In a move that shocked millions, the Vala'ni'si'l on Silva Prime graduated two humans to masters of their fields: S'il Vala Tomas Martinez, and Captain Theodrakis. S'il Vala Tomas Martinez plans to use his skills to provide aide to humans that often cannot journey to health care facilities in the Alliance. Captain Theodrakis is being sponsored by Ambassador Ux'thu as the first human captain of a Class 4 Silvarian Battlecruiser, a move which has drawn strong criticism from much of the Silvarian race and their allies.

-Excerpt from "The Galactic Spiral". Galactic Year Cirventis 243, Day Cycle 600

“Kill me?!” Maggie’s voice rose an octave.

“I doubt she meant that.” Theseus said soothingly. “She’s just upset. Not even at you though! She’s upset at me.”

Maggie jerked away from Theseus, spinning to face him. “Did you just hear what she said? She just threatened to kill me! Do you really think this doctor of yours can get it out before that happens?”

“She- I know she comes off as a bit of a bitch, but she’s not a murderer. As for if Doctor Tomas can get the key out...” Theseus trailed off and shrugged. “It’s worth a try. Worse case, you’ll be a very honored guest here.” Theseus said, smoothing the air with his hands in an attempt to calm her down.

“Honored guest my ass! Prisoner you mean. I have family to get back to! My Mom-” Maggie swallowed around a lump in her throat. Oh god, what was her Mom going to think? She’d be worried sick! And with her health already not the greatest, what if this killed her? She had to get a message to her saying she was alright, the sooner the better.

“We’ll get a message to your Mom, I promise. I haven’t lied to you yet, right? So trust me on this at least.” Theseus glanced in the direction Flame went, then back to Maggie. “Please?”

Maggie just stood there a moment, torn between the hope of getting rid of the key, and the desire to be anywhere Flame wasn’t. But she couldn’t be sure the woman wouldn’t follow her if she tried to leave, or if Theseus and Robin would take her away. She didn’t know anyone else here, and even though Theseus and his brother were her kidnappers, they were at least familiar in a place that was getting stranger and stranger.

“Fine.” She said finally. “This Doctor.. is he a human? For that matter, are you human? You look human.”

Theseus let out a sigh of relief and nodded. “He’s human. So am I for that matter, and Flame. We’re descendants of previous abductees. Come on, I’ll show you to the medical bay.”

“So you weren’t kidding about people getting kidnapped into space.” Maggie fell into step beside Theseus. They walked down the large center strip between the rows of ships. Maggie looked around at all the different people and creatures around them. She supposed that not all humans were returned to Earth after being abducted, and, well, humans were humans.

“No. It’s one of the main things the Coalition is fighting against.”

“And yet you kidnapped- abducted, me.” Maggie said.

Theseus winced at the reminder, and threw up his arms. “I know, I know! I said I’m sorry. I can’t take it back, and you wouldn’t want me to. Leaving you on Earth with the key would have been leaving a nice juicy steak out for the wolves. If your own government didn’t snatch you up once they figured out what you had, then you might have gotten snatched up by aliens that don’t have any problem kidnapping humans and doing all sorts of experiments on them. Not all those crazy stories are that crazy you know.”

“So what? Am I supposed to thank you for kidnapping me?”

“No, but you could give it a bit of a rest at least.” Theseus dropped his arms to his sides. “And kindly don’t mention it to a lot of people. For that matter, don’t mention the key at all unless you’re talking to me, Flame, or Doc Tomas. It’s not safe. And don’t mention it in public.”

“Why not? You say it’s not safe, but isn’t this some rebel base or something?” Maggie looked pointedly at a group of people dressed in what could only be military uniforms march by, each one carrying a large gun slung over their shoulder.

“It’s also a public space station. People stop off here from all sorts of places, and not all of them are friendly to the Coalitions mission, or humans. Even if they were, there’s plenty of people that would want that key and not care who they piss off to get it.” Theseus glanced at the group of armed people, stepping aside to give them plenty of room. “So keep it covered, and keep it as secret as you can.”

“Right.” The more Maggie learned, the more she really didn’t want this key. But she didn’t know how to get rid of it, so she had to depend on Theseus and his mysterious doctor friend.

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“You’re going to be fine.” Theseus said with forced brightness, his smile more of a grimace. “Just tell me if you start to feel weird.”

“What do you mean weird? This whole thing has me feeling like I’ve gone nuts.” She looked down at her hand, flexing her fingers slightly. The movement made pain spike through her hand, and she let out a soft hiss.

“Tell me if you start hearing things, seeing things, feeling violent, shooting crystal spikes out of your arm, things like that.” Theseus’s voice was carefully casual, but there was a tension to it that Maggie couldn’t help but notice.

“Shooting crystal spikes?” Her eyes snapped to him. Was that a possibility?! Why hadn’t anyone mentioned that sooner? She looked back to her arm, trying to see if there was any sign of the crystal bits in her palm growing out against the cloth. She didn’t notice anything like that, but she did notice that the burn was spreading.

