Only Goldy was left, then. He spread his mammoth wings, almost like he was posing for the camera, then zipped away from Denza with all the speed of a shooting star.
“This may be the first evidence of an Etherazi attacking one of its own,” the newscaster intoned. “Other theoreticians speculate that this could be some sort of mating ritual. We simply do not know.”
But I knew.
Among other things, Goldy had called himself Kinslayer.
But why? What had they been fighting about?
“That was pretty nuts,” H’Jossu said.
I’d forgotten he was standing behind me. “Yeah.” I didn’t feel the need to make up an excuse for looking up the Etherazi. Who wouldn’t, given what had happened?
“He punked that big-ass purple guy but was scared of you,” H’Jossu said.
“He wasn’t scared of me,” I replied, remembering the lie. “It was Reno who chased him off.”
“Etherazi professional wrestling. That’d be cool.” I stared blankly at the Panalax. “You know, I tried getting into that—the Earth stuff, I mean—but the Denzans don’t have much in their archive. I’ll have to write an essay and explain how Earthers pretending to hit one another with furniture is worthy of cultural preservation.”
I snorted, relieved by how quickly H’Jossu had steered the conversation back to his own dorky interests. “Is there anything you won’t watch?”
“Nope,” he replied. “Did you work out the reading list for our class? I’m very pumped, Syd.”
The two of us left the archive together. On the way out, I told H’Jossu I was still having trouble selecting a book for us to start with. He immediately began ranking what Earth sci-fi he’d already read and what he was most excited to get into. While he rambled away, I got lost in my own thoughts, still stuck on the gold Etherazi.
Kinslayer. Goldy really had killed one of his own. Not that I hadn’t believed him. His all-caps ass didn’t seem like the type to give himself an unearned nickname. I tried to remember what else he’d called himself.
The Golden Prophet Who Lights the Way. Okay. Standard arrogant villain title. He’d shown me a bit of my future, but since the Etherazi generally played fast and loose with time, I didn’t think it’d take much for one of them to be called a prophet. Where was he supposedly lighting the way to? That was the real question.
The Architect of Liberation. Again . . . who was he talking about? His own species? They didn’t seem to be under anyone’s control.
He Who Walks Among the Enemy. Who were the Etherazi’s enemies? Humans and Denzans, right? That was probably the weirdest nickname of all, though, because from what I’d seen, the Etherazi didn’t walk anywhere—they floated around and wrecked shit.
H’Jossu and I were on the concourse at that point—me half listening as the Panalax explained why he thought Orson Scott Card sucked—when something caught my eye. There was a wisp walking in our direction. I’d seen a few other Ossho since coming to Denza, mostly standing on street corners observing the crowds, drinking in as much experience as they could. This one moved like it had someplace to be, though. Their exo-suit was a little bulkier than the one Aela wore and patched over in spots, an older model. As the wisp got closer, I noticed something off about the magenta cloud swirling behind their faceplate.
The wisp was shot through with streaks of gold.
Or maybe that was just my imagination. A trick of the weird Denzan sun, currently peeking out from between two moons, slanted light dipping the entire concourse in bronze. I squinted at the wisp as they passed me by, turning my head to follow them.
As I watched, the wisp veered down a staircase, bumping into a Vulpin girl with leopard-spotted fur who had been walking behind me. She shouted a curse at the wisp, then saw me watching and smirked knowingly at me. Probably one of Zara’s friends.
“Hey,” H’Jossu said. “What do you think about this?”
He tipped his head back and let out a high-pitched gurgling sound, like he was trying to roll his “Rs” while being strangled, beating his chest with his furry paws. H’Jossu’s ululating was so unexpected and bizarre, I completely lost track of the wisp.
“What the hell are you doing?” I snapped once H’Jossu stopped his noisemaking.
