Entanglement Bound: An Epic Space Opera Series (Entangled Universe Book 1)

by Mary E. Lowd

  While Clarity hung in the web of straps, waiting for the flight to begin, she scrolled through the local spaceship registry on her pocket computer, looking for ships up for sale. She didn't expect much—just as the local clothes would be unlikely to fit her, she wasn't sure their spaceships would be terribly comfortable for her either. Besides, if their space travel was mostly intra-system, there might not be any ships suitable for her star-hopping lifestyle at all.

  Clarity almost squealed with glee when, against all odds, she saw a Solar III class vessel listed. It was the only interstellar vessel docked at Lo'riana other than Cassiopeia, and she had no idea how it had come to be here. From checking the registry, it looked like the vessel had been practically abandoned. It hadn't been undocked in five years. That was a really good sign for her getting a good deal on it. Assuming it was up for sale.

  Clarity sent off a message, probably horribly mangled by the pocket computer's translator app, requesting a viewing of the vessel when she returned from the planet's surface. Then since the shuttle was undocking, she slipped her pocket computer away and gritted her teeth, preparing herself for a turbulent flight. Atmospheric reentry was rarely a smooth process.

  To Clarity's surprise, the shuttle slipped from the buoyancy of space into the density and pull of Leionaia's atmosphere with the smoothness of an otter diving into a pool. Perhaps with the grace of a butterfly, floating down from a tree. She wondered what kind of technology the lepidopterans had developed to provide such a smooth ride.

  As the shuttle slipped downward, the view through the windows was kissed and caressed by pearly strands of fog and clouds. The filigree of white lace Clarity had seen draped over the world from above looked like delicate gardens of snow-covered flowers and fields of dandelion fluff.

  Beneath the cloud cover, Leionaia was a world of green and blue like so many other habitable planets, but the emerald here studded the sapphire in strings of islands and archipelagos, more broken up than the continents on most of the worlds she'd visited. And closer still, she saw the gem-like islands had steep edges, cliffs, and fjords. She could see how a flighted species had grown to dominance here. Flight would be a huge advantage on this world. She wondered how they'd come to lose the necessity of their wings and leave flight behind. Perhaps she could find a natural history museum while she was here.

  Clarity had only been to a handful of insectoid homeworlds before, and this one was starkly different from each of them. Araida was an arid world inhabited by arachnid peoples whose primary form of planet-side travel was hot air balloons. Fliffaff was another globe of sapphire and emerald, but its housefly-like inhabitants hadn't given up their fluttery, translucent wings; they had given up living on the surface of their planet, and all of their cities were built upon floating scaffolds among the clouds. Clarity had also tried to visit Hymoo, but she and Irohann had never made it past the intricate scrutiny of their customs officers. Hymoo's honeybee-like inhabitants were among the most hierarchically complex species humans had ever encountered.

  Looking back, though, Clarity wondered if it weren't that they'd failed to meet the high standards for visiting Hymoo's surface but that, perhaps, Irohann had gotten spooked by visiting another world run by a queendom. Like the Doraspians. He had been the queen's consort, turning a blind eye to all of the brutality she obscured with ceremony. Could he have gotten scared by all the Hymoon rules? Started to feel trapped, like he was back on Doraspia? And then lied to Clarity by telling her they'd been turned away...

  Clarity couldn't remember the specifics well enough to be sure, but it was possible. It even seemed likely. And it shook her, deeply, realizing there were now holes in her past—memories she couldn't be sure of. She couldn't remember how many pieces of the universe she'd taken on Irohann's word, so she didn't know how much he could have lied to her.

  A jolt of turbulence struck the shuttle, combining badly with Clarity's emotional quaking. She closed her eyes. Steeled herself. Refocused on everything she could learn here. And put aside the past. She listened to the lepidopterans talking to each other in a language she couldn't understand. Their voices were soothing, pleasant, like a choir of panpipes playing a song whose melody she couldn't quite make out.

  Another jolt of turbulence struck, and Clarity opened her eyes to realize that, this time, it wasn't turbulence. The landing gear had struck ground. The shuttle zoomed along a runway, cutting speed, slowing, and finally, it came to a stop. Through the windows, Clarity could see the runway wasn't plain gray concrete like on her own homeworld and every other human colony world she'd visited. This runway sparkled like crushed gemstones, as if someone had scattered glitter everywhere, an entire rainbow of glitter.

