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MUCH TO MY CHAGRIN, I still didn’t get the chance to be alone. I started hearing a quiet scratching on my door again, and again it was Gerd Ayni. The little orange kitty was unconfidently shifting from one foot to the other, embarrassed and clearly feeling uncomfortable:
“Captain Gnat... it may be none of my business... but I’d like to speak about Anna. The human girl is behaving strangely.”
Now that caught my interest. What had that Morphian gone and done to arouse suspicion this time? I motioned for the Miyelonian to come into my cabin. I even activated Scanning so I could make absolutely sure that the espionage equipment was fried when I used the geological analyzer and was still out of order. I really did not want the Prelates of Tailax to overhear me saying there was a Morphian in my crew.
“Tell me, what seems to be the matter with Anna? But first sit down, please,” I motioned to a soft deep armchair or couch where she could sit. “Would you like a light cocktail? Or something stronger perhaps?”
I only made the offer out of politeness, well and at the same time to slightly calm down the noticeably worried Miyelonian female. But the effect was more the opposite. Gerd Ayni’s ears started shuddering in worry and embarrassment, which made her innumerable earrings start to tinkle. She refused a beverage and took a seat on the very edge of the flying armchair, her front paws placed modestly on her knees.
A strange reaction. I took a quick peek at my guest’s emotions. Ayni was embarrassed and even slightly afraid to be around me. The Miyelonian also thought I was flirting with her for some reason, which made her feel deep shame. Not wanting to make her even more nervous, I suggested we get to business.
“Captain, when we encountered the satellites today, at a certain point Anna dropped her guard and demonstrated an excellent knowledge of the Geckho tongue. The human girl understood what you and the Navigator were saying perfectly. She understood what Kirsan was telling you, too. She even corrected your Geckho! And that came just after I finished her very first lesson in the language, where she was barely able to put two words together!”
As she said all that, Gerd Ayni was getting more and more upset, shivering with her whole body and even starting to slightly hiccup.
“And another thing... I noticed that this is clearly not Anna’s first spaceflight. She was just acting too confident for a beginner. She knew where to find everything... how to use the intricate technology. And another thing... captain, don’t think I’m crazy, but I saw the Medic girl reading the language of the Meleyephatians! There’s a placard on the wall in the hallway about how the fire-extinguishing system on the starship works, and the human lady was reading it closely! Leng Gnat, I’m quite sure that Anna is not the person she pretends to be!”
I gave a satisfied smile and clapped my palm a few times, demonstrating admiration at the Miyelonian’s quick wit and attention to detail.
“Bravo, Ayni! Well done! And you’re the only one in the whole crew to notice! But you’re right, Anna is not a human. She’s a Morphian...” When I saw how rapidly the orange kitty’s face turned sullen and depressed, I hurried to add: “And no, she is not the same Morphian who took your appearance and killed the incarnation of the Great First Female, thus ruining your life. This is a totally different individual.”
Despite my explanation, Gerd Ayni bared her teeth fearsomely and her fur stood on end, making her look twice as large.
“It doesn’t matter, captain. I hate all Morphians! Every last one! Their whole stinkin’ race! It’s a shame the Meleyephatians didn’t exterminate them when they had the chance. Oh Leng Gnat, you can’t even imagine how badly that Morphian ruined my life! You only see me here, in the game. Here I try to look sprightly and happy with life. In the real world, that is not how I am. My family and friends have all turned away from me. I lost my job. And after some religious fanatics trashed and burned my room two times, I got expelled from the whole residential block of the space station. I lost everything! And for what??? What did I ever do to Fox to deserve having my life so brutally torn to pieces?!”
By the end of her emotional speech, Ayni was weeping audibly. The little orange kitty crawled down off the chair onto the floor and covered her face with her paws. I knew well that Miyelonians were generally quite bottled up with their emotions, and that they would never bear their soul where a stranger might see. The fact that my friend was allowing herself such a stormy expression of feelings in my presence served as another sign of boundless trust. And I appreciated that.
I crouched down next to Ayni on the floor and, after a second of hesitation, embraced the Miyelonian and squeezed her hard up against myself. And meanwhile I was nowhere near sure that this individual of a different space race would perceive my act as intended. It was possible she’d feel insulted and take it as a forceful restriction of liberty, for example. Fortunately, the orange kitty, miniature even for the Miyelonian race, reacted positively. Ayni pressed herself up against me, poked her snout into my shoulder and began to weep.
