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Rote To Dzuerongvoe

Qithka’s weak eyelids parted to a bright daytime tinged with a little too much orange. There was that dratted color again. Then her ears perked to the sounds of waves crashing on the beach and wind whistling through a wooden trellis overgrown with out of season wisteria.

The Vargr male, elderly was sitting beside Qithka’s cryo-sleep berth. Without a ship to power it, the device must have been on its own power or supplied from nearby. It was a beach about her. Cries of birds above. Some winds pushed on hanging white drapery off the sides of the overhead trellis.

“Welcome, Qithka,” said the senior Vargr. He wore a loose fit poncho draped over his shoulders but snug to his neck ruff. “Call me Zounrroull. I will be your guide for a while.” His voice was soft, gentle, patronly.

“Do-…do I get to move yet?” Qithka rasped trying to find her voice.

“If you feel up to it,” nodded Zounrroull.

Since this was still a dream to Qithka’s judgement, she slowly and carefully sat up to dangle her legs over the side of the opened cryo-sleep berth. Her toes touched the cobblestone cement patio floor. She rested outside on the lanai of a beachfront property. The skies dangled both feathery cirrus clouds high over the puffy cumulus clouds. Meat was on the outdoor grill some meters away but also on the patio. The scent of gentle frankincense was on her lilac unitard. As Qithka sat fully up, she noticed a lavender poncho lay across her like a blanket. Everything was so serene, so sublime.

A few other adult Gvegh also dressed in varying colors of ponchos, swimsuits, swim trunks, and generally having a good time were about. Voices in Gvegh.

“Try it on,” offered Zounrroull. “It should fit. Personally crafted and fitted.”

The senior Vargr got to his feet in a relaxed stance and offered his claw to help Qithka. Since this was a dream and everybody in it supposed to be familiar, Qithka accepted the aid and stood too.

Looking about, Qithka saw the beachfront house of Vargr architecture. It was maybe Tech 5, but who keeps count in a dream?

[Referee: cue music Supreme Beings of Leisure - Sublime]

Fully dressed in the very comfortable lavender poncho, Qithka then spotted her double rings on her tail. She had to ask, "Honorable Zounrroull, am I dreaming? Where am I and where is the rest of my crew?"

The amber-brown eyes of Zounrroull looked up to the skies before saying, "Your friends brought you asleep here on Ankhir, trusting your next steps to us. They are currently in your starcraft high above us and helping our Space Bureau. They are safe. You are awake and also safe. Miss Qithka Cannagrrh, I and my Pack, the Bureau of Psionic Relations welcome you. Lunch is almost ready. Hungry?"

With all of her favorite things about her in an idyllic setting and feeling like she had not eaten in a week, Qithka nodded and followed the elder Vargr to a long outdoor table where gathered his family and Pack. Who knew Psionic Institutes came in such low-tech, grassroots, homely comfort? The barbecue sauce was a family recipe to die for.

Over lunch with this extended family of adults, some blood relatives of Zounrroull, others married into the Pack, Qithka was introduced to them by families, then grouped as one Pack assigned by the Ankhir Bureaucracy to the lifelong task as the Bureau of Psionic Relations. It was this Pack's authority to receive, test and train newly Awakened, advancing Psions, and provide documentation to the Bureaucracy for educating non-psionic citizens of Ankhir. At a confirmed Tech 5, everything went down on hardcopy.

Parting once the meal was complete and the Pack heads of the 'Disciplines' had been introduced, Qithka sat across Zounrroull in a private counsel. The others enjoyed their day at the beach lounged in furniture.

Shore breezes brushed Qithka and the lanai drapes. She saw the elder Vargr Zounrroull had a paper report on Qithka in blocky, all-caps, Ankhir Gvegh. He read aloud the testimony of Qithka's crew.

"It seems you had a trauma with what your starcraft doctor calls jump space delirium, and that it has possibly forced an 'astronomically rare awakening', Miss Qithka."

That viewport was the last thing Qithka could remember seeing with her eyes.

"Am I to be um- tested, Hon. Zounrroull?" asked Qithka. "I don't have any of your currency and-."

The older gentleVargr patted Qithka on her forearm to say, "Your Human is paying us in your credits and in needed services in orbit. You see, we long ago lost our sky station. Your friends are doing us a grand favor toward reactivating it again."

Zounrroull continued advising with, "But we in the Bureau never test or train without a citizen or visitor's consent. Rest assured."

Qithka's mind swirled. Her bro-...her great uncle Gevaudan has been what he called a "mediocre psionicist" but growled that we was never truly a fully trained Psion. Jump dementia had apparently triggered an involuntary awakening.

"I remember dreaming, I think I may be psionic, sir." Qithka kept her words charismatic. This elder had the mainworld's confidence and his Pack's trust in their assigned duty. And that meant big Vargr Charisma.

"If I test, does that mean I have to train?" Qithka continued her questions.

"If you consent to testing, you will receive our documented report. We can advise you on the results, but you are under no obligation to continue to Stage One training. Your potential will fade over time and you can put this behind you."

Memories of Gevaudan and Uthka's banishment for the half-baked crime of being psionic in the Third Imperium welled up. Qithka knew from Gev's Apprenticeship as a 'psionicist', that it was a one-way door.

"Who will know?" cautiously asked Qithka.
 
"By law we are required to document testing and training, but actual results are gathered in a report yours alone. From this beachfront, then it would be your decision who you tell. We have classes on that too."

The elder Zounrroull was so gentle with this, patience with Qithka as strong as a mountain.

"Just this Stage One?"

"Just Stage One with your permission. From there, your next Stage will be out there, where you go next." Zounrroull pointed an index claw to the skies.

Qithka leaned forward in her chair to rub her temples. This-...this was far beyond any experience of the Dame or Qithka01. What to do?

Qithka took a good hour mulling over the causality of such a big decision. Here, centuries beyond her last life Qithka had only herself to answer to. The culture of the Dame's era was lost history. Even in Qithka01's time psionics was still only partially understood, Psions taking Oaths and being accepted. What was the consensus here in 1902 over all this?

The beach house was a rental, the entire setting assembled out of Qithka’s favorite, sensate things. The Pack moved across Ankhir to the needs of the next client as a Bureau of many Bureaus that ruled the mainworld. Qithka looked about to the members of this Pack. The families had cubs and teenagers, but those were not present for a client. Zounrroull’s Pack had left them at their true familial grounds to attend school. Then Qithka realized that her consent would mean pay from Capt. Gankinra, pay from the Bureaucracy, money to put food on the table for the Pack, the Bureau of Psionic Relations. With her consent meant welfare for them. It weighed on Qithka.

Qithka remembered back to the Artemis Group, the Zhodani teacher the crew of the Ares had rescued from Wypoc. Isis along with Uthka’s minor help had offered to apprentice, Mentor to student anyone aboard their savior Mercenary Cruiser. Only Gevaudan was brave enough to accept.

At the end of the hour, with Zounrroull patiently waiting and occasionally talking with passerby of the Pack, Qithka looked back to him and managed to murmur, “Yes?”

A chime sounded from a tuning fork shape wind chime hanging on the corner of the patio trellis. It rang as if it had been struck by a mallet. Two more Pack members perked to the sound and came trotting up to seated elder Zounrroull.

“Please state what you mean formally, Miss Qithka Cannagrrh and in front of me and two witnesses.”

Qithka02 Cannagrrh stood up, in a full upright Vargr stance. This was legal business now. Summoning her inherited skills in Administrator, Bureaucrat, Diplomat, Lawyer and with the formality of her years as an Author and Actor; Qithka spoke formally, “I formally give my consent, of my free will for this Bureau of Psionic Relations to test and train me for this Stage One.”

Happy nods, claw-clapping applause, lolling tongues and wagging tails were the responses. The remainder of the vacationing Pack was called in from the beach to hear the news. Qithka was to be tested and trained for Stage One.

At Tech 5, there was paperwork. Oh, how there was paperwork. No computers at all. Sign this, fill out that questionnaire. Lists of checkboxes for Qithka’s preferences. How did she feel today? Fill that out too. Documentation everywhere, by this Pack, some Psions, most not but employed in the Bureau as family and as Pack.

The Bureau got to marvel over Qithka’s incursive Gvegh clawwriting, a relic centuries old compared to this Far Far Future. Occasionally, she had to read aloud what she had written to the Ankhirans.

By the end of Qithka's Personal Day, she was ready for bed. She had known red tape on higher technology worlds. But at Tech 5, the Relict Clone had her fill of signing her name.

The bed made available looked dreamy in comparison to her cabin bunk and far more comfortable than a cryo-sleep pod. Qithka fell out and slept all night.

Gev did not suffer this much to-do, thought Qithka as she fell asleep.
 
* * *

Hew Hollowton was glad to remain in space. He did not want to play a dumb pet or spend hours explaining to another world of Vargr what the Ursa were and that he was not some challenger to the Vargr Chosen-thing. He did have to frantically unbolt of the four Low Berth, cryo-sleep pods so Dr. Zhem and Shaa Gankinra could transport a sleeping Qithka in the Ship's Launch down to the Tech 5 Downport B. These low-tech Ankhirans had suffered, revolted, recovered (from the Breaks), revamped society and survived here in the Wilds. But they somehow managed a better Government, a freer Law Level, and managed to upgrade the Downport from C to B.

But to save Qithka’s physical health and her mind, Zhem had heard something Hew had not in Qithka’s jump dementia. And when the girl went into convulsive seizure, shock, and promptly coded, the Cym-Robot put her under Fast and laid her to rest in Low Berth cryo-sleep.

Whatever the Ankhirans could do, Hew hoped they did. Zhem, though he was a Robot, looked like a whupped Vargr pup by the time he and Shaa returned in the Launch. There were few words that day. While the two were absent, the Ursa took extra time to repair the malfunctioning viewport shutters that had failed to close and sent Qithka into catastrophic failure.

That was a week ago. Today, the trio of Travellers had finished the first week of space-sweeping the vicinity of the derelict and dark Highport. Long ago, the Highport had once been active, a “sky station” according to the Ankhirans below. Then calamities struck and the superstructure went dark. By collecting debris from the approach path of the most intact airlock strut, Hew was able to finally pull the Panas Gankinra close enough for a fit, seal and dock.

Zhem exited the airlock first and maneuvered his way into the space station airlock. “Trace atmosphere on a slow leak,” he called on his ModComm-10. “Vaccsuits only until we restore power and Life Support.” Power was possible. Those that died here were too slow to switch over to solar panels power. Not all the panes array were destroyed. In fact, they were peppered but looked reparable.

“Thirty meters behind you, Doctor,” called Capt. Gankinra from her AdvHvyVaccsuit-13. With the station lacking spin, there was no gravity no nothing powering the grav plates. This station, according to Shaa had been a gift from nearby polities, an orbital facility so that the Amber Zone world below was not disturbed in its Hi-Population turmoil of antiquity.

Hew watched through a visual feed from both Zhem’s Comm and Shaa’s Vaccsuit as the two lightly pushed through the microgravity further into the derelict station. Vacc-boiled Vargr corpses were everywhere. The next task then after restoring the Power Plant and Life Support was policing bodies. Hew was not going into that station until it was safe for an Ursa in a China shop.

Though Zhem was tireless, Shaa had to take a sleep after a Day of bringing the solar paneling connectivity to the power systems. Some mechanical, more electronics and connected. But when the power flowed through the Control Panels, everything shut down again. “I give up for the watch,” huffed Shaa. “I’m headed back to the ship.”

But monitoring Shaa’s return and Zhem’s next actions, the Ursa saw what in the Republic would have been illegal. Zhem pulled a Data Wafer from his many belt pouches, fitted an adapter and then inserted it on the end of a fiber optics cable. As Shaa returned to the ship, Zhem rebooted the power. A second of Vargriform head nodding and a few compartments of the sky station lit up, mostly emergency lighting and a few door panels at first. Hew had seen Zhem hack the baseline network using his Cym meta-identity. There had been ‘eggs’ left over. The Ursa knew the Cyms of the Republic had a way with computers, but he had never seen such in action until today.

Later, as Zhem cooked in the Galley, the Marine entered the Commons. He had his Peacekeeper out and faced the Cym-Robot. “Just what did you do, Doctor to reactivate the station systems? I saw your interfacing. In the Republic, that could have gotten your silicon melted.” As soon as he finished his words, Hew Hollowton racked his Peacekeeper with the kind of slug meant for armor.

Zhem slowed to minimal movement as he twisted about to face squarely with the Ursa pointing the firearm at him. “I had a short talk with the computer, First Lieutenant Hollowton.” When the Ursa did not lower the weapon, Zhem continued with, “All Cyms have a weapon against our earlier selves. It’s called a Snake. But to use it on the suicider, I had to have both power and connect mine directly. I know it is illegal in the Republic, Hollowton. But this is the Wilds and meta-throwbacks are still out here.”

