By Jonathan S. Coolidge, D.O.

Intellectual property rights noted at end

“So, what sort of story would you like to hear?” Chieftain Flord was more than a local ruler; he was also an excellent storyteller. A mystical, gazing quality accompanied his deep, charismatic voice and fair features, offsetting his intimidating, sharp eyes.

“What about the legend of how the mountains formed, and how we got our home?” One of a number of young ones asked gathered around the campfire near the simple settlement. Around them, a strange landscape of weaving, twisting organic shapes sat beneath a peaceful night sky. The children, appearing almost human, were like Flord actually something else, a race of beings with a faerie-like quality about them. They were perfectly at home atop the biomechanical landscape around them.

“Ah yes, the great cataclysm. That's why the Wolf People are coming.” Flord looked to the west, where a single tall, vast peak rose up in the great distance, reaching deeply into the sky, its base surrounded by a few stray clouds. “The mountains fell from the sky more than five hundred years ago in a burst of fire.”

The peaceful serenity of a landscape of a far away world some five hundred years before Suidhne's time came to a momentary pause with a great, blinding flash from the sky. After it cleared, all seemed well, and the animals continued their ways in the forests, while trees continued to billow in the wind. Soon, however, clouds suddenly gathered, ushering in a wave of fire. The ground tore open and ripped foreword, as a new mountain range suddenly, inexplicably rolled in amidst the catastrophic turmoil. Where before was a rolling savannah and an open sky, there now could be found a surreal landscape of interwoven mechanical and complex organic forms.

Suidhne and Nialle made their way through the evening alleyways of Collinwood, bridging a gap between the warm comforts of a quiet, deeply recessed spiritual center and the welcome familiarity of the interior of Nialle's bubbly car. In between, however, was a cold night air and encroaching pressure from an overdeveloped, worn-down landscape of brick and torn billboards.

“...And another thing nice about the Lykosan Empire,” Nialle ranted. “There, everybody's Pagan. Tell me that we weren't plopped right in the middle of a Sabbat the other night. There, psychics have a job, unlike Magic majors here in Collinwood. In that other world, people like us are treated with some respect. Here...” Nialle abruptly hushed as three young men approached, one of them brandishing a metal rod threateningly.

“Well, what have we here,” the one bearing the weapon commented, thinking out loud. Nialle's facial expression conveyed rolling her eyes, though her solid black glassy orbs could not directly show such motion.

Another stepped forward, drawing a small, plain knife out of a pocket, approaching the two of them. “Looks like a couple more freaks barging in on our place.” He brandished it threateningly towards Suidhne, placing the point of the blade in front of her neck while the one with the metal rod stood in front of Nialle, posturing. “So, what are you supposed to be? Some kind of unicorn thing, maybe? Too bad I'm not a virgin.”

“I really wish you weren't doing this,” Suidhne answered, not intimidated.

“And why the hell not?” The bully replied.

Suddenly, the remaining member of the aggressors collapsed, unconscious, struck to the back of his head. Pengarthe stood a towering six feet and four inches, holding a bizarre, irregular two-handed sword of alien design that was at least as long as he was tall. The one bearing the rod dropped it and ran. However, the one with the knife tried to grab Suidhne's neck and forehead projection, holding her hHe was not prepared for her response. As he grabbed her horn, she thrust her head into him, causing him to lose his grip and stumble back. Pengarthe then added a sword stroke to his left leg, knocking the aggressor to the ground. He stumbled back up and scampered off.

“See, Nialle,” Suidhne stated. “They were out here.”

“It's a good thing we weren't really alone.”

Pengarthe wiped the edge of his sword with a cloth. “Now that your demonstration is done, I'd feel better walking beside you rather than behind you now.” He held his sword arm out and embraced Suidhne, squatting down to kiss her. “Besides, I prefer you close.” Suidhne started to return the affection with a kiss to his neck, but a flash of bright blue swirling light interrupted her.

Danit emerged from the whorl, addressing the others. “You've got to come with me! You would not believe this thing the Lykosans found!”

“Welcome back.” Captain Treveska greeted Suidhne, Pengarthe, and Nialle as the three emerged through the swirling vortex of light bridging between Nialle's home in Collinwood and a briefing room of Lykosan design. Danit stood beside the captain and Melody Dreamsail, who had also joined the company. “The Lykosan Empire's archaeology division got word of you and your special talents, and they asked me to ask you for a special favor.” She gestured to a tall, slender gray lupine figure. “This is Commodore Verillian, leader of the Morbia sector expeditionary division.”

“Greetings, realm travelers,” the Commodore spoke, with an aged but dignified tone. “We asked you here because you have the capability to travel nearly instantaneously from one world to another. That gives you the edge needed to help us defend a finding of astronomical proportions before it can potentially fall into hostile hands.” As he spoke and gestured, he manipulated a small, glassy orb, causing a series of projectors in the room to display a dramatic, panoramic series of images.

An image appeared, of an irregular landscape with a single gigantic projection emerging from the ground, through the clouds and sky into space. “This is the Lan Laheen Mountain Range, home of the White Hair People. Local legend has it that the mountain range fell from the sky nearly one hundred Lykosan years ago, leaving in its wake a wave of fire and destruction.”

The image rippled and gave way to a view of space, overlooking a blue and white planet, with a cluster of continents. One land formation zoomed into view, focusing on an irregularity in the surface, resembling a double-sided axe blade, with three projections emerging where the handle would be. Two ran along the ground, while the third projected skyward. “This is the Lan Laheen Mountains viewed from space. They measure approximately one hundred kilometers at greatest length. On closer inspection, it takes on the appearance of an enormous space craft of alien design.” The image continued to zoom in on the formation, rotating into a side view. “Closer still, one sees that, interwoven into the designs on the craft, are numerous figures of beings who could very well be the ancestors to the Lykosan people.” The side of the mountain range came into view, showing two enormous recumbent statues, each more than ten kilometers long, with arms stretched towards each other, holding between them a gigantic, four-kilometer diameter eye. A second eye appeared above and to the left of it, surrounded by a complex cluster of organic and technological forms. The figure to the left was female, while the one to the right was male; both were wolf anthropomorphs, like the Lykosan people. The image changed to a schematic diagram. “Here you see a rough reconstruction of the ship. The front assembly consists of a claw-like arrangement of four projections. Two rest on the land along side the back portion, one rises up into space, while the remaining one is imbedded through the planet's crust and into the top of its molten mantle.”

“A remote expedition team has set up a Lykosan outpost within the Lan Laheens and opened up diplomatic ties with the White Hairs, establishing the Empire's presence there. However, their remote facilities are behind schedule; without a quantum synchronization apparatus, they had to transmit their findings through a simple, slower graviton array transmitter.”

“How terrible!” Nialle gasped ironically. “What does that mean?”

Captain Treveska explained. “In simple terms, quantum synchronization is a way of communicating instantaneously between two places. Other beings cannot intercept transmissions of data because the data never crosses the space in between. A graviton array is an older, slower method of communicating via gravity waves paired with minute spatial warping. Unfortunately, such transmissions are not very easy to encode or hide.”

“So, why doesn't the expedition have a quantum transmitter?” Pengarthe interjected.

Treveska explained. “The Imperial Interstellar Communications Division was overwhelmed with applications for the newer apparatus. They gave priority to high population areas, but are in the process of upgrading the remote networks now. The Lan Laheen colony was subcontracted with Smell / Scent SWB-DSL, who is scheduled to install a quantum apparatus about two months from now.” Treveska paced back and forth with a certain look of agitation. “I've looked into this, and he is already overdue. His original installation order was more than four months ago, but that was cancelled and rescheduled three times. This is exactly the sort of thing that's undermining the Empire.”

Danit stepped forward with puzzled astonishment. “An object of that size would easily be a global killer. How could anything on that planet have survived?”