  Clarity untangled herself from the web of safety straps. It took her much longer than the lepidopterans all around her, who flipped out with the ease of gymnasts, but she still managed to unstrap herself more gracefully than Am-lei, who struggled like a fly in a spider web. Her long twiggy legs kicked awkwardly, and all of her mammalian friends were free from their straps before her. Clarity couldn't read Am-lei's expressions very well yet, but the way her proboscis was tightly coiled and her antennae held stiffly upright by the time her feet hit the floor didn't seem like a good sign.

  Clarity fetched her duffle bag from the storage area where it had been stowed beside Jeko and Am-lei's bio-matter crate, then waited while Jeko maneuvered the hovering cylinder out of the shuttle. As a group, they were the last ones out.

  On the runway beside the shuttle, the four mammals stood around Am-lei, their resident local, expectantly waiting for her to lead them. But her antennae continued inscribing little circles in the air, twirling distractedly. The lush green forests all around reflected in her multi-faceted eyes. She looked as lost as Clarity felt inside.

  "Where are we going?" Clarity asked, directing the question at Jeko, who seemed less overwhelmed, though completely preoccupied checking and rechecking the locks on the bio-matter crate with her nose tip.

  "There's a grove," Am-lei said hollowly. "A chrysalis grove. Lee-a-lei read about it."

  "That's great," Clarity said, trying to encourage Am-lei into relaxing a little and maybe remembering more information. "Where is it? Near the spaceport?" Oh god, she hoped they were on the right continent. With the way Am-lei was going into some sort of stunned shock, it wouldn't surprise Clarity at all if she'd simply led them onto the first shuttle she saw without even thinking about which part of the planet it would land on.

  Jeko reached the end of her nose into one of the pockets on her calico dress—she'd changed into a different dress; this one was a blue print with little yellow flowers. She pulled a folded and lightly crumpled piece of paper out. "Lee-a-lei wrote us out instructions before she went into her chrysalis. She really wanted to be here, in the grove, when she emerged." Jeko held the paper out to Clarity with her nose.

  Clarity took it and studied the instructions. They were delightfully thorough. Clearly, this kid had a clue that her parents would fall apart when they set foot on a foreign world where they barely knew a handful of words.

  Clarity sure hoped Am-lei would be less useless when they got to the Devil's Radio. When she got to the Devil's Radio. Clarity wasn't going with them. Even if she did, she wouldn't be able to help Am-lei handle gravitational calculations. She could help navigate a foreign world though.

  Irohann leaned close over her shoulder, his mane fur draping softly against her, and read Lee-a-lei's page of instructions. His muzzle was so close to her ear, she could hear him quietly mouthing the words as he read.

  The touch of Irohann's fur was first a relief—settling, soothing, grounding—and then a knife twisting in Clarity's gut. She shouldered him away and then shoved the crumpled sheet of paper into his paws. "If you want to read it, just ask, geez," she said. Then she pulled out her pocket computer, hooked it into the local version of an internet, and set it to the task of figuring out how to download maps and information about local establishments. "Look, we need
to decide if we're looking for a place to stay, or if we're heading straight to the grove. How soon will Lee-a-lei be emerging?"

  Am-lei said, "I think there's a few more days until she'll be ready—"

  But Jeko trumpeted. "I know you took a full three months to change, Honey-sticks, but our baby's been ready to burst out for days now. I think she's just waiting to arrive at the grove. I'm actually—" Jeko twisted her long nose around her neck and then uncoiled it; she started plucking at the cotton fabric of her dress nervously with the prehensile tip. "I'm worried she'll hurt herself if she doesn't emerge soon. I've been keeping the temperature in her crate low and keeping the crate shut as much as possible to help her rest... but... we need to get her to the grove."

  "Poor, patient little grandbunny," Roscoe said. "All dressed up in her fancy wings, crammed into a tight little chrysalis, and waiting for her party."