For three minutes, the Miyelonian woman was not able to hold back her tears, complaining how unfair this world was between sobs. Nobody wants me. No shelter. No money. An outcast. And the situation could never be fixed – her face was imprinted too deeply into the consciousness of hundreds of billions of Miyelonians, and was just too firmly associated with the scumbag who murdered their sacred figurehead. And it also turned out that Ayni used to have an admirer – a young hot-blooded employee of the customs service on Medu-Ro IV. They were even planning to hold a marriage ceremony in the temple of the First Female. But after the story with the slaying of the Great Priestess, her admirer did everything he could to distance himself from the “murderer,” breaking all contact and flying off in an unknown direction.
I didn’t interrupt Ayni and didn’t try to say any words of consolation. I just pressed her up against me and listened, listened, and listened... Well and very cautiously, I tended to her deep psychological trauma and bitter memories with magic.
Psionic skill increased to level ninety-three!
Mysticism skill increased to level forty-three!
That helped. the Miyelonian gradually calmed down. Finally, Ayni wiped away her tears with a paw and quickly twisted out of my embrace:
“Oh! Captain... Leng Gnat... I beg your apology... I don’t know what came over me! My nerves are on the fritz. It won’t happen again! Please let me leave now. I’m going to my cabin.”
Of course I didn’t make the Translator stay after her sharp turn to embarrassment, just opened to door into the hallway. But I did take a bit of license, carefully touching the tip of my finger to the Miyelonian’s fluffy cheek to brush away a belated tear:
“Don’t be sad, Ayni. Yes, the world is harsh and unjust. But know this: here on this frigate you have friends you can count on. They will never turn away from you and will always be there to help!”
The fluffy beauty gave a grateful growl and then bowed very deeply at the waist just like a human would. Once in the corridor she stopped short, turned and shot out an unexpectedly frank admission:
“Leng Gnat, I was embarrassed to say it with others around, but I admire you! Very few players could wriggle their way out of a situation as treacherous as we had on the asteroid. And nobody other than my amazing captain could have made it through an interrogation by three whole Symbiotes! The world really is harsh and unjust, but the greatest injustice in the Universe is that you were born a man and not a Miyelonian! Otherwise, all my thoughts would be consumed with how to become your female!”
After shortly after her surprising confession, Gerd Ayni returned to her ferocious embarrassment. She even crouched on the floor, pressed her ears down and covered her head with her paws. I took a step closer and, my arms extended, helped her up. Then I answered the easily embarrassed Translator:
“Thank you for your frankness, Ayni! I want you to know that I have also liked you since our very first encounter, and it is a great shame that you are not a member of the human race. And another thing. I am not all-powerful, of course, but I could solve a few of your problems. And not only the financial ones. They’re actually the easiest. I’ll go have a talk with the Great Priestess Leng Amiru-U Mayaoo and ask her to reign in her fanatics.”
* * *
THE MORPHIAN ENTERED my cabin approximately half an hour later. By that time, I had already discovered the data packet in the ancient armor suit’s file system. It may have been ready to be sent to the Pyramid, but it was also encrypted. I didn’t know any way to decrypt such a large file, and overall had a very cloudy understanding of the Relicts’ labyrinthine information storage system. It wasn’t the usual local folders with network addresses, but rather a primrose path of interwoven levels and solid blocks. And most of the levels were off limits to me. I couldn’t find any utilities or executable files, nor a “user’s manual” or any kind of guide.
Thinking it might help me solve this task another way, I invested all six free stat points into Machine Control, raising the skill to 98. But I didn’t notice any changes and that made me slightly upset. I could have spent the valuable skill points on something more useful. Basically, I just busted my brains for nothing. At least I almost filled my overall progress bar and hit level 88.