“It decelerated,” Commodore Verillian responded. “The object underwent a series of maneuvers designed to minimize the amount of damage done to the planet's biosphere by its impact. The precise calculations necessary to be performed would have been of such nature that the ship's pilot must have had a very strong desire to preserve life.”

“OK, now why did it crash?” Nialle answered, expressing anxiety that an even greater force lacked such desire.

Melody answered. “There are a number of forces throughout Lykosan history and legend that has such power-the Creators, the planet devourers of star system A-DB 54, the Chloos, and so forth.”

Verillian continued. “The vessel has been inactive since the crash, but does have some form of energy flowing within. The White Hair and several other races of beings have occupied the lower portions of the mountains, using the vessel's remaining active energy conduits and other technologies as a power source, while incorporating the artifact into their way of life.”

“Unfortunately, in order to inform us of this finding, they had to use their graviton array. The Orelli Warlords, a hostile force, could have by now intercepted and decoded the transmission. At their top speed, they could be there in twenty days. We have already sent a defense fleet of four ships equipped by the fastest Avery star-drive systems we have, but even so, they cannot be there in less than twenty-five days. We need to make sure that the Orelli do not gain control of the alien vessel in the intervening five days; otherwise, they will no longer simply be a local aggressor.

Melody, Danit, Nialle, Pengarthe, and Suidhne arrived in a valley lined with bizarre, biomechanical mountains on either side of them. Clusters of figures appeared within the plateaus and cliffs around them, appearing as contorted statues suggesting wolf anthropomorphs decorated with mechanical implants and sharp blades. There to greet them was a small company of people, both Lykosan and White Hair. The Lykosans, like the bizarre figures interwoven into the landscape, had an appearance suggesting wolf-human hybrids. The White Hairs appeared almost entirely human, though somewhat off-kilter. One feature they had that distinguished them, however, was their namesake albino tresses.

“We bring greetings from the Lykosan Empire,” Melody stated. “We come as ambassadors to discuss the exploration of your home, the Lan Laheen.”

“Did you happen to, per chance, hire a floating brain to do your landscape design?” Nialle asked, shuddering at the sights around her. The White Hairs looked at her, not sure whether to be concerned more with her confusing statement or her strange, lean appearance and Gothic attire. They looked one by one at the others, noticing Melody's third eye and enigmatic cloak; Pengarthe's furry legs, horns, and cloven hooves; Suidhne's spiraling horn and bleached white skin; and Danit's slender form, whose leafy decorations instinctively, inexplicably transformed into a mixture of the various sorts of clothing the White Hairs were wearing.

“Forgive us,” Danit explained. “But, on another recent archaeology expedition, we discovered a hostile entity that could alter reality; this landscape looks very much like what it did to the crew of my last mission.”

“We are here to meet Chieftain Flord,” Melody continued.

“So,” Flord answered. “The Wolf People-The Lykosan Empire-sent you because you have this teleportation ability called 'Crossover,' which gave you the ability to get here faster than not only any ship in the imperial fleet, but also faster than the Orelli.” Chieftain Flord had the youthful, charming appearance accompanied by an arcane, ancient quality, creating a sense of timelessness around him. “And, you are here to win over our friendship so you can see the mountains first.”

“You can easily see why the Lykosans are interested,” Melody answered. “They travel from world to world, seeking to know more about their origin, and they find a mountain range that 'fell from the sky' centuries ago on your world-a mountain range filled with figures of their kind.”

“We have to protect our home.”

“Of course.”

“So, we will have to accompany any endeavor you do upon our land.”

“We would share with you any knowledge we find. We would hope, of course, that you would be willing to share your knowledge as well, such as how the mountains fell in the first place, and what sort of things reside within it.”

“Of course.” Flord answered. “I am glad you are here. Of our legends I have to say this. There are many giants living in the Lan Laheen Mountains. And, there is a saying among our rival tribe, the Distant Seers. They say 'it is best to let sleeping giants lie.”

“Does any of this look familiar?” Melody asked Suidhne. The two Dreamsails strolled across the surreal countryside, between a grove of trees and the base of a cliff bearing intricate mechanical grid-work. Suidhne looked carefully at the base of the plateau, noting several objects that looked vaguely like eyes in the cliff, looking blankly southward. She momentarily had a vision of the same objects, illuminated a brilliant white against a glowing amber technological background. “I think Lukos Rinan had a ship like this one.” She pointed at the spherical bodies in the mountains. “Those things are devices of some sort, tied into using the astral realms as a sort of hyperspace. Did Vlk'rin ever talk about the astral plane?”

“He and his mate Elodea both showed off a lot, and they went into it a little bit. But, that was so long ago, and I had a hard time following the technical aspects even then. He called it 'astral phasing,' and he did mention that one of his predecessors knew the physicist who first made it possible.”

Suidhne contemplated for a moment. “I think, however, by the time my past incarnation had his ship, astral phasing had already been around for ages.” Their conversation was cut short by the sudden emergence of several stout figures. A number of these creatures appeared from the surrounding trees and mechanical ground, having an almost puppet-like quality about them.

“Stop in the name of the law!” One of the goblin figures assumed a lead posture; he appeared fairly lean with a narrow face, and was wearing a cluster of mechanical paraphernalia over his head. “What is your quest?” With each statement, his voice changed dramatically in pitch, tone, and quality.

“I am Suidhne Dreamsail.” She looked at the impish figure and his emerging companions, each of whom had strangely exaggerated, animal-like features. “Who are you?”

“The New Number Two,” one of the goblins replied in a crisp voice, with a British accent.

The lead goblin then came forward, speaking slowly and distinctly, with certain harshness and a slight metallic reverberation. “I am Locutus...of Borg.” His voice changed completely, to one of almost a casual observer. “There's a slight chance of thunder showers this evening over the Rockies.”

Another goblin figure, no more than a foot tall and covered with fur, stepped forward, speaking in a scratchy voice. “If I were on the field, I'd keep a close eye on Elway and stay away from the end zone.”

“Suidhne, I think they're trying to warn us.” Melody observed.

“Or threaten us,” Suidhne replied. “Our Lykosan translators aren't handling their language very well.”

Melody pulled out a small device from underneath her cloak and fidgeted with it. “Suidhne, they aren't handling the language at all. We're hearing what they're saying.”

“That's right,” a large-eyed goblin said. “Only nineteen ninety five!”

The taller lead figure then continued. “Stand back, I'm warning you! Don't come any closer!” His voice then took on an ominous echo. “If you go to Za H'adum, you will die.”

“Are you threatening us or warning us?” Suidhne asked.

“Intelligences vastly superior to our own watched as we swarmed and multiplied like microbes in a drop of water. They regarded our Earth with envious eyes.... If you go there, death awaits you with big, nasty, pointy teeth! So you've got to ask yourself.... Do you feel lucky?”

As evening became night, Pengarthe, Danit, and Nialle listened as Suidhne finished explaining their encounter. A small pack of Lykosans was with them in the circular den, part of their small, local camp. They listened to the description of the goblins, and one of the pack explained them. “Those were the Hill Men. Neither the White Hairs nor we could figure out their language, other than that it is a series of borrowed phrases of unknown origin. Communication with them is possible, but it can be vague at times. They seem to understand us well enough.”

Another Lykosan interjected. “They are at once fascinated by and frightened of the Lan Laheens and the ruins contained within. They've tried to frighten the White Hairs away, discouraging settlement here, but without success. So far, the ruins have been very quiet.”

“So far,” Pengarthe reiterated. “Suidhne, while you and Melody were out, I made arrangements with Chieftain Flord to get together tomorrow afternoon to plan our first expedition together. He seems confident that there's no danger, but I'll feel better knowing that our ability to open portals will be ready.”

“Open portals?” One of the Lykosans asks.

Danit explained. “They mean our 'Crossover' ability. Each of us can open a portal to another realm, but only about once a day. We can each fit about five people through a portal before it closes. We have all used our portal ability today already, but if we run into trouble tomorrow, we can instantly jump to safety anywhere you can imagine.”

