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

by Mary E. Lowd

  Clarity peeked into each of the rooms on the mid-level, starting with the one that mirrored Irohann's old room, followed by the one that had always been an extra room, and ending with her own.

  She stood in the doorway of her old room and stared out the familiarly shaped window—through it, she could see the blue-and-green spheres of Leionaia's cluster of moons, and a sliver of Leionaia's own white-lace covered surface. Damn, it was beautiful in this system.

  And the room holding the window felt empty. It was empty. Literally. No furniture, no bed, no shelves. No dolls. No glass eyes staring at her.

  She walked into the room and sat down in the middle of the empty floor. She stared out through the window, at Leionaia's moons, wondering what kind of colonies—if any—the lepidopterans had built out there. She tried to pretend she was back on The Serendipity, and if she let her eyes stray from the window, she'd see her menagerie of dolls arranged all around her. Irohann would be behind her, in his own room, and they were preparing to go on a day trip to one of the moons.

  It was too easy to pretend. And none of it was true.

  Clarity pulled the fuzzy gray Woaoo doll out of her duffle bag, looked into its little glass eyes, and tried to imagine something more useful: building a new home inside this vessel, without Irohann.

  She couldn't do that. There was no point to being here. If she bought this vessel, she'd begin by hauling cargo for the lepidopteran owner, to convert her Universe Standard credits into local Leionaia tender. Sure, they'd managed to convert a small amount of credits to local tender when they'd first docked, but it wouldn't translate to the hundreds of thousands of credits a full ship cost. But, after a few cargo hauls for the lepidopterans, she'd... what? Return to Crossroads Station and drop in on Jeko and Am-lei? Go explore alien worlds without anyone to share them with? Get back her job, tending bar at The All Alien Cafe? God, she could go home to the dirtball where she'd grown up, and see if her closed-minded parents were still alive, let them harangue her for disappearing for a few decades, and squeeze herself into the tiny life she'd grown out of before she was even fully an adult.

  Clarity got up from the floor and turned around to see the lepidopteran who immediately began fluting at her. "You want negotiate pay?" her computer echoed.

  "I'm sorry," Clarity said. "No, thank you." She stuffed the Woaoo doll back in her duffle bag and showed herself out of the derelict ghost ship that looked not quite exactly like her old home.

  Back on the lowest deck of Lo'riana Station, Clarity felt unfettered, unanchored, like she could float away. She really had left behind everything in her previous life. She was starting to feel like she'd left herself behind too. She climbed one of the ladders, up to a higher level, then another, wending her way upward to the highest levels of the spinning wheel where the artificial gravity was lightest.

  Clarity found a sort of cafe on a small platform and ordered a drink, sickly sweet and a bright, toxic, neon orange. It fizzed on her tongue, and she took small sips, dragging the experience out. Completely undecided on what she would do when the fizzy liquid ran out.

  The drink left her tickled tongue bereft. She thought about ordering another one, but she didn't think her stomach could handle any more sugar. Everything here was so sweet and bright and rainbowy. Lovely to visit for a day, but she couldn't picture spending more than a few weeks, traveling around Leionaia and the several moons. And that meant she needed a ride out of this system.

  Since Leionaia had bribed its way off of the standard star maps, her only ride out of town any time soon—without buying the derelict mimicry-mockery of The Serendipity—was probably aboard Cassie, by way of the Devil's Radio.

  Well, if the universe was going to swallow itself whole, inside out, whatever, she might as well have a front row seat for the pyrotechnics. They'd either be more thrilling that way or end faster. Either option was good, right? Less suffering or more excitement.

  So, with a sense of deep exhaustion soaking all the way into the marrow of her bones, Clarity climbed back down through the open layers of Lo'riana Station to the very bottom, the docking level. She found her way back to the docking berth Cassie had been assigned for their visit—as far as she could tell, it was empty now—and sat down on the metal floor with her back against the sealed airlock door. Roscoe and Am-lei would have to trip over her to get back aboard Cassie. They couldn't possibly leave without her.

