Chapter 54

“Am I to pick right now?” Talos sidled past Prekladd and strolled down the aisle. There were so many vials, so many species. “Where do they all come from?”

“Beyond the world you believed our home, but no farther than ninety light years away,” said Vezcheto.

The jar at Talos’s right shoulder contained dirt resembling diamonds. From it grew a plant with a reedy stalk resembling a human body and red crystalline leaves where a head should be. A root dislodged itself from the sparkling soil and swiped at the vat. The thing jumped at Talos, and hissed. The jar’s glow shifted from yellow to purple and a smog obscured the creature from view. When the mist cleared, the creature was as still as a dead stick.

“Did you kill it?” Talos narrowed his eyes at his alien hosts.

“It wass merely put back to ssleep. No harm wass done to it.” Vezcheto checked the symbols on the vat then caressed the lid, cooing to the creature inside.

“I don’t fully understand.” Talos faced Vezcheto and Prekladd. “What is this place, ‘n what is you doing with these beings?”

“They wass captured generationss ago during the high age of sscience. Our sscientisstss and the sscientisstss of the people who formed our…you’d ssay alliance, I think…found creaturess with incredible propertiess that advanced technology and knowledge fasster and farther than ever imagined. The Ssphericalss began in thiss lab.”

“As what?”

“Show him,” Prekladd said.

Vezcheto strode down the aisle and made a left at the first corner. He took a passage that veered diagonally across the aisles to a vault against the far wall. Pressing his nose against a scratch, Vezcheto made a clicking noise. The wall dissolved, revealing a small vat of brown gunk, what would have been overlooked as pond scum on some worlds. It pulsed with orange light in an erratic pattern.

Leaning in, Talos examined the specimen carefully. “The Sphericals come from this?”

“From a ssingle-cell organissm that producess the radiant pulsse, not the brown slime. However, one cannot live without the other.”

Talos’s head snapped up. “Even now? The Sphericals need the slime? How?”

“Physsically they don’t need it. In their ssoulss they crave it. Itss why they continue to ssearch for uss. They don’t remember the world they are from. They wassn’t aware enough at the time.”

“The slime could be the answer.”

“No, we tried.”

“How did you try? Show me the past attempts ‘n research.” Talos wanted to kick the Seuk to get him moving.

“Firsst, you musst take the final test.”

“Which is what?” Talos couldn’t waste any more time in accomplishing his mission. If this produced nothing, he would head home and assist in the war however he could.

“You either join uss or your quesst endss now. That iss the tesst.” From the vault, Vezcheto pulled out a frizzer and dialed it to setting three, the setting that would calcify Talos’s bones and doom him to a slow and excruciating death. “You know what thiss iss.” Blue flame dripped from the nozzle and the weapon whined.

Talos backed up three steps. “You’ve met the Foreworlders?”

“We have friendss who watch.”

A revelation no more comforting than the charged frizzer. Talos wet his lips to no effect. His mouth was completely dry. “What is your test?”

“Once you join uss there iss only one way to leave.” Vezcheto waved the Fo’wo weapon. “No one can ever know of uss or thiss facility.”

Talos backed into a shelf, groping for a corner by which to steady himself. He understood the Seuk perfectly, yet his tongue hadn’t caught up with his brain. “Forever?” he said. “There is people I love ‘n want to see again.” He held up a hand so Vezcheto wouldn’t shoot.

One of Garimara’s tentacles flitted over to Talos, circling, then curling up on his lapel where his badge had once been. A tear trailed down his cheek and dripped off his chin. He swiped at the drop and stared at his wet fingertips, remembering the feel of Dialhi’s skin, the taste of her, her laugh.

“I don’t want to stay, but I want to save the folks I love from death by the Quassers more.” A smile warmed his heart. “Now I understand why Lepsi stranded me.” A soft laugh escaped his lips, and he leveled his gaze at the Seuk. “I accept. I’ll stay.”