With each beat of her heart the throbbing pain crept further up her arm, faint red lines tracing each vein. She stared at it in horror, when had it gotten so bad? It was starting to look like the weird scarring on her mothers legs. What if she had somehow caught the same thing?

No, that was stupid.

Wasn’t it?

“I doubt you’ll shoot crystal spikes, but just in case...” Theseus looked at her, his smile a bit forced. The strain of holding it in place only got worse when he looked at her arm, then the smile disappeared completely and his voice turned serious. “It’s getting worse. Come on, I know a shortcut.”

Maggie followed Theseus into narrower hallways that twisted and turned in unexpected directions. Metal piping and streams of crystal ran along one side of the hall, interrupted occasionally by large slabs of crystal set directly into the wall. Each of the slabs held buttons and switches in the bottom half, the top half left completely blank until they passed by and it lit up like a computer monitor. Eventually they passed through a narrow doorway into a more comfortable corridor with calming blue walls and thin green carpet.

The soft sound of voices came from the other side of a frosted sliding door that opened as they approached, revealing what was possibly the most normal looking thing Maggie had seen in what felt like days: a waiting room. Comfortable chairs were lined up in neat rows, tables between every couple of them laden with books and old magazines. A crystal screen in one corner was playing ‘I Love Lucy’, and a woman that looked like she had stepped out of a museum sat behind a curved desk in the corner, jotting notes down in her own crystal computer.

The woman looked up as they entered, and Maggie stumbled a little when she noticed the catlike eyes she had, and the pointed ears that stuck up out of her hair on either side of her starched nurses cap.

Theseus strode right up to the desk, ignoring the curious looks they got from the other occupants of the waiting room. “Nurse Veela, we need to see S’il Vala Tomas, now.”

The womans nostrils flared, the look she leveled on Theseus one of disapproval. “Mr. Goodfellow, you and your companion will have to wait until your turn. Will the doctor be seeing you, or the young lady?”

“The young lady, and this is urgent.” Theseus said, irritation leaking into his voice. He slipped into the odd language he had spoken over the computer, words coming out in a jagged, quiet rush.

The woman responded in the same language with the same forced patience that Maggie had employed while dealing with certain problem customers. Maggie sighed, turning away from the pair to look over the room. Most of the people were human, although there were a few aliens here and there. They were never alone then, always sitting next to one of the humans. Only one of the otter creatures was in the room, looking incredibly uncomfortable as it held a sleeping human baby.

It was absolutely adorable, and Maggie managed to smile even with the pain throbbing through her arm. Theseus was right, it was getting worse. The pain was getting harder to ignore, a constant throbbing pulsing up her arm. Although she couldn’t help noticing the sudden paleness in the womans face, or the look of horror she sent Maggies way.

“What’s going on here?” The calm voice cut through the argument like a hot knife through butter, Veela and Theseus both standing up straight as if they had been pricked with pins.

“Doctor Tomas!” Nurse Veela gasped. Maggie followed her gaze to a tall, gray haired man in a white coat. He stood in front of an open door, a stern frown on his dark face.

“Doc! We need to see you right away, please!” Theseus pulled Maggie forward. “It’s an urgent matter.”

“My waiting room is full of people with urgent matters, Theseus.” Doctor Tomas said calmly. “I am certain Nurse Veela explained this.”

“I did. But he insists. He has brought- well, look at the girls hand!” Nurse Villa waved a hand at Maggie, who frowned.

She didn’t like being the subject of a conversation she could only understand part of, and she didn’t like all the stares they were getting. The doctor turned to Maggie and held out his hand.

“Very well, good morning young lady. I am Doctor Tomas, may I see your hand please?”

“It’s okay Maggie, let him look at your hand.” Theseus spoke softly. He moved his bulk to block the view of her from the majority of the waiting room.

Why was she trusting this guy? Maggie sighed, starting to pull the bandages off her hand. Because even though he was a kidnapper, he was the only one she knew here. And he didn’t seem to want to hurt her. Robin was nice, Theseus wasn’t too bad, but cranky. And maybe a bit of a drunk, but that could be an unfair assumption.

Doctor Tomas took her hand gently, peering down at it with a thoughtful frown. “Does it hurt?” He asked gently.

“Are you kidding?” Maggie let out a ragged laugh, surprised by the sound for a moment. “It hurts a lot.”

“Well, lets see what we can do about that. Nurse Veela, Doctor Hist will take the next couple patients. I don’t imagine this will take long. Theseus, wait out here.”

“I should stay with her.” Theseus said uncertainly.

“She’s perfectly safe here, you know this.” Doctor Tomas gave Theseus a stern look. “Wait out here until I call for you.”

Theseus looked at Maggie, but reluctantly nodded. “Alright. I’ll be right out here Maggie.”

Unsurprisingly, she didn’t find that very reassuring.