“You took over the station by infecting it, didn’t you?” Hew challenged with an accusation.

“Negative, Marine,” denied Zhem. “I fed only the Snake through the Data Port. It cleansed the system by turning all suicider infection into more Snakes. The systems that now have power are only inhabited by a sleeping Snake. That is all. On my honor as a Cym, Hollowton.”

“And if I tell the Captain?”

“Do so. Tell Capt. Gankinra that I brought a centuries-old Highport to emergency power status by re-stacking the central operating system. She will understand where you have not.”

Hew carefully re-safetied his weapon. Lowering it, the Ursa backed away from the huge Vargriform. He hoped he had not lost his appetite. When he returned from stowing his Peacekeeper, Zhem was not at the table. Shaa and the Ursa ate without him.
 
* * *

The notification that Shaa was down KCr151 told her that Qithka was alive, testing, and had accepted training from the Ankhirans down below. She could not tell Zhem or Hew because it would mean explaining the strange ways of Psionics Institutes and that Shaa was paying for the treatment Qithka had received. Also, it gave Qithka the time she needed to recover, test and train, time better spent for the others by keeping them busy at restoring hundreds of megacredits with of antique orbital platform.

The Vilani was surprised after a sleep that Zhem had worked unmonitored through the rest. He should not have done that in Shaa's estimation.

With the emergency delivery of critical condition Qithka, the Ankhirans heard the doctor's private report on the Vargr girl. She was stabilized with a staff Vargr Psion using The Touch on Qithka. It was the strangest thing to see tension, wracked and warped muscles relax at 1/60th time and see Qithka breathing while her body metabolized the last of the Fast Zhem hit her with.

Zhem did not tell Shaa that Qithka had endured an Awakening. The drop in Shaa's funds confirmed it anyway. The Vilani hoped that Vargr Psions were just as trustworthy as the Republic ones. Already history was wracked with waves of the disciplines rise and fall from favor in the public. It only took one bad apple.

Today, with the emergency power flowing, jump starting the Fusion Power Plant was next on the docket. Pipe over some L-Hyd for a test ignition. Once enough lighting was available, red alert illumination or standard station lights, Shaa would see about reactivating the backup, Long Term Life Support devices. Her Day was going to be 29 hours long. Thanks to her Vaccsuit Stamina Option, Shaa's would not truly feel fatigue until around 30 hours.

Once floating through the low-power derelict, Shaa met with Zhem already on site and on Task.

These Ankhirans yet had no use for the Highport nor any means to use it. But simply having visiting starships dock was enough to boost their economic status. Repairs from visitors could he traded for cheap output from the planet. A Repair and Reward exchange. Something similar had reactivated her home Beltport of Starn long before little Shaa Gankinra came into the universe.

By the end of the second week, Hew Hollowton was able to board the station cautiously and begin policing bodies back to the Safari Ship and into cargo hold body bags.
 
* * *

“Alright Pack, this is volleyball not psionic ball,” explained Qithka as the families that had tested her and trained her for Stage One gathered on the sandy beach. With her direction, a sphere that served well enough and a raised net made do for beachfront lessons in volleyball. “Keep your mind claws off the ball and hopefully out of each other’s heads.”

“That’s part of the graduation exercise, Qithka!” called opponent on the other side of the net. “You’re supposed to practice your Psi-Shield while playing this game you teach us.”

The Dame had played volleyball on Darrian for a Kfan Uzangou magazine annual swimsuit edition photo shoot. While Qithka01 had played a little grav-ball in cargo holds during her time. Qithka felt a little more at home with the Ankhirans who panted and took ready poses to intercept her serve.
Psionic Volleyball.jpg
As Qithka served and then rushed into the playing field, she played distraction memories of Gevaudan who had only developed two disciplines with his mediocre Psi Rating of 7, teleportation and clairvoyance or his “sniffer”. Dancing about her side to intercept the ball, Qithka felt a few attempts to read her mind, some repulsed by her defenses, others getting to see the Pilot-Astrogator at the surface of her thoughts.

“Nothing too personal, Qithka!”

“You!” growled Qithka as she performed a set up so a teammate could fire the ball back across the net. “That’s my broth-…great uncle.”

“He’s your brother, Qithka!”

By now, the Bureau of Psionic Relations had helped Qithka through Stage One of her psionics training. Those that could read minds and probe memories had come to her repeatedly to apologize for digging into both the Dame and her Pattern mother’s lives. With respectful bows and promises of client confidentiality, Qithka in this way was able to backhandedly come out as a Relict Clone of Dame Qithka Cannagrrh and again as the Relict Clone of Qithka01 Cannagrrh of the New Era.

“Blooded Fang, huh?” announced another volleyball opponent. Qithka jumped and slammed the ball in the intruder’s muzzle.

“I don’t do that anymore!” Qithka called into the shoreline winds though she was referring to the Dame’s daring display of biting a thorny species of rose in a tableau of strength and endurance.

Qithka had chosen to stay as balanced across the Aptitudes whereas Gevaudan had thrown his attentions on teleportation with a minor in his “sniffer”. Serving the volleyball again, the ringtail aced the opposing side trying to dive for the ball. Qithka hoped to fly under the radar by keeping herself from such specialization in the Extra Sensory Perceptions and Extra Corporeal Manipulations.

“Those will come in time at your next Stages of training, Qithka.”

“Oooh, you!” Qithka growled. The team was good, but Qithka was better at volleyball.

Qithka did not want to end up what the Bureau called a “one-trick Poni” with this training. Though it might mean she was not going to pull of miracles such as reading the future or looking into the past like Uthka-

The game stopped when the ball hit the sand.

“Did I think something bad?” asked Qithka when all the players looked at her.

Those that had read her mind crossed under the net or approached her from this side. One telepath said, “You knew a seer, one who could foresee the future?”

The Dame had never once betrayed Uthka Varzeekh once she had learned Uthka was a Psion. Neither had Qithka01 betrayed the seer’s memory. But now, Qithka’s thoughts and memories had shown these Psions a thing they thought novel.

“Decide for yourselves,” answered Qithka as she called up every memory she could of Uthka Varzeekh and her predictions. There had bene times the tea-loving crone had played a charlatan fortune teller. There was the time she angrily warned the crew of the Ares not to signal for help from the Imperial Navy in District 268. Another time, Uthka Looked and saw the return of aged Gevaudan with his mate-wife Zhevra. The time when Uthka predicted her own translation from the universe from her deathbed in quiet comfort.

“It’s just that-…this person, this Uthka did more than use psionics. It looks to us like she was also a scientist of Psychohistory, or clio dynamics, pairing psionics with a knowledge of societal patterns.”

“I thought you were the Bureau of Psionics Relations,” said Qithka tilting her head.

“We are, but many of us are not Psions and have gone to college for other Majors.”

Neither the Dame nor Qithka01 had ever doubted the singular power of Uthka Varzeekh. But with this news came a new light shed on the old crone. Seeing the future did not have to come from some fluke psionic power. Could Uthka have mixed Sophontology, Sociology, Psioncology and Psychohistory in a blend that allowed her to predict? If so, then the seer must have seen the Equality War, the Rebellion and perhaps the first calamity had she not foreseen the Mind Tsunami first and gone to sleep in Ksethu (Gvurrdon 1112) and returned when the Dame summoned her.

“We lost many Psions and non-Psions to that phenomenon,” declared a telepath. “Though Ankhir has forgotten it, we of the Bureau of Psionic Relations kept that much history.”

Gevaudan’s Jump. Just thinking of that dreadful domestic violence mishap aboard the Sixth Horizon was enough to oust the telepaths conversing with Qithka02 Cannagrrh. But the miraculous Teleportation Hop by the Pilot-Astrogator made some of the jaunters perk up with bright faces. To teleport interstellar was a secret Qithka lost to them.

Don’t every try it, warned Qithka with her thoughts at the mind-reading jaunters.

The tuning fork chimed and all ears rose to hear it. Dinner time.
 
An actual, signed, sealed, and framed diploma was given to Qithka. On Tech 5 Ankhir, this was the low-tech version of a Stage One Certification in psionics training. Qithka thought it overt and vowed to hang it on her cabin wall only for so long, to appease the Bureau telepaths awarding it to her. Then she meant to take it down and hide it from anyone who did not need to know she was now a Psion. Celebration dinner, congratulations from each of the instructors, and a send-off address from Zounrroull thanked Qithka as their client and patron. The elder had telephoned with what looked like a relic of land line telecommunications to the Ankhir Plains Port. Qithka’s crew would descend from the skies to receive her. Claw shakes and words of thanks cycled across Qithka. She would have to lug the Low Berth cryosleep pod back to the Panas Gankinra. It was Shaa’s device after all.

The Bureau of Psionic Relations packed up the beachfront house into a few transport trucks with internal combustion engines. Qithka helped load the cryo-sleep pod. The bumpy ride from the shore to Ankhir Plains Port was made easier by chatting with the Pack curious about space, spaceships, starcraft, the worlds still out there after the Breaks. In turn, Qithka learned that High-Population centers and Industrial equivalents held the highest probability of her finding a source for Stage Two training.

Psionics Staging was part philosophical. New Psions were encouraged to keep an open mind while exploring themselves by exploring different Psionics Institutes and hearing different themes on the disciplines. That way, Qithka could not become crystallized in Ankhir thinking and miss out on some new revelation she too might share should she become an instructor someday.

Combing back through her memories of Gvurrdon Sector, Qithka could think of a few High-Population worlds in and around the Dzen Aeng Kho that might have hidden such schools.

For though Vargr psionics back in the day was not wholly illegal, possessing the disciplines was another tool albeit one that fell under “don’t ask, don’t tell”. Then there were the psionic agencies or psi-corps like the Oruelaen that Zhevra had encountered in her quest to recover Gevaudan. More painful memories…

Zounrroull poked his elderly nose through the rear window of the truck cab to caution Qithka, “Live in the now, Space Traveller.”

Nodding her canine head in thanks, Qithka refocused her thoughts on her current goals. She wanted badly to learn if her homeworld, one these current feet had never walked upon, Dzuerongvoe was still out there. Due time and a sore rump from the ride saw the Downport B, a low-tech affair of biplanes, expensive groundcars and rich commuters enjoying the upgraded airfields and refurbished landing pads of a bygone era.

And behold, beside the Type K Safari Ship Panas Gankinra was a crowd of Ankhiran Vargr snapping photo captures of the adjacent arrival of a Type VX Vargr Courier though it too had seen better days. With the familiar reptile shell heraldry, Qithka knew this was a re-contact visitation from Emissaries of Gaekloungoerzaghun four parsecs distant. Would borders of a new pocket empire be drawn this year? Intriguing to the Dame inside Qithka02, the rings on her tail reminded Qithka that this was not her business. She was no longer the snooping field correspondent the Dame had been.

There was plenty of newspaper press journalists mixed with welcoming dignitaries crowding about the Vargr Courier. Qithka’s trucks pulled up and parked at marked slots for ground vehicles to load the Safari Ship with the cryo-sleep pod and her very few things. Dressed in her lilac unitard and draped with her new woven lavender poncho, Qithka saw Capt. Gankinra step from the airlock and descend the ladder in a sliding motion. The Vilani looked excited to see Qithka but reserved enough in Vilani dignity to remain stoic-stern in the reunion.

The two females joined in a happy embrace. Shaa took up Qithka’s jawline in holding the Vargr so she could peer into Qithka’s eyes. “Ocean blue eyes,” noted Shaa. “You look alright to me. You had us frightened to the Ancestors, Qithka. Welcome back.”

“Good to be back,” nodded Qithka hugging the taller Human.

Extremity shakes from elder Zounrroull to Capt. Gankinra and small exchanges of thanks were passed about. With final goodbyes, Qithka and Shaa watched as the local Bureau of Psionic Relations returned to their trucks and gave way to more arriving press to the nearby Vargr Courier and its Emissaries. Qithka and Shaa then helped haul the hefty Low Berth back into the ship via the Cargo Lock where waited Zhem and Hew Hollowton standing aside each other yet hidden from public view. Qithka knew that the locals might not appreciate a Robot or a talking Bear.

“What a pretty poncho,” noted Shaa as the four reunited. “Did they give you that?”

Qithka nodded as her tail wagged. “It is both a memento and a sign to other Vargr Psions, so that they can supposedly make quiet contact, just in case.”

“Pretty and handmade too,” added the Vilani. “I am envious of this apparel. I may have to buy one at the next world, Qithka.”

Next came the hulking Cym-Robot Zhem who put a huge manipulator on Qithka’s shoulder before saying, “Qithka, I am glad you are back online. I-…I have intense Pathos right now to see you return. I am sorry. It was my duty to inspect the Cabins before jump. I should have-.”

Qithka cut off the Cym with, “You could not have known of the mishap, Zhem. Calm yourself. I’m okay now. Please stop overthinking this.” With that, Qithka stepped up to hug the huge chassis. It was returned by the gentle, armored Vargriform.