When Vaa appeared, quietly opening the door and unabashedly entering the captain’s bunk, my investigation into the data system was put on hold. False Anna, having carefully locked the door, plunked herself down in a flying armchair without asking permission and looked around my bunk matter-of-factly. The collection of Miyelonian trophy tails hung on my walls along with unusual weapons and other various baubles drew the Morphian’s attention, but it wasn’t for long. Vaa even expressed disappointment:
“I was expecting a bit more from the quarters of a pirate in good fortune. But it doesn’t really matter. I’m here about something else. I noticed the Miyelonian Ayni’s treatment of me abruptly changed for the worse after she spoke with you. She might as well be hissing at me now. I suppose there must be some kind of explanation for that. Could you maybe tell me what’s going on? Also, the Kasti-Utsh III station is coming up soon. I’d like to get out there. So I wanted to have a talk with you, Captain Gnat, because I might not have another chance.”
The Morphian was imitating Anna’s voice extremely faithfully, although I did catch a couple of strange intonations or words with incorrect stress. Vaa hadn’t yet fully mastered Russian, but I was shaken by how fast she was progressing.
“Vaa, we can be frank. I have deactivated all the espionage equipment,” I said and... froze with my mouth open because now it was Minn-O La-Fin sitting in my cabin instead of Anna. And for some reason she was wearing a scandalously short little housecoat and huge fluffy slippers.
Vaa got the skin color slightly wrong at first, imitating a badly sunburnt person from my world, but she adapted quickly, making herself a Minn-O completely indistinguishable from the original.
“See that Gnat? I’m giving my best for you,” the Morphian imitated my wife’s voice very faithfully as well. “I could sense that Anna the Medic was really bothering you, and everyone else on the spaceship. I figured you’d find this more pleasing.”
“Thanks, of course...” I hurriedly averted my gaze because the Morphian had started experimenting with the length and openness of the little robe, going so far as to try a complete lack of clothing, all the while attentively studying my reaction. “But still I think it’d be better to change to a more neutral appearance! Anyhow, you’re not wrong. I really have been thinking about Minn-O a lot, but it’s because my wife is currently giving a speech before the council of mages, and there’s a lot riding on it.”
“If you say so, captain,” came the disheveled Miyelonian Engineer Orun Va-Mart, now sitting in front of me wearing a grease-stained work smock and holding a set of socket wrenches in his paws. “So then, what’s the matter with Ayni? What have I done to draw her ire?”
I told her everything that happened on the Medu-Ro IV pirate station without hiding a thing, including when all the suspects were interrogated by Truth Seeker. I told her the observant and clever Translator’s suspicions about Anna. Then as requested, I recounted all the details of my relationship with Fox and our delivering the heavy and secret container to the virtual Earth. Vaa was listening extremely closely, just asking clarifying questions from time to time. When I finally finished, the Morphian said pensively:
“Now I understand why Fox chose you. You don’t feel negatively about my race, which is quite hard to find. But I still don’t think I should be apologizing to your bushy-tailed friend, because I had nothing to do with her woes.”
She changed form. Not right away, but in a few iterations, correcting the result depending on my hints and emotions. But in the end, Vaa took on the form of the anthropomorphic fox by the name of Fox.
“A strange creature. Half man, half beast,” the Morphian commented on its own appearance with surprise. “And I must admit that I haven’t yet figured out which of my acquaintances this Fox you speak of could be. Sixty tongs ago, when I entered anabiosis, mortally exhausted after being doggedly pursued by the Meleyephatian Horde’s detectives and hired assassins, there were around three hundred Morphians left in the Universe. I knew them all by name because they were all my wards. Many were also my daughters or even copies of me. But none of them could even come close to the lethal combat abilities you described. Although, so much time has passed...”
“Hold on a minute, Vaa,” I decided to clear up something I didn’t understand, “does that mean all Morphians are female?”
“No, human. Morphians don’t even have the concept of gender. To give the simplest example of how we reproduce, every individual is able to split in two in a critical situation,” a blurry motion and there were two Foxes sitting in the armchair, bearing their teeth in satisfaction. They were the spitting image of one another. “While one copy distracts enemies, usually at the cost of their own life, the second can find a place to hide. But you must understand that these are not two separate individuals, rather one with a unified consciousness, regardless of how many bodies it inhabits. Sometimes that can be useful and even necessary to survive, but in times of peace it becomes a burden.”
The fanged little Foxes recombined, and Vaa gave a satisfied smile, watching my surprised reaction.
