Worlds away a woman was running a hyperplasma-based de-icer to warm a massive asteroid before the miners would enter. It was kind of funny to call it a de-icer — the substance she was removing was actually solid oxygen, frozen and encrusted for a million, million years in the heart of deep space—but nevertheless, that’s what the official booklets referred to it as. That was just how words worked, traditions passed down by a thousand generations until the words didn’t mean anything resembling what they had started out meaning.
The speaker blared overhead. “Three, Two, One. End of shift!” Natala switched off the massive machine and immediately felt tired.
Sucks it out of you doesn’t it? She remembered how that had surprised her, how she could sit down all day and at the end feel like she’d run a million miles.
She stretched in her seat to hopefully loosen her muscles before the long walk down The Corridor back to her bunkhouse. The Oxygen would stay in its semi-soft state for about nine hours, long enough for the miners to industrially scrape it off and fill containment units before the de-icers would be needed again. She watched the little ships begin to head out to the asteroid.
Maybe don’t have the best job, but at least I’m not them.
The Corridor was empty. She had taken her time showering and had decided to walk her uniform to the laundry unit before heading out. It had needed a wash for a few days now and she had been putting it off.
The large, long windows looked out into the planetary rings outside which bathed everything in a red light. It was the deep red of afternoon though, not the bright red of morning, as if those words meant anything out here. Twelve-hour sections of a rotation named after things that had existed a hundred years ago on a planet she would never see. Ideas really did reach out further than anything else, didn’t they? Things like day and night, frozen, ice, and then what was waiting for her back at the bunkhouse — dinner, partner, family.
The noise jarred her from her thoughts. She hadn’t noticed how long she had been looking out the window at the Rings. The Corridor was completely empty now, she couldn’t even hear footsteps in front or behind her. Why didn’t she feel alone?
“Who’s that?” she asked the darkness. Nothing replied. She decided to keep walking, but it was only a few steps later that she heard something again – something like scraping on the metal walls. She whirled around to look behind her. Of course, nothing was there.
“Meteorites on the hull,” she said out loud. “Or space junk.” She didn’t know why it had to be out loud – maybe just to remind herself she had a voice. “I’ve heard it before.”
“I’ve heard it before.”
Natala froze. The second voice had been hers, but she hadn’t said it.
Immediately she started running down The Corridor. Her brain was screaming at her, asking what she was doing! Why she was being so irrational? What was she scared of? An echo?
You’re being ridiculous! She let the thoughts slow her to a brisk walk.
OK, ok, I’m ok. I’m overreacting. She started to feel the heat of embarrassment begin to creep in. What if someone had seen her? What if they told the other workers? She was new enough as it was, and having a partner and kid was already making things difficult. She had been late to shift twice, and she really didn’t need any kind of other reason for people to question her. I’m ok, she thought. There’s nothing here. I’m in space! Of course, there’s nothing there!
“Of course, there’s nothing there.”
Natlala didn’t move at all this time. She couldn’t, her feet felt like they were glued to the floor. The voice had come from in front of her, from the darkness ahead of her. This time it was no echo. There was no explanation. Something was in here with her, something that only ould have come from somewhere else – from out there.
It happened so fast she didn’t even scream, just a searing pain as hundreds of arms grabbed her, teeth and claws bit into her and every last drop of blood left her body in a matter of seconds.
Before long nothing of Natala Fri was left.
Yes—Natala Fri—that was the name, and the language was called Hykean, difficult in the inflections and slightly tonal but easy enough to replicate. The face was a little harder to get down, with subtle eyebrows and a curving jawline, olive skin, and light hair.
That’s alright though, there was plenty of time to learn. There would be hundreds of them in dozens of worlds. Hundreds of eyebrows and hundreds of jawlines, hundreds of drops of glistening blood, each individual clue a direction – a next step toward the target.
The face would be a challenge, but shifter shifts as commanded.
----------------------------------------
“New recruits?” the grizzled man said. He was still lanky and tall, but he was grizzled by Tinarian standards. He looked at Jack and Orv suspiciously with his violet eyes, awaiting their answer. Jack still didn’t know if Tinaria was just the name of this part of The Republic, or of the whole country, or maybe both, but he wasn’t going to ask. That was the sort of question he doubted he should be asking to a military commander, especially by a potential recruit. Someone who doesn’t know what the world is called probably wouldn’t be the kind of person admitted into an army.
This is so ridiculous, he thought to himself. What are we doing here? We should be hiding out – learning everything we can. I can’t even understand anything he’s saying.
Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
“Transfers,” Orvalys said. “Coming in from beyond Yarva.” That was a word Jack picked up on – Yarva. It was the only other place they had heard of. In fact, they hadn’t heard of it at all. Orv had just heard someone call one of the languages Yarvan and figured it was a place. The man leaned in and looked at him with suspicious eyes.
“Beyond Yarva you say? Not north of Yarva?”
“Oh certainly not north!” Orvalys laughed. “Just a little to the west.”
“Ah well, that counts as Yarva proper in our records,” the man said before motioning to Jack. “And him.”
“Uh, still learning the language,” Orvalys said.