“My Chewbacca impression,” H’Jossu replied, rubbing his thick neck like he’d hurt his own throat. “The institute does a costume party for the solstice. I know it’s a little early in our relationship to suggest a couples costume, but do you own a leather vest? I think you’d make a good Han.”
“What? No—I . . .” I put my hand on H’Jossu’s furry arm, gently trying to ease him out of my way as I peered after the wisp.
I’d lost track of them in the crowd. The Vulpin girl was gone too, probably off to report my location to Zara so that she could dump a bucket of glitter on me.
Maybe I was just feeling paranoid. It was like Earth all over again. But I felt like I was being watched.
“What’s wrong?” H’Jossu asked, his shaggy unibrow furrowed.
“Did you see that wisp?” I asked. “The one with the—?”
With the gold Etherazi hiding inside? Couldn’t really come out and say that without sounding like a lunatic.
H’Jossu stretched his bulk vertically so he could look down the concourse, eventually shaking his head. “I don’t see any wisps. Did you know them or something? You seem freaked out.”
“No, it’s cool,” I said. I forced a smile and changed the subject. I was overtired and spooked, and had spent too much of my day focused on the Etherazi. What I’d seen inside that wisp’s helmet had to be just a trick of the sun. “So, you want me to be your Han? I might be into that.”
“I love you.”
“I know.”
24
Theoretician Vanceval didn’t hold his seminar on the Lost People in a classroom. Instead, the five of us signed up for the class were required to visit his off-campus laboratory in a district of Primclef dedicated to philosophy and quiet contemplation—basically, a few blocks of libraries, museums, and open-air forums. I could only imagine the filthy looks that Hiram and Darcy would’ve earned if they ever decided to do one of their rampaging races through this neighborhood.
Vanceval’s laboratory doubled as a museum. A sign over the entrance read MEMORIES OF THE LOST PEOPLE. Inside, there were two rows of display cases, a dozen relics from Vanceval’s collection out for show, along with a holographic image of the planet where each artifact was found. The items ranged from odd bits of woodworking to half-disintegrated bottles that might have once contained ancient Mountain Dew. Basically, trash from the long ago. Next to the displays were touch pads where guests were encouraged to record their thoughts.
My first thought was that none of this crap looked like it belonged to some universe-conquering masters.
I hadn’t seen shriveled Vanceval since we left the Eastwood a week ago. He beamed at me when I arrived, but I soon realized he did that with all his students. Vanceval’s class wasn’t a popular one, and neither was his little museum. He was happy anyone took an interest in his work.
“You never know what insight a fresh set of eyes might produce,” Vanceval explained to us as we stood around his immaculately dustless displays. “That’s why you’re here, after all. I’ve spent hundreds of hours in study and contemplation of every object in the collection. As we have yet to unravel the mysteries of the Lost People, there must be some thoughts still left unthought.”
We didn’t spend much time in the actual museum. Instead, Vanceval led us downstairs, to the vast storage facility he kept in the basement. His hundreds of Lost People relics were stored there, all of them kept in glass containment cases that preserved their condition. The objects could only be handled through the rubber gloves that protruded into each case.
“I am going to assign each of you an artifact,” Vanceval said as he wandered between the rows. “You will study that artifact. Consider it. And then—”
He paused,
a faraway look in his eyes. Spacing out. The tic that theoreticians were prone to. Rafe Butler had said I did the same thing, just like my dad.
“And then,” Vanceval resumed after a few awkward seconds, “you will provide me with notes on where your object came from and what kind of society might have birthed it. You will suggest tests we might run and hypotheses we might explore. In that way, perhaps, we shall arrive at something that my research has not yet uncovered.”
I wondered if the old man had ever thought of the Lost People as a potential threat too dangerous to go searching for. For the sake of the exercise, I tried to put Goldy’s warnings aside. I wanted to look at this stuff from my dad’s perspective. What about these artifacts drove him into the Vastness? What made him so fascinated with a bunch of space trash?