Next was Hew Hollowton who said, “You did have us worried though. Jump dementia is nothing to sneeze at, though yours was a special case. Never viewed Jump Space alone before, huh?” Qithka confirmed it with a nod of her head. “Your noggin’ back on right? Did they make a Joe out of you?”

“S’not nice t’ say tha’ about them, but I’m ‘ere, ‘ew,” cautioned Qithka in her Anglic. A pat on her Vargr head from the huge Ursa claw was the limit from Hew Hollowton. Then he returned to working on the reinstall of the cryo-sleep pod.

The crew worked as a team to bolt in Qithka’s Low Berth. It was Shaa’ who named it such aloud. So, this unit became Qithka’s should she ever need it again. Qithka did not like having a cryo-sleep pod with her name on it, like bullets, but having survived the ordeal and revival had tied her to it somehow. Ancients help her if she ever became a Winkle or a Timer with the device.

During a lunch break, Qithka agreed to accompany Shaa to the Ankhir Plains Market, a Startown outside the Downport. Though the Safari Ship had done the mainworld government a huge, multi-million credit favor in payment for Qithka’s recovery, the Panas Gankinra still needed to conduct trade for the next world on the route. Qithka eagerly accepted. She felt indebted to Shaa for the expense of being a dementia patient and budding Psion at the Vilani woman’s expense of time, money, and efforts.

As Qithka settled into her Cabin, she was visited by both Zhem and then followed by Hew who claimed he repaired the faulty viewport shutters. The Ursa claimed, “The doc and I have taken turns cycling them over and over. You won’t have this problem again, Qithka.”

“Thank yew, ‘ew,” answered Qithka. “I dowt this will ‘appen again in me lifetime as yew said it were my first. Was I bad while under?”

“Naw,” answered the Ursa. “Your eye color deepened in those blues and you did some catatonic mumbling that I suspect only the doc understood. You’re safe now in here. Glad you’re back.” Then the Ursa turned in for the night. Qithka watched the sunset from her viewport.

Azure eyes. Had her Awakening changed her eye color like Zhevra reported of Gevaudan? In the mirror, Qithka saw only her ocean blue irises. No frenzying Qithka. Relieved, she changed from her lilac unitard, showered, and opted for her Mesh-7 bodysuit and kept her new lavender poncho. It was growing on her like a cub’s security blanket.

The next morning, Qithka and Shaa took an orange-tinted, yellow-and-checkers taxicab into the Startown from the Terminal entryway. Qithka was allowed her Accelerator Pistol and Shaa wore her Naval Cutlass openly. For though Ankhir had been welcoming as a client of a Bureau, normal markets, urban Vargr life, and escorting a Vilani Human required some security. The market pits were full of lively locals trading on a planetary scale today. Business was already in full swing when the two females sought out speculatives. Freight and Passengers were still off limits this deep into the Wilds.
 
Reconvening after an initial scouting of the commodities pits, Qithka and Shaa compared finds. Qithka discovered an Imbalance, a lost shipment of Premium Anti-matter likely mined from a Asteroid world by the labels. Dangerous stuff to leave around on a Tech 5 Ankhir. Shaa did not find Imbalance, but the Edutainment Wafers she discovered were useless to Ankhirans. Both finds were valuable, but Capt. Gankinra put her foot down and opted for the safer Wafers than barely contained Anti-matter passing through.

"Have you ever considered a Wafer Jack, Shaa?" asked Qithka as the Human woman signed over an Ankhiran equivalent of Cr70,000.

Level-headed Shaa pointed at herself and said, "Vilani and 53 with a birthday coming soon. No."

When Qithka did not push, Shaa asked over brunch, "You?"

"Never," said Qithka. "Not in any of my lives, though Qithka01 came close. Now that this happened to me," said Qithka pointing to her poncho, "I don't want to go down Gevaudan's path. They called him an 'abomination' back then."

"Sorry," said Shaa. The two dropped the topic and returned to logistics of the 20 tons of Edutainment Wafers.

Contacting the Ankhir Plains Downport for lift window involved triplicate signatures from Capt. Gankinra on the blocky, all-caps forms in Gvegh. Shaa smiled that Traveller smile as she tolerated the red tape for a departure schedule.

The others had fallen into a routine that quickly outpaced Qithka such that she had to gloss over the Pre-Flight Checks in Engineering and trust that the Operating Console in the aft compartment was reading accurately. If it broke, Qithka would be in for a surprise she might have seen coming.

Taking her assigned Portable Controller to the Bridge after the Fast Boost to Orbit, Qithka sat down to an easier two-parsec jump calculation. A normal pathing took about two hours, but Qithka recalled Shaa’s orders for Cautious pathing, even on such simple calculations to nearby Aengvoung, (if that was still the world-system name in 1902 Imperial). She sat for four hours, most of the outbound commute in double-checking her work. Shaa brought in some root beer beverages for her and Hew.

While the Captain took her free time in the Commons, Qithka sat reviewing her pathing. Shaa had wanted another Gas Giant breakout, but Qithka had remembered that Aengvoung lacked Gas Giants. It was then another mainworld breakout pathing.
 
* * *

To Hew Hollowton, the Ship’s Cat was already out of the bag. Qithka was a psion to have taken so long planetside. With Zhem cooking a pre-jump meal and the Captain enjoying off-duty hours, the Ursa sipped his root beer and watched Qithka triple-check her pathing at SensOps-Astrogation. He leaned over half a square from his seat at the helm to ask, “So uh-, how’d you do down there?” he was curious and the concept of a Vargr Psion was new to Hew.

“Meanin’?” Qithka looked at Hew when her tail wagged in calculations contentment.

“Y’know, what can you do now?”

“It don’ work like dat, ‘ew,” explained Qithka whose right claw came up to her woven or knitted or fabricated lavender poncho. “I’m jus’ a Stage One. Dunno wha’ I kin do yet. Dis will be life-long kwest. KnowwhatImean?”

“Oh,” said Hew. “Oh.” Qithka was not some instantaneous master of the weird sciences. Instead, she was on some journey of unfoldment into psionics.

“Are yew concerned, ‘ew?” asked Qithka, “like mebbe I’m a Vargr witch or Nobl Zhodani?”

“Just asking, is all.”

“Jus’ sayin’, is all.” The two left the topic there as Qithka tapped her COMMIT key to submit the pathing to the Panas AI for confirmation in 24 hours.
Psion Qithka02.jpg
 
* * *

Pre-jump dinner was served. Dr. Zhem had prepared a fine meal partitioned off by Human, Ursa, and Vargr preferences. No alcohol. Not yet. Jump first. As the Cym-Robot observed with interest, Shaa and her crew sat down to the meal. There was an awkward silence about the table. Shaa noticed that seating had changed too. Rather than sitting at the other end of the table, Hew Hollowton was now on the floor to her right and opposite of Qithka Cannagrrh. This had allowed Zhem to stand at Hew’s normal position and watch closer.

It was Qithka who broke the quiet consumption. “The pathing to Aengvoung is being confirmed by the Panas, Captain.” Qithka had draped her lavender poncho, a gift from the Ankhirans over the back of her chair.



“We did good work this past two weeks,” added Hew. “That station will attract more traffic, if any is out here in the Wilds at all.”

Shaa noticed her Freightmaster and her Pilot were trading stares. The Vilani tried to read the subtle paralanguage going on under this talk. A tension was building on her ship. As an ex-Merchant Captain, Shaa Gankinra had seen the slow, steady buildup when mishaps, crew shakeups, a costly delay, or other adversity struck a tramp trader.

As if it were her turn to contribute to this awkwardness, Granny Shaa said, “Billion-credit Highport gone fallow could be partially online by the end of the year if the Ankhirans keep up this refurbishment. We saw their upgrades at the Downport. Not bad for Tech 5 slide from Tech 7.” And still the awkward was hanging over the table.

Qithka put down her two-prong fork and stopped her steak stabbings to address the table in her birth language Gvegh, “I want to say my thanks. Thank you all for saving me from jump dementia. I know that directly looking at the edge of the universe has a long list of recorded effects, most little, mine something of unearthed legend. But I could have died in my Cabin.”

Qithka continued when she was not interrupted, “I accepted testing and training to Stage One, stepping on to the path of the Psion. Had I not, my Awakening would have faded and I would have missed a once in a lifetime opportunity for new experiences. Know that I’m not going to turn into the Tavrchedl’, the Thought Police, and I don’t even know what I will find within. It’s still very new. Ancients, I had a hard time learning to shield my thoughts like a Psi-Shield Helmet does. It looks weird, an 18-year-old Psion who talks funny, knows way too much for her own good, and can get in to so much trouble. I want you all to know I value you, call you friends, and deeply appreciate all you have done for me.”

Shaa nodded and smiled to the white pelt as Zhem translated Qithka’s words to Anglic for Hew Hollowton who did not speak Gvegh, that a sophont’s first language was the best language to express gratitude.

“Qithka,” broke in Dr. Zhem, “there are very few Psions left today. I have met a few, and after my Move to this chassis and becoming a Doctor and a Counsellor, I am full of Pathos for the chance to observe you. If you need me for anything, I am here.”

“Well, it’s not like I’ve sold my core-anima to the Ancients, or that I will somehow be corrupted by this change,” shrugged Qithka. “I’m still me and I still want to go home to Dzuerongvoe.”

Though Gvegh was still being spoken, Hew leaned in to say, “Qithka, this is one circus I’m glad to be member. I’d be a Matron’s carpet by now if it weren’t for this outbound ship and crew. You do you, girl.”

Shaa then spoke, “Hew has a point, in that this mission is well beyond Vilani orthodoxy, and I am glad to have had a life to make this excursion happen. Travelling is dangerous. Travellers are dangerous. Yes, we’re dangerous and rugged off-worlders, visitors from the stars at every world we touch. We are special sophonts. Our task now is to not grow our heads too big. Let’s complete this mission, return Qithka to her homeworld, and then we can turn around and show the Republic of Regina and its margins that the Wilds can be tamed.”

The meal brightened with the words from their Captain. Inside herself, Shaa was glad to have taken Liaison training, the skill needed to help all sides reach agreeable ends.

Qithka would obey her Captain. Vargr Charisma did that to the canine race. Hew needed a commanding officer, the exiled Marine. These new events were interesting to a Cym seeking the mortal condition in its Robot form. And this was Shaa’s ship, her mission and though she’d sworn off octopus and lived through it, she was still in command.

Hew took a sleep, Qithka her second of a Day. Shaa sat in the Commons and paged through her family album and sipped root beer.

Qithka’s return to a turn at the morning Galley was heralded by the Panas AI announcing, “Captain, the Astrogation is confirmed Green.”

“Thank you,” yawned Shaa Gankinra. She had just enough left of her Personal Day to oversee Hew point the Safari Ship in the right direction and give the word for Qithka to initiate jump. Then bed.

Finding space at 80 Diameters empty of other traffic, the Panas Gankinra flashed from Ankhir and spent another week out back. Granny Shaa had done her parenting. The Vilani took a relaxant and hit the sack.
 
* * *

Shaa woke to Day 1 out back and found the Bridge had not been stood down. Rather, Zhem, Qithka stood over Hew as the Ursa tried to diagnose why the entire SensOps-Astrogation Console was offline. “Why didn’t anyone come and get me out of bed?” Shaa asked angrily. She felt left out of the problem.

Qithka snapped to some form of attention as her tail had been jammed into a power outlet. “Ma’am, you were asleep and we have an entire week to diagn-.”

“I don’t care about how long it takes,” griped the Vilani without breakfast. “If something breaks on this boat, I need to be told!”

“I thought it was another faulty mini-board,” offered Hew from under the Console desktop. Shaa booted the Ursa to move out of her way so she could try diagnosing the issue. “Qithka found the Console down and tried first.” The two were ratting on each other in hopes of dodging Vilani ire.

Water damage had shorted an entire local main board. The Operating Console at SensOps-Astrogation was technically destroyed by the flooding damage. Over the Day as breakfast, coffee, lunch, tea, dinner, supper, the trio tried in vain to repair it.

“Damn all Water worlds!” Shaa griped at the end of Day 1. While the station was offline, the Portable Controllers could still access the Sensors, Qithka able to calculate jumps. But to do so was more difficult. Shaa had to count on Qithka’s notes on her private starchart that this so-called Aengvoung was still a shipyard from before the Collapse and Interregnum.

The jump to Aengvoung was only two parsecs. The ship would have plenty of fuel to commute. Shaa ran over the risks and factors of seeking help repairing the SensOps-Astrogation station Console. She hoped a yard could repair where she and the others could not.

Shaa Gankinra had to deviate from Vilani process in declaring that she and Qithka use Portable Controllers for Sensors and Astrogation tasks, hoping for a Starport B with enough technical know-how to repair the station.

