Alix stared into the hollow of the Gargantua tree, where the remains of the Metamorph starship hung scattered.

While the hollow entrance Alix peered through was small, the hollow itself was an enormous chamber within the tree, similar to that in which Alix and Figaro had spent a night before. A tribe of talozis chattered within, scaling the walls of the tree and navigating the web of vines that grew. Their nest consisted of more than the expected tree parts and scavenged foliage, however. Components of the Metamorph starships had been torn from each other and repurposed into nest chambers, tangled with vines or wedged into corners of the hollow floor. There were metallic shards of it jammed in the tree wall to be used as stepping stones. Its windows held collected piles of fruit. Two of the little primates napped in the rotted remains of the command chair, one resting his chin on the armrest. Babies played on the wreckage of control panels, hopping between screens, smacking the rusted buttons with their long furry fingers, or idly gnawing on yoke sticks. Entire slabs of the hull were leaned against each other to form makeshift dens through which talozis darted in and out. The metal detector had rolled itself over to one such den, blinking quietly beside it.

“This is fascinating!” Alix said, moving over to let Lyle have a look. “Do you know how much this tells us about talozi nesting behaviors? It must have taken them a while to build this all up. How old do you think this nest is? Hell, how long do you think this tribe’s been together? They might have been living in the remains of this starship for generations!”

“I wonder how the abnormal nesting materials may have altered their other behaviors,” Lyle said, equally enthralled.

“And I wonder if you two nerds can stay on task,” said Figaro. “We’re here to investigate the wreckage, not the monkeys. How’re we gonna get in?”

Alix nudged Lyle aside and looked into the hollow again, eyes sweeping up. “Looks like there are larger entrances into the hollow. We’ll climb up and get in through there.”

“What about the talozis?” Lyle asked.

“Well, the last tribe I bunked with was pretty friendly,” said Alix, already calculating how to get up to the next branch. “Let’s hope these ones share that spirit of hospitality.”

***

A grueling fifteen minutes later and the team was higher up the Gargantua tree, staring into the six-foot maw of the hollow. Alix flicked on her flashlight and went in first, with Figaro on her shoulder and Lyle coming in behind.

Alix was hit with a distinct sense of deja-vu as over a hundred golden eyes swung in her direction. She and Lyle both went still as a handful of elder talozis bounded over. The small primates aggressively chattered to each other as they circled Alix and Lyle.

“Just popping in for a visit,” Alix said to them lightly. They didn’t respond to this. Instead, they tugged on her clothes and prodded at her ankles before moving on to Lyle. One clambered all the way up to Lyle’s shoulder, its teeth bared as it let out a light screech. Lyle’s eyes went huge.

“Uh, Alix?” he grated through gritted teeth.

“Just don’t move,” she told him.

Lyle stood stock still as the talozi on his shoulder did the same. Then, with another screech, the talozi yanked viciously on his hair before hopping down with a playful swish of its tail.

“Ow! Geez!” he rubbed his head as the talozi tribe resumed their normal activities, now unconcerned with the human interlopers. “They sure do have iron grips for having such small hands.”

“They’d have to, to carry all this into the hollow,” Alix replied, looking around at the nest around her. The hollow ground sloped, and they were standing on the higher end. “Where do we start?”

“Already did!” Figaro called out from the lower end of the hollow. Alix glanced at her empty shoulder with a start. She hadn’t even realized Figaro had climbed down. She looked down at his direction. He was perched on one of the control panels, lightly swatting away the inquiring fingers of baby talozis. “Come check this out!”

Alix made her way to the panels, weaving through starship remnants and talozis. She joined Figaro at the panel, looking down at the ancient screens and buttons with awe. It hit her all at once that, as decayed as these ruins were, she was looking down at alien technology over a thousand years old. She was getting a look into the past that no one else living had ever seen, save for the Metamorphs themselves. The unmatched memory and travel ability of the Aexons’ captured compendium, the incredible intricacy of the Metamorphs, and now the apparent durability of the starship ruins, all pointed to a creator species that was far more technologically advanced than any Alix knew, including her own. She suddenly felt that she wanted to find the Metamorphs’ creators as badly as they did.

“What’re we looking at, Figaro?” she asked.

“Well, the screens are obviously a bust and everything looks too shot to hell to power back up, but there’s words engraved in the metal here!” Figaro scuttled over to a space between a cracked display screen and a keypad. He tapped at the markings there, and Alix focused her flashlight’s beam on it.

❉↬⥁⠕⁰⍡⎏⌇⎒❉

Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.

⍥⍖⌇⍋⎒

⎒⌇⍲⎑⌀⍕⍙⌒⍙⍕⌀⎑⍲⌇⎒

“Nice find, Fig!” Alix smiled and grabbed her tablet off her utility belt. She snapped several pictures. “We can show this to the Metamorphs, see if it jogs their memory. Failing that, we can take it to some exolinguists and see if they can trace it back to a known language. I’m guessing these are instructions.”

