Gaylen watched the white strands of the Other dance before his eyes, leading on into infinity in their usual hypnotic dance. He watched the instruments and made the minute adjustments needed to keep the ship on course. Herdis stayed in her seat next to him, ready in case of trouble.

When he reflected on his feelings it was a great relief to him that he still could appreciate the beauty of the strands. He’d made the commitment to himself after the... incident... but commitments didn’t always hold up in the face of reality.

But he’d managed it. Everyone knew about the potential for Korokis Reactions and in all his years of flying he’d only had the one, due to unique circumstances. One of the few good things in this galaxy would not be ruined for him.

The instruments counted down to the coordinates he’d set, and Gaylen put his hand on the stopper as he slowed the ship down. At the right moment he pulled on the stopper with a click, and smoothly brought them back into realspace.

“Jaquan, how is the engine doing?” he asked into the intercom.

“It’s doing fine, as promised,” the engineer replied. “But we might as well take a bit of a break. This was a long one.”

“No reason not to,” Gaylen agreed, then set the comm to the entire ship. “We will be letting the engine cool for an hour or two, then take a sleep period after the next leap.”

He satisfied himself that the scanners were picking up absolutely nothing, then adjusted their trajectory a bit and left the ship to drift. He stepped out into the living room. The table had been unfolded from the floor and Ayna and Vek were engaged in a discussion on either side of it. Plates had been arranged and Bers was preparing a light meal.

“Ah, hello,” the dark-skinned traveller said as Gaylen and Herdis came in. “Can you tell me where we are right now?”

“Nowhere,” Gaylen said, and stretched a bit after all that time in the pilot’s chair. “Just a handy stop point. Just emptiness to the west and little to the east. I’m taking a shortcut around civilisation.”

“So we’re really on the edge?” Vek said, seeming interested in the idea.

“One of the edges anyway. Bers, how long?”

“Two minutes.”

“Right. Is everything okay down in the cargo hold?” Gaylen asked.

“Sure,” Vek replied. “I knew I wasn’t paying for luxury.”

“Yes, it’s fine,” Dulel said as he walked up the stairs. “Just fine.”

He took a seat at the table.

“Oh, food was included, right?” he then asked.

“Yes,” Gaylen told him.

“Is our third passenger on the way?” Herdis asked the two travellers.

“I’m not sure,” Dulel replied. “She’s... doing some kind of exercise.”

“So...” Herdis idly tapped a finger on the table. “I like meeting new people. Where are you two from?”

“I’m from Daonij,” Dulel said. “Do you know about it?”

“I do,” Gaylen said. “It’s a notable planet in the Freestates. Old and settled.”

“Yes,” the man said. “And educated.”

“I’ve lived here and there,” Vek said. “But always within the Federation.”

“Oh, really?” Herdis said. “You’re quite a distance from home.”

“So is he.”

Vek pointed at Gaylen.

“Unless I’m mistaken. Your accent’s taken a hit, but I’d still say you’re a Fed boy.”

“Yeah.”

Gaylen felt a bad mood coming on. He tried fighting it; reminding himself of the ignorance and lack of malice here.

“So what are you doing out here?” the man pushed.

“Flying,” Gaylen told him, and wasn’t sure if he’d managed to keep his tone proper. “’Yourself?”

“Oh, I’m-”

One of the two hatches in the floor opened and Kiris poked her golden head up. The rest of her followed after a moment of looking everyone over, followed by Jaquan.

“How long, Bers?” she asked as she took her customary seat.

“One minute!”

“You’re a Chanei,” Vek said.

“So I am,” the golden woman said neutrally.

Reactions to Kiris by those who knew of her people generally fell somewhere on a spectrum of entitled lust, condemnation, or awkward politeness from folks who just didn’t know how to handle the subject. Instead, Iso Vek looked curious.

“I watched an interview with one of your people,” he said. “A young man, born free in that community that’s been set up in the Fed. I found it very interesting.”

The man really was keeping his tone perfectly civil, but Gaylen knew he was only digging a hole.