“Provided we're not tied or chained down,” Nialle replied. She then blushed as Danit looked back at her.

Nialle, unaware that she was dreaming, believed she walked down a wide, curved corridor on board a Lykosan cruiser. She had on the same tight-fitting vinyl body suit she wore a few weeks ago when her mating season began, and she strolled along with an enthusiastic sway without discomfort from the heat of her sealed outfit. As she walked along, her outfit creaked suggestively, and a padlock in the back of her neck jingled slightly with each step. Then, a Lykosan shipmate ran by, shouting a warning. “The gheidei! The gheidei is coming!” Nialle stopped as the other person ran by. With hesitation, she slowly resumed her path forward, starting to feel somewhat anxious. The hallway up ahead became darker and more sinister, radiating an evil presence. Small pools of blood could be found across the floor, intermixed with s few scattered pieces of meat. Nialle recoiled back for a moment, seeing a partially dismembered, twisted Lykosan figure wriggling, pulling himself upright for a moment, eyeing Nialle.

“It's too late!” The deformed, incomplete body cried out. Nialle looked up and saw a huge, floating, disembodied brain floating toward her. She started to panic and run, but she found her legs bound together. She saw her hair turning gray as she looked at herself against a reflective surface. She wriggled in her body suit, but the sleeves for her legs had fused into a single, tightly binding vinyl encasement.

Nialle then centered herself, thinking out loud. “I'm dreaming about the gheidei again.” She looked at the disfigured Lykosan, who suddenly regrew his legs and arms. The now healed crewmember grabbed a nearby piece of metal, which grew into a giant Saclordian bastard sword. He sliced the floating brain entity, and it disappeared.

Nialle floated upwards, suddenly as is common in dreams immune to gravity. She kept the tight, glossy binding around her legs, enjoying a sensual effect. Her fingers became bound in a similar manner, and she formed her arms into wings. A hatch opened in the side of the hallway, revealing a blue sky with wisps of clouds. Nialle floated out the hatch, flying into the open air.

She had become lucent, engaging in a popular lucid dreamer's pass-time. As she flew, small tufts of clouds passed by, sinking below her, as if heading towards the receding landscape of trees below. Nialle then decided to sink lower, closing in on the trees. Overhead were twin moons, and in the distance an open countryside. Nialle looked at herself, spinning in the air. Her glossy, winged body suit had become decorated with an ornate rose emblem across the left side of her belly and chest; its red color and green leaves contrasted against the dark, aggressive theme of the glossy black vinyl adhering to her.

Nialle gently awoke into a soft bed, with Danit next to her. He stirred for a moment. Nialle, seeing that he was awake, sat up for a moment. “I just had the most amazing dream.”

“Was it about the gheidei again?”

“Yes, but I didn't just beat it this time.”

Suidhne, unaware that she was dreaming, saw nothing unusual about her being a tall creature resembling a Lykosan with sharply spiked mechanical implants imbedded in his forehead, arms, and legs. He stood beside a slender, muscular, dark skinned woman wearing her long hair in a large, black, circular loop. She was essentially naked, but her mannerisms indicated that this was quite usual for her and did not bother her at all. They stood on a large platform over a vast city landscape, glowing a warm golden color. Above them there was no sky but instead more mechanical landscaping, with organic forms interwoven within. A vast nighttime sky suddenly faded into existence, filled with the flurry of numerous spacecraft of varying sizes. The stars rotated, suggesting that the entire city was in fact part of a gigantic starship, and that the sky was a view screen.

Suidhne was then the ship itself. It was both male and female, combining the personality and consciousness of the spiked creature and the nude, dark-skinned woman. Both were ancient beings who had evolved through several millennia into their present state of being. Suidhne, as this entity, became aware of the activity of numerous individual beings tied into her, all extensions of the two personalities. She became aware of the existence of thousands more.

As the ship, Suidhne appeared identical to the one that had become the Lan Laheen Mountains, except that she glowed brilliant golden amber with silver and white features. In spite of the highly complex biomechanical features intermeshing fleshy organic forms with complex metallic forms, the ship did not have the ominous, frightening quality of the Lan Laheens. Rather, the ship radiated a bold harmony of its duality. Swarms of vessels or creatures resembling giant insects-cicadas and wasps-accompanied the ship; these were also part of the vast consciousness Suidhne had become.

The vessel came to a brilliant, blue and white planet, one populated by billions, with the presence of traffic to and from the surface into space. It was evidently a place of major commerce. Suidhne had become the wolf anthropomorph with the spiney implants again. He addressed the planet before him.

“Greetings, good people of the Otoku Confederation. I am Wolven One, host of the virtual mindgrid of Lukos Antropos and Elodea.” The use of verbal language to communicate was slow and subject to misinterpretation, but it had a certain poetic quality Suidhne's incarnation enjoyed none-the-less. “I invite you to join the emerging treaty organization for the promotion of individual evolution and the elimination of government. The Neoquadroptus Alpha and Archbishop Spindrift of the Equine Guard send their regards.”

A gigantic rectangular window appeared, suspended in space over the vast platform on which Suidhne's incarnation and his female companion stood. “We will not be intimidated. The Otoku government has maintained a morally sound law and order for our people for generations, and if you believe that they will join your state of anarchy overnight, you are gravely mistaken!”

“Come now, Governor Shrub; I have learned to be a very patient entity. You and I both know that your recent technological explosion will have rendered your traditional regimen obsolete in less than one hundred years. We are simply offering to help you have an easy transition to what most philosophers agree to be a good system.”

“The people of Otoku shall continue to take a stand against immorality. Our family values do not include violence, the misuse of the divine gift of reproduction, or the eating of food in public. We are a righteous people, and we have cast out our demons.”

“Then we leave in peace. I shall return in fifty years to check on your world's progress.”

“You will hear exactly the same message from our children.”

The vessel Wolven One rotated in space, turning away from the planet. It sent out one final message before departing. “A curious claim; it should be noted that your parents claimed we would hear from you their denial of interest in space exploration, and yet on the way over here, I encountered a number of simple probes sent from your world-one of which was over twenty years old.” Having the last word, Wolven One entered astral space, leaving the Otoku homeworld and their star system receding behind it.

Melody, Pengarthe, Suidhne, Danit, and Nialle sat in an ornate meeting hall within the mountain, with a vast support beam suggesting vertebrae overhanging. As they awaited Chieftain Flord and the others, they conversed among themselves over a curious course of the night.

“I dreamed that all of our existence was a show posted online,” Pengarthe commented. “We took awhile to download. Nialle and Danit were dancing on a music station, too.”

“I almost had another nightmare about the floating brain thing,” Nialle answered. “I think it's these weird mountains.”

“Same here,” Danit answered. “In my dream, the mountains sunk, causing a volcano and a storm to cause mass destruction.”

“I was the ship.” The others stopped and looked at Suidhne. “I had become the ship itself, as well as the things that made it. They were actually rather benevolent, but they had a strong disdain for governments.”

“So,” Nialle replied. “This is a fifty-kilometer-long spaceship built by intergalactic, super-conscious Libertarians.”

At that moment, a group of White Hair officials entered, lead by a rather flamboyant lady wearing colorful, extravagant clothing. She addressed Melody and the others rather suddenly as she came in. “There has been a change of plans. We are not going any further into the mountains, and we strongly encourage you not to go, either.”

“For what reason?” Melody asked.

“We're concerned about the Lykosan Empire. We've heard from other world travelers through history about how they conquered such people as the Jas and the Cunae Sidhe. And, you have to admit, an 'Empire' coming over here is a bit ominous.”

Danit stood up, countering. “The Jas war was five hundred of your years ago. Yes, some of the Cunae are ambivalent about Lykosan rule today, but that's our own, internal issue. The Lykosans haven't conquered another civilization in over a hundred and fifty years.”

“None-the-less,” she responded, “we took a vote last night, and decided democratically not to go forward with this.”

“Where is Chieftain Flord?” Pengarthe asked.

