

  "We should resolve this non-adherence. Remove his head, then digest it for thorough analysis."

 
"Only digestive juices can resolve this non-adherence," a darker jelly agreed.

  Moony reflected that only moments ago, he had thought it was bad to have Perry chasing him with an erection. But now, he would have given anything to be back there on the beach running from a few inches of rigid human flesh.

  These Qualids were a strange lot. Everything they did was about maintaining adherence. When one had something to say, or a strong emotion, it changed colors. As soon as possible, the surrounding Qualids exerted some effort to change it back to a more unified color, which Moony supposed indicated compliance. By all appearances, it looked like it took a fair amount of resources to do maintain compliance.

  It gave him an idea.

  Though communication with the jellies happened very rapidly, he noticed that his thoughts weren't sent out unidirectionally from him. Instead, his thoughts were delivered in a focused beam to the jelly he was looking at. The jelly receiving his thought rebroadcast it to the surrounding jellies, and those jellies to the ones more distant. It seemed that when he focused his beam of thoughts to a non-compliant jelly, what it rebroadcast to the other jellies was hard for them to interpret -- full of noise. It resulted in more effort, a slightly greater delay in the processing and rebroadcasting of his message to the wider pool. From this point onward, Moony decided to direct his thought-packed towards the jelly that looked the most out of compliance. The more difficulty they had in comprehending him, the more he bought himself time to know how to escape this ship.

  He looked over to a really butt-hurt jelly and sent his response. "No no no, that's not going to solve it for you. We humans, we, uh, we don't locate our consciousness in the head."

  "Where do you locate it, then?"

  "In the heart?"

  "Yes," others agreed. “This human locates it in the heart. Therefore, we should digest both his head and his heart.”

  "But which first?"

  Moony's throat had become completely parched. He gulped. "Those are really good guesses, but actually that won't solve it for you."

  "You must tell us where you locate your consciousness."

  "I... uh... I don't have it with me. I locate my consciousness in... maybe I left it in my car."

  A second's pause in which the jellies rumbled and squished, conferring with each other.

  "Ah, we have seen this way of humans," said a dark jelly. "This human speaks of a crystal, yes? Curious, that you do not carry it with you."

  "You must retrieve this crystal at once."

  "Yes, leave now and bring us the crystal that houses your consciousness."

  "Humans are very wise but also foolish to travel so far without holding their consciousness."

  "Yes, you're right about that. Foolish of me. I'll leave. I'll even leave right now. If you insist."

  "The Enclave does insist."

  "It's a very sensitive matter, though. You know how humans are. We're primitive, but we do our best to adhere. Just promise me that you won't come back to get me until I'm holding this crystal."

  "It is a Lumerian record-keeper quartz?"

  Moony, heart pounding, barely heard and definitely didn't understand what kind of stone that was.

  "Yeah, it's one of those. You really nailed it. You Enclave really are smart."

  "Yes, the Enclave are smart."

  "He has signaled his pending adherence with this statement."

  "Therefore we are in adherence with him."

  The sudden turn of momentum caught Moony completely off guard. He chose to press forward. "So, only when I'm holding that crystal thing, and only then, not before. It may take me awhile. Maybe... maybe months. I have a lot of stuff in my car, you know how humans are. You promise?"

  "Time is no object to The Enclave. Even if it takes a million years, we will follow this order."

  "Yes, The Enclave will remain constant observers from our anchor in quasi-dimensional space-time until that moment."

  A million years sounded like enough time for Moony to think of a better plan.

  "You must leave now, to better speed your delivery of this crystal to us."

  "No one must know of this encounter," one demanded.

  "Oh, come on, what are you so butt-hurt about?" an adjacent jelly responded. "No human will believe this guy that he was abducted by aliens. Think of his current blood chemistry and his present circumstances."

  "Yes, we have acted wisely. Our secrecy will be maintained."

  "Supremacy in Secrecy, that is our motto. Do you like it?"

  "What does it matter if he likes it?"

  "It never hurts to ask inferior life forms for their approval."

  "Yes, do you like our motto? Our motto is Secrecy in Supremacy."

  "No it's not. It's the other way around."

  "I like it better this way."

  "Well, whose side are you on, anyway? The Enclave consumes those who do not adhere, especially those among The Enclave, because they are neutral of palate."