First Meal out back was nervously quiet. Qithka and the Bear, yes Qithka and the Bear avoided looking at Shaa as if she could laser them dead with her eyes. Shaa had no such intention. Was she giving Resting Scowl face? So much for that new ship excuse.

With the Engineering compartment and the Bridge stood down, the crew of the Panas Gankinra spread out across the upper and lower decks. With such space, the week kept them from pointing claws or saying something regrettable. Fifth Night was glossed over and meals were quick, individual affairs. Zhem alone seemed immune to the airs. The Vargriform claimed his Pathos was less than 10% as he put it.

Hew either drank or worked on mounting some kind of sniper scope to his Mora Peacekeeper Shotgun. He tried to invite Shaa first, and then was caught offering the same to underage Qithka. (Had she been drinking before with him?) Shaa saw the young, budding Psion thank the Ursa, but that now a Psion, Qithka could not afford to intoxicate her brain so early in her training.

Qithka toggled between Dancer lessons and starting a written journal. Shaa caught the Vargr bicentenarian writing in Gvegh, Zdetl, Anglic, and Vilani in her clawwriting. The journal was on her psionic testing, training, and her experiments with each Stage. And she shared it freely with Shaa and the others. The young Psion was practicing transparency with her crew, trusting them with its confidence.

“What kind of experiments at Stage One?” Shaa cautiously asked. Psionics were in and out of favor throughout the Vilani grandmother’s life. But since there was an apprentice aboard, Shaa tried to break some quiet during jump transit.

Qithka displayed her measurements called Direct, Self, and Remote before she pointed her claw at her rated, natural Psi-Shield. She explained with, “Direct means I have to touch the Subject or Object of an Ability. Self is well-, self-explanatory, Abilities I will use only on myself. Remote means how far I can reach with a Subject or Object with an Ability. See?”

Shaa did not see, but she let the young Psion continue so as to not break the Vargr’s momentum. Qithka added, “One immature, school grounds trick I did learn was putting minds into a kind of nap. It’s called Clouding. I can do it to myself, but that gets boring very quickly except when I can’t fall asleep because I may have broke SensOp-Astrogation. I was the last to use it.”

A psionic attack that induces mental nap time. Shaa too had been on edge since the Destroyed diagnosis of the Operating Console on the Bridge. The Vilani sat down on the same couch in the Commons and suggested, “How about me? Does it hur-?” Shaa roused four minutes later as noted by the chronometer in the Galley. She had just missed Qithka’s Clouding.

“To answer your question with a question, Captain, what did it feel like to you? I simply conk out as if in a quick nap. You?”

Shaa felt surprised, a little defensive, but realized that she had only lost four minutes on the comfy couch.

“Y-yes, a quick nap,” answered Shaa Gankinra.

For her first time in her 53 years, Shaa knew herself a Subject of a psionics Ability. Now she knew why her elders grew uncomfortable or complained of wriggly-flesh when the topic of psionics came up. It had become a subject one best not bring up in polite company.


As if to disarm the surprise and soften the offensive nature of this Clouding, Qithka placed her claws over her closed journal and fell instantly asleep. Shaa watched as what looked like a nodding off turned into a six-minute break for the Vargr. Then the Relict Clone woke up, looked about, and asked, "Useful trick for insomnia, I think."

Watching the young female simply close her eyes and nap for six minutes, Shaa then knew how easily psionics was lauded as fake, charlatan parlor tricks.

"Is that all you can do at this ah-, Stage?" asked Shaa. What other effects was this female able to perform?

"I can't prove it works, but I have built a wall of will, to block unwanted psionics," answered Qithka. "It's my Psi-Shield. I can strengthen it if I really put my Self into it, but that takes concentration. The Bureau on Ankhir taught me the hard way."

This was creepy. Privately, Shaa was glad that it was not her viewport that had jammed that day in jump to Ankhir.

"No-no, that must be useful," said with a nervous chuckle. Psions knocking each other into naptime as if it were a playground game. It was creepy, stuff out of horror holovids.

"I'm sorry I broke the Console, Shaa," apologized Qithka, her nose and muzzle dipping. "It must have been me. I was the las-."

Granny Shaa could not let Qithka make another pair of puppy eyes at her. Reaching out to lay a hand on the claws, Shaa cut off the apology to say, "I am in command. I gave the order for waterborne landing. I am responsible."

"And Astrogation pathing?" whimpered the teenage white pelt.

"If we're to path, let us team up on our Portables until the Bridge Console is repaired. I've never paired up for it, but it is allowed, especially for those long jump military vessels."

The adaptation plan brightened the Vargr female. In Qithka, Shaa could now see both a wise and experienced elder behind the bright, ocean blue eyes of a teenage body. Was it true that this new Relict Clone began diverging from her past lives the moment of her reiteration?

Shaa risked a personal question then. "Do you still regret waking up here and now, Qithka? Don't answer if it hurts."

"I thought I-...Qithka01 thought she was done and ready to meet her maker," murmured Qithka02. "I guess the answer will depend on what I find on Dzuerongvoe."

"Fair enough, I suppose," said Shaa.
 
* * *

It was more a Detector than a gun sight. The keepsake Hew had looted from his second campaign was a cylindrical Life Perceptor device. Hew had in his mind to mate it with his Peacekeeper. It would not help him target, but pointed in the same direction as his weapon, would cut down on time needed to consult it for life signs. Hew certainly did not know how it created a technological analog to the alien Perception Sense.

With the help of the Panas AI, the two-ton Makershop on board, and a little tooling to keep his paws busy and off the sauce, Hew set to mount the Perceptor as he liked to name it.

"How about some Recoil shock padding? I need it to stay mounted, but not destroyed by the Peacekeeper. The thing kicks like a mad Virushi."

The Panas answered, "Devoting one Cell to Makershop. Some foam rubber is required. Five cubic centimeters."

The girl loped in on the retooling. Maybe the foam backing from the rotted couch cushions...

"Qithka," greeted Hew to the Psion wearing her lavender poncho. The girl was wearing it more often though over a ship uniform, her lavender unitard, or that Mesh bodyglove armor.

"Hew," answered Qithka. She held out a Lesler-Khalan make .50 caliber Accelerator Pistol snapped into its leather holster. "I wan' t' name it."

Nice icebreaker. Approach the Marine with a firearm. "Sure," said Hew. "What do you want to name it?"

Along the leather and on the barrel housing, Qithka played an index digit claw and said, "I wan' it say MALICE, "ere an' 'ere."

Hew paused his project for some leather working and metal engraving with the help of the Makershop. When he was satisfied he could read the malicious name from across the shop, the Ursa handed back the named Pistol.

"Malice," announced Hew. "It fits."

When the Marine saw the teenage Vargr skin the deadly piece, something clicked in his head. The girl knew her weapon. How good could an 18-year-old Vargr cub shoot such a paw-cannon?

Qithka was looking down the sight of the Lesler-Khalan when Hew risked a question, "Trained?"

Absently, the murmuring answer came out as, "'ad t' train on th' go. Cunnonic, Bowman, Orsesokhin-" Then she cut herself off in surprise at what she had said. She spun to leave in a rush as if there was an emergency in another compartment.

This was now well out of normality for Hew Hollowton. Weird accent, multilingual, brainy starship skills, and now field weapon training?

Psion now that Qithka had suffered a full-on code from too much jump dementia. Hew wanted answers. The lil freak was creeping him out.

Keeping the excuse of needing foam rubber for the Gunmaker subroutine, Hew passed by Qithka's Cabin door. He could smell her lingering alarm pheromones though her thumping tribal Vargr music was felt through the deck.

It was what Hew had done as an adolescent Ursa in deep shit with his parents. Hew did not knock or buzz Qithka's door. He did not want to frighten her, an adult barging in to scold a minor.

Rather, the Marine sought out the Robot. No Robotic Laws, eh?

"Doc! My neck again!"

Faking another neck tension, Hew bellyached a massage on the Med Console from Dr. Zhem. Additionally, he requested some Counsellor session with the Cym since the Panas Gankinra lacked a Counsellor AI Booth.

Hew's neck vertebrae popped like a rapid-fire machine pistol before the Vargriform laid into a full body rub. He almost forgot his trap to spring on Qithka's friend.

Midway through the spinal adjustments, Hew popped the trap question to Zhem, "Say, doc, is Astrogation a subject taught before College in the Republic?"

"No, it is not."

"And how about a Wilds world like the Captain's Starn? Shaa hails from a Beltport."

"Again, no."

"Maybe they teach it to Vargr pups and cubs in the Wilds." Hew was almost there. The Cym was not giving out patient confidentiality.

"Doubtful, First Lieutenant," answered Zhem.

To avoid suspicion, Hew changed the subject. "Did the Ankhirans give Qithka a clean bill of health?"

"As the Ship's Medic, and after consulting their report, I deem Qithka fit for ship duty."

"Good to know. Ahh. Thanks, doc." Hew rose and went to pressurize the cargo hold where the discarded couch cushions lay. Five cubic centimeters sliced off by his claws. Easy enough.

Returning the foam to the Makershop, Hew asked the Panas, "Is Drive Engineering taught in Trade Schools or Apprenticeship?"

"Cell to Education. No, it is not." The AI was less protective but suffered Robotic Laws.

"Okay," nodded Hew. "Oh, will this foam work?" It did, and soon the GunMaker routines fitted the Perceptor snugly to the Peacekeeper Shotgun.

The Ursa panned the longarm about, catching Capt. Gankinra's life signature and then Qithka's still in her Cabin. It looked like the female was hopping up and down, pogo to the music blaring in her domicile.

What the Perceptor could not detect was the location of Dr. Zhem after the massage. The Vargriform should have reset the Medical compartment after Hew was done.

Checking his six, Hew Hollowton lumbered over to the Makershop Control Panel and began a computer inquiry to the Panas AI. Typing it all out on the interface was a bitch, but the Ursa believed he had stated it well enough without asking aloud.

What is the most common way for a teenage sophont to acquire as many skills as Qithka has?

It was not a direct question about Qithka. Yet, the Ship's Computer had to answer on the Makershop schematics panel.

On the screen came the AI answer:

A Relict Clone is a close copy of the Pattern donor, overlaid with the personality of the Pattern after being Force-Grown to Life Stage 3...

"Gotcha. Makes sense now," whispered the Ursa.

As he read the article by swipe-scrolling the screen, Hew understood better why the Vilani had not recruited for crew. He understood now the protectiveness of the Cym-Robot for Qithka.

Addressing the AI aloud, Hew said, "Forget I asked." The screen went blank.

Since she became a Psion, Qithka had verbally sworn off sneaking whiskey. That route was cut off. How about the Captain?

Hew decided to wait on that trap. He needed the Captain since Shaa Gankinra knew most if not all the ship systems. Patience of a mountain...
 
* * *

The typhoon on Cunnonic, the Bowman Incident, the Orsesokhin Run; how could she let herself slip like that? Qithka thrashed in her dance routines to the music. Maybe the Bear would forget this. Maybe not, griped the Dame within Qithka02. The field correspondent knew how to listen in interviews. A Marine knew how to read foes in tactical. Gevaudan would be laughing at his sist-... grandniece by now. Sweat it out, this fear, that was Qithka's goal.

Because of her pounding music, Qithka was in her lilac unitard when Shaa burst in and yelled at the top of her voice, "Qithka! Jump rumblings! Suit up! Grab your Portable and turn that music down! Ancestors, teenagers."

Instead of suit-and-tie, the ship jargon for wearing one's Vaccsuit but keeping the helmet tied at the belt, today in Far Far Future, the new term was riding dullahan. It was because a suited crew walked around carrying their helmet as if they were headless.

With her Portable Controller shoulder slung, Qithka reported to Engineering to monitor the Drives for Aengvoung breakout.

“Breakout,” reported Shaa from her use of her Portable Console. “Sensors confirm n-space in….yes, it’s Gvurrdon 1726.”

Qithka watched from her Portable Controller as Sensors were fed not through the Operating Console, but through the two Portables, Shaa’s and hers. “Cell to World Range Sensors, Visor to helm, and begin mapping.”

“Cell to World Range Sensors,” acknowledged the Panas AI.

The world-system Orbits began to fill with captured data starting with the bright M1 main sequence slightly larger than a true Red Dwarf. The mainworld fitting Qithka’s starchart. It was Aengvoung but without the remembered Nav Beacons of the Highport and the Downport. Aengvoung to Qithka’s recollection had been a main shipbuilding hub of the entire Sector in the Dame’s day and still active and independent in her Pattern mother’s years.

“Maneuver Drive online, Jump Drive on cooldown,” reported Qithka in Engineering. “We have weeks of fuel remaining.”

“I have the mainworld on Visor, targeted and locked in the helm HUD,” announced Hew. “Ready to commute.”

“Three gees puts us just over twenty hours since the mainworld sits just inside the Red’s jump shadow. Begin commute.”

“Aye.” Qithka heard the power flowing to the Maneuver Drive grabbing and pulling on the gravity well produced by the stellar primary.