“But under a favorable circumstances, a Morphian can also bear offspring. One time in their whole life, they give birth to around two thousand spawn. And so Leng Gnat, when you said a group of extortionists captured a starship with our young on board, it really scared me! The thing is, we once created such a ship. Our race’s greatest and in fact only hope is that our spawn on that evacuation vessel were in fact able to survive. We sent it off from a hidden sanctuary after it was discovered by our enemies, and put it on course to a place the Meleyephatians and Trillians, who don’t much care for our race, will never find it. So the idea it might have been captured terrified me.”
The Morphian sharply fell silent, thinking about something or remembering the past. So I finished her thought:
“So that means, they found...”
“No, human!” the “Miyelonian Engineer” even jumped off his seat when he heard that and started nervously pacing the cabin. “If the Meleyephatians or Trillians discovered the Morphian ship, they would destroy it immediately without the slightest hesitation! No, here we have something totally different... I don’t know for sure... I was gone too long, so I don’t know who is behind all this or how the extortionists are communicating their orders to my Morphian brethren. But the old channels of communication are still around, so I’ll try to find my surviving friends and get all the information from them.”
Danger Sense skill increased to level sixty-eight!
The Morphian fell silent. At a certain point, I felt a foreboding prick in my heart. By all appearances, the dangerous Vaa thought she said too much and was seriously considering sending me to respawn to get a potential witness out of her hair. I got on guard, preparing to grab my Annihilator and stun the Morphian psionically, but Vaa decided against her plans and even started to feel ashamed.
“Sorry, Leng Gnat. At a certain point, I started to think you might be behind the whole blackmail racket. It just looked too suspicious, you always being nearby ‘by chance’ and all. But no, the timelines don’t add up...”
“Vaa, allow me another question,” I decided to change the dangerous topic. “I’ve heard a lot about the Meleyephatians exterminating the Morphians. In fact, I have heard two diametrically opposed stories of those events. Could you maybe tell me what really happened? You would have been around for those times, after all, as far as I understand.”
“Yes, I was around. And really, why not tell you?” the Morphian agreed with ease, seemingly even delighted to surface from her onerous thoughts. “I wasn’t the one who suggested replacing the leadership of the Meleyephatian horde with members of our race, but the plan to take control of one of the most fearsome governments in the Universe looked so rewarding and vastly promising, that all Morphians agreed to it unanimously. Yes we understood it was risky, but it was our historic chance, our destiny. And not just that. Even knowing that the operation was a failure and ended in calamity, if I could go back in time, I would make the same choice again. I would just make sure to give a few well-timed pieces of advice and orders to my friends to help avoid the blunders that became our fatal ruin.”
What? I couldn’t believe my ears! The Morphian race had practically been annihilated. Its last remaining members were hiding from retribution in the game that bends reality, basically as NPC’s. But the lesson hadn’t stuck. In fact, Vaa the Morphian was itching for the chance to do it all again. She just would have tweaked a couple of details of a plan that led to the near extinction of her race! That was simply unthinkable to me! That was exactly the same as Adolf Hitler in 1939 finding out about the fall of the Third Reich six years later, then declaring to the citizens of Germany: “Yes, it will be a disaster, a defeat that will claim millions of lives. But I still want to do a bit of fighting! I’m just gonna change one thing. In 1942 I think I’ll try moving a couple divisions from the Rzhev region to Stalingrad. Then it’ll all be a real ass-whooping!”
“Oh, I can sense your indignation, human,” Vaa laughed, easily reading my emotions. “For you, a member of a different race, it can’t be understood. But you need to understand our society, our history, our psychology. After all, why should a Morphian kill other creatures and take their place? It isn’t only for nutrition, after all. That is too primitive and does not require filigreed mastery in the art of imitation. No, our purpose is to replace powerful enemies with members of our kind and, after determining how their group or even race behaves, to safeguard all Morphians from attack. The whole past of the Morphian race, all our ancient tablets and precepts were leading up to that very ATTEMPT. We could have taken all the races enslaved by the Meleyephatian Horde and instantly become potentates of the Universe. To me, that lofty goal was worth the risk!”
I shook my head, not agreeing with the debatable conclusion. But the Morphian wasn’t interested in what I thought. What’s done is done, and the past can’t be changed now. So Vaa continued:
“Quietly and inconspicuously, we eliminated and replaced more than forty thousand rulers, fleet commanders and military leaders of the Meleyephatian Horde with our own. And we devoured their corpses as to leave no trace. I myself replaced the ruler of the Rowonti-Tor system, Queen Tishhh-Ukhshhh.”