  With hard metal under her folded legs and hard metal against her back, Clarity's head nodded off to the side, tilted onto her own shoulder, and she fell asleep. A single sad primate, trespassing in the fairy world of sentient butterflies, unable to subsist comfortably on their overly sweet nectar, and overstimulated by the tantalizing colors of their daily lives.

  27 To the Devil's Radio

  Clarity woke up with a stiff neck and a wicker butterfly doll dancing in front of her face. "What?" she said, blinking, wiping at her eyes, and scooting away from the bizarre apparition.

  The doll was made of a bundle of dark umber twigs bound together with coils of string and sporting brightly colored cloth wings. It looked a little like a tiny kite, and it was dancing because canine paws held it from behind and were shaking it to the ephemeral rhythm of the orchestral snippets of conversation filling Lo'riana Station.

  "I found this little fella in one of the shops"—Irohann's ears twisted around as he turned his head, looking up at the higher levels of the station; finally, he pointed with one paw, still holding the wicker doll with the other—"somewhere up there. There was barely any gravity; kind of a fun way to shop. All of the toys kept floating around."

  "You went to a toy store for me." Clarity couldn't resist reaching out to take the doll. Its wings were made out of something velvety; the dusky cloth had a lovely sheen, especially the bits of royal purple. Though the lavender, orange, and lemon-yellow bits were lovely too. There were no glass eyes on this doll, but it did have wooden eyes seemingly made out of something like acorn caps. "I love her," Clarity said.

  "Does she have a name?" Irohann asked, sitting down on the metal floor beside her, back against the sealed airlock door.

  Clarity glanced at Irohann sidelong. He never cared about the names she gave her dolls. Even so, she cooperated and said, "Monarch." She bounced the doll through the air and watched the cloth wings flutter. "She's not very huggable."

  "No," Irohann agreed. "They don't seem to make them that way here."

  "Lepidopterans don't seem that huggable overall either," Clarity said. She closed her eyes and tried to stop imagining letting herself lean over against Irohann's fluffy bulk. His side would make a much softer pillow than the metal airlock door behind her.

  "So, did you buy the Solar III?" Irohann asked. "I saw there was one for sale."

  "No," she said.

  They left it at that. Irohann didn't press her further, and Clarity didn't know what else there was to say. They simply sat beside each other, two separate people who needed to hitch a ride on the same gengineered starwhal to get out of this one-horse town.

  After a while, Clarity gave in and leaned her head against Irohann's fluffy shoulder, but it didn't mean anything. It was only because her neck was so stiff. She wished she could go find the Lo'riana Station version of an inn—probably some kind of weird, webby hammock for rent—and get some real sleep. She could send a message to Roscoe and Am-lei, telling them to wait for her because she wanted to join them after all.

  But she didn't trust the local computer systems—what if her message got caught in some kind of throttle between leaving her pocket computer and reaching theirs? Or what if they simply didn't check for messages before taking off aboard Cassie? She couldn't risk it. So, she cuddled up against Irohann and fell asleep with her new lepidopteran doll clutched against her breast.

  This time while she slept, she dreamed about red giant stars opening looming black maws full of angry obsidian teeth and swallowing her whole. She woke up, convinced she'd been screaming, but none of the lepidopterans around
the next docking berth seemed disturbed. None of them were looking her way. Irohann snored softly beside her; his shoulder rose and fell with the subtle rhythm of his breath. She must have only screamed in her sleep.

  Before she could fall asleep again, even with the drowsy weight of Irohann's warm sleepiness beside her, pulling her down into the sea of unconsciousness like a heavy iron anchor, a pair of long fuzzy feet hopped on the metal floor in front of her.

  "Roscoe!" she exclaimed. She looked up to see the diminutive lapine man with Am-lei standing beside him. "Am-lei! You're back!"

  The lepidopteran was dressed in her usual somber grays once again; no more scarves or shawls adding splashes of color to her ensemble. The lapine man, with his ash-gray fur and brown jumpsuit, was more colorful than her, due to the returned yellow handkerchief peeking out of one of his pockets like a little rumpled square of sunshine. Or mustard. Either way, it was more color than Am-lei sported in her shimmering gray clothes and obsidian black carapace.