“No bogeys,” said Shaa. “Not a good sign though.”

With no traffic in the 100 Diameter jump point coming or going, it meant that Aengvoung had changed after the Collapse and Interregnum.

Sitting in Orbit 1 of the Red main sequence meant that Aengvoung was a Twilight Zone world. The planet was split between Baked Lands constantly facing the red star and Frozen Lands on the nightside. On the border would be the Green Zone. The difference with Aengvoung was that the planet was on the Cold edge of the Habitable Zone. Qithka imagined conifer forests, pseudo-Tundra environs with snowcapped mountains if they were not locked together by glacier.

“All clear. Suits if you want to continue lugging nine-plus kilos around.” The crew then stood down from breakout protocol.

There were never any moons of a Twilight Zone world. Too close to the gravitational pull of the homestar. Qithka knew this would be a longer commute and took a sleep with the Portable Controller facing her in bed, notifications set to alarm her. Shaa took a watch to continue the flight path as Hew took a longer sleep. All wanted to be up and awake for the mainworld orbital approach. Qithka fell out watching the small dot grow slowly larger on the Visor echo. As it grew closer, Scopes, Visor, EMS and other Space Range Sensors began to fill in a Universal World Profile.

Four hours and change later, Qithka bolted out of bed, dressed in her Mesh-7 and her lavender poncho, (for luck) to grab up the Portable on the way to the Bridge.

Arriving on the Bridge, Qithka toggled her Portable to Engineering boards and watched the updated data on Shaa’s Portable as the Captain sat at the helm. Ahead, the mainworld had grown significantly but was still distant.

“Still no Comms at all,” mumbled Shaa. Qithka could tell the Human was nigh-Tired.

“Have you tried any hails?” Qithka asked.

“Protocol among the Vilani says if they’ve seen our Breakout Flash, they hail us first,” explained Shaa. “It protects us from lurking piracy. I already have the Stealth Mask hiding our signature as best it can.”

“Captain, you’re nodding at the helm with thirteen hours left to Far Orbit approach. Please turn in.”

Shaa Gankinra sighed, yawned, and nodded in acquiescence. “You have the conn.”

“I have the conn,” answered Qithka.

At the ten-hour ‘turnover’ midpoint, Qithka had the Panas AI completing the world-system map. She hoped that there were other installations among the six Other worlds or perhaps the Metals Planetoid Belt in Orbit 2, a treasure trove for Belters so close to the mainworld. Perhaps this was how Aengvoung had a Rich Trade Classification all the way up to the New Era, the 1200s.

And with the World Range Sensors primed to begin surveying Aengvoung, Qithka waited. No bogeys and no Comms was an eerie sensation for Qithka as she recalled the busy hub that Aengvoung once was in her memories. Zhevra too had passed through Aengvoung to refit the Sixth Horizon with an emergency HEPlaR Drive so she could run the blockade known as the Regency Quarantine Line, a breach of law so faulty that it almost earned her an execution.

Two hours later, a yawning, toothy Bear entered the Bridge and swapped with Qithka who took the opportunity to ask Zhem to make dinner. It was his turn at Steward. Happy to have something to do than observe the survey approach, the Cym-Robot announced dry rub rack of ribs. Just the words spoken made Qithka salivate.

No one aboard the Panas Gankinra wanted to eat at the dinner table in the Galley-Commons. All eyes were on the Sensors Boards.

Meals were loaded onto deep trays with drink holders topped with sippy straws for biologicals whose faces were not flat. Soon, the entire Bridge smelled of dinner served.

To Qithka, it was akin to watching a dramatic, exploration holovid as the Safari Ship finally slowed for Far Orbital approach. With a poor maneuver on Hew’s part, the World Range Sensor surveys were delayed another hour, taxing her Personal Day a little.

The orbital approach called for mapping the Green Band of habitable lands first and foremost. When that was mapped, the ship could travers the star-side and the nightside in turn.

Hew’s failure to line up on the Green Band was the reason for the delay though World Range Sensors came online and began mapping anything in range.

“Signal detected,” announced the Panas AI. “Weak, portable Nav Beacon source located in southern polar region.”

Everyone jumped at the finding. Something talking was down there on the planet. The Comms had picked up a repetitious navigation signal that could be triangulated and used for an approach vector in atmospheric reentry.

“Fuel?” Shaa asked of Qithka who took up her Portable Controller.

“A good three weeks, Captain.”

“I see open water,” noted the Vilani woman. “Even if the Beacon is close, we have to draw from the source.”

Mapping continued as the Safari Ship made orbits about the mainworld.

"Beacon triangulation complete," announced the Ship's Computer. A crossed circle symbol appeared on the image of the Green Band of mainworld Aengvoung. The airfield of the remnant Downport was dismal and it led up to the foot of a mountain where a cavernous warren realm hid the support structures. The Highport had already been discovered, marked, and found nothing but an orbital ring of superstructure debris occasionally dropping shards to burn up on reentry.

Zoomed images showed footprints of destroyed cities. Kinetic spread hinted at a shockwave. The Radiation Sensor supported this in a faint and fading radiation level across the Green Band and to east and west of the habitable zone. For though plant life had survived, Aengvoung was a Die Back world.
 
"How many Qithka?" asked Shaa.

"Tens of millions," answered the stunned Vargr. Where back in eras long gone, there was thriving world of cities and Excellent Down- and Highports, World Sensors confirmed was a nuclear wasteland. A war had devastated the planet. Pressure waves had leveled cities that were not ground zero to strikes. Those that were could only be marked by trace elements and blast craters.

"Then why is there an active Beacon signal?" asked Hew who was again sneaking peeks at Qithka.

"Scavengers after fallout levels dropped to safe numbers," explained Qithka, "visited and left claim Beacons, much like Belters."

"We refuel first and then we might see if there's anything to help us with the SensOp-Astrogation Console at the remnant Downport. Computer rates it at an offline D."

"Captain," piped up Hew, "if this world Died Back at nuclear war, then there's nothing above Tech 6. Qithka just said that the Beacon might be scavengers. That can mean dangerous folk who don't want their loot site visited."

"Comms silence then and find us a shoreline to Intake water," ordered the Vilani. The edge in her voice told Qithka not to challenge the Captain's charisma or authority.

"There is a large lake 5000 clicks south along the Green Band from the Downport valley. Plenty of water for the Purifier and then our tanks. Still nothing on the Activity Sensor. Plants and perhaps beasts only."

"Good girl, Qithka," chimed Shaa. "Close enough for a Downport flyby after we top off."

Hew hummed a few bars of an unfamiliar song before musing aloud, "Gonna be cold down there. Look at the conifer forests. Recommending your favorite cold weather insulation."

The reentry was slower, more Cautious for the crew taking no chances. Touchdown on landing peds at the eastern and green lakeshore held a view of the western desert edge on the far side of the waters. A low fog lifted from the north and south shores, lifting moisture into the skies in a north-south water cycle that evaporated toward the west, rained sleet on the Green Band, and snowed on the eastern edge.

Shaa and Qithka noted the Dense but breathable atmosphere. Their breaths were instant puffs of condensing vapor. Dressed in insulating Cloth-8 and Heavy Coats-2, the females stepped from the airlock while armed. The Proximeter was actively pinging out to the horizon. Hew sat in the ventral turret where he could see the refueling operation.

A long siphon hose was uncoiled and stretched to the waterline; the end fed into the chilled lake. The Intake drew the waters for the Intake Purifier which then cracked filtered water into L-Hydrogen fed to tanks while wastes and snap-together oxygen were vented outside the ship exhausts.

Though she was officially Tired, Qithka sat at the airlock with a view over the Intake hose, her named Pistol Malice in her claws and ready.

Zhem had taken the patrol up and down the length of the hose. The tireless Cym-Robot chassis looked menacing in the reflectivity of Zhem's armor.

At 90% fuel capacity and into the second hour of Intake draw, Qithka was startled awake by the cold pelting sleet that dropped precipitation loudly atop the hull. The cold water forced her indoors. "Brrr!" she exclaimed before relieved by Hew hefting his Peacekeeper Shotgun with the strange cylindrical sight atop it. The Ursa had attached it like a rifle scope.

"Bed, girl," commanded Capt. Gankinra.

Qithka nodded, "Yes, ma'am. We are almost full. Another ten minutes."

"Bed."

When Qithka woke from her oversleep of five hours, she learned that the Captain had moved the Panas Gankinra from the lake to the decrepit, empty, and offline Downport D. As she had seen on the Scopes and Visor results, the launch runways extended out from a vast cavern warren leading into the foot of a mountain. The land was green and sub-arctic and winning against the ruins of blasted cities. Crumbling structures, tilted buildings, shattered domes made for a rotting skyline outside the airfield. Only the wind moved the pines and other conifers. Fauna were present as tiny blips on the Activity Sensor, but the noise from the Safari Ship had sent the beasts running deeper into the encroaching forests.

Shaa and Hew had homed in on the Nav Beacon signal. The Downport by the image captures and Sensors footage was monolithic. Civilization had crumbled under a nuclear holocaust followed by its nuclear winter on an already Cold mainworld. Qithka hugged herself to see the recordings. Tens of millions of Gvegh and a native Human race discovered by the Vargr were wiped out, the survivors mopped up soon after by the fallout, aftermath, and the famine and pestilence that wiped the world clean of sophonts. Aengvoung went from a hub of interstellar traffic, shipyards, trade to an overgrown memory.

The Nav Beacon had indeed been planted and activated by scavengers in the Wilds. That there was no encampment meant that the pickings for them had already been slim. How many ships had come and gone to carry away what they could scrape from the ruins? Seeing the chilling images, Qithka did not rate the chances of repairing the SensOps-Astrogation Operating Console here on Aengvoung.

With the Highport blasted to splinters and forming a debris ring in orbit above the mainworld, no help was available there. Scavengers combed ruined platforms there as well. As Qithka prepared breakfast, Shaa, Hew, and Zhem returned from a reconnoiter to the Nav Beacon. Between the Vilani and the Ursa, they managed to upload a survey package to the Nav Beacon signal, granting all who received its call a look at the nuclear devastation without having to land. The Nav Beacon was then a memorial of sorts and a warning for visitors to Aengvoung.

Over breakfast and warming coffee, the crew debated the next world on the route.

“Taeksoudhagnou may be a Fluid world, but it had one of the highest Tech Levels to its Starport A,” explained Qithka. “It will be the first world inside the Dzen Aeng Kho if it is still there.” Qithka did not like the thought of passing through Ouse Faeg again, where Gevaudan had tricked the Dame off his Fast Far Scout ship, leaving her on the tarmac. More painful memories…

Hew was now openly staring at Qithka from across the table. Shaa then said, “It has a Gas Giant, correct?” The only starchart for this deep into the Wilds was in Qithka’s head and even then, it was outdated by over 700 years.

Qithka nodded, her fear of Hew’s stare beginning to make sense. He had not forgotten her verbal slip in the Makershop over jump transit.

Shaa set down her emptied coffee mug so hard on the table that it drew the attention of the Ursa and Qithka. With all looking at their Captain, Shaa said, “We are down one Console and running pathing and Sensors on Portables. The environments of the Wilds, the chance of any number of adversities happening are increasing. Out here, all will try to take what we have and to the Ancestors with us. To survive this route, we need the best intel we can learn, download, or scavenge. This Safari Ship needs a port that can conduct repairs. Make the best possible route home, Qithka. We are not in a rush, but we are in need.”

Shaa then looked to Hew Hollowton, “And you, come with me. We need to talk about your drinking on my ship.” Hew looked then like a cub about to endure corporal punishment from a dam. Qithka tried to give a subtle shake of her head, that she had not ratted on him for contributing to the delinquency of a minor. Zhem had watched the entire meeting with silent interest. Then he picked up Qithka’s flatware and began washing dishes in the Galley.
 
* * *

She was going to take his stash of whiskey, what remained of it anyway, thought Hew. How did she find out? Qithka’s head shake had denied informing on him. Was it the Robot then? Hew was backed into his Cabin by the Vilani woman like a warren mother about to raid his personal space and dredge up whatever naughtiness she could find. Closing the door behind her, Shaa Gankinra locked herself in Hew’s room so they could have the talk. Rather than tossing his bunk or raiding his cabinets, Hew gave in and started unloading the last two fifths of his Jak in sacrifice to the Captain. Seeing the offered bottles, Shaa seemed to look satisfied, but only somewhat so.

What caught Hew off guard was that the Human sat down on his bunk and grabbed up the lesser of the two bottles of whiskey. She was forcing his trap without knowing it was there. With a gesture to him and the full, second bottle, the two adults meant to finish off the booze rather than pour it down the drain. Thank the creator!

The two traded drinking shots as if it were some game volleyed back and forth. Hew knew his great mass could drink the woman under the table, but it was the confidence she held that was unnerving. Could he go through with his trap to get Shaa Gankinra to spill the beans about Qithka?