“He resigned last night, for reasons we won't go into right now.” She gestured towards one of the others accompanying her, bearing a stern expression and a crisp but noble appearance. “This is Gerand, acting Chieftain. I am Malina.”

Chieftain Gerand eyed Melody inquisitively. “You're one of the Ehtaehrians, aren't you? I thought that coven dispersed a long time ago.”

“How do you know about us?” Melody answered, essentially admitting being a member of the old coven.

“Some of our ancestors 'crossed over' as you do now, and brought with them the tales of other realms and so forth. The blue eyes, the blond hair-but more than anything its that royal blue cloak of yours. Some of our ancestors said that they used those cloaks to hide away from the imperfections of the worlds. They said you used your feared bolt of blue light to cheat against any opponent against whom you could not otherwise overpower. I'm glad you're here to set the record straight, because I've always felt you were more than that.”

Melody knew it was important to remain calm-that Gerand wanted to see her lose her temper. “We used our world travel as a way of reaching both out to others and into ourselves. Yes, each Ehtaehrian had her personal issues, her personal pain. But, we overcame that. We used our experiences in each realm to guide us through the next. We incorporated the magic of other worlds into our daily lives in our home realms. The blue cloak was not a symbol of pain, but of triumph. As for the blue bolt, legends greatly exaggerate. Each of us hardly uses it at all, because it takes so much out of anyone who fires it.”

“Now that that's settled,” Gerand continued, “we have to know more about the Lykosan Empire before we simply let the 'Wolf People' walk into our sacred mountains. We live by our democracy, and we have to make sure it stays that way. Danit, as I believe you are called, as a Cunan, what can you tell me of the Cunae and Ehlan Sidhe uprisings?”

“The Lykosans are struggling to maintain peace, but there's a number of people who want to see Cunan and Ehlan self-government. Most of the people don't care who is in charge, just as long as they get the job done. A few radicals are basically engaging in senseless violence.” Danit stood up, controlling his growing frustration. “The Lykosan Empire is not interested in conquering you. We just want to explore the relics and be here to help you keep it from falling into the wrong hands. If you have a problem with that, you can take it up with the Orelli, who are no doubt already on their way.”

“That went well,” Nialle reflected, as the five world-travelers settled into a small, curved room, awaiting their Lykosan allies to give them the news of the meeting. “When do we begin?”

Danit's expression was one of rolling his eyes back, though his solid black glassy orbs lacked the ability to convey that expression directly. “They don't want to be conquered by the Lykosan Empire. They don't want to explore their own back yard. They don't even want us to help against the Orelli! They really don't know what they want!”

“And what really happened to Chieftain Flord, anyway?” Nialle added. “You don't think he just quit, do you?”

“He probably just gave up out of frustration.” Danit sulked around, sprouting elaborate bristles and spines from his back as he paced. “As far as I'm concerned, the White Hairs have already been conquered by Lykosa. They've got the same bureaucratic mentality. Democracy is one thing; committees are quite another!”

Throughout the inquisition, Melody had kept her composure, but as soon as she and the others were alone, she felt her stomach sinking. She felt the throbbing of the forces within her, nearly overpowering her delicate body. Pengarthe, however, eyed her with a discerning look, viewing her with renewed suspicion. “Melody, could you have used the 'blue bolt of light' against the gheidei we fought a few weeks ago?” The others looked at Pengarthe and then at Melody, with her long, royal blue robes and raised hood. The room became silent as she quietly walked across it, sitting in an alcove bathed in the warm orange light similar to that from the Lykosan homeworld sun in the early evening.

“I do still have the power of the Ehtaehrians, if that's what you are asking. That's how I was able to give you your Crossover ability, and how I was able to find all of you as well as your friend Vrognoskah.”

Pengarthe responded. “So, you're saying that you do have their power, including this legendary blue bolt that supposedly destroys deadly foes?”

“It just doesn't work that way,” Melody replied, with growing frustration. She pulled back her hood, and her third eye stared while the remaining two squinted. “There are some things we can do, some things we can change, and some things we just have to let happen.”

“So,” Nialle replied, picking up on Pengarthe's feelings. “It only works during the waxing half-moon? Is that it? Or only during really dramatic moments?”

“I've already been through this!” Melody cried out. She threw her head down in tears. “...Don't make me do this again!”

“Do what?” Suidhne became concerned. Then, suddenly, she had a series of recollections from her past-life memories. In one, a young woman wearing a blue cloak raised her hands, palm out, towards a man with long, wavy hair and black, circular sunglasses, enveloping him in a surge of bright blue light, causing him to shriek and disintegrate. In another vision, a council of such women had gathered in a vast lavender crystal courtroom. In still another vision, one of them was comforting her incarnation as he felt an overwhelming sense of guilt regarding some sort of violated oath. She looked at Melody, once mysterious and regal, now reduced to sobbing in a corner. “I think I've been there with you at some point-with you and the other Ehtaehrians.”

“Yes, Suidhne, you have.” She wiped a tear and unceremoniously sniffled, her face flushed with anguish. “You were once Vlk'rin, a close friend of the Blue Cloaks, and for awhile a very powerful being. You decided you could not handle the power, so you chose to become a gentle elf in your next lifetime.”

Nialle stepped in. “Is there anything else that you know, that we don't know, that you know we'd want to know if we knew to ask you whether or not we wanted to know it?”

“Your process of 'Awakening' is very similar to something that happens to people who stay too long in the realm of Fahri, a realm of dreamlike enchantment. Each of you radiate a magic that has the same feeling as those who are either from that world or have been there long enough to change. People who are magically empowered to begin with change a lot more quickly when they go to Fahri than those who don't, but everyone is affected sooner or later by staying there.” She then turned to Suidhne Dreamsail. “Suidhne, you probably designed this mountain range starship. As Danit said, it had to try very hard not to destroy all life on this planet, so I think it deserves any hope of being reactivated.” She then addressed Pengarthe. “As for the blue bolt, I tried it four separate times. After I failed the first time, I used my Crossover powers to travel through separate timelines. Each time, the blue bolt took so much out of me that I was bed-ridden for days. And in each case, I destroyed the gheidei, but something happened that caused the Lykosan Empire to fall into civil war, killing billions. You had to be there; it was the only way I could find that might spare all those lives, and I still can't guarantee that.” She looked up, with her eyes tearing again. “Have you ever wondered 'what if?' 'What if I had done this instead of that?' 'What if I were here instead of there?' I can't undo every little mistake or social blunder, but if it's worth the pain and burden of ripping yourself out of time and space to substitute yourself back to a specific moment...”

“Now wait,” Danit asked. “You went back in time, to a specific moment? Wouldn't there be two of you?”

“That's what I meant. To go there, I had to destroy myself. It's the only way an Ehtaehrian in this set of realms can Crossover back in time. And, you feel your own death. I have become a living embodiment of regret, destroying myself over and over to undo a bad decision. Yes, I have the Ehtaehrian Blue Bolt. No, it is not a quick fix for every problem. It helps us defeat our enemies at the right place and time. Used wrongly, it can bring upheaval to hundreds of worlds and countless lives.”

“Forgive me,” Pengarthe responded. “I had no idea.” Several long seconds passed as each person looked at the others. Pengarthe finally broke through that silence. “What shall we do about the Lan Laheen expedition?” Several more moments passed.

Suidhne answered with resolve. “The White Hairs don't own the mountains. We can go without them.”

The White Hairs and the Lykosan colony were both located towards the base of the Lan Laheen mountain range. A significant portion of the crashed vessel was of it was of such altitude that air thinning was a factor. The one prominent projection in the distance even reached above the atmosphere altogether. The mountains were hollow, however, and climbing to the top was not the primary goal of the expedition between the world-travelers and the Lykosan colonists. They wanted to go inside the great ship. With five people each able in effect once a day to teleport half of the traveling company of themselves and three Lykosan explorers, they could save a tremendous amount of walking. However, their Crossover method of traveling was only useful if one had an idea where to go that was any more important than any place else. So, it was agreed that the Crossover portals would be saved as an emergency exit. A party of eight in all thus headed out on foot, carrying Lykosan gear, towards the bizarre, organic forms overhanging the valley.

