by Frank Carey
"Your worry is noted and appreciated, but it is for naught. The scanpads show no biologicals, so we should be fine. I'll call you when we reach our destination."
"Please, be careful."
"We will be, I promise. Anyway, I assume you brought rescue suits."
"Yes, a BORIS, and a Minotaur."
"You are just so damn cute when you're worried. I love you. Tayla out."
"I love you. Joshua out." She killed the connection and saw her three companions giving her the "You're so cute" look. She gave them the hairy eyeball for their troubles.
They reached the double doors and found a control pad similar to the one next to the airlock. Manx, the Sokuhl roustabout, frowned at what she saw.
"What's up, Manny?" Tayla asked.
"The text above the pad is not the same as that on the pad, and it looks vaguely familiar."
Tayla looked closer. "You're right; it does. Not only is it different, but one edge is peeling up, as if the label was placed there as an afterthought. I think this is the 'Down' button." She pressed it, and after a short wait, the doors opened to a very large elevator.
"Damn, I've seen smaller elevators in parking garages," Bob noted as he stepped inside."
"Hell, I've lived in smaller apartments," Susan said as she followed him into the car.
Once they were inside, Tayla pressed the icon at the bottom of the list. "I hope the basement isn't flooded."
The car came to a stop. The doors opened to a dark space. "I think we're here," Susan said as she walked into the darkness.
"Careful," Tayla said as she stepped out of the car. Ceiling lights abruptly came on, revealing a large space filled with figures frozen in place.
Guns came up, only to drop in embarrassment. "Statues," Bob noted as he walked over to the closest one. "Hey, Boss, did Sokuhl ever have wings?"
Tayla walked over to where Bob was standing. "What do you... Oh my." She looked up at a statue of a winged, bipedal dragon with large muscular arms and a long tail ending in a spade-shaped tail. "That's a Basili."
"I thought they were myths," Manx said while running her hand over one.
"My cousin, Kel Hardy, studies their history. He's convinced they exist.”
"Kel Hardy. What's he like?"
"He's... Shit, he looks just like this guy," she said as she ran her scanner over a nearby piece of art, one of a Basili in a defensive crouch.
"Your cousin's a Basili?" Manny exclaimed. "Damn."
"I haven't seen him in years. He's sort of a recluse, but he takes occasional trips to places where Sokuhl have been."
"Over here," Susan called. She was standing near a large, circular, crystalline platform, about twenty feet in diameter. "It has power running to it from that wall," she said while pointing in the general direction of the nisium tank.
"We have a number of power flows emanating from that area," Bob noted. "Probably lights and life support."
"I found something," Susan said. She was standing next to a tall dais on which a single sheet of material sat in a stand. "It’s scanning as pure adamantine.
Tayla and Manx walked over and took a look. "Damn, it looks vaguely familiar," Tayla said.
"Like the label over the elevator control pad," Manx noted.
"And what about all this artwork with sort-of Sokuhl on it," Bob said from where he stood in front of a painting of a pair of winged-ones doing battle.
Tayla activated her comm. "This is Tayla. Anyone copy?"
"This is Jacob. Your signal is weak. What's up, sis?"
"Can you set up a relay to both Alex and Sokuhl?"
"Sure. Who do you want to talk to on the home world?"
"Grandpa Hardy. We've found a mystery which may impact the Sokuhl."
"Shit. OK, give me a minute. Josh, talk to your wife."
"Hey, honey, what did you find?"
She aimed the comm at the statue.
"Hey, I didn't know Sokuhl had wings."
She looked at Manx who returned big eyes and a shrug.
"We don't, but the Basili did."
"The Ba-who?"
"Long story..."
"Sis, Alex and Grandpa's aid, Sage, are on the line."
"Thanks. Go for Tayla."
"Ms. Hardy, this is Sage. Zor has reviewed your data. You and your team need to leave immediately. Leave the gear and return to Alyson for debriefing."
"Tayla, this is Alex. I concur. Get out of there. Jacob and Josh will cover your evac with the suits. All will be explained when you land."