  Clarity looked up at the sky and saw Leionaia's twin stars shining brightly near the middle of the sky, only a few degrees off center. Their yellow light glowed like gold along the intricate filigree edges of the clouds. Sunsets here must be spectacular. Clarity wondered why the clouds made more complex patterns in Leionaia's sky than on other worlds she'd visited. Generally, water is water, and it behaves in certain predictable patterns when it fills the sky. Regardless, she'd learned what she needed to.

  "Lucky for us," Clarity said, "we've landed during the middle of the day. So, unless the lepidopterans here are nocturnal, there should be plenty of people awake to help us, and we should have plenty of time before the night."

  Am-lei and Jeko exchanged a glance, and then Am-lei said, "Actually, I think they're mostly crepuscular."

  "That means awake at twilight," Jeko added.

  "I know what it means," Clarity snapped, then closed her eyes and drew a deep breath, trying to steady herself. These new friends didn't need her taking out her problems on them.

  "Come on," Irohann said. Clarity opened her eyes to see him taking hold of one of the bio-matter crate's handles, helping Jeko with it. "Even when the rest of a city is asleep, big transit centers like this one have taxis. Or something like them." He gestured at the building up ahead—it was indeed large. It looked a little like a giant cocoon woven from pink and blue threads. Or maybe like a pile of cotton candy. "We'll get to the grove in time for the evening twilight. I promise."

  Clarity choked back a reaction halfway between a sob and a snort at the sound of Irohann promising. She wouldn't trust his promises anymore. And yet, this was the Irohann she was used to relying on, and she didn't know how she was going to navigate the universe without him. They had a rhythm they'd perfected over decades; he always knew exactly when to step in and take over for her. She always knew when to take care of him.

  Or did she? Had she let him down? Was that why he'd panicked and tried to sell their home? Maybe she hadn't been as supportive of him as she'd always assumed. He'd been meeting all of her needs, but if he'd been so scared of the Doraspians finding him that he would lie to her, maybe she hadn't been coming anywhere close to meeting his.

  Working together, Clarity and Irohann led the other three members of their group through the giant cocoon building. On the inside, it was wide open and laced with hammock-like structures and rope ladders. Clarity would have expected such a textile-based architecture from an arachnid people, and in fact, the building reminded her very much of the buildings on Araida. However, the woven style surprised Clarity coming from a butterfly-like people. She supposed that as they shed their biological attributes—their wings—in favor of intellectual, tool-using attributes, they artificially developed the styles and habits arachnid peoples were more likely to develop naturally, based on their biology.

  There weren't individual taxis available, but a system of double-decker trolley cars navigated the surrounding city, hanging from wire-like rails. Their group found seats on the upper level of one of the trolleys, open to the fresh planetary air. They'd all been breathing endlessly recycled air for far too long.

  Clarity enjoyed the feeling of floating through the city; there was a freedom in how the cars hung, swaying slightly as they traveled along the rails. She could see how the sensation would appeal to Am-lei's people. It appealed to her too. There was always a danger in stereotyping species too much based on their biology. While biology informs how a species develops, once they attain sentience and begin developing technology, species have a way of overcoming their innate physical qualities and becoming whoever they've always wanted to be on the inside.

  Clarity watched Irohann, sitting across an aisle from her on the trolley. There were several lepidopterans and Roscoe between them. Jeko and Am-lei were closer to the trolley's entrance with their bio-matter crate. Am-lei's tube-like proboscis was fully extended and entwined with Jeko's long nose; the thick, wrinkly gray appendage and the narrow, obsidian-black appendage twisted together into a single swinging curve. There was a childlike sweetness to the way their nose and proboscis twisted together, like children holding hands, swinging their arms carelessly as they walked, tromping through a puddle-filled forest. Jeko had mentioned that their love stretched all the way back to their childhoods. It showed.

  Across the aisle, Irohann's muzzle split wide in a grin, enjoying the light breeze blowing against his mane, ruffling his fur. He was such a classic dog sometimes. But he hadn't always been. Clarity didn't know how much of Irohann had been inside of Sloanee, the amphibiod woman he'd used to be, waiting to burst out. She also didn't know how much of his old self he felt like he'd lost. They didn't talk about his life before her much. But she knew he'd loved the Doraspian queen, Doripauli, a creature of leaves and flowers, very, very deeply. He still loved Doripauli. His fear of her inextricably tied to that love. He couldn't forget her. He couldn't move on.