They came upon a vast cavern at the base of a large statue of something resembling a female Lykosan. Light emanated from the inside, flickering as though from a torch or from candles. Danit scouted ahead, fading into the background, taking on the texture of the surrounding intricate gray vertebral pipes and skeletal grids.

Chieftain Flord sat alone, gazing into the fire, accompanied by a few small possessions. He looked up, noticing something out of the corner of his eye, and then stood up, wandering towards Danit, trying to see him. “Is someone or something there?” Danit assumed his regular texture.

“What are you doing here?” He inquired.

“How the mighty has fallen,” the Chieftain replied, commenting with almost unconcerned, passive observation rather than lament. “The White Hairs asked for leadership, but when I gave it to them, they sent it back, saying that they'd rather have disorder and chaos.”

“We had that happen, too,” Nialle answered. The others had followed behind, catching up to Danit, finding Flord there with him.

“I wanted to see the beast within the Lan Laheen at least once before the Orelli arrived. That way, even though I will have squandered my existence by being a responsible leader rather than simply enjoying the moment, sitting on mushrooms drinking dewberry ale like my tribe-mates, I will still have had the thrill of discovering such an artifact.”

“Then come with us,” Suidhne offered. “We're on our way whether or not your former followers are with us.”

“But, there is one thing,” Flord answered, gesturing with his eyes towards Pengarthe, and then to the lower right.

Pengarthe pointed his Saclordian bastard sword into a corner behind him, catching a glimmer of movement ducking. “We're being watched.”

“Away put your weapon, I mean you no harm!” The creature's dynamic voice shifted several times as it spoke. “We come in peace, bringing a message of good will. I am your friend! Yes! Please make peace! Please!” A small creature dressed in curious scraps and collected bits of metal stepped out.

“And I see the Hill Men ambassador his here to join us as well,” Flord answered.

“So, what do ya say, partner?” The Hill Man answered. “I'm ready to rock and roll! I'll get you the money that you deserve!”

Huge caverns filled the vessel, some drenched in darkness while others had the faint glow of bioluminescent moss native to the planet. Giant curved forms stretched from one region to the next, interconnected by metallic arteries. Many of the organic forms and vessels were translucent or transparent, some filled with fluid, populated now by algae, while clusters of encroaching vines gathered around the moss, feeding from their glow. Overhead, staring down would be in various places variously sized figures. Some were clearly defined; practically ready to walk out the way the expedition came in. Others were integrated heavily into the surrounding meshwork. Still others were confined inside transparent bubbles held by the surrounding ground or behind transparent walls and partitions.

Suidhne stepped up to one of the figures in its enclosure, shining a light upon its alien form. “I've seen this being before.” Inside was a figure of the same being she was in her dream. “I made this ship. One of my past lives did, anyway.”

“I'm quite impressed,” Flord answered.

“What are you saying!” The goblin replied. “Run that by me again, only...this time with the leading brand.”

Suidhne looked at a neighboring chamber, at a dark-skinned female figure, frozen in place, identical to the woman in her dream. “These are numerous bodies that shared consciousness with the ship, and the ship was once part of me until it broke off and found its own sense of identity.”

“...All of this is V'ger; we are inside a living machine. Oh, I get it. But wait, there's more! The coast has remained without power since Hurricane Floyd's devastation, and roads are blocked off, rerouting traffic.”

“I believe what our friend is saying,” Flord interjected, “ is that you may have some past life knowledge that could give us some insight into its crash, or possibly how to restore it.”

“Mmmmm...yes, yes! Ask your doctor.”

Melody guided Suidhne into a meditative trance, to aid in her recollection. They and the others had gathered inside a vast labyrinthine series of hallways and embankments of giant neurons and objects suggesting boxes filled with disks. Suidhne felt confident that they were in some sort of library where memories were archived, and thus the place seemed curiously appropriate. They were on a balcony, with Suidhne seated and Melody standing behind her on a platform on top of a long, slender but sturdy stalk. Suidhne drifted back in consciousness, experiencing a flood of images.

Suidhne saw the ship, accompanied by what appeared to be a swarm of mechanical wasps and cicadas, attacking and overtaking a fleet of moon-sized spaceships. A vision then flickered of the great vessel encountering a naturally occurring Crossover portal, something her past incarnation had theorized before but never seen until then. She saw herself again as the biomechanical wolf-anthropomorph, conversing with an apparently identical duplicate of himself.

“Elodea and I will both miss your presence, Wolven One, but you are your own consciousness now; we have felt that for some time.”

“I trust you are ready to commission my successor, Wolven Armada One, as a new host for your virtual mindgrid. I am curious to see how a second generation Empire class vessel will compare to me.”

“You already have most of the modifications; the difference will be mainly cosmetic. It will be a successor, but not a replacement.”

Another series of images flashed, of the vessel traveling through space and then orbiting various worlds. Suidhne then saw it under construction. A smaller ship, about two kilometers long, sleek with a mirrored surface, sat beside of Wolven One's vast hull, which featured a large cluster of eyes flanked on either side by enormous statues of wolf-anthropomorph figures. The vessel Wolven One then approached a space station, dwarfing it, as onlookers watched its claw-like foreword hull, spanning forty kilometers, advance upon them. On numerous screens, the two beings from Suidhne's dream appeared.

“Greetings, from Lukos Antropos and Elodea. We are here to introduce formally Wolven One, the first Empire Class vessel and host of the first functional simulation of the theoretical 'mindgrid' apparatus.”

Suidhne flashed thousands of years later, to a being named Lukos Rinan, who had the appearance and presence of an elf noble. Elodea was there as well; she, too, had an elf-like appearance. They both wore tight-fitting body suits that gave them the appearance of being tattooed with elaborate Pictish patterns. They stood on the deck of a ship similar in shape to Wolven One, but about half as large. This vessel and Wolven One had come together, and the two were exchanging information. The wolf-anthropomorph appeared before Lukos Rinan and Elodea.

“I have received the specifications and I am making the modifications now. I should be able to convert from virtual to real-space/time mindgrid in three hours.”

“Aside from a thousand-fold boost in rate of thought, you should also find yourself able to do things you couldn't before, such as the mathematics necessary to support level three customization of cosmic string interaction patterns.” The use of conversation was one of nostalgia between the two entities; both knew nearly instantly each other's thoughts-how to construct an actual 'mindgrid' as opposed to an advanced supercomputer simulation of one, and how a mindgrid as a host brain for one's consciousness would give one the ability not only to create a universe, but also to design particular aspects of it-to dictate one's own laws of physics.

Suidhne then saw a later incarnation wearing a Native American headdress hang his head in defeat. Moments later, she saw him some time later, with renewed confidence. “After Blackwell's crashing the mindgrid core, I have devised a new backup process.... Look for any one of numerous recovery nodes.” He gestured towards an oval, seashell-like gold-amber artifact embedded against a biomechanical backdrop. “Everything needed to restore the mindgrid can be found in my headdress. The recovery node should archive the necessary memories, while the headdress provides the data needed to reconstruct a functional recovery tracer entity.” Images came of a small, benign, elf-like being at an even later time donning the headdress; it transformed into a Mercury-like pair of wings on the side of his head, which folded up and seemingly disappeared into him. The next incarnation had large antlers, again with a certain special significance-they were in essence the headdress in a different shape.

Suidhne emerged from her meditative state, drifting back to full awareness as Melody guided her back. She stretched, yawning as though waking up. She looked around for a moment, orienting herself to the landscape around her; she was still inside Wolven One, in a memory bank. “We have to find a recovery nodule. I think I just figured out why I'm the only Dreamsail to have a horn sticking out her head.”