"Copy that. Tayla out. People, we need to get the hell out of here. Surface, this is Tayla. Drop everything and get aboard the shuttle. We are leaving. Hardy out."
"Hey, Boss, what the hell pile of dodo did we just step in?" Bob asked as he and the others headed to the elevator.
"I have no idea, but we need to move." She grabbed her stuff and herded her crew back toward the elevator, leaving the artifacts to rest in peace, at least for a little while longer.
CHAPTER FIVE
Kel paced backstage as he waited for his turn at the podium. He walked back and forth, an occasional puff of smoke emanating from his nostrils as he reread his notes for the umpteenth time. As he walked, his tail moved back and forth as if hunting for something to cleave in two. Luckily, the stage crew had removed all the breakables from the area.
"You really are a worry-wort," Clio noted. "Calm yourself."
He stopped, put his notes in a pocket, and took a deep breath. "You're right. I have done this dozens of times. These people know me, and they know my work. I just need to think calming thoughts."
"Damn, my little boy is growing up!" Clio said. She even gave a convincing sniffle.
"Funny. I just hope they can get past my form."
"Look, these people deal with alien races all the time. I bet they stop seeing the wings before you get past the second paragraph."
"You really think so?"
"Do you even notice Alturans anymore?"
"No, not anymore. Especially Madge, the newscaster who wears those pink bows around her eye stalks."
"Exactly my point. You'll do fine."
"Dr. Hardy, you're on in one minute," the stage manager announced.
Kel took a deep breath and headed over to his position just off stage. "Showtime."
"Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome our next speaker, the renowned historian Dr. Kel Hardy of Sokuhl!"
The room exploded into applause, then went silent as Kel took his place behind the podium. Before he could say anything, he heard someone clapping. It was Tannith. Then the other members of the society joined her. Within seconds, the room was filled once more as the shock wore off.
"Told you so," Clio whispered.
Kel smiled. "Yes, you did," he whispered back. "Thank you, all. It is my honor to meet you all in person after all these years in seclusion. My talk, today, is titled, 'The Role of the Basili in Sokuhl History.' Now, many of you may not be familiar with the Basili, so I have brought a visual aide." He spread his wings while bringing his tail to a position on his right side. "Yes, I believe I am the personification of a Basili. Now..." He continued for thirty minutes. When he finished, the room broke out in applause usually reserved for rock stars.
After the question and answer session, Kel and the crowd adjourned to another meeting room where foods from the three systems--League, Jarrion, and Zexx--were laid out.
"Kel, they loved you," Tannith said. "Oh, here comes the head of the Jarrion historical society."
"Dr. Hardy, Dr. Aymar, let me introduce Researcher Glaze of the Jarrion Coalition of Historians," an aid said as the good doctor held out a hand. Like all Jarrions, Glaze resembled a cross between an elf, a cat, and something with glowing white eyes,
"A pleasure to meet you both," Glaze said. "Dr. Hardy, I understand you are looking for evidence of these Basili passing through our space at some time in the distant past."
"Yes, Doctor. They left our home world under mysterious circumstances. I have devoted my life to f
inding why they left and where they went."
"And there are no records on your home world."
"None. It is as if they were never there."
"Kel, when will you listen? It's all due to a government cover up," a tall, willowy female Sokuhl said as she walked up and handed Kel a drink.
Kel frowned. "Doctors, I would like you to meet Dr. Sheila Minty, Head of the Political Science Group at Sokuhl Polytechnic. Sheila, this is..."
"Drs. Glaze, and Aymar. I must plead guilty to eavesdropping. So, Dr. Glaze, any of Kel's cousins been through these parts?"
"Sheila, you must behave. They aren't my cousins. They're..."
She reached over and extended his right wing. "Really? I don't remember your grandfather sporting a pair of these."
Kel rolled his eyes. "This is the thanks I get for helping you with that history class."
She took his arm and hugged it. "I remember the thanks I gave you," she said with an arched eyebrow.
He blushed.