“Mm,” was the woman’s response, her face cold and emotionless.

“It was a part of a special series about refugees and other minority groups within the Federation. About hope and fresh starts.”

He waited for a reply for a moment, but seemed to know not to let it stretch on into awkwardness.

“Are you from there?” he asked gently.

“You suspect I am not,” Kiris told him bluntly. “I suppose it is the accent, correct? No, I was born and raised in slavery within the Kingdom.”

“I am sorry to hear that.”

If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

“You ask questions professionally, don’t you?” she asked.

“I do, I’m a journalist,” he said, unphased by her sharpness.

“And does that explain why you’re... oh, hello,” Herdis said as Saketa came up the stairs.

“Hello,” the other woman replied.

She and Bers looked at one another and Gaylen got the impression they hadn’t met during the flight. There was a moment of hesitation, of some kind of recognition, before they exchanged a greeting in a language Gaylen didn’t recognise. He thought he caught a weird little smile on her lips as she sat down.

“Is that why you’re all the way out here?” Herdis continued to Vek.

“Yes,” the man told her. “This whole business with the Ulaka Authority isn’t big news yet, but word has been trickling in as they step things up. I understand there are already refugees, and I hear some of them have been gathering on Uktena Station.”

“So you’re going to interview them?” Jaquan asked.

“Yes.”

The man’s face took on a severe look.

“People need personal accounts to be moved. Numbers and territory names don’t do it. And this whole reprise of Volkan Vol’s conquests... it smacks of the Hegemony, doesn’t it?”

“It does,” Gaylen said. “We had a little encounter with the Authority a while back. They’re weirdly well-equipped for partial remnants of a force scraped together on the Fringe.”

Vek nodded.

“I don’t know when the big war will come, but the Heg has been a toxic galactic influence for years. Triggering something like this... it’s perfectly within character.”

Bers walked over and plopped down a container filled with steaming little nutrition sticks. He’d managed to give them an appetising crust and an interesting brown colour, with flecks of black spice.

“I don’t know how you do that, shaggy man,” Ayna said as she hurriedly took the first portion.

“Practise!”

The table was silent while everyone gathered their portion on a plate. Gaylen stuck a spork in his first stick and started nibbling on it. The crust really was quite good.

“But enough about depressing subjects for now,” Vek said. “What about the rest of you? Why are you out here?”

“Eh, most of us are just earning a living,” Ayna said. “Although Herdis here is on the run from her army of spouses.”

“I am on a traditional sojourn,” the older woman replied with angry amusement.

“Army?” Dulel said.

“I have three husbands and two wives, as is customary on the planets of the Sanaka culture.”

“Yes, I’ve heard about that,” the man replied.

“What about you?” she asked him. “Why are you travelling out here with all this luggage and no plan?”

“Oh, I’m a historian, with the University of Lavellos, in the Freestates. I’m also qualified for archaeological sites. That’s what my gear is for.”

“You’re going to a dig out on the Fringe?” Gaylen asked.

“I’m going to start one. On Wembella. I know there are ruins there that haven’t gotten any attention from modern scholars.”

“You’re... going to do a one-man dig?” Ayna asked.

“A basic one. I’m going to go back with data and see if I can’t convince the council to sink resources into a proper project. There is...”

He glanced at Saketa and Bers, then focused his attention on Kiris.

“I don’t suppose you can enlighten me on the Kingdom’s distant past? It is very difficult to get a research permission from its government.”

“They don’t train Chanei for cerebral pursuits,” the woman told him. “I can tell you that the nobility genuinely fancy themselves the guardians of grace and civilisation in a barbaric galaxy. It is drilled into them from birth.”

“Well, the essence of their culture and government is very old,” Dulel said. “The accepted story has long been that they were the first to restart a multi-system society after the Big Flash.”

“Closer to the core, anyway,” Kiris commented.