  Though her disco ball eyes did shimmer with tiny reflections of the rainbow colors filling the rest of the station. Lepidopterans had beautiful eyes. Clarity looked down at the wicker doll, still clutched against her breast. Its acorn cap eyes stared at her blankly, but she imagined herself reflecting in them, hundreds-fold. The thought made her smile.

  "Are you coming with us?" Roscoe asked, nose twitching. One of his long ears drooped over his shoulder; the other one quirked up, listening attentively for her answer.

  "I thought you'd be long gone," Am-lei observed. "It seemed like you were saying a rather permanent goodbye back in the grove." The fluting quality of her voice had taken on a high, reedy quality. She must miss her wife and daughter already.

  "It turns out," Clarity said, standing up from the floor by scooting her back along the airlock door behind her, "I want front row seats for saving the universe." She looked down at Irohann, who was blinking groggily, waiting to see if he would out her. He could surely see through any facade she put up for Am-lei and Jeko to the broken eighteen-year-old he'd met thirty years ago. A little girl who'd been crying over her lost dolls and broken spaceship.

  Irohann didn't say anything. He stood up beside her and nodded.

  "Front row seats, huh?" Roscoe leaned against his walking stick. "I took a bunch of my grandbunnies to a white water rapids jet boat ride on a waterworld a few years back. The front row was called the splash zone."

  "I'm not afraid of getting a little wet," Clarity said. "Have you called Cassie back?" She turned to look at the airlock door; it was mostly metal, but there was a trapezoidal window in the upper half. She couldn't see well enough through the dark airlock chamber on the other side of the window to tell if there was anything—or anyone—docked on the other side. "Is she here?"

  "Yeah," Roscoe said, hopping forward. He put his paw up and pressed the button to open the airlock door. "She's here."

  The airlock door slid open—both the mechanical door of Lo'riana station on the outside and the inner door of Cassie's body, organic and fleshy, thick like the blubber of a whale. On the inside, the hexagonal containment crate holding the Merlin Box still squatted where Clarity had left it, too heavy to drag around Cassie's fleshy floors. A blight upon Cassie's pretty pink glow.

  "I bet Cassie's eager to experience some of the dancing I saw you doing with Lee-a-lei," Clarity said. She flashed a big grin at both Roscoe, the proud dancer, and Am-lei, the proud mother. She needed them to be happy with her. She needed them to let her tag along.

  Roscoe's nose twitched, and his ears perked up, standing tall.

  Am-lei's proboscis furled and unfurled, a nervous, fluttery gesture. "She sure was beautiful with those wings," Am-lei said. "I've never understood why Jeko cared so much about her memories of my Wing Day before. I guess I was that beautiful for one day too."

  "Pshaw," Roscoe said. "She's prettier without 'em. You can't dance a jig so fast with big ol' wings getting in your way." He shuffled his long feet and held a paw out to take hold of one of Am-lei's talons. He didn't quite get her to dance with him, but he did spin himself under her long twiggy arm. His long ears twirled around him fetchingly.

  "Enough dancing," Irohann said. "Universe to save, remember?"

  Roscoe's ears and whiskers drooped, and Am-lei's body sank lower between her angular legs. Her antennae vibrated unhappily. They were not an obvious choice for heroes to save the universe. Clarity wondered if Wisper had truly not had better choices available, or if the robot had simply been tone deaf to the emotional qualities her assistants would need, in addition to their technical qualifications.

  "Come on, guys," Clarity said. "The sooner we get rid of our box of toxic particle waste, the sooner we can all get... home." She did her utmost to not stumble over the final word, but she knew she'd failed from the worried, sympathetic glance Irohann gave her.

  Her words had their intended effect on Am-lei and Roscoe though. The lepidopteran curled her proboscis up tightly, a grim, determined expression, and the lapine man nodded resolutely. Roscoe led the way into the airlock with a sullen hop. Once they were all inside, crowding around the large hexagonal containment crate for the Merlin Box, the airlock cycled around them. The bright, metallic air of the space station was replaced with the mustier, more organic air from inside Cassie.