Though Shaa’s bottle was only half-filled, she took her lumps well as the two conversed over the course of the farewell to booze sit-in.

Shaa opened with, “She’s been careless and you’ve been poking your nose into her business, Mr. Hollowton.”

“We’re drinking, Shaa. You can call me Hew if you like.”

“You have questions, Ursa,” declared Shaa. “Spit them out. Let’s get this down for the record.”

Hew tipped back his turn at Truth Serum before saying, “Qithka is a Relict, isn’t she? Like a run-up from before the Interregnum?” Shaa nodded in confirmation. Her turn.

“You did some bad things back on Mora,” said Shaa. “If we’re both going down the bottle, let’s have it all out.” She wanted his side of the report she read on Hew.

Hew didn’t get it. After three shots, the Vilani should have been ten sheets to the wind. Yet, the woman was holding her own though the booze was loosening both their tongues.

But Hew obeyed the Truth Serum Game and told his side of the story, omitting only that he knew the Morans were developing a super weapon. He had been the victim of wrong place, wrong time, but he also knew in hindsight that he had still made a choice to give in to a woman’s seduction, a proposition he should have walked away from. Though killing the disguised Solomani Agent was an accident, the Ursa could have avoided all of it had he kept his wits and free will about him.

His turn. “How far back does Qithka go? Those two rings on her tail aren’t normal Vargr coloration. This is not her first Groat rodeo.”

What he learned from Shaa Gankinra blew his inebriated mind. “This is not my tale to tell, Hew. But Qithka Cannagrrh was once a famous female Vargr of Gvurrdon Sector. The story will last longer than the booze will. You will have to pry it from her Psion Relict granddaughter, Ursa. Go easy on her. When she told it to Zhem and I, she has this storytelling power. It’s worse than any Vilani tragedy epic.”

“Why a coreward exile, Hew?” asked Shaa returning to him as a subject. “You could have been exiled rimward or any other direction. Why the far side of the Republic?”

This is when Hew explained his desire to be as far away from the matriarchy of Mora and his people, the Ursa as possible. “I’m done with female rule, Captain, you excepting of course. I’m done with the matriarchy. I’m done with this inborn hatred for the Solomani. Towing the vengeance line since cubhood and then seeing that dead Agent, I don’t want to feel the pressure to open the next Terran I encounter on the word of history. I’m just done, Shaa, done with that life. Coreward seemed the sanest choice given what I’ve been through.”

The two sophonts in Hew’s quarters talked into the day on Aengvoung. Taking lighter tacks and comparing families and stories of Careers, Hew eventually saw Shaa succumb to the drinking game. He got to all-fours and let the inebriated Vilani lean on him all the way to her Captain’s Cabin. How in the universe had she lasted so long? Vilani on average were supposed to be lightweights.

Dr. Zhem arrived soon to take over in tucking in the Vilani. Hew backed out so he could put himself to bed, he too was wobbly down on all-fours.

* * *

Shaa never wanted to do that again. The hangover she endured late the next night consisted of five herds of Groats followed by three stampedes of Oliphants through her head. Sound was her enemy. Light was next after that. Added to the hangover was the allergic reaction she was suffering from the injections she had requested of Dr. Zhem. She was going to pay for challenging Hew Hollowton in downing all that whiskey. It depleted the stash to be sure, but Ancestors the pain.

Zhem had given her anti-reaction drugs to lessen the allergic reaction to the injections. But those too came with a cost. It meant staying on her back for at least twenty-four hours. But truth among the crew had been worth it. She had opened Hew up like a tin of beans, but for the price in time-out.

Shaa packed away what she learned, turned over in her bed and tried to fall back into the oblivion of sleep.
 
* * *

The alcoholic aromas coming from Hew Hollowton’s cabin told Qithka’s nose in passing his door that the Captain was emptying the Ursa of all the booze on board. This was going to put both crew down for the Day, but it also robbed her of any chance of being lured to share a drink that she could really use but for her training with the Ankhirans. Now a Stage One Psion, Qithka could not afford to waste the efforts born of a mishap she did not want. Though she was over two-hundred years old in her mind, it still felt strange for an adolescent body to be drinking with a Vilani grandmother and a Bear who could put both females under the table.

“Qithka?” asked Zhem as he caught Qithka in the Galley preparing a personal lunch.

“Yes, Zhem?”

“What does being intoxicated feel like?” Oh boy, another question for the Blue Fairy of some forgotten cubhood story.

Calling upon the Dame’s skill in Computers, Qithka02 said, “Try compressing your processing power, your bandwidth and your sub-processes down to bare minimum, and then try functioning. That’s as close as I can get to explaining it. It’s a chemical escapism as I’m sure you understand from your download training as a physician. But that’s what I could imagine drunkenness as a Cym might be like.”

“Silicon, why do that to yourself?” Zhem asked with a curse that Qithka had never heard before.

“For us biologicals, the pain of living can get that bad at times. You’ve heard of gate theory, right?”

“The nervous system can only register the most painful response at one time, though all are known,” recited the doctor in Zhem.

“Yeah, well, feeling the inebriation can cloud out the pain of life for a while. Sweet oblivion.”

After some processing as Qithka ate lunch, the Vargriform looked at Qithka and requested, “Please don’t do that to yourself anymore, Qithka. The benefits do not outweigh the costs. Look at the Captain.”

“I won’t, Zhem,” promised Qithka. “Now a Psion, I have to keep clean and sober if I want to continue my Staging.”

Zhem pressed with an offer, “If ever pain of living becomes critical, please come impart it to me. Perhaps we can talk it out, Counsellor to patient or friend to friend.” It was the first time Qithka had heard him call her a friend. Qithka would never be able to read the silicon mind of the Vargriform if Mentation came up in her ECMs at all. But she felt warmed by the kind words. Zhem in her eyes had come a long way from her preconceptions of Virus. The Dame and Qithka01 had only the sane Brother Strains to have some hope for the vast infections that had destroyed Charted Space as it had been known.

“Is that what Onwee must feel like?” Qithka finished her lunch with the question volleyed back to the Cym.

“Now that you tie the two,” perked the armored chassis, ears up and his tail still, “the two have quite parallel descriptions. I must process this further.”

“You do that.”

After lunch, Qithka took her Portable to the Bridge and began pathing a jump from Aengvoung to Taeksoudhagnou (Gvurrdon 1623). She remembered that the target world was once the Amber Zone of rimward Dzen Aeng Kho and that it had been hit hard by the Mind Tsunami though it had remained behind the Quarantine Line. The Zhodani and their lapdog Thirz were adamant about taking the Regency’s precautions and actually helped erect the border between the remaining polities and the encroaching Wilds. Nobody could doubt that Virus had taken down the Thoengling Empire early in the Virus Era.

Though Qithka could have targeted Ouse Faeg, the memories of that beautiful world were painful to Qithka. At the Downport, Dame Qithka Cannagrrh had suffered Gevaudan’s Ploy, playing to Vargr Charisma and her inflated ego. As the cameras rolled and the famous propaganda star stepped on to the tarmac with her luggage already on the tram, Senior Scout Gevaudan Cannagrrh, her brother slammed the airlock hatch and lifted to the dust-off of everyone on the ground. No one could catch the six-gee Fast Far Scout ship. Gevaudan’s Ploy had forced the Dame to return home and assume Alpha of Pack Cannagrrh. Painful memories…

Like Ankhir, surely Taeksoudhagnou could not have stayed the same through the Collapse, New Era and through the centuries of the Interregnum. And surely the world was useful for its Exotic Atmosphere rating. Industrial chemical companies of the Dzen Aeng Kho depended on exports from the Amber Zone world that puzzled sociologists of the time.

As she began the track and the initial calculations, Qithka also feared the worst for Taeksoudhagnou if Aengvoung was any indication and reminder of the Wilds.

The Captain was still sleeping off her hangover the next Day. Hew Hollowton had emerged from the Fresher and his retrograde interfacing - regurgitation. Still, the Bear had an appetite. Zhem’s turn in the Galley had a meal ready by the time Qithka pressed COMMIT to let the Panas AI chew on her decisions.

“Captain’s birthday is just over two weeks,” Qithka tried Hew with a small announcement. “What to give to a Vilani Human for their birthday?”

“No alcohol,” moaned the Ursa who looked ragged and hungry at the same time.

Without a sunrise or a sunset to mark day cycles, Qithka had to rely on ship-time. When Shaa emerged from the Captain’s Cabin, it was well into the next evening. The Vargr had slipped a sleep in to match up to the Vilani to coincide with the command to lift from Die Back Aengvoung.

With Pre-Flight Checks, Drive activation and finals Sensors readings, Qithka rode aft in Engineering as the Panas Gankinra taxied out of the mountain cavity and along the runways before angling up through the very thick clouds hanging over the decrepit Downport D of Aengvoung.

The commute from Orbit 1 out to 70D remained a constant fourteen hours during which the AI surprised Shaa Gankinra with a confirmation of the Astrogation pathing. The order to path had come though Qithka had begun the calculations earlier. When the announcement came, Shaa looked at the smug Qithka and then added her own smile to hear the results.

The two former drunkards scowled at each other as Hew missed the jump point window in his piloting. It extended the Safari Ship presence in Aengvoung another three hours. The ship-time dinged the end of a watch and the end of the Day.

It was a one-way rarity, but just before Qithka initiated jump, a Jump Flash heralded a jump arrival of another ship. The brilliant illumination was bright enough and close enough not to miss. But then Qithka had no time to see what kind of vessel had arrived because she followed the order and pressed the COMMIT to jump to Taeksoudhagnou.

“What did you get of the bogey before we jumped, Panas?” Qithka heard Shaa ask the ship. She was monitoring the Sensors boards with her Portable Controller while standing in the Engineering compartment.

“Shadow silhouette from the hull backlit suggests a Corsair class, though exact class is unreliable,” answered the AI.

Too late now. Some kind of communications could have yielded a starchart purchase at best, being pirated or attacked at worst. Sensors now indicated a successful transit out back.

“Estimated time out back?” Asked Shaa Gankinra.

“Estimated jump transit time is currently 170 hours plus or minus one hour,” answered the Ship’s Computer.

“Stand down Bridge and Engineering once all boards are cleared,” ordered the Captain.

The Vilani had accidentally glossed over jump dimming. Perhaps she was not in the mood to force a Vilani superstition upon the Tech 16 Panas Gankinra this time out back.

Qithka cleared her boards upon seeing all gauges Green, the jump fuel already expended for a breakout at a Gas Giant in Taeksoudhagnou.

The first Day out back, Qithka enjoyed the quiet. Both the Bear and the Vilani forbade the teenager her loud, thumping dance music. Instead, Qithka attempted slow, focused, and sustained dance poses, one pose series after another in what the Computer termed tableau vivant. Holding still with her metal fans held at each pose, Qithka stayed very still. When the computer softly pinged, she moved her Vargr form slowly and deliberately into a new pose. It was a tiring exercise.

Hew ambled through the Commons on his way to the coffeemaker when he spotted the statuesque Qithka holding a pose. The all-fours Ursa sniffed the air once and then approached the female Vargr from different angles as if to repeat the initial experience. When his coffee was waiting in its carafe, he asked, "Is this some kind of Psion meditation, Qithka?"

"Contrary to popular belief," answered Qithka changing poses slowly, "Psions don't pray, meditate or otherwise contemplate unless they have other reasons. I'm practicing tableau vivant since you old fogeys don't like my music."

"But isn't there a trade-off for psionics?" asked the Ursa with his first sip of coffee. Then he added honey to it.

"Yes, Hew," explained Qithka. "Psionics is tiring. Misfire, or do it wrong or simply fail and you've wasted a good portion of your Personal Day, or so I'm told by the Ankhirans."

"Hasn't happened to you yet then?"

"I'm still Stage One, Hew." To rest her eyes from staring at the same wall plates joint, Qithka closed her eyes as she held her next pose.

With her eyes closed, Qithka could not see Hew's approach though his lumbering footfalls were heard. He sipped his coffee again before lowering his voice a little to say, "We need to talk. Now better than later."

With Qithka denied her tribal dance music, she continued her slow and steady posturing. Some poses featured open metal fans while others closed them in her claws. "Yes?"
 
He must have felt that Qithka was calm or felt himself safe that she was moving very slowly in shifting from one random pose to another, holding each for a time. Hew sat on the floor in the Galley next to his coffee on the table. "I know what those rings on your tail mean, Qithka Cannagrrh."

Qithka opened her eyes to stare at Hew, but she held her current pose. He was not going to break her exercise with the announcement. "You've been digging."[1]

"Hard not to since you've laid out so many clues and it's just the four of us on this crate. I just want to say that I'm not weirded out or disgusted. I don't have room to talk what with my own Life Insurance policy given me by the Marines on discharge." Hew scratched his neck as if he wanted something to do with his claws.