“I thought Tinarian was common core in most public academies,” the man said. “Did you train with a local guild or were you self-taught?”
“Self-taught, yes,” Orv said.
The man leaned back in his chair. “Well, what does he speak? Yarvan surely?”
“Uh, actually only a very specific local dialect,” the homunculus explained. “They didn’t teach him Yarvan because they were going to ship him off here.”
The man looked confused once again. “What local dialect? Yish? Hindle? Spavartan?”
“A… very rare dialect, unfortunately,” Orv said. “We haven’t encountered anyone yet that speaks it besides me.” The small creature smiled at the man. Jack noticed and did his best to smile as well.
“Well if he’s recruited fully into the Republic Militia he’ll be needing to learn Tinarian,” the man said. “No exceptions to that rule.”
“Of course,” Orvalys nodded. “He’s very motivated.”
He bumped Jack who looked up and said, “Ta!” It meant ‘yes’ and it was the only word he knew so far.
“Quite the accent,” the man said. “He’s got a lot of work to do there.” He then reached out a hand. “Documents?” Orv handed over two passport-like books bound in a flexible metal.
“All here,” the homunculus said. “We just got in yesterday.”
The man took their books and flipped through them. “Hmm, well everything’s in order.” He opened a drawer in his desk and slid them inside before turning back. “You’ll be reporting to Camp 5 Squadron F then. Commander Genys is your overseer.” He leaned close and said quietly “She gets all the foreign recruits, but be careful not to use that as an excuse, she’ll work you as hard as anyone – harder probably.”
“Understood,” Orvalys said. He nudged Jack again and they turned to leave.
“Soldier,” the man said suddenly. Orv turned around to face him again. “Not to be indelicate but, I’ve never been to the west of Yarva.” He hesitated a moment, clearly uncomfortable. “Are there others that look like you or—?”
“An injury I’m afraid,” Orv said, looking down at himself as if suddenly sad. “In the line of duty actually.”
The man nodded. “Glad they could save—well some parts of you.”
“Yes sir,” Orvalys nodded. “All the important parts.”
“Dismissed,” the man said, nodding again.
Jack waited until they were outside.
“An Injury?! I can’t believe he bought that! Is he blind?”
“I told you, threat levels are low here,” Orvalys said. “At least for suspecting someone or something is from another world. There’s a measurement I can take of public sentiment and cultural level of accepted strangeness. It’s a certain frequency of brainwaves. Trust me, we’re all good.” The recruiter’s station had been just outside the city walls and now they were headed for a line of tents a short way outside the town.
The tents were the same type of rough blue canvas that Jack’s pack had been made of. He almost subconsciously filed that fact away, and he hadn't even realized he noticed such a small detail until he did so. It had been a long time since Nymia, but he remembered how important it was to pick up on the small things. Those might be the details that save your life, not that knowing what kind of materials this world used was particularly important, but it was the habit that was.
Past the tents was a large, open space covered in close-cut bluish grass that barely glowed under the noonday sun. Further out were copses of strangely-colored trees and rolling hills checkered with strangely shaped fields.
“But an injury?” Jack continued to press. “What kind of injury leaves you with one eye in the middle of your head, and also only two feet tall?”
“One that people will hesitate to ask about,” Orvalys said. “I know it sounds crazy, but most people will look at something out of the ordinary and do their best to forget about it or explain it away as soon as possible.”
Jack scrunched his face. “Unlikely.”
“No really,” the homunculus continued. “That’s just how it works. It’s the Theory of Strangeness. Most people have seen something fully inexplicable – something that should break their brains, but instead of freakin out, they just choose to forget.”
Jack shook his head. “If I saw you I’d say ‘hmmm, that guy is two feet tall and has one eye and a robot arm. I bet he’s not from Earth.’”
“That’s because you’re a Wayfarer,” Orvalys said. “Your brain has crossed the boundary between realities and therefore it’s primed to understand crossworld phenomena.”
“And you’re saying other people’s minds wouldn’t?” Jack asked.
“It’s just how it works,” Orvalys said.
“I’m pretty sure if I saw you anytime – including even before crossing through the portal – I would stop and do something about it,” Jack continued.
“Well that’s also because you crossed through,” Orvalys said.
“I said before I crossed–”
“I know,” the homunculus interrupted. “That’s what I’m saying. Being a Wayfarer doesn’t start with the Wayfaring. Your brain was always prepped for such a thing, because the moment you crossed the portal it meant you always had which affected you forward and backward in time.”
“I…” Jack stopped walking. “What?”
Orvalys stopped as well. “Tell me what someone would think of me if I showed up in Nymia. What would a person from there say?”
Jack shrugged. “Magic.”
“Exactly!” Orvalys pointed with one metal finger. “They’d have some sort of explanation.”
“That’s different though.”
“It’s really not.”
“It really is.”
“Soldiers,” a commanding voice said. “I assume you’re my recruits from outside Yarva!” Jack and Orv both looked up suddenly to see a tall, burly woman holding the biggest gun-like weapon either of them had ever seen. “I’m Commander Genys, your overseer.”