part0036

The oily sea wasn’t wet. It didn’t feel like anything. Talos had expected the heaviness of it to crush him. Instead, he flew on a current undetectable by any of his senses save the movement of his body and the predilection of his limbs to rhythmically flap up and down.

Did the singing alien mock his race, the aviarmen? There had once been a race of Backworlders who flew as agilely as a bird, but they’d been extinct for centuries, and Talos had never wanted to fly without a ship. Or, so he had thought until now.

The journeys through space in the clutches of the strange alien tentacles was enthralling and came close to flying, except for the part where they shoved themselves down his throat. If he could gain control over where he traveled and how fast, he would consider giving up the Sequi.

“Oh, who am I kidding?” It had been over two years since he had seen his spacecraft; a year since he had seen any spacecraft. The tendrils were all he had, well, and this strange sort of flying through a strange sort of sea.

Lepsi and Dialhi shimmered ahead in the oily sea. “What is the tendrils?” Talos asked them.

Images of forests, seas, and deserts sprang up around Talos, each occupied by myriad creatures he would have had a hard time imagining. A long creature rolled end over end on the rocky plains of a steppe. Every now and then, it would pause and its four limbs would scissor open and closed several times. Then it would continue on.

“I think the tendrils is living beings,” Talos said. “Or derived from living beings. When they wrap around me, they pulse, as if they beat for my heart ‘n breathe for my lungs.”

“Interesting.” Lepsi’s image flickered then dissolved into bits.

“Is it right?” Dialhi bobbed in the sea of nothing. There was no color, no taste, no smell, no sound.

The current swishing Talos’s arms back and forth stilled. This had to be a test. The best way to pass or fail was honesty. Only, he didn’t quite understand why the alien took on the image of his lover. “Is what right?”

“If you is asking whether they work correctly, I would hazard to say yes. I arrived at two destinations unscathed. I can’t be certain they is operating at one hundred percent. I don’t believe that’s what you want to know of me, however.” His arm moved like a stream of palladium grains pouring into a ship engine when he tried to rub his chin. There was no strength in his muscles, and they tingled as if he had lain on them for hours.

The image of Dialhi split into two and morphed into Backworlders enslaved by Quasser.

“Is the tendrils slaves?” Talos asked.

“What is your verdict?” The Backworlders shifted into Jixes covered in vines.

Talos found it hard to catch his breath and shut his eyes. He was responsible for the Jixes, the whole mercenary race of them, being enslaved by a planet of parasitic vines. Using mind control chocolates, he had coaxed the Jix leader to the vine’s planet.

“I’m no better than Quasser.” If he could have, Talos would have dropped to his knees. His body rolled, and he had no idea which way was up.

A waving image of a woman with a lavender complexion and huge lime-green eyes beckoned to him. Vines encased her, similar to the tendrils. Her leaves trembled and tears poured from her eyes. Talos reached for her. She reshaped into a cloudy being made up of spheres roaring through space.

A curtain parted in Talos’s mind and he saw the state of the galaxy more clearly than ever. “The Jixes is like the early Quassers. They will explode into vengeance one day. The valve must be released. I must return to the Backworlds. You must help me.” He kicked in what he hoped was the direction of the surface. The sea didn’t end. He tried another direction then another.

“Help me. I must get out of here.”

The tendrils that had transported him here streaked in a snaky line around him. “Your understanding is misguided.” It spoke with a lisp and gave the impression of being one entity.

“Am I wrong in my conclusion of the similarity of the Jixes ‘n the Quass…er…Sphericals?”

“They have vast commonalities ‘n vast differences.”

“The Jixes’ vengeance will be as volatile as the Quassers. I should release them from their bondage. I’m most responsible for putting them at the mercy of the parasitic vines.”

The sea quivered into countless images of alien races succumbing to the Quassers’ wrath. Slowly the Quassers shifted into Jixes covered in green vines, and Talos understood the Jixes could never be freed.

Thickness clung to the back of his throat, and he struggled to answer. “Is you saying I have to leave them with the parasites?”

“They is a new race,” the tendrils said. “As am I.”

“Another race forced you to become this?”

“My race was weak and would have died out long ago if not for intervention by the Seuks. So we are not resentful. The Sphericals didn’t feel the same. From what I gather, the Jixes will follow the way of the Sphericals.”

“How do you gather?” Talos found it hard to breathe.

“It’s what you believe. There is no other reference. You did wrong. How do you fix it?”

The tentacles swam round and round. Talos couldn’t keep up.

“The moral thing would be to free the Jixes.”

“Moral for you.”

A throbbing started in Talos’s temple. “Appeasing my guilt may not be what’s best for everyone.”

The tentacles paused, paddling closer, almost touching Talos’s nose. “The best thing would have been?”

“To not have sent the Jixes to Photwit. It was selfish. Selfishness can’t be offset by another selfish act. Unleashing the vine-possessed Jixes would release an enemy as formidable as the Quassers.” A bubble of clarity went off in his thoughts, jumbling them into an order, a possible solution for the Backworlds. “I would like to send a message out.”

“What you wish to propose to your people is only borrowing one bother to take on another. Eventually, the bigger bother will have to be dealt with.”

“Yes, but it gives them time. The moral thing is to ensure the survival of as many folks as possible.”

“It may be permitted. Depends. What will you tell your people?”

“Only to remember Photwit.”

The end of one tentacle enlarged into a bulbous pocket of pus. It burst and out wiggled a smaller tentacle. “It will do your bidding,” the parent said.

Talos doubted it could be so simple, but he’d give it a go. “Would you please take a message? I would appreciate your assistance.” He reached out to pet the infant tentacle.

Its skin trembled and a barrage of bubbles escaped both ends. The bubbles formed a word. Yes .

“Think your message and whom you want to receive it,” the larger tentacle said.

Talos thought of Craze and didn’t tread beyond the message he had first proposed. The smaller tentacle darted straight down and disappeared.

The larger tentacle followed. “Come. There is a better place to continue our conversation.”