"I'm sorry for you then, Hew Hollowton," said Qithka. "Your Relict Clone might come to hate you for forcing him to live in your shadow after your exile. He will have to endure the same infamy you bequeath him. Life Insurance is not worth it, just like they say the Wilds are not worth it in this era, Hew."

"Is it really that bad?" asked Hew as Qithka slowly moved from one held pose to another, the fans unfolding in time with her movement and coming to rest at the next hold.

"Your Relict Clone will wake up at apparent age 18, have all your memories, inherit all your merits and failures, initially have your personality and preferences." Qithka let her gaze freeze on the coffeemaker in the Galley. "But he will diverge from you eventually. Hew, he won't be you. Different core-anima as my Pattern mother discovered in difference to my Pattern grandmother. He won't be the same as you."

"There's more, isn't there?" sniffed the Ursa.

"Yes," answered Qithka. A double ping from the computer ended the exercise. Qithka came out of her tableau vivant and padded over to the coffeemaker Hew had started. The scent made her want a mug too. "He won't live as long as you. Relict Clones are Force-Grown to Life Stage 3, their longevity cut short by one Life Stage. How long I'll live is dependent on the life I'll lead. This time seems to indicate a psionic go-round. Last was a Merchant-Captain."

"When was last time?" asked the Bear. He pointed to Qithka's doubly ringed tail, which she hid at his gesture.

"You're digging again," declared Qithka who then sipped her coffee black.

"You-, her, one of you were very famous before," said Hew. "Did something happen?"

"Time happened, Hew Hollowton," huffed Qithka. Too much time. She too was exiled, by time from the New Era centuries before now. Someone at Zirunkariish Healthcare and Insurance had really lost track of Qithka01's Life Insurance policy for her to have been reiterated so very much later. The final Collapse, the Interregnum, the silence of the remainder of Charted Space; everything that Qithka could remember of her home might be gone.

"It was you who compiled our starchart," smarted Hew to the clues Qithka had leaked. "We're routing on what you can remember of Gvurrdon, from back in the day. That's why you appear surprised at each world. Your memories go way back."

Qithka was done with this gentle interview. "If you want the whole Qithka Cannagrrh story, Hew, ask Zhem to play it back for you with my permission. I don't want to go down that road again. I'm trying to live in the here and now."

Rebuffed, Hew tossed the dregs of his coffee and left Qithka to hers.

[1. Referee Note: In Qithka's POV, she does not have an accent when speaking Anglic.]
* * *

Something about the encounter with Qithka gnawed at Hew's curiosity for the rest of the week out back. Now that she had admitted to being a Relict, Hew had a better understanding of the general facets of the Vargr girl. She was a teenager in body, maybe in hormones too. Qithka was more than that at times, and she seemed to quell something within during others. Just who was or were the lives that had come before the adolescent Vargr?

In the article on Relict Clones, Hew had learned that the rings markings on Qithka's tail were purposely placed. Vargr did not have ringed tails, at least not in such blatant contrast to that white pelt and blue eyes.

What kind of marking would Hew wake up with as his Clone son per his Life Insurance? And was it true that Hew would come to despise himself for the policy activation?

The Ursa needed a precedent, he decided. Nobody in his past was this unique. He had never heard of a Wilds Vargr Relict Clone until he met this Vargr girl.

After the drinking contest which depleted Hew’s Jak, the Cym had insisted on one Counsellor session per jump. Hew took this week out back to make the request that had been on the edge of his thoughts. On the day after the Fifth Night party, Hew sat in the Medical compartment and popped the question after stating he had permission from the source. Dr. Zhem left Hew sitting on the Med Console exam bed to confirm. Upon returning, the Robot had a tray of refreshments and a roll of Fresher tissue on the side. Was it going to be that bad?

Hew knew himself damned when the Cym produced a Data Wafer, a recording of Qithka’s story as told by her. Slotting it to the Med Console examination boards, Zhem played it for Hew Hollowton. The damning part was that the Cym stood there in the Medical compartment, motionless and observing the Ursa’s reactions to the playback.

Zhem had added text subtitles, adjusted to Anglic in the lower corner of each chapter of Qithka’s recount of her lives. Hew watched as each book was told from a master Author and adept Actor to recording Zhem and Capt. Gankinra, in the same Galley-Commons aboard the Panas Gankinra. By the time stamp, the epic had been recorded weeks before Hew was consigned to the Safari Ship.

While Zhem had done very little editing and annotating, Hew watched and listened as each book of Qithka Cannagrrh’s two previous lives and the start of this third cracked his shell of disbelief and played the timeline of events in detail to the Ursa’s imagination, even as the teenager let two earlier versions of herself speak through her adolescent voice and expressions.

Qithka in the retelling pulled no punches. The imaged and recorded teenager spoke with a voice and demeanor well beyond her years apparent. The personality that was overlaid in that body vastly outmatched the Vargr girl crying at the table as she recounted her story.

Hew told himself that he would not sniffle or shed a tear in stoic observation. As in a holovid drama showing, Hew knew this a true lives story, but the way Qithka told it, it was a heart-wrenching epic spanning over two-hundred years. Her story, her brother’s story, her sister-in-law’s story, the story of the Pack, the adventures, the war, death, and horror all broke the Ursa’s heart. He cursed under his breath to pause between books to take up the Fresher tissue.

In any other holovid, it was enough that a female sophont was crying true emotive tears in distress to make Hew empathize. But he had tried to hold himself in check. Not this Dame. Not the second life as Qithka01. The Qithka02 Cannagrrh just two compartments across the Safari Ship broke his dammed reservoir of emotions.

Hew’s heart shattered to watch the slow decline of the Vargr girl’s energy reserves and the hoarse voice as the epic wore on. Qithka had told the story in Gvegh, but Zhem’s translation managed to maintain the power of the words in Anglic. The Cym had kept her funny accent to which Hew quickly acclimatized.

At the end of the retold epic, Hew knew without a doubt that nothing could stand in the way of Qithka02 Cannagrrh returning home in a desire to reunite with her family and Pack. The saddest parts were bad enough. But here in 1902, the Relict Clone had only an astronomical chance of that happening. It was a hope that all knew was going to be dashed on Dzuerongvoe. Yet, here was Qithka02 Cannagrrh working aboard a vessel stepping off into the deep Wilds beyond the margins outside the Safe Republic of Regina. This was an insular era the girl had woke up in. Just the imagined scene where this young Relict Clone found nothing on her homeworld would be enough to end it all then and there.

“She needs to be put on suicide watch, doc.”

“Noted,” said Zhem adding a nod of his metallic Vargriform head.
 
* * *

Shaa Gankinra was fully recovered from the antihistamines cocktail and the hangover by the time the ship started vibrating in jump rumblings. The Vilani took her station at SensOps-Astrogation though the Operating Console was shut down and dormant. The Portable Controller she carried rested in her lap as she sat in her Vaccsuit and was buckled into the acceleration couch.

Then the Sensors registered the melting of the envelope about the Panas Gankinra.

“Normal space confirmed,” said Shaa. She silently counted to five before opening the ship’s viewports and the forward transpex.

Distant and to port was the blazing Red main sequence stellar primary of Taeksoudhagnou while closer and immediately forward was the target Gas Giant, one of three. Shaa called out the initial data as the Sensors began mapping the world-system.

“Jump Drive on cooldown and Maneuver Drive available on command,” reported Qithka from Engineering.

“Two hours before skimming at three gees,” reported Shaa who slid the Sensors information starting with the Visor over to Hew sitting at the helm. “A snack would be nice, Qithka.”

“Yes, ma’am,” answered Qithka from aft.

With the ship intercoms off, Shaa set about mapping and staying alert for bogeys. “I’m stealthing the hull, Mr. Hollowton. Don’t do anything flashy and take your time.”

“Aye,” answered Hew following with, “Captain.”

Though the upper H2 deck of atmosphere was lighter in hydrogen, it was also less tumultuous than lower altitudes. While the scoops screamed a concealing white noise, Hew admitted, “Her story made me cry too.” So. Hew had watched Qithka’s account as recorded by the Cym-Robot. He had seen the Vargr Relict Clone come out to Shaa, tell her story and had even a Vilani grandmother depleting tissue.

“She or those before know how to tell an epic,” said Shaa in agreement.

“Y’do know that she’s going home to a world that won’t know her and has forgotten her name, her family, and her Pack,” cautioned Hew.

“Mind your down-angle, helm,” warned Shaa. Yes, centuries after the one before the Vargr now in the Galley, there would be nothing on this distant Dzuerongvoe. The ruined cities and Die Back worlds so far mapped were likely all that was left of Qithka’s homeworld. “You let that girl dash herself upon those rocks, Mr. Hollowton. Until she sees for herself, she won’t stop until she’s home. Qithka is not just a Traveller. She’s something beyond that.”

“What does she remember of this system, this Tyek-sowd-hag-now?” Hew asked. He knew then that Qithka had given Shaa all she could remember of the route.

“Her notes stated that Taeksoudhagnou was a Fluid world and was once the subsector Capital of Rukh Odzuetarug. She knew it from after it was struck by the Wave of Craziness. What we actually find at the mainworld will likely surprise even her.” With the arrival of Qithka and a refreshment tray between the helm and Shaa’s station, Hew dropped his talk. Qithka set down her preparations for Hew and Shaa. Looking then at her slung Portable Controller, Qithka reported refilled tanks. The three then pulled up and rose from the Gas Giant closest to the Orbit 0 mainworld.

“Eight hour commute inward to another Twilight Zone mainworld,” reported Shaa. She slid virtual panels of various Sensors data to Qithka. “We broke out at 102 D, though on target. Size-T Gas Giant, Qithka.”

Qithka pointed at the Planetoid Belt between the Gas Giant retreating to aft and the smallish mainworld ahead. “Another Belter’s playground. Gas Giant next to a Class-N Belt next to the mainworld full of chemicals. This world had a plethora of exports from its Resources. If Taeksoudhagnou is still space-worthy, they can expect at least an M-rating in their Resources.”

Now that Hew knew about Qithka, Shaa asked the Relict Clone, “How do you know so much about system Resources in the Economics extension?”

Qithka paused her response, but then answered, “Qithka01 was a Merchant like you, Captain. Before that, the Dame had to add up all the lost Resource Units, ’aryu’ that the Society of Equals lost to the Thirz Empire after the Equality War. The totals she put to the Council of Worlds in the Dzen Aeng Kho showed just how much the War costed and was lost because some hot-head glory hounds thought the young King of the Thirz was weak. They forgot the Thirz Empire was quietly backed by the entire Zhodani Consulate at the time.”

When she was not interrupted, Qithka continued to recount, “The Dame put the lost funds on the overhead boards. The staggering numbers were enough to convince the Council to call a referendum later, to ask those lost worlds if they wished to return to the Society of Equals after a decade of Thirz occupation. Many chose to return, some stayed within Thirz borders, and a few chose independence of non-aligned.”

Shaa saw that Hew was listening with intent as he kept the ship in the commuting flight path. The Vilani then asked, “How did they fare against the Breaks?”

“If you mean the-,” Qithka stopped herself to look about and find Zhem absent from the Bridge. “If you mean Virus and later the Mind Tsunami, the Wave, this Capital suffered most due to the second. Taeksoudhagnou was behind the Quarantine Line so firmly advocated for by those to spinward and rimward.”

Virus was the word they used back then. Shaa then heard words coming out of the past through Qithka’s former lives. Today, only cym was used for the meta-identity sophonts of silicon nature. Shaa had only heard this term when she was before Qithka’s testimony in coming out as a Relict Clone out of the distant past.

Qithka stood behind the two Bridge Consoles and watched the imaging and diagrams fill with Sensors data. Shaa and Hew continued to commute the Safari Ship past the Planetoid Belt-N full of valuable metals and inward to the mainworld.

Hours later, with the Gas Giant a tiny reflective dot against a field of stars and the Belt a mist of shadows to aft, the Comms registered a signal, a hail. Qithka about jumped out of her pelt while Shaa donned her headset and microphone.
 
“We have seen your breakout flash and are alerted,” came a male Vargr voice in Gvegh. “Identify yourself or be hunted by our system defenses.”

Shaa put on her most formal Gvegh Captain’s voice and answered, “This is the KFK-2L333 Safari Ship Panas Gankinra a Republic of Regina flag vessel. Trade and exploration are our Missions. We seek permission for orbital approach, mutual profit and to pay for repairs if possible. May we trade strings?”

Trading strings was jargon for trading ship stats for a Universal World Profile. With it, Shaa could receive and input the string of descriptive integers to better fill out the route map she had been hired to record.

A time delay on in-system communications ticked off before an answer returned, in visual this time, a side window projected over the forward transpex.
Gvegh Disgust.jpg
“Ugh. Who put a flat-face in command of a starship?” complained a local Gvegh in the window. Though Shaa had answered voice-only, it was her Human pronunciation of Gvegh that had given her away.