  Clarity was surprised to find the pink glow from the constellations of moles and freckles on Cassie's mottled purple walls comforting. It was a softer light than aboard Lo'riana; not as beautiful as the twin sunlight had been on Leionaia, but much gentler on the eyes than most artificial space station or spaceship lights. Clarity placed one hand on Cassie's wall and the thrumming warmth and life of the starwhal kissed her fingertips.

  As they walked along the curve of the vein-like hall toward the cockpit, Clarity continued trailing her hand along Cassie's purple blubbery skin. She noticed how the prickles of pink light dimpled slightly out of the purple flesh, and as they passed the cluster of doors into the various rooms set up like quarters, she noticed a pulsing under her fingertips like a heartbeat. The vein-like hall bent, and Clarity realized the rooms must be arranged around some massive internal organ, hidden beneath the flesh of Cassie's walls. Were the quarters arranged in a cluster around Cassie's heart?

  This was not her home. But maybe it could be. Maybe, when the universe-saving was done, she'd stay aboard Cassie. Maybe travel the universe with Roscoe? Clarity flinched at her own idea. She saw how easily she could let herself look for a replacement for Irohann. But Roscoe would never be like Irohann.

  And truthfully, Clarity didn't want him to be. She didn't know what she wanted. She missed her old life, from only a few weeks ago.

  As they entered Cassie's cockpit, the video screens were playing archival footage of various species dancing in a variety of styles. Jigs, waltzes, tangoes. Or at least, alien versions of dances vaguely like those. Clearly, Cassie was excited to meld her mind with Roscoe's and remember dancing the night away with a newly metamorphosed sentient butterfly.

  Roscoe didn't hesitate to hop into the bowl chair and guide the hanging sucker disks with his paws until they latched onto his skull, above and behind his flopped ears. His eyelids fluttered and his eyes rolled, showing the whites, as his mind melded with Cassie's. The images on the bank of video screens changed one by one—random alien archival footage replaced with personal memories of lepidopterans, some with new wings, others with their colorful cloth stand-ins, all of them dancing in the Grove of Changes.

  On a few screens, Clarity could see Irohann in the background dancing with Lee-a-lei. She glanced at him in person, standing in the cockpit. He was also watching the footage of the Wing Day celebration. He looked happy. Both on the bank of screens and now. His tail swished, watching the memories of the party, but when he glanced over to see Clarity watching him, his smile faltered, and his tail stilled.

  They looked away from each other, shy in a way they'd never been together. Sad and ashamed; sorry and angry—Clarity felt too many em
otions. Too complex. She didn't want to tangle them out. She wanted to get out of here.

  "How long will the flight to the Devil's Radio take?" Clarity asked.

  Roscoe spoke in a weirdly hollow voice—like he wasn't himself but was channeling a larger, more complex self through his too-small lapine body. "Hours and much energy."

  "That's cryptic," Am-lei said. She'd taken control of the small computer panel in the corner of the bank of video screens.

  Clarity and Irohann glanced at each other again. This time, it wasn't as complex. They were simply acknowledging their shared experience of melding with Cassie. Something Am-lei hadn't experienced.

  Clarity tried to explain: "Sharing a consciousness with Cassie is kind of like having your brain scrambled with a toddler's and a super powerful AI on psychotropic drugs at the same time..."

  Irohann nodded and shuddered. He seemed to have enjoyed the experience even less than Clarity had.

  The bank of viewscreens showed exterior views of Cassie's starwhal body mixed in with the scenes of dancing. Clarity hoped all of Cassie's thoughts about dancing with lepidopterans wouldn't distract her from flying. They had already undocked from Lo'riana and were flying away from the wheel station between its cluster of sapphire and emerald moons.

  Clarity continued: "So, you have to allow for a certain... hmm, shall we say, imprecision in calculations."

  Am-lei curled her proboscis up very tightly. "Imprecision when it comes to interstellar travel sounds extremely dangerous."

  "Okay," Clarity said. "Maybe not imprecision. More intuition."

  "And inarticulateness," Irohann said, still watching the bank of screens. The cluster of sapphire and emerald moons were now little more than a glimmer of color in the wide black sky. They would likely jump into subspace or hyperspace... whatever fabric of space Cassie used for traveling faster than light.