“How soon until the next slide?” The Goblin asked. “Can we beam it aboard?”

“You mean, can we use Crossover to teleport to a recovery nodule, or bring one to us?” Melody replied. “We have to have a clear image in our mind where we are going. If it's not a place we've seen before, we have to have at least some bit of knowledge or idea in mind-enough to create a mental picture. I suppose its possible for Suidhne to guide us to the one she saw in her regression, if it's still here.”

“Ask him what time it is, he'll tell you how to make a watch,” the Goblin replied, following by creating the sound of an audience laughing. Nialle smirked, trying to contain a chuckle. After a moment, a giggle slipped out, and then her face straightened as Danit eyeballed her.

Suidhne closed her eyes and concentrated for a moment, creating a swirling portal of blue light. Pengarthe joined his hand with hers, concentrating, widening the portal enough to get everyone through. The group of ten explorers went through, anticipating seeing on the other side a golden relic that could reactivate the ship. However, upon arrival, they found instead three seven-foot gray troll-like behemoths looking around.

Danit cried out, “Oh Vek Thogh Hagh! The Orelli are already here!” The three were already watching the swirling spectacle of light, brandishing weapons to greet the arriving group. The group scattered as plasma weapons fired, deflecting off Melody's cloak, striking one of the Lykosans in his right arm, and striking Suidhne in the gut, causing her to fall back.

“Oh my God, you killed Kenny!” The Goblin blurted out. He ran frantically towards Suidhne, pulling her under cover. Nialle ran over to the two of them, in frenzied anger and fear.

“You bastards!” She shouted, looking at Suidhne and her wound.

“Get me two cc's epinephrine. We're going to have to intubate STAT. Where's that crash cart?” The Goblin frantically began drawing out curious articles from his tattered rags, employing them as makeshift bandages and healing instruments. Nialle began employing her magical ability, placing her hands over Suidhne's abdomen, generating a warm, orange glow. The goblin continued his frantic resuscitation efforts. “We're looking at a warp core breach in progress! Why, oh why didn't I take the blue pill?”

The Lykosans responded with a series of disruptor shots, creating tiny greenish ripples in space, destroying two of the troll-like Orelli, while destroying objects around the other one. He fired yellow plasma bursts in return, striking one of the Lykosans. Pengarthe began working his way around the rally of weapons fire, carrying his giant sword.

Suidhne lifted her head back, coughing. She gasped, “I'm not dead.”

“Well, he's almost dead,” the goblin mumbled, as Nialle closed the wound in her belly. Just then, a plasma bolt from the remaining Orelli hit the goblin, striking an invisible barrier a few centimeters away from his ragged clothing as he bounced back. One of his metal artifacts flickered and sparked, and then fizzled out. “I've lost Artoo! Shields down 65%.”

One of the Lykosans struck the remaining Orelli, who fell back, stunned. Pengarthe swung his giant blade, striking the behemoth's wrist, severing his hand and its weapon off. He placed the weapon to his throat, pushing him against a wall. “Where is the gold object?”

“I don't know what you're talking about!” The creature replied.

“Then you're no use to me.” Pengarthe began driving the blade into his neck, waiting for the creature to have a change of heart. Pengarthe looked into the Orelli's eyes, waiting for him to rescind his last statement, offering some sort of last-moment begging. However, he never received it; the blade struck a large blood vessel, causing a spray of bluish purple fluid to spurt out, first into Pengarthe's face and then down his chest before gushing down to the floor. The Orelli collapsed, pushing Pengarthe backwards. He stumbled a few steps, looking at the remains of the former adversary.

Former Chieftain Flord approached Pengarthe. “Judging by your expression, this must be your first kill. Just remember that that thing tried to do the same thing to your beloved companion.” Without further expression-without anger, without sadness, without enthusiasm-Pengarthe approached Suidhne, who was now sitting up, looking back at Pengarthe. The others watched as he lifted her up to her feet.

“Are you alright?” Pengarthe asked Suidhne, blankly.

“I'm fine. I'm worried about you, however. Are you alright?”

“I will be.”

Pengarthe barely overheard one of the Lykosans talking among the other two. “...Against an armed Orelli, with only a Saclordian Vodri; I'd be planning a festival!”

“There could be others,” Danit commented. He looked at the remains of the one Pengarthe defeated, sorting through the body and its possessions. “But, they look like scouts or rogues. We still should have a few days before the warlords get here.”

“I've got a bad feeling about this,” the goblin mumbled as the mixed group of ten individuals wandered through dark, fleshy catacombs. The corridors pulsated gently, throbbing with a faint life force. As the explorers stopped for a moment, gathering their bearings, Nialle inspected a series of wide, curved, fleshy cylinders, following them with her lantern, to see if she can see any of their edges. She fell back, shrieking for a moment, dropping her lamp; a figure appeared in the walls, bonded tightly to the surrounding organic shapes, its legs tapering together, becoming one of the cylinders. She picked up her light and looked more closely at the figure. It was a female, with a surprisingly serene expression-one of peaceful slumber. Nialle touched it; it felt warm, living, and even slowly breathing. She felt its soft tissues and muscles, which were continuous with the cavern and mountains beyond, and became aware that they were injured, asking for healing.

She stroked the figure, placing her cool hands over its warm abdomen. Her own hands became warm and began to sweat, and a pulsing of orange light began to emanate. She became increasingly aware of the figure and her anatomy, as well as the planes of tension within the fascia and muscles of both the body and the surrounding hallway. Nialle became aware of nearby objects and artifacts, including one that matched Suidhne's description of a recovery node. Nialle's eyes popped open, and she began marching vigorously down the corridor. “This way, everybody! I found one of those gold recovery mindgrid turner-on things!”

She led them to a broad, trapezoidal platform overhanging a vast chasm, with no discernable ceiling. Centered in the platform was a triangular structure suggesting a chair, with the amber nodule positioned vertically above it. It appeared oval-shaped, with a wide mouth-like opening to one side, stretching into tapering points above and below, and was suspended by a complex array of mechanical arms descending from an unseen structure above them in the darkness.

Suidhne sat down in the chair, placing her hands over projections suggesting armrests. She became aware of a presence in the nodule above her, asking permission to join with her. “I accept,” she said. The recovery nodule slowly descended, until its lower spindle sleeve ensheathed her horn. An exoskeleton of plates and membranes appeared, wrapping around her. Pengarthe lurched for a moment, but stopped. A cocoon had formed around Suidhne, with only the lower part of her face exposed, though the coating matched her body's contours closely. “I'm OK, Pengarthe. I can see you. I can see all of you...” She paused for a moment, as a flood of images from the ship's interior and exterior came. “It's activating recovery tracers. I am uploading mindgrid reconstruction algorithms.” In the distance, lightning flickered over what appeared to be a city landscape beyond the platform. Overhead, the ceiling could finally be seen-a vast sky filled with complex shapes, illuminated as occasional flashes of lightning began. A swarm of mechanical wasps and cicadas flew in, rapidly building and dismantling portions of the surrounding walls and structures. Numerous more could be seen in the distance, accompanied by a few emerging larger shapes.

A cicada approached the vast platform and the world-travelers it hosted. The small creature hovered and underwent a series of conformation changes, growing in size and changing shape, becoming a six-and-a-half foot figure somewhat resembling a Lykosan wolf anthropomorph with extensive biomechanical cybernetic modifications. He appeared identical to Suidhne's past life incarnation. He had a sleek, somewhat triangular forehead crown with four prominent blades projecting back behind it, and similar devices on his upper arms and below the knees. He was black and silver, with a blue glow emanating from the depths of his form. This entity addressed the others.

“I am Wolven One. Thank you for reactivating me.”

“Are you this spaceship?” Danit asked.

“I suppose the term applies,” Wolven One answered. “I am the prototype for the Empire class mobile mindgrid, a type of storage vessel for consciousness. It takes the form of a spaceship because it suited my creator's purpose.”