Shaa knew that Vargr used such pejoratives against Humaniti, and that out here in the Gvurrdon Wilds, Humaniti were the minority. However, Shaa also knew how to deal with Vargr Charisma though she might never master its nuances. She had to stand up for herself while still maintaining respect for the local authority. “Yes, I am the Captain-Owner of the Panas Gankinra. Could your world use some valuable cargo from the Republic or not? We have refueled and can jump now if you can’t handle a Human visitor and crew.”

Shaa purposely included a visual with her response. She had been dressed in her full Cloth-8 uniform now that the crew had stood down from riding dullahan.

“Let’s see what you got, Vilani,” came the answer from the same tawny pelt Vargr. “Orbital approach vector approved. Stay on the beam Panas Gankinra.” More jargon to warn Shaa’s ship to stay within the offered flight path splines, an allowed planetary final approach to attain orbit.

Behind and off the microphone, Shaa heard Qithka name off the Universal World Profile as strings were exchanged, “A5A4352-B Fl Lo Tz {1} (P21+1) Ancients they’re potentially rich but low in Labor, [144B] Monolithic and aloof as we heard just now. 423 with six other worlds in-system.” Qithka read the next of the string with her voice rising in a squeal of surprise. “VSEq M2V Shaa, the Dzen Aeng Kho! It isn’t dead out here in the Wilds! Ancients!”

Four thousand Gvegh Vargr in charge of a Downport A. Shaa checked the Space Range Sensors again as the mainworld grew in size from a speck to a dot. There was a Highport, but no EMS coming off of it. It too must be a derelict of the Interregnum. No Highport docking would be possible. “Make for the Downport. Their orbital is offline,” commanded Shaa.

“Aye, Captain,” answered Hew.

Shaa approached Qithka and her slung Portable Controller to whisper to the adolescent bicentenarian. “Don’t get your hopes up, Qithka. Many Wilds worlds kept their flags even if their interstellar states Collapsed, out of pride and keeping up their hopes that they aren’t alone out here. Taeksoudhagnou may be the only world left of your Dzen Aeng Kho. Just…just be ready for any letdowns.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“They sound ‘aloof’ enough, Qithka, that I will need my Freightmaster. I’ll need your diplomatic skills, not the Dame’s. Get me?”

Qithka seemed to measure Shaa’s descriptors. Shaa meant she wanted the present Qithka, not the hardliner Charisma of her previous lives. “Go easy. The most important thing is getting our repairs and moving along the route to your home. No sightseeing. This world ‘s atmosphere is not breathable. Vaccsuits and our heads on right.”

“Understood, ma’am,” demurred the white pelt before Shaa.

Shaa stood upright and addressed both Qithk and the rest of the ship, “Hear this. You heard the string. Weapons slung. Four thousand Vargr is still more than us. We’re the Travellers here.”

“Aye.”

“Affirmative,” came the intercom call of Dr. Zhem from aft.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Stations for atmospheric reentry,” commanded Shaa Gankinra. “Let’s look proficient and professional, all.”
 
“Ugh. Who put a flat-face in command of a starship?” complained a local Gvegh in the window. Though Shaa had answered voice-only, it was her Human pronunciation of Gvegh that had given her away.

Shaa knew that Vargr used such pejoratives against Humaniti, and that out here in the Gvurrdon Wilds, Humaniti were the minority. However, Shaa also knew how to deal with Vargr Charisma though she might never master its nuances. She had to stand up for herself while still maintaining respect for the local authority. “Yes, I am the Captain-Owner of the Panas Gankinra. Could your world use some valuable cargo from the Republic or not? We have refueled and can jump now if you can’t handle a Human visitor and crew.”

Shaa purposely included a visual with her response. She had been dressed in her full Cloth-8 uniform now that the crew had stood down from riding dullahan.

“Let’s see what you got, Vilani,” came the answer from the same tawny pelt Vargr. “Orbital approach vector approved. Stay on the beam Panas Gankinra.” More jargon to warn Shaa’s ship to stay within the offered flight path splines, an allowed planetary final approach to attain orbit.

Behind and off the microphone, Shaa heard Qithka name off the Universal World Profile as strings were exchanged, “A5A4352-B Fl Lo Tz {1} (P21+1) Ancients they’re potentially rich but low in Labor, [144B] Monolithic and aloof as we heard just now. 423 with six other worlds in-system.” Qithka read the next of the string with her voice rising in a squeal of surprise. “VSEq M2V Shaa, the Dzen Aeng Kho! It isn’t dead out here in the Wilds! Ancients!”

Four thousand Gvegh Vargr in charge of a Downport A. Shaa checked the Space Range Sensors again as the mainworld grew in size from a speck to a dot. There was a Highport, but no EMS coming off of it. It too must be a derelict of the Interregnum. No Highport docking would be possible. “Make for the Downport. Their orbital is offline,” commanded Shaa.

“Aye, Captain,” answered Hew.

Shaa approached Qithka and her slung Portable Controller to whisper to the adolescent bicentenarian. “Don’t get your hopes up, Qithka. Many Wilds worlds kept their flags even if their interstellar states Collapsed, out of pride and keeping up their hopes that they aren’t alone out here. Taeksoudhagnou may be the only world left of your Dzen Aeng Kho. Just…just be ready for any letdowns.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“They sound ‘aloof’ enough, Qithka, that I will need my Freightmaster. I’ll need your diplomatic skills, not the Dame’s. Get me?”

Qithka seemed to measure Shaa’s descriptors. Shaa meant she wanted the present Qithka, not the hardliner Charisma of her previous lives. “Go easy. The most important thing is getting our repairs and moving along the route to your home. No sightseeing. This world ‘s atmosphere is not breathable. Vaccsuits and our heads on right.”

“Understood, ma’am,” demurred the white pelt before Shaa.

Shaa stood upright and addressed both Qithk and the rest of the ship, “Hear this. You heard the string. Weapons slung. Four thousand Vargr is still more than us. We’re the Travellers here.”

“Aye.”

“Affirmative,” came the intercom call of Dr. Zhem from aft.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Stations for atmospheric reentry,” commanded Shaa Gankinra. “Let’s look proficient and professional, all.”

The two orbiting ships were an antique Vargr Frigate escorted by a refurbished Vargr Corsair repainted in Dzen Aeng Kho livery, the red circle field behind two upper fangs. This image too must look familiar to Qithka who had returned to Engineering. When both vessels allowed the Safari Ship passage, Shaa knew the mainworld had given their permissions to the meager system defenses.

“Behold, the Sorggheg-class Vargr Corsair,” announced Shaa, “scourge of the Vargr Splinters.”

“And before then,” augmented Qithka over the intercom. “There are actually more than three classes of Corsairs from my past. Four-, five- and six-hundred ton, armed classes of Vargr pride and Charisma.”

“You are talking out of your age again, Qithka,” warned Shaa. “Watch that when you’re before your Gvegh locals please.”

The warning flattened the ears and tail of Qithka, the female taken down a notch. Shaa then reminded Qithka, “They won’t see you coming, Qithka. Youth and all those skills? Fly under their radar and get us a good deal so we won’t be bankrupted by the repair bill.”

The pep talk raised Qithka’s demeanor somewhat and earned Shaa a nod.
 
Through the reentry flames, the high-pitched hum on the Lifting Body wingtips and aided by the Nav Beacon and Comms connection, Hew landed the Panas Gankinra in a dome hangar, a standard design for a Tech 11 mainworld sealed from an unbreathable atmosphere. Vargr in ground suits waved laser wand torches to guide the touchdown. Taking no chances, Shaa and Qithka helped each other into their heavy civilian Vaccsuits before approaching the ship airlock.

True to race relations, the Security team escorting the Downport Warden met with Qithka Cannagrrh first. Shaa had purposely put the suited white pelt out front while Shaa kept her gauntlet hand on her Naval Officer’s Cutlass. There was talk in Gvegh, to the surprise of the locals. Qithka’s accent caught them off guard too. Though they too were abstract in language, Qithka seemed to enunciate well enough to gain some level of familiarity. This was her home polity according to Qithka’s past lives story.

With Taeksoudhagnou possessing a lower gravity, Shaa and Qithka were better able to adjust to the mass of their AdvHvyVaccSuit-13 while escorted by the Security. Law here was low and the locals knew they had staff and not much show of arms. But the arrival of a tramp trading Safari Ship drew tail wags and waves of welcome, especially when Qithka announced her ‘citizenship’ to the Dzen Aeng Kho and politely asked to purchase any starchart available. Shaa could tell the Vargr girl was on task to mapping the route ahead. The diplomat in Qithka was able to offer the Wafers cargo to earn come local coin before she had to suffer a Credits exchange surcharge. Local money would always be favored above Republic credits out in the Wilds.

Shaa had seen the emptied city-domes arrayed inside and along each side of the Green Belt on this Twilight Zone world during orbital final approach to reentry. Taeksoudhagnou was down to four thousand Vargr from 300,000,000 from Qithka’s middle life. The Vilani woman hoped the Breaks were not responsible. Why abandon this much Resources? Being space-worthy here meant tapping all three Gas Giants and both Belts. But alas, the minuscule population here now. What had happened? Shaa wisely kept quiet as Qithka worked the locals for Berthing, Life Support, and penciling in repairs to the SensOps-Astrogation Operating Console. But before any of that, Qithka and Shaa were led to the pitifully small Cargo Market pits, an annex adjacent to the Downport in a dome of its own.

Through the tunnels connecting nearby domes, Shaa saw few marketing advertisements. For though she could tell the local Feudal Technocracy wanted more immigrants, the Vilani knew that regrowth was still a long way off, especially in the Wilds. It would be decades to a century or more before this world-system could fully market their aryu as Qithka put it.

“Law Levels have fallen here in the Society,” whispered Qithka to Shaa as they arrived at the Cargo Market.

“They want to entice recovery and invite immigrants,” nodded Shaa as she perused commodities available while Qithka went to work selling the Quality Wafers.

As they negotiated the Downport, connecting tunnels, and into the Cargo Market, Shaa saw Qithka looking about in curiosity. The female’s suited tail was wagging with some hidden discovery. Shaa was inwardly glad the locals could not see and possibly recognize her black tail stripes giving her away as a Relict Clone.

The 20 tons of Quality Wafers sold at 130% thanks to Qithka’s pretty ocean blue eyes and puppy stare, for a profit of Cr44,700. Checking her tallied charges, Shaa did the math behind Qithka’s negotiations. Berthing was available but expensive at Cr6000. Life Support was needed despite the extra replacements taking up cargo. Shaa felt it better to be serviced than to tap reserves. The bill for Life Support was Cr8800 because of eight Staterooms, four Low Berths and the four Emergency Low Berths packed in what amounted as a closet aboard the Panas Gankinra. When Qithka stopped at an Information kiosk and purchased a Tech 11 starchart, Shaa’s account was further charged for Cr1000.

Next came the diagnostic and repair bill, Cr60,000 to diagnose and repair the Operating Console aboard the Safari Ship. With the total dipping into her Republic credits which needed exchange at surcharge, Shaa was going to take a hit for keeping her vessel flying.

With the bills paid after a hefty credits-to-fangs exchange surcharged, Shaa then paid her crew. The Vilani stayed quiet through the tour of the domes as business concluded and repairs began. Inside her mind, Shaa hoped the final payout from Oberlindes Lines would make the entire foray into the deep Wilds worth it.

Shaa could not let Hew or Zhem off the ship. Who knew if this Dzen Aeng Kho allowed talking Bears or fully Cym Robots? She did not inquire and hoped that Qithka would be able to intuit those answers for a report back aboard the Panas Gankinra.

On their return trip from the Cargo Markets since buying new speculatives could wait until the next Day, Shaa walked behind Qithka who was in her element among her fellow Gvegh. Though her accent attracted attention, her young age seemed to disarm any aloofness in the locals. Qithka stopped to purchase with her own credits a Datalink supposedly loaded with the history of this Society of Equals. No doubt the Vargr girl wanted their account of what happened between Qithka01’s time and current affairs.


It was at the Downport that Shaa Gankinra saw Vargr work groups with large metal ear-hoop jewelry in one ear. The Vilani absently touched her own earrings and noted that Qithka did not wear jewelry in this iteration. Did her Vargr Charisma have something to do with it? This newest Qithka was far lower on the pecking order to Shaa’s estimation and the Relict Clone had only recently climbed another rung on the ladder.

Once returned to the docked Safari Ship still undergoing services and repairs, the crew gathered to compare what they had learned of Taeksoudhagnou.

Shaa opened the line of questioning first as Qithka prepared her contribution by asking, “You don’t wear jewelry Qithka. Why not?”

“You noticed that, huh?” Qithka said looking at Shaa. The crew had sat down to a readied meal by Zhem. Hew Hollowton was present and seemed eager to learn if he could be allowed liberty. “Do you want the good news or the bad news first about that, Captain?”
 
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