A moment later, the Miyelonian Engineer was gone and a huge eight-legged giant spider was standing in my berth. Atop her natural chitin armor, she was wearing Relict Energy Armor – almost the same as mine but refitted for a Meleyephatian instead of a human.
“But then our grand plan fell through... Minor slip-ups and irregularities that may have gone unnoticed on their own started piling up and that allowed the Meleyephatians to uncover the conspiracy. The Morphians tried to resist for some time by stopping the spread of the wave of information, taking news channels under control and instituting a harsh regime of censorship. But there weren’t enough of us to stop the leak and replace everyone who discovered the truth. Just think, if we had replaced just thirty or forty more individuals, our plan would have come off and the Universe would belong to the Morphians! But the information did end up leaking, and our attempt ended in catastrophe. The Meleyephatians struck back fast and hit hard.”
Vaa the giant spider jumped forward fast as lightning, and her ghastly mandibles clamped shut around my neck. At the same time, her many arms wrapped around me, rendering me motionless. It all happened so fast I didn’t even feel fear, much less take any defensive actions. My Danger Sense was dead quiet as well, so there was no real reason to be afraid. Fortunately, it was not a full-blown attack – the Morphian was just demonstrating another of its body’s abilities, and illustrating what it looked like when a Meleyephatian “struck fast and hit hard.”
The giant spider unclenched her mandibles and retreated. I felt my throat unconfidently with my hand but no, it was all fine. I didn’t find any wounds. Hrm... I was never afraid of spiders before. Even the biggest spiders. But now I couldn’t even look at the dangerous creature without shivering. Especially given that Queen Tishhh-Ukhshhh looked truly ghastly: her sharp fangs, glimmering with toxic slime, her dozen unblinking eyes, the deadly spines on her four agile and strong front legs. The giant spider was a dangerous predator all on her own. But if you add an outstanding intellect and impressive psionic abilities, which the Meleyephatians were famed for, she was a true death machine.
However, the Meleyephatian ruler’s appearance was not what I wanted to discuss with the Morphian. Instead I asked:
“Vaa, I see that Tishhh-Ukhshhh wore Relict armor like me. Where did that come from?”
To my enormous surprise and pity, the Morphian had absolutely no interest in the topic of ancient artifacts:
“I can’t say for sure. Most likely from one of the Relict outposts. Around that time, the Meleyephatians found a few objects of the ancient races drifting through space. It said so on the news. But I never paid much attention to the topic. I didn’t understand all the fuss, and I still don’t. So some vanished races left a bunch of old junk behind – what’s the big deal? Us Morphians see no use in it. Morphians can wear clothing and armor, but that old suit, as far as I remember, required a few skills I lacked, so I did my best to get rid of it quickly as well as a few other compromising articles. By the way...”
Wow! The giant spider’s eyes were mobile! Just like a snail’s or crab’s, her eyes extended out of her head on thin little stalks and all turned to me at the same time, while the giant spider’s face was still turned the other direction! I didn’t know Meleyephatians could do that.
“I thought up a way to thank you for your help, Leng Gnat! First of all, I will not kill you. You have probably already realized that. Technically, Morphian rules state that anyone who has witnessed our true nature must be dispatched at once. And, let me be frank, at the outset I was planning to take down your whole crew as soon as the starship entered dock at the space station. Your respawn time would have been long enough for me to get through control and hidden safely in the endless corridors of the massive station. But I was stopped by the fact that Fox let you live, deviating from accepted practice. So I thought a bit and decided I would do the same.”
Holy crap! Pretty weird to suddenly find out, someone wanted to kill you and most likely also eat you instead of expressing their gratitude. After all, the Morphian had spent this whole flight smiling sweetly at me and all the other members of Team Gnat, all while thinking over the most effective way of killing my whole crew. Vaa then, having returned to the form of Anna from First Medical, continued:
“Second, Leng Gnat, given you’re interested in the artifacts of the vanished races, I know of a stash spot you might be interested in. Here are the coordinates. I hid the Queen of Rowonti-Tor’s armor suit there along with a few other ancient items! The hiding spot is in Meleyephatian space. But you are a neutral Free Captain, so they shouldn’t detain you.”