“I was your creator,” Suidhne adds, speaking through her layers of biomechanical coating. “You were once part of me, but you became your own consciousness.” As she spoke, a second insect-like form approached, one resembling a black wasp. Wolven One's ambassador figure continued to shape-shift, becoming more human-like in appearance as its cybernetic elements retracted.

“Your form was not what I expected, but you do have the characteristic thought pattern signature, and your horn does function in the same manner as the headdress. You are indeed either an incarnation of my creator or an alternate, parallel version of him.” He now appeared as an elf-like figure, tall and noble, with wavy brown hair and long, pointed ears. His eyes were strangely colored, with black sclerae and blue-white irises. The wasp stretched and shape-shifted, becoming a dark brown human-like woman with long, black hair arranged in a complex hairdo, featuring a large upright halo. She was otherwise unclothed, and the others could not help but stare at her-the females of the group with disbelief and the males for other reasons as well. Her eyes, too, were inversely colored, with bright yellow-brown irises against a black background.

The ragged goblin approached her with curiosity. “Is this a dagger I see before me? Come, let me touch thee.”

“Don't squeeze the Charmin,” she replied, evidently speaking the Hill Men language. “But, thanks for playing.”

“But, maybe there's a chance, however hopelessly slim, that you might win Ben Stein's money?” As he asked, the last few words took on an echo.”

The dark female form approached Suidhne, whose carapace of organic material began to recede. “Wolven One combined aspects of both you and Elodea, the being whose likeness I represent. She does not appear to be with you.”

“I have seen her in my visions,” Suidhne answered. “But, she is elsewhere.” Suidhne stood up, freed from the triangular organic throne, and stood beside Pengarthe. “This is Pengarthe Ash, my companion in this lifetime.”

“I believe Elodea would wish you well,” she answered. Pengarthe nodded with acknowledgement. The whole area suddenly became brilliantly lit with a gold and white light; they were in a cavern over half a kilometer tall and stretching beyond ahead for several miles. Around them, enormous structures appeared as complex, brilliant stalactites and stalagmites projecting into the vast lumen, creating a sparkling bright chamber. Overhead, a huge mirage appeared in space, showing a dark blue sky with twilight stars. Within the vast cavern around the various structures, a flurry of activity occurred. “I am active again.” She looked around for a moment.

The elven male figure answered. “I appear to have a population move in since my crash. Based on the stars' and this planet's positions, I appear to have been out 513 years and 3 months. No doubt, you are used to my being here.”

Chieftain Flord answered. “I represent the White Hair people; we moved into you quite a number of years ago. We have known you as Lan Laheen, the mountains that fell from the sky.” He pointed towards the goblin accompanying the group. “This is a Hill Man. He and others of his kind have dwelled within you as well, developing since then a rather enigmatic culture.”

“They have been using one of our realm-window arrays from the Mindgrid Crossover Matrix, the portion of the Mindgrid that handles inter-realm travel and communication. They seem to have jury-rigged it to work while trying to reactivate me several decades ago. Since then, they have received transmissions from another world-apparently some sort of entertainment medium.”

The elegant dark brown woman continued. “In an effort to worship what they thought was me, they built their entire culture around it.”

The two aspects of Wolven One stood together, looking for a moment up at the sky. The female form continued. “I am embedded deeply within this planet. It is fortunate my automated crash-landing systems worked as well as they did, but I can tell I still caused a great deal of damage to this world's biosphere-more than I care to cause today.”

“Is there any way you can uproot yourself, then?” Danit asked.

“The process will be slow. I have to compensate for air pressure differences or the updrafts generated will be catastrophic. I have to relocate segments of ground around me to prevent destroying numerous forests. It will be necessary to repair the nearby fault-line to prevent setting off a series of cracks in this planet's crust that will gradually disrupt normal plate tectonics. My reactivation will be a considerable act of terraforming. However, unlike during my crash, I now have a fully functional mindgrid to perform the calculations.”

A gentle wind blew past a grove of trees, their branches flickering and rolling in the breeze. Ripples appeared in a lazy river, lapping their shores, soaking the occasional bug on overhanging leaves. The ground vibrated slightly, and a thundering rumble occurred. The wind picked up into a sharp breeze, and the ground shaked. In the distance, the complex formations of the Lan Laheen Mountains began to lift upwards, stirring up a cloud of dust and debris. The mountains themselves opened up, inhaling the swirling clouds and expelling a downdraft of warm air, offsetting the effects of its rise. Night descended upon a large portion of forest as the gigantic vessel Wolven One slowly floated upwards, backing its enormous claw-like front end out of the ground. A burst of light emerged from the underside of the glowing, floating mountains, continuing to draw in clouds of debris and now ash, as molten lava poured out of the reopened wound in the planet's crust where the ship's lower front projection had been embedded. A second beam of light appeared over the recessed volcanic eruption, drawing out magma from the mantle and raining it over the bed where the ship once laid, filling in the complex crater left by its departure. A burst of blue light from several more recesses within the rising island filled the air with ice crystals, and then the lava bed solidified and hardened. Finally, Wolven One lifted upwards, into space, leaving its resting ground behind.

The White Hair people stood in awe, stunned by the vigorous quake that rippled through their village, as well as the bright golden glow the ground had taken. During the course of the event, day had become night. Then, suddenly the sky rotated and the stars turned, bringing into view a gigantic blue moon. Murmurs passed from person to person, in awe of the changes in the sky. An older one of the White Hairs came forward; he had an elegant build, with wide, almost staring eyes and sharp, shortly cropped hair.

“It seems the legends are true, Madame Kori.” An older woman stood next to him, adorned with a large cluster of hair and a combination of a black flowing skirt and ornately decorated bra. “The Lan Laheen is indeed a gigantic spaceship, and the Lykosans and their strange friends have reactivated it.”

“Where are we going to live now, Chieftain Julin?” She looked around at the landscape, consisting of a number of huts surrounded by foliage growing on the side of the enormous vessel. “Our home seems to be leaving.”

The giant blue moon started moving, rolling over the sky and then receding in what the White Hairs knew as west, growing smaller and smaller. A slight, gentle wind blew, but the people felt no inertia from the abrupt movement. “For the time being, I think we're staying here-wherever that ends up being.”

Wolven One advanced through space against a backdrop of stars. “Captain's log, stardate 42238.9.” The Hill Man Chieftain spoke in a distinctive, almost Shakespearean dialect as he sat in the chair that had once absorbed Suidhne, looking into the view of a night sky ahead of him. He then proceeded to fluctuate voice inflections and tones through the usual Hill Men series of quotations. “We are on an intercept course...against the Warlord, who doesn't stand a chance against Hogan in the ring... This alleged alien spacecraft that crashed in New Mexico...It's the size of Texas.” Chieftain Flord and the others stood nearby, watching the approach of the Orelli.

On the main viewer, a fleet of triangular fighter ships and long, cylindrical battle cruisers advanced towards Wolven One and the planet it left behind. “That looks pretty formidable,” the Chieftain stated, concerned.

“Not to fear,” Wolven One's cybernetic male avatar answered. “I have already scanned them. Their weaponry will do nothing to the Field Azure defense matrix except give me energy to feed upon. We have over a hundred times their mass and over a million times their firepower. If I may make an understatement, we have a decided tactical advantage.”

“Perhaps we should warn them what they are up against,” Flord offered.

“Mr. Worf, open a hailing frequency,” the Hill Man chieftain added. Wolven One's dark female persona answered.

“By your command, Imperious Leader.” A large, wide oval appeared in front of the group, depicting the troll-like Orelli. A greenish gray being appeared, growling its native language, with a translation overlapping and overtaking the sounds.

“Our quarrel is not with you, strange vessel. Let us pass.”

“Do you have an answer?” Wolven One asked Flord and the Hill Man chief. “It is your world they are after.”

“I am Flord, former chieftain of the White Hair People.” He addressed the floating image. “There is no reason for you to attack my world anymore. This ship is what you came for, and it apparently prefers to claim itself for itself. We can let you pass, but there is no point to going where you are headed.”