“Yes, exactly! The focus has been too narrow for ages! Too core-focused. We have virtually ignored the Fringe, and the cultures that developed independently of the First Civilisation. From what I understand Wembella is home to ruins and artefacts that predate its current ethnic group; maybe even predate the Flash itself.”

“Dangerous.”

Everyone turned to look at Saketa. She was every bit as unemotive as before but he felt he detected tension in her. It was the stillness. It felt deliberate. Focused.

“It is dangerous far out,” she clarified. “Wild. Old. And brutal.”

“Yes... well...” Dulel shrugged. “I’m doing this. I’ve come this far.”

“What about you?” Kiris asked the Fringer woman. “Where are you headed?”

The Chanei watched her as she waited for a response. There was nothing noteworthy about Kiris’s demeanour, but Gaylen knew perfectly well she was watching all those minute signals people gave off without even realising it.

The Fringer, for her part, seemed to stare over Kiris’s shoulder, silent for a few moments with a bit of food halfway to her mouth, as if trapped by the question.

“Nowhere,” she then said flatly. “I am going nowhere.”

She went on eating, turning her eyes to the plate. Clearly that was meant to be the end of her participation, but Gaylen could tell the journalist was about to speak. He supposed it came with the man’s calling in life.

“I don’t suppose...” Vek swallowed, “... that you have a view on the growing hostilities? Have you been in the Nearer Fringe long?”

Gaylen felt he caught her jaw clenching for a second, then a faint slumping on her shoulders, before that mask came up again.

“There is always fighting,” she said. “It never ends. Man always fights.”

“Well, there ARE peaks and troughs,” Dulel said. “Historically, stability can come about with strong central leadership. It usually festers and fades away over time, but until then things are relatively quiet. One can argue that in the long run this is a good thing-”

Saketa went wire-tight and a single, small twitch went through her body, as if powerful momentum had been stopped almost the instant it began. Her grip on the metal spork shifted slightly; more in tune with how one held a weapon.

The table was dead silent for a moment. Then she slowly sat back, in a pantomime of calm.

“No,” she said levelly. “Evil is evil. I... saw some of the previous war.”

“Yes... well...” Dulel began. “I am simply saying that, objectively-”

“That is a dangerous word,” she said, and shifted her spork into a more normal grip. It had bent in her hand, and she seemed to notice this at the same moment Gaylen did.

“Apologies,” she added, then started eating again.

“They’re cheap,” Gaylen said, deciding against getting annoyed. “And I saw some of that mess myself.”

“Sooo... ruins?” Ayna said lightly, in a blatant attempt at lightening the mood. “Can you tell us anything about them?”

“I don’t know too much yet,” Dulel said. “But the basic structure is similar to other known ones, who have survived in much worse condition. They seem to be temples of some sort, or maybe centres of wisdom to a society where that means conversing with higher powers. Far from the core, there is quite a history of long-lived belief in such things. In magic, and the various umbrellas people put the concept under.”

“Those... Wardens, out on the real fringes,” Herdis said. “Don’t they... do very strange things?”

“Gaylen?” Kiris said. “Aren’t you friends with one?”

He shrugged.

“Pietr? Friends is pushing it. But I know a Kalero Warden, yes.”

“I think I remember you attributing their feats to old First Civilisation tech,” she went on.

Gaylen’s gaze travelled slowly to the right, until it found the spot where Bers had stood over... the thing... as it died, if that was even the right word. The thing that had come out of the colour.

Out of the corner of his eye he saw Bers watching him.

“I really have no idea,” Gaylen settled for.

“Hm. What about you two?” Vek said to Saketa and Bers.

The woman sort of shrugged. Bers... looked a bit unlike himself. For a couple of breaths he didn’t look like a bug-eyed wildman. He looked like someone who’d seen much, and the words from his lips were softer than his usual bark, his gaze looking off at nothing. Unfortunately, they were in his native language.

“What?” Dulel asked.

“He says...” Saketa said, “... our senses are designed for very simple survival. Do not rely on them too much.”

“Well...” Herdis said. “I am inclined to believe according to evidence.”

“Is your business,” Bers said casually.