“We worried about you,” Konstantin said, one day after the Marlowe slid into hard dock. “We heard nothing from you. Station Authority told us only that you were among the Avaat. Off-station.” He'd come on station for two weeks' liberty. There'd been changes on board the ship. New faces had made departure through the decontamination tubes, familiar faces wore the subtle hints of age: wrinkles where Déo remembered smooth skin, receded hairlines where he recalled meticulously trimmed forelocks. He'd been a part of the Marlowe family, once. But as both familiar and strange faces streamed into station crowds and mixed, he saw how distant he'd become. Family, in the ship-board sense, was a thing that no longer existed for him. =You think that Konstantin and Aiden will play active roles in what you're planning?= the worm had asked, long before the Marlowe rolled through it's complex docking maneuvers, and mated airlocks with Kethrin Station's access ports. I'm hoping they will, Déo said, voicelessly, in response. He'd sunk (twice) into cognitive trance, attempting to sense the pattern-potentials surrounding Aiden, Konstantin, and himself. . .but he'd sensed only a haze of half-formed potentials: wave functions that refused even the smallest hints as to the direction of their collapse. =And if they don't?= There are other candidates. He'd tried to feel some detachment there, but through the subtle presence of his worm, he tasted the spike of neurtransmitters that spoke of an emotional investment far larger than he'd ever voice. There is a way to avoid the dark future of your species, but pure Humans on their own cannot do so. Eolaat's words echoed through the dark spaces between thoughts. Navigating a labyrinth from the inside is a lot harder than looking at a map of it spread out on a table. “Human existence,” Chelas said, “is the craziest of mazes. . .it only makes sense that someone not trapped in that maze would be able to show us the way through it. And it isn't just a Human thing. . .every species has its labyrinth to navigate, and every species runs a risk of failure.” Though he hadn't consciously realized it at first, he came to understand that Eolaat—like so many others—was charged to observe those who came on-station from the various ships. Through the short centuries of interspecies contact, the Avaat meticulously tailored themselves to the rakish alignment of Human trusts and prejudices, and through these alignments, they spotted those with potential as the strangest, most subtle and sometimes troubling of species-specific messiahs. =There is danger in that word, Déo. = What word? =Messiah. There are implications of blind fanaticism in those three syllables. . .of the very species-specific inclinations that will contribute to the conflagration that humanity may ultimately face.= But in the most pragmatic of ways, the word fit, in Déo's understanding, despite what the worms and the Avaat maintained. Only now, there was one less candidate among those Déo sought to shepherd into newer, truer roles. Aiden did not leave the Marlowe with the rest of the liberty-granted crew. “He resigned his commission two months after you'd joined the Avaat,” Konstantin said, over beer in a bar called Indigo. “Why?” Konstantin shrugged. “He never said. “ The space-ways always seemed an intimate part of Aiden's ambitions: the big-ships on their far-flung routes had always seemed to fit in perfect sync with the ambitions warmed in the deepest cockles of his heart. “The Marlowe is a first step, “Aiden had always maintained. “I'm getting my toes wet before I jump in the big, interspecies sea.” But now, by Konstantin's account, wet toes were all Aiden could manage. =He was the chosen one, in his own estimation of universal order. But you have always been Silent. Instinctively, Déo. In your way, you shepherded him out of this delusion. Eolaat, and the others, saw this in you and the Avaat have trained you for this path. You are a natural.= Déo ignored the worm. “Has he stayed in touch with you?” he asked, to Konstantin, instead. Konstantin considered the beer centered on the table before him. Light from above settled on the angular definition of his cheekbones and rode the slope of his nose. His hair, a fine, flyaway blond, seemed to hold hints and whispers of a softer, buttery tint that Déo scarcely remembered. A sandpaper dusting of stubble stood on his jaw. It was Konstantin's pallor that grabbed him the most. =You have gained more color, the worm commented, as if sifting through Déo's memories of his own reflection caught in mirrors long before the Avaat were a part of his daily life. Konstantin shook his head. “He and I communicated once. . .maybe twice. But never in depth.” “We were a team,” Déo commented, quietly. . .recalling giddy words spoken more than a subjective lifetime ago. Konstantin simply nodded and stole a sip of his beer. “Can you blame him for leaving?” There might have been a bite in Konstantin's question. Déo heard one and rankled at the sound of it. His own comment was the source. We were a team. . .a kind of tripartite brotherhood, only his departure from the ranks of the Marlowe's company and crew broke that brotherhood and—at least as of now—left that team scattered. “I don't know.” He leveled a glance at Konstantin. “Can you?” Konstantin shrugged. “All I know is that each of you left. . .for your own reasons. I can't