“No, the top one’s a name,” said Figaro.

Alix stopped taking photos and stared down at him. “How . . . do you know that? Can you read this?”

Figaro paused, apparently surprised that he knew as well. “Well, no. I can’t read it. Like, I know these are letters, but for some reason their meanings just sort of keep hopping out of reach. But I know it’s a name. Those flowery markings at the start and end are only used for names. I know that. Boss, how the hell do I know that?”

“Must be another acquired memory from when you interfaced with the Metamorphs,” said Alix. “Damn, that’s awesome. Imagine if you could translate the whole thing. Maybe you should do a full analysis on your memory banks, see if there’s anything else in there!”

“Hell no!” Figaro snapped. “I didn’t want any freaky alien memories in the first place! If I do a full analysis, it’ll be to delete ‘em.”

“Not before you back them up to an external hard drive, I hope.” Alix shifted her tablet’s aim from the control panels to snap pictures of the surrounding area. “This is a xenoarcheologist’s dream right here!”

“No, this is,” Lyle said behind her.

Alix turned to see Lyle standing with something in his hands. He held it up for her to see and shined his flashlight on it. In the white glare of the light, Alix could make out huge blank eyes, crystalline lashes, a gently sloping nose, a full-lipped mouth frozen in a frown. It looked like the death mask of a goddess, its features all enchantingly sculpted and symmetrical. There was a faint shine to its smooth skin. It was mesmerizing to gaze upon.

“A face?” Figaro tilted his head.

“A plastic face.” Lyle turned it over in his hands. The other side was jagged at the edges, with thin translucent tubes sticking out limply. “It must have been scavenged from the wrecked bodies that the Metamorphs had to abandon after the crash. It’s absolutely exquisite. Aesthetically beautiful, obviously, but the technical design is genius.”

“How so?” Alix asked, holding out her hand for the face. Lyle passed it to her to inspect. It was softer than she expected, and there was a gentle bit of give when she pressed against the synthetic skin with her thumb.

“See all that tubing running through it?”

Alix zoomed her flashlight closer in on it. Now she could see that the tube weren’t just sticking out of the edges, but connected in a labyrinthine web throughout the face and its features. “Indeed I do.”

“I think those were the parts of the body that nanobots actually occupied. They manipulated the rest of the bodily components via the tubing!” Lyle’s face was alight with wonder as he swept his flashlight across the hollow. “If we can find some other components, I bet we could use the 3D printer at the lab to replicate their old bodies! Well, maybe not quite at the same level of sophistication, but something similar, at least.”

“That’s fantastic! Assuming we can find more.” Alix tucked the face under her arm. “Where’d you find it?”

“It was near one of the food stores. I think they’ve been using it to crack open nuts.”

“You know, I thought the tip of the nose looked a bit stubby,” said Alix.

“A thousand-year-old alien relic used as a nutcracker,” Figaro snorted. “That doesn’t bode well for finding the other body parts. We better get this thing outta here before the talozis realize it’s missing and come running for it. Give it to me and I’ll run it over to the hovership.”

“Good idea.” Lyle nodded. “But it’s been in the damp, humid atmosphere of the hollow for some time now, so we’d better adjust the environmental controls of the hovership to match it first. You’ll have to get the code from Alix to switch the ship back on first.”

“No need!” Alix said, handing the face over to Figaro. “I left it idling in the clearing.”

Both Figaro and Lyle froze, going utterly silent.

Lyle stared at Alix in shock. “You . . . you what?”

“I said I left it idling in the clearing.” Alix looked between Figaro and Lyle. “What? What’s the big deal?”

“Are you telling us that you just did the exact thing Lyle told you not to do before we took off?” Figaro shrieked, nearly dropping the mask in panic.

“What? He did? When? What’re you talking about?” Alix’s heart picked up in double speed as she thought back to their conversation before take-off. Blah blah, Figaro was nervous, Blah blah, Lyle talking about how they were equipped for every situation except one, blah blah Alix staring at his gorgeous mug while he prattled on before he ended it saying something about the pilot paying attention.

Oh. Whoops.

“Alix!” Lyle snapped. “I told you we had to conserve the hovership’s energy stores because the batteries got degraded from the fungus exposure! Were you paying attention to the battery meter at all?”

“Yes!” Alix shot back, then paused. “Er, somewhat. When we first took off. Pretty sure it was at least at half charge.”

“Oh my— okay, it’s okay.” Lyle started pacing, worrying his lower lip. “We’ll probably still have enough battery to make it back to the station, so long as we turn the hovership off now. I mean, it’s not like you used the turbo function on the way here, right?”

Alix sucked in a breath before answering. “Uh, it is entirely possible I used the turbo function for the entire flight over.”

Lyle stared at her in horrified silence.

“Nice goin’ Boss,” drawled Figaro. “Ya killed the ship.”