  Irohann noticed Clarity watching him, and his ears did a complicated dance, half folding and twitching back upright in turns. His grin grew even wider. She offered him a sad smile in return, hoping he couldn't see the sadness. Then she turned away.

  24 Emergence

  The Grove of Changes was a literal grove of old-growth trees. From what little Clarity had picked up on the trolley ride, there were other smaller groves all across the city, many of them private. The one Lee-a-lei's directions led them to was large and public, so they were welcome to bring her chrysalis there. Clarity was looking forward to meeting Lee-a-lei; she seemed like she'd been one sharp caterpillar and would probably make an amazing butterfly.

  The trees of the grove had trunks wide enough that five or six lepidopterans could stand in a ring, talon to talon, and only barely reach all the way around the circumference. But instead of growing straight up into the air like the redwoods on Clarity's homeworld, imported from Ancient Earth, these trees split into thick, winding branches that tangled with each other, creating a mottled roof to the grove. Yellow sunlight streamed through the breaks between branches, shifting as the cherry-red and mahogany leaves rustled in the breeze.

  Among the many shades of red leaves, everything in the grove took on a warm, fiery tone. Chrysalises hung from every tree, almost every branch. They pulsed and twitched, subtle movements that seemed to disappear when Clarity stared straight at a chrysalis. But from the corner of her eye, they were all beating with life, like hearts hanging from the trees.

  Clarity realized with surprise this was the first place she'd seen since exiting Cassie that wasn't dripping with brightly colored banners, flags, and pennants. The only colors here were the natural hues of the trees.

  Jeko found a concave hollow in the side of one of the wide tree trunks and sidled the bio-matter crate up against the rough, crenulated bark. "We can't hang her from a branch properly," Jeko trumpeted dolefully, an introspective didgeridoo refrain.

  Am-lei straightened out her twiggy legs, making herself tall enough to lay a talon on Jeko's shoulder. "You got her here. I'd have never succeeded at that without you."

  Jeko twisted her nose around to hold Am-lei's talon, like h
olding hands. Am-lei reached past her wife with a pair of talons and began to unlock Lee-a-lei's crate.

  "Wait," Jeko said. "There's no one else here yet. It's too early."

  Am-lei hesitated, talons laid on the side of the cylindrical bio-matter crate, drumming lightly as she considered Jeko's point. "I don't want to make her wait any longer."

  "We've come so far," Jeko said. "It can't be long until twilight." She withdrew her nose tip from Am-lei's talon and wrapped it around her own neck. "I don't want her to be disappointed."

  Am-lei's many-faceted eyes sparkled with the fiery mottled light of the grove. "She won't be. She could never be disappointed in you. You've done so much for her." Am-lei unlatched the locks, and the front of the cylindrical crate swung open, revealing the beating heart inside.

  Lee-a-lei's chrysalis hung inside its mechanical shell, pulsing and twitching like all of the other chrysalises in the grove.

  Roscoe's nose twitched eagerly, and Irohann's tail swished tentatively. Jeko laid her long nose along the chrysalis's side, stroking, petting, and tracing the lines of those folded wings. All of them held their breaths, waiting.

  "She won't emerge until the right moment," Am-lei said. "Trust me. Trust her. And let her enjoy these moments, hanging here, before the final awakening comes." Am-lei folded her twiggy limbs and settled into a triple cross-legged position on the ground beside Lee-a-lei's chrysalis.

  Jeko sat down beside her. Their child, their heart, hung between them. Then Roscoe and Irohann sat down, a little farther back. Clarity was the last to sink to her knees. The dirt was smoothly packed and littered with fallen red leaves. The leaves crinkled slightly as Clarity sat down on them. She let her duffle bag slide off her shoulder and set it on the ground beside her.

  Am-lei began singing in a language that sounded—at least, to Clarity's untrained ear—like the language she'd heard other lepidopterans using all afternoon. Her singing sounded like a flute solo, rising through the silence of the grove. Am-lei halted, oddly sometimes, like she wasn't quite sure of the words. Clarity began to recognize patterns in the song, and eventually Jeko joined in. Flute and trombone, serenading a beating heart.