"To answer your question, Dr. Minty, yes, we have legends of a large, winged reptilian race passing through the region many centuries ago." He pulled a device from his coat and held it out on his palm. A hologram of an illustration from a book appeared. "This is an excerpt taken from a town record on a planet near here. It is hand drawn, but the resemblance to Dr. Hardy is uncanny."
"Damn, Kel, you got a brother you haven't told me about?" Sheila quipped.
Kel didn't hear her. Instead, he stared at the figure floating above Glaze's hand. "What happened to them?"
"No one knows. They disappeared as suddenly as they had appeared.
Kel looked around and saw the group breaking up. "Well, I think the reception is over. Dr. Glaze, if you would excuse us, Dr. Minty and I have dinner reservations."
"We do?" she asked in shock. "We never have dinner reservations. Hell, I don't remember you ever taking me to dinner. Are we sitting down?"
"Yes, we're sitting down, at a table, with silverware and cloth napkins. Doctor, may we meet tomorrow and talk further about the Basili?"
"Of course, Doctor. Just call my secretary, and he will arrange something."
"Thank you. Good night, Doctor," Kel said.
"Damn!" Sheila said as he took her by the arm and led her out of the room.
###
"What's gotten into you?" she asked as they strolled down the length of the hotel's promenade deck.
"Nothing. N0, that's not correct. I'm changing my life. That's what I wanted to talk to you about when I got back from this trip."
"Excuse me?"
"I have grown tired of being a hermit. Ah, here we are." She looked and saw they were standing in front of one of the finest eating establishments in the League, a restaurant called Bob's, a five-star eatery based out of Altura.
"We can't afford this!" she whispered as they were escorted inside by a young Alturan hostess with a single emerald velvet bow tied around an eye stalk.
"Actually, we can. I received and accepted an offer of tenure from the Irithyl School of History at Ventos Prime University. I started two weeks ago. I have to be on planet next month, but they started paying me immediately."
"By the Creator's nail polish, that is incredible news. Wait a minute, who else knows about this?"
"Other than me and the staff at VPU?"
"Yeah."
"You."
He helped her into her seat as she stared at him, her hair flat with shock. "How did you know I'd be here?"
"I didn't. Like I said, I was planning to tell you when I got back to the home world."
"What about your parents? What about the rest of the Hardy family, all several hundred of them?"
"Only you. What do you feel like drinking?"
"A flaming goat's beard," she said.
He shuddered. "And I'm the one who breathes fire." He picked up the table's drink ordering tablet and typed in a beard and a lovely Merlot. The tablet rejected the beard as being against company policy. "What else..."
She took the tablet from him and typed in a series of rapid-fire commands. The tablet beeped. "Here you go," she said with a mischievous smile.
He looked and saw the order had been accepted. "Hacker," he muttered. For years, Sheila had done side-work for the League Office of Security as a computer hacker. Though she had moved on to less nefarious pursuits, she could still bend any computer system to her will.
"Damn, skippy. So, you brought me here just to celebrate your new job?"
"Nope." He reached up into his sleeve and slid down a bracelet made from intricately braided metal. Using his claw, he split it into two and removed one. "Sheila Minty, will you be my bond mate?"
No, no, no, no, no! Her conscious screamed. "What?" she asked calmly aloud.
"Will you be my bond mate?" he asked again, holding out the sohush, the Sokuhl symbol of permanent bonding between two people. If she accepted the bracelet and put it around her wrist, then they would be bonded for life. A simple act carrying great importance in Sokuhl society.
She just stared at the braid of metal, the light glinting off it. “I can't do this. All the lies; all the truths. I... I...”
"Sheila, take a breath," Kel said, both worried that she was having a heart attack and pissed-off that she refused to answer him. He put the Sohush in his pocket while she tracked it with her eyes. "I thought you wanted to bond with me."
"What? Yes, of course I do, but there are complications..."
Before she could finish, a tall elf walked up. "Dr. Hardy, I don't think we've met. My name is Alex, and I'm the Governor of Alyson. May I have a word? In private?"
Kel shook Alex's hand. "This is Dr. Sheila Minty. Anything you say to me you can say to her."