believe they weren't valid reasons. I can't even be sure they're relevant now. We were friends—still are, for as much as it's possible. I'm the only one whose kept the life that I'd planned for myself. . .I'm the only one who kept my promise to remain with the Marlowe and build something that the three of us could understand.” And again, there was silence: an awkward gap between them, and in the space of that silence, Déo considered how different he'd become, and how different he must have seemed to Konstantin. He remembered laughter between them, only now he heard its absence. He remembered the three scared guys, new to a ship that had gone farther into the Way Out than any of them had dreamed, until the ship itself carried them into what was now familiar space. We were a team. . . . Though Konstantin didn't endow those words with a bite, Déo heard it. He focused on the diminishing head of his beer. “Kostya,” Déo said, after a long moment. “There are things I'd like to tell you. I'd like to tell Aiden too. . .but. . .” From the far side of silence, Konstantin stared into Déo's eyes, a look of idle expectation on his face. Déo felt warmth bleeding along the contours of his cheeks and up the flanks of his neck. He detected the taste of desperation in his words, and he couldn't find the source of it. He was too different, he thought, from the friend Konstantin left, when Eolaat and the others stepped through the corridor outside of his room and quietly invited him into a non-Human life. He doesn't know me! “But?” Konstantin asked. “My job,” Déo began. “My job demands a lot. Of me. And if I tell you what I know. . .it'll demand a lot of you.” “How so?” “Because I need your help,” Déo said. “And if you give it. . .you'll sacrifice something I can't ask you to. You'll give up much more than you'll ever gain. I'd hoped to say the same to Aiden. . .to show each of you what I've learned and what I've become. . .but I don' t have that chance with Aiden, and I'm not sure I should take it with you.” Konstantin nodded. “You know exactly what the Avaat want. What they're doing. . . .” Déo stole a sip of his own beer. “And I know exactly why they're doing it.” It was enough to draw Konstantin's attention, and Déo felt his fingers go cold. I'm analyzing too much, I'm reading too many potentials! =This troubles you?= Kostya is my friend. He'll always be that. I shouldn't question so much. =Friendship implies equality. You and Konstantin are no longer equal. = Shut up! But the worm was right. “I'll go with you,” Chelas had said, when the Marlowe's arrival was little more than a note on the ETA boards. “It could level your playing field.” But Déo had shaken his head to the idea. “I need to see them alone. . .at least at first.” Chelas nodded his wordless understanding, and gently cuffed Déo's shoulder. “I'm available if you change your mind.” He didn't change his mind. Konstantin held Déo in a steady, unblinking gaze, now. “Are we in danger?” he asked. Déo sat back and raked through his hair with outstretched fingers. “Danger?” “The Avaat. . .was Aiden right about them, in any way?” “He thought they were manipulating us,” Déo said, recalling those long discussions in ship's commons. “He thought they were in direct competition with us, and cunning enough to push us towards wiping ourselves out.” Konstantin nodded. Déo sat forward now. “They are an influence,” he said. “But not in the way Aiden, or anyone like him imagined. We're connected in ways that I can't explain. I can't even begin to think of how, but the connection is there. We're. . .symbionts of a sort. The Avaat feel it strongly. They never say anything openly, but when you're with them. . .carrying an implanted worm, you feel it intensely.” He paused and drew a shallow breath. “Aiden was right when he said they're shamelessly self-interested. They're carbon-based life forms, spawned in evolutionary seas not unlike our own ancestral muck. . .they've grown up on a world that would just as soon kill them as support them. They're like us in that way, and we're liars if we say that self-interest doesn't govern everything that every single Human has done throughout history.” He paused again. “I can't explain much more than that, but there are things I need to ask of you. . .things I need to show you.” There was a taste of raw entreaty behind the words Déo spoke. He could taste it, like the salt-rime of sea-water boiled into steam. He stole a nip of his brew and considered the pallor of his hands in the overhead light. There was music here: the odd paradox of blood-pounding drums and mournful woman-voice vocals that struck the nerves like the most profound lament. He didn't know the tune, but it recalled something Chelas' musical tastes. There was odd comfort in that—as if Chelas was here, quietly urging Déo to say the things he needed to say. . .to voice the questions that had yet to find vocal expression. “Are you free tomorrow?” he asked. Konstantin nodded. “Things will be a lot easier if I show you the things you need to see. Things will be clearer.” “And you'll show me tomorrow?” “Yes.” * * * * ...to be continued... * * * * Yes, after so long a delay, this has finally be posted, and yeah...there's a wee bit more...but servers and schedules are cooperating a bit more, so you won't have to wait as long to finish this sucker. As always, thank you VERY MUCH for reading and commenting!