  "You're right, you're right. Supremacy in Secrecy is our motto."

  Moony shook his head at these jellies. When they agreed, they were amazing. In their current state of bickering, he felt like a tiny lone fish in a sea of blobby egghead carnivores.

  Disagreement had split the jellies into factions. More and more of them squished, jostled and argued that removing his head was the wisest course of action.

  Meanwhile Moony didn't mind being emphatic with them about his intent to leave the spaceship immediately, his eyes searching the bright dome for an exit sign, a door, broom closet, anything. Fortunately, many of the jellies (whether they intended to or not) responded to his thought.

  "To revert your spatiotemporal location to your previous terrestrial coordinates, enter cognitive request code PA99 followed by your PIN code."

  This response generated a stir with other jellies, who rebutted that Moony had not yet been granted a PIN code, and that failure to do so, in fact their failure to give him a tour of the ship, had actually been rather rude of them, come to think of it. More jellies responded to this, arguing that their alien human guest was unstable, and his expectations for etiquette could be overlooked in this case. After all, they had come a great deal out of their way to abduct him, and the least he could do was grant them a bit of license for some oversights of conduct.

  A few dozen of these jellies trembled and glowed pink. In the seconds of confused exasperation that followed, one provided some clarification.

  "Your PIN code is 4269, one said. The escape hatch isn't really a door, that's why you couldn't find it. It's a pathway of light."

  Moony wanted to mention that he wasn't really used to opening doors that were pathways of light, but as soon as his mind had formed the notion of a pathway of light, he felt something shift. Suddenly he floated alone in a column of the same light he had seen when he was below the ship. He sensed movement, then nothing.

  A gravelly voice spoke in an alien language, the sound coming from everywhere at once.

  "Uh, PA99," he said. The light disappeared into purple darkness, then flickered orange and returned.

  Static, followed by a beep.

  "PIN code 4269."

  A swirling feeling in the pit of his stomach. He noticed the sense of pressure on the bottom of his feet. He was standing on something. Gravity had returned.

  More bright lights, of a different sort. He looked around. From one direction, a pair of lights. Overhead, darkness. Beneath him was the same dusty white gravel road as before.

  He stood outside in the road in front of his own RV, the headlights shining on him. He cursed his father for upgrading the lights to LEDs. They were painfully bright.

  He was naked, breathing hard, dripping from head to foot with ectoplasm.

  He again checked the sky above him for any lights, anything that could indicate a giant spacecraft, but saw only the distant stars. He felt again the terrestrial ordinariness he had so often taken for granted. He was back on Earth, sweet normal Earth, in the lovely country of Mexi
co. The alien ship was gone.

  But, he wondered, why did his clothes have to also be gone? He shook his head at the inanity of the universe. Luckily, he had some more clothes in the back of the RV. But in his pocket had been his ATM card, driver's license and The Gypsy's wad of cash. So much for all that.

  He ran to the RV, opened the door and sat once more in the driver's seat.

  He breathed a long, long sigh of relief.

  *

  Behind the wheel of this mammoth house-on-wheels, he felt a renewed sense that he had a place on this fair Earth. Moony's stomach growled, reminding him of his nearness to the tortilleria. He put the giant vehicle into gear and moved forward. No more giant chambers echoing with disagreeing aliens. No more worry about his head or heart being digested. Everything was safe because he had said something about his consciousness being located inside some kind of crystal. He made a firm, firm mental note to never handle any crystal, ever, from this point forward. If the Enclave happened to be watching, and they nabbed him again, he was sure he wouldn't be so lucky a second time.

  Up ahead, he saw Perry illuminated in the headlights. He was pissing a long stream at a high angle of attack by the side of the road. Moony unlocked the passenger door and let him in. He smelled like a bad night.

  "You're in your birthday suit," Perry said, suspicious, gruff, judgmental, as if Moony was taking things too far. Moony had already forgotten about his nudity, and really couldn't have cared less.

  That's when Moony realized he was covered in a potentially valuable substance. This ectoplasm, since it came from a powerful source of neutrality in the galaxy, was an ingredient in the checkered potion. At once, he raced to the back of the RV in search of a container he could scrape some of this stuff off into.