My object was a hollow metal capsule. Dented. Silver. About the size of a portable speaker. There was a gash on one side like something had torn it open, releasing whatever might have once been stored inside. According to the background information, the capsule was found by the Denzans seventy-five years ago, plucked from a debris field stuck in orbit around a planet overwhelmed by volcanic activity. I stuck my hands into the gloves and held the cool metal, ran my fingers over the jagged slash, turning the tube so I could peek at the recess inside.
“Intergalactic garbage picker,” I mumbled.
Circulating around the room, Vanceval overheard and hobbled over.
“Do you have thoughts, Sydneycius?”
“Well,” I said, “how do we know that this isn’t space junk? Like . . . a part that fell off a ship or something?”
Vanceval nodded like it was a worthy question, probably because he’d asked it himself decades ago. “Samples of the material reveal it to be a composite of titanium and strontium. No known interstellar-capable species uses that particular combination in their ships or even in any form of manufacturing. Plus, carbon dating indicates this piece is more than ten thousand years old, predating the space programs of any known civilization.”
“Hmm.” I touched the jagged gash in the capsule’s side again, this time noting how the metal curled outward instead of inward. “It looks like something burst out of here.”
“Good,” Vanceval replied, nodding. “I found traces of various gaseous elements within the capsule, but it’s impossible to tell whether they were contained there originally or picked up while the object floated through the Vastness. Perhaps you could attempt to re-create that research and tell me what this capsule might have held.”
I felt like I’d just talked myself right into a homework assignment. As I turned the capsule over in my hands, another thought occurred to me. “This is kind of random—”
“Random . . .” A long, dreamy pause from Vanceval. “Random is good. Random excites me.”
“It reminds me a little bit of a message in a bottle,” I said.
“Explain.”
“On Earth, back in olden times, when a sailor was stranded on an island, they’d stick a note in a bottle and send it out to sea, hoping someone might find them.”
Vanceval stroked his chin. “Interesting. The capsule as a communication device. Perhaps what it held was data. Something to consider.” He rested a hand on my shoulder. “I am very pleased to have you in this class, Sydneycius,” he said, lowering his voice so as not to be overheard by the other students. “How are you holding up, since the incident?”
I shrugged. “I’m fine, I guess. A little spooked still.”
Vanceval looked down at my hands—still in the rubber gloves—as if he expected me to be wearing my father’s cosmological tether. The ring, out of its box, was safely buttoned in my uniform’s shirt pocket.
“When do you think you will be ready to try again?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “Last time didn’t go so hot.”
Vanceval nodded as if he understood. “Your father once completed this same assignment for me, Sydneycius. He may seem far away now, but perhaps this work can help make him feel closer.”
“Yeah,” I agreed, smiling at my dad’s sweet old mentor. He wasn’t wrong. Working in Vanceval’s hoard of space junk did make me feel like I was getting to know my dad in a way I never had before. “Thanks, Vanceval.”
The old man’s pompadour bounced as he bowed to me. “I am at your service, Cadet.”
I stopped him before he could move on to the next student. A question nagged at me, almost like I wanted someone to disprove what Goldy had told me. “I do have one question. Why assume that all of these artifacts—found on different worlds, light-years apart—are tied to the same species? Couldn’t there be a bunch of different civilizations out there creating all this clutter?”
“Ah, I never assume anything, young Sydneycius,” Vanceval said with a smile. “Of course we have considered the possibility of multiple species. Perhaps there were dozens of spacefaring cultures that predated ours and created these artifacts. I tend to think not.”
“But why?”
“If the Lost People were one highly adaptable species traveling to many stars, then it is possible that we have simply not yet found their home world, or perhaps some tragic fate befell them,” Vanceval said. “But if they were many races on many planets? Well . . . where have they all gone? What happened that could erase dozens, maybe even hundreds, of cultures from existence? I shudder to think.”
SOON, THE MASTERS WILL RETURN.