“Lower your shields and surrender your ships,” the Hill Man goblin chief added, speaking with a mechanical echo. “We will add your biological and technological distinctiveness to our own. Resistance is futile.”

One of the Lykosan explorers then came forward. “The Lykosan Empire protests your show of aggression.”

Chieftain Julin advanced, offering his addition. “If you are looking for the White Hair tribe, we are all here, on this giant vessel. It turns out that our home was this space ship. It doesn't look like it will let you come on board to vanquish us.”

“We'll see about that,” the Orelli answered. Behind the screen, the large cylindrical ships of the attack fleet began changing shape slightly, growing long side-projections suggesting an attack mode. Neither of Wolven One's figures appeared alarmed.

The Hill Man chieftain placed his hand forward in the air in response. “Lexx, destroy that planet.”

A bright light flashed out the sides of Wolven One, forming a pair of energy arcs spanning hundreds of miles each, circling around and converging on one of the Orelli battleships. The two beams pounded the ship, involuting it and then pulverizing it in a great explosion. Shock waves rippled against the remaining fleet, which began withdrawing weapons and turning around. The aggressors withdrew, shooting away from Wolven One, back towards their home world.

“Xev! I only have eyes for you!” The goblin answered. “Never mind that useless waste of protoplasm Stanley Tweedle!”

The likeness of Elodea approached the goblin being assertively. “Did or did not the defendant engage my client in sexual harassment? ...If you continue to smoke...I'll rip your head off! ...You could suffer side effects such as nausea, weight loss, or fatigue... So if you want a clean no-wax floor... Respect my authority!” She leaned over him, meeting his pupils with hers. “Interested, or shall I just punch clear?” The goblin took a few steps back, stunned. He gasped for a moment.

“Uh... Roger, Houston, we have a go.” He emitted a brief blip sound and ducked behind Chieftain Flord, peering at her around him.

“You are welcome to visit us at any time,” Chieftain Julin informed Suidhne, Pengarthe, Melody, Danit, and Nialle.

“That is, if you are willing to put up with our idiosyncrasies,” Flord added. “As you have discovered, my people are curious and inquisitive, but easily frightened. The Hill Men are chaotic and hard to understand some times, but they're good hearted, and they mean well. I hope we have not caused you too much duress.”

“No problem,” Nialle answered. “Nothing at all. We're all fine here.”

“The Emperor has dissolved the Imperial Senate. The regional governors now have direct control. The last vestiges of the Old Republic are gone,” the Hill Men chieftain stated.

“What he means,” Julin answered, “is that the White Hair tribal council has started making movements about restructuring our government, to prevent future embarrassing incidents like the one that happened yesterday.”

“But how will they control the population without the bureaucracy?” The goblin responded.

“Fear,” the dark-skinned avatar woman of Wolven One answered. “Fear of this battle station.” She approached Nialle, carrying what at first appeared to be a cluster of large, glossy black ribbons. As she stopped walking, however, it became apparent that the ribbons were in fact a weightless dress, made of a material that somehow resisted gravity. She handed it to Nialle, explaining, as Nialle observed how the arm sleeves extended into wings. “I saw your dream, and I made this for you. You have a lot in common with Elodea, the being whose likeness I represent. Except, of course, that her mating season was year-round.”

Nialle looked at the dress; it was very similar to the one from her dream, even including the same style of rose design against an otherwise shiny black background. It was, of course, clearly impractical for most occasions; her hands in it would be imbedded within the wings, and she would need help putting it on or taking it off. With her legs and feet inside one single tapering sheath, she would not be able to walk or even stand easily. However, she could fly.

Wolven One's two representative figures stood side by side against a glowing amber backdrop of complex organic forms that moved and stirred with activity. The male one addressed Suidhne. “It is good to see you again, Lukos. It is interesting how time has changed you.”

“From what I remember, you appear more or less the same.”

“On the surface, perhaps. But, in my travels, I too gained Crossover, which is how I came here. This universe is an alternate timeline of our own past; the Lykosans are the descendants of people genetically engineered by the League and Thomas Shann's empire, both of which appear to have fallen under. I came here to find out what went wrong. That was when I came upon the Chloos.”

“I've heard rumors about them,” Danit answered. “They're supposed to be able to destroy worlds.”

“The Chloos is a devastating force that has chosen for one reason or another to serve a single purpose-to destroy anything that is unique. They seek to create a universe of total uniformity. They learned about the energy signature of Field Azure, the special shielding and protection I use, and overtook it. There are some thirty other Empire class mindgrid vessels out there in numerous other realms of existence that have become aware of me, and they are sending me information on how to modify Field Azure to protect against them.”

“I am well aware of the Chloos,” Melody answered. “I once led a circle of Crossovers, until the Chloos vanquished us. They can indeed destroy worlds, both literally and figuratively.”

Nialle turned to Wolven One and said, “it's a good thing you backed up your hard disk.”

Danit held Nialle's shoulders and back up, while she slipped her legs into her weightless dress, wriggling her thighs and hips into their long, slender sheathing, giving her a winged tail. Danit pulled as she pushed her arms into the wings. The back had no zipper; it had instead two margins that bound together, leaving a nearly invisible seam down her back, locking together in the back of Nialle's neck. Once inside, Nialle found herself floating in the air, drifting slightly. She flipped over once, performing a somersault without touching the ground. She then curled back, smiling, her head inverted, looking at Danit. Nialle stroked her wings, gently lifting herself upwards, feeling exhilarated, being at once entrapped and liberated, her body bound tightly inside the hot vinyl suit but freed from gravity.

Nialle flew forwards, into the superstructure of Wolven One, flying past its complex, ambient biomechanical shapes, now glowing with a gold and white benevolence. Swarms of small bugs and other creatures worked busily at the landscapes all around her. Nialle was immune to the bizarre gravity of the ship, but she could see a twisting and turning landscape around her-one in which gravity followed curves and bends rather than simply pulling in one direction. She could see below her to her right a small caravan of travelers; the White Hair People moved inward, into the ship, away from a cave opening in the ground beside them. They watched as Nialle drifted towards them, passing by on her way to that same outlet. She swooped over the tribe, grinning as a number of them jumped aside, startled at the strange black creature flying at them. She stopped and hovered for a moment, posturing with slim eyelids and a mischievous grin, before flying into the orifice in the ground. She passed through a number of twists and turns in the caves, before finding overhead a night sky. Nialle drifted upwards into it, finding herself floating over a long, vast nocturnal landscape with clusters of trees and a golden glow coming from the ground and the land beyond, all around her. She drifted up, past the trees, rising over the land, noticing how the stars were slowly moving in one direction. She faced the direction of their origin, rising over the complex mountains below her. She could make out the shape of the ship; she was in its outer atmosphere, flying through space, living a dream.

Ehtaehr, the Blue Cloaks, and the Blue Bolt are creations of Heather Varley; she retains rights to these original concepts; they are used with permission.

The dialogues of the Hill Men contain numerous references to TV shows and movies; references to character names are not intended to infringe upon intellectual property rights.

“Mr. Worf” and “Locutus of Borg” appears in several “Star Trek” series episodes, as well as some of the Star Trek feature films, and is property of Paramount Pictures. “V'ger” appears in Star Trek: the Motion Picture, and several elements of dialogue reflect scenes from “Star Trek” TV episodes.

“The New Number Two” is a reference to the TV series “The Prisoner.”

The name “Artoo” in its context is property of George Lucas and Lucasfilms. Additional dialogue quotes were taken from the various Star Wars movies.

“Lexx,” “Xev” and “Stanley Tweedle” are characters from the TV series “Lexx.”

Additional sources of dialogue include the following films and TV shows: Monty Python and the Quest for the Holy Grail, The Matrix, Armageddon, “Sliders,” “Battlestar Galactica,” “Ben Stein's Money,” and “South Park.”