Alex sat down and ordered a martini. It arrived moments later. He sipped it as he explained about the asteroid and the cave they found inside it. "The cave is filled with Sokuhl artifacts. A formal request has been made by Zor Minty Patriarch of the Sokuhl people, that no one except you enters that cave. This request was made through official channels by his assistant, a Sokuhl by the name of Sage."
"What the hell is Zor doing? So what if there are Sokuhl artifacts? Our people have had FTL capability for thousands of years. There's bound to be traces of Sokuhl littering the space ways."
Alex took a datapad out of his pocket and laid it on the table. "Display file Alex-zero-one. Authorization my voice print."
An image of a large, winged being with pointed, elf-like ears appeared and rotated in the air above the device. "Many of the statues look like you, Doctor. Your cousin, Tayla Hardy, called them Basili."
"The Basili are a race of sapients who I believe co-inhabited our home world along with the Sokuhl. They disappeared just after we figured out how to travel faster than light. I have spent my life searching for why they left and where they went.”
"But you're Basili, aren't you?"
"Genetic quirk. My parents and siblings are Sokuhl. I'm something else."
Alex glanced at Sheila. "Have you two known each other long?"
"Since we were nine years old," Sheila replied. "We're inseparable."
Kel frowned at that last statement. "So, old Zor wants his favorite Basili to go check out a cave full of statues. Fine. When do we leave?"
"Now. I have a shuttle waiting for you outside. I am sorry about disrupting your dinner."
"You didn't." Kel replied as he got up. "Sheila, you might as well stay and enjoy the food. It's paid for."
"Plark that. I'm going with you."
"Why?"
"You might need me, Dragon Boy. Now move," she said as she pushed past him.
"I seem to have arrived at an inopportune time," Alex noted.
"Funny, it started out so well. You know what they say; the road to hell is paved with good intentions."
The two men walked out, barely keeping up with the retreating Sheila.
CHAPTER SIX
The shuttle took off from the front of the hotel and headed out to the asteroid
named Dawn. At the helm was Alex's Katalan assistant, Felicity. She noticed the tension in the cabin the moment she stepped inside.
"Hello. My name is Felicity and we'll arrive at Dawn in about two hours. Your equipment is laid out in the two cabins--Dr. Hardy's is on the left and Dr. Minty's is on the right. We have a high-bandwidth conference link setup with Alyson so you can interview the crew that initially found and explored the cave. The team's leader is Tayla Hardy..."
"My cousin," Kel informed her.
"You can see the resemblance," Sheila said, getting a glare from Kel for her troubles.
"Yes, I see it, especially in the eyes," Felicity said.
"What kind of equipment have we been issued?"
"Survival belts and state-of-the-art quantum computer-based scanners built into wrist gauntlets. The scanners combine scanpad, datapad, and a network-based communications hub. In addition to the first aid kit, the scanner can diagnose and synthesize many drugs, though in limited quantities. The belts contain food concentrates, water filtration units, a tent, and tools which would make a superhero proud."
"All that for a trip to a cave?" Sheila asked.
"You never know when you're going to get stuck someplace. Dr. Hardy, I was told you were Sokuhl..."
"My parents are Sokuhl. I'm big for my size. So don't fret. My nutritional needs are identical to a normal Sokuhl's except for frequency."
"What the hell are you talking about? You eat like I do," Sheila said while her fists rested on her hips.
"Not quite. When alone, I eat one meal a week."
"OHHHHH!" Sheila said as she stormed into her cabin and slammed the door shut.
"Wrong one, Sheila!" Kel yelled.
The door opened followed by Sheila storming across the access way and into her own cabin, slamming the door behind her. Kel looked at Felicity and smiled. “I apologize. Sheila and I are having a tiff."
"Couples do that," Felicity said.
"We're not a couple, and I doubt we'll be one anytime soon."
"Can you fly?"
Kel nodded.
"Breathe fire?"
Another nod.
"Are those muscles real?"
"Completely. Would you like to see for yourself?"
"Noooo. I'm in a relationship. Would you like to get started with the interviews?"