I felt chilled through the rest of Vanceval’s class as I recorded my notes about my random artifact. What if it was the Lost People themselves who had erased all these societies?
And what if my dad had found them?
Returning to the institute later that day, I noticed a wisp standing outside the entrance, gazing up at the three moons currently glowing in the Denzan sky. I stared into the wisp’s faceplate, looking for any trace of gold, any sign that there could be an Etherazi hiding in there.
They waved at me. “Hey, Syd.”
Whew.
“Oh, hey, Aela, I didn’t see you there.”
“You were staring at me.”
“Was I?”
Aela clasped their hands behind them and rocked back on the narrow heels of their exo-suit. “Fascinating. I wonder where your mind had wandered off to.”
“Uh, nowhere super interesting,” I replied. “Hey, I have a question for you.”
“Exciting,” Aela responded. I couldn’t tell by the chipper robotic voice, but I think they were being genuine.
“Do you wisps ever change colors?”
“You mean . . . ?” Aela waved a hand over their faceplate, the gas behind it curling into a question mark.
“Yeah. Is every wisp magenta?”
Aela hesitated. They were usually so open with information, oversharing constantly. The wisp touched their faceplate, as if self-conscious about the gas within.
“Am I . . . ?” Aela paused. They sounded worried. “Did you notice something different about me?”
“No, not you,” I said. “I saw one on the street that looked a little different.”
“Ah.” The wisp’s shoulders sank in relief. “One of the contaminated.”
I thought about the hosedown I had to endure back on the Eastwood whenever Aela shared a memory with me. All of that was to keep Aela’s delicate chemical composition from getting compromised by gross organic matter. The wisp I’d seen with the beater of an exo-suit must not have taken such good care of themselves.
“What happens to them?” I asked. “The contaminated?”
Aela stuck up their index finger. “I sense an opportunity for cultural exchange.”
“Great.”
“Are you free? Would you like to take a ride crater-side? I can show you the fate of the contaminated.”
I thought about that for a second. If I could spot the Ossho I’d seen yesterday, that would definitely put me at ease that I didn’t have an Etherazi stalker. I already had my hands full with Zara lurking around every corner.
�
�Sure,” I replied. “Let’s do it.”
Aela led me to the nearest skiff stand—no jumping down ledges this time—and we rode to the grid of buildings nestled in the crater. We ended up in a residential neighborhood filled with the tightly organized and well-maintained apartment buildings that the Primclef residents favored. The area was crowded but sedate, like a nursing home. Most of the Denzans I saw were as ancient as Vanceval or older, their thin frames stooped, the color bled out of their squirmy hair. Small groups sat at sidewalk tables playing board games that I didn’t understand, while others perched on stoops watching the moons cross the sky.
“Is this the Denzan version of Florida?” I asked.
“What’s Florida?” Aela responded.
“It’s a place on my world where old people go to finish out their days shooting fireworks at alligators.”
“Hmm.” Aela seriously considered my stupid joke. “I will need to research that.”
We stopped outside of the only storefront on the street. The building was painted a soothing white, with a huge front window to let in the slanting Denzan sun. The place was small—no bigger than a corner store on Earth. There was a line of Denzans waiting to enter, most of them the kind of elderly folks who populated the neighborhood, but also some younger ones mixed in. I couldn’t read the Denzan symbols on the sign.
“What is this place?” I asked.
“They call it Remembrance,” Aela replied. The wisp stood with me on the other side of the street, watching the building with what I sensed was something like wariness. “When a wisp like the one you saw is contaminated by bad air or chemicals or radiation or a hundred other potential harms, the changes to their composition make it impossible for them to ever return home to the Ossho Collective. They will be alone. An individual. Forever.”
I was an individual, alone in my own head (most of the time), and not part of a giant spacefaring intelligence. I liked it. But I got the sense that Aela meant this as a bad thing.
“Oh,” I said. “Bummer.”
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