Carowl, mate to the only Leoni captain of a Senate's Leviathan, shifted in his restraints even as the violent evasion thrusters forced the Signet out of harm's way. The dark savannah required different ways to sneak and ambush prey. But even with a giant…moon, he supposed…colored like a sunset filling both halves of the horizon, and his mate charging their prey, he felt something was wrong.

Not much hunted the Leoni, not even the other species which followed the trails left by the Creators. Only the Sobeki played in the hunter-prey games. But… Carowl shook his head. Something was wrong.

The black circles didn't act like prey. They didn't scatter to escape the charge, didn't bunch to shield the weak, just stood immobile. Thus, they weren’t prey.

The black circles didn’t juke to gain an advantage. They didn’t flare their displays to threaten, didn’t drum their bodies to taunt their prowess, didn’t charge to lock horns, just stood immobile. Thus they weren’t challengers.

The black circles didn’t herd the Signet. They didn’t circle looking for weakness, didn’t leap for the kill, just stood immobile. Thus, they weren’t hunters.

He tapped his speaking button. “Bait.”

His mate glanced at him and back to the dark savannah with its full sunset-colored moon. Her eyes widened.

She, his Raw’eesha, issued orders to the hunting party.

The violent sideward thrust threw him into the harness across his chest.

The Signet skewed sideways. The hunting party threw every spear aboard their star chariot into a single black circle, but not at its heart—at its legs.

Did black bait circles have legs?

Gritty, dirty energy sparked out of the circle’s wound.

Sand. Jump sand poured forth, drawn along the streaks of lightning.

Sneaky bait seeking to blind the hunter.

“Abort. Admiral, have all refuelers abort—” his mate yelled her commands, “—it’s a trap.”

The black circle broke apart like a thrown dirt clod—shattering and scattering the full rainbow of jump sands. But the sands started fires upon the face of the moon. Clouds burned. Waves of flames rushed. Wildfires rippled. Death swept across the surface clouds.

Carowl understood momentum. Once the leap started, the hunter was vulnerable to a well-timed antler thrust. Despite all the forces Raw’eesha used to alter the void chariot’s path, their feet had already left the ground. Momentum was determining the severity of the wounds inflicted upon the hunter.

Jump sands struck the Signet’s plasma lenses, ripping apart the magnetic fields, annihilating the gasses, burning out the sensors.

Thick plates covered the viewport, plunging the command area into darkness.

The Senate’s Leviathan Signet screamed.

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The armor buckled and disintegrated. Plate after plate exploded into millions of shrapnel pieces, trying to dig their way into the hunters within.

From the view of the flickering ghosts, another black circle burst. And another. And then the fourth. Each added to the clouds of jump sands the Signet needed to transverse. Couldn’t transverse. Must transverse. Momentum demanded its deadly due.

Carowl knew every animal fled the all-consuming fire. But the black circles didn’t; they remained stationary. Their shells broke apart, exposing the deception within. Thus, the black dots weren’t animals.

Carowl tried to rest upon his throne next to his mate, but the questions bugged him.

If these circles weren’t prey, weren’t challengers, weren’t hunters, weren’t animals, what were they? Were these…things…bait for them? All the hunting parties trailed after the Creators. Was this sacrificial flame meant for the Uplifted? Or were the black dots bait for something else? If so, what?

He watched the jump sands consume the once colorful moon clouds. Very little could survive the tiny grains determined to return to the woven threads of reality. Evaporation of jump sands required the fraying of the space-time threads. But gravity stretched those same space-time fibers, thus the sands needed to destroy gravity before being able to return.

He had heard stories but witnessing the destruction...

“Not for us,” he decided.

“What?” his mate asked.

“Bait. Not for us.”

She again studied the dark savannah. “Then for who and why?”

He shook his head and wished his mane was free. “Death. Corruption. Collapse. Civilization. Time. Weapon.” He named the three Shadows and three Goddesses of the Creators and then shrugged. “Take your pick.”

She wanted more from him, but his mind-fire faltered and slipped away.

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The high priest aboard the Senate’s Leviathan Signet sat at the round table in the temple's heart. Like his fellow high priests, he wore his vacuum-proof battle robes which didn’t cover the suckers on his limbs, which allowed him to cling to the temple floor—no matter the maneuvers the Leoni captain pushed the ship through. Of course, the temple complex was one of the few places aboard the Leviathan which constantly remained pressurized—a necessity for the temple to function as a communications post—closely matching the conditions within the other temples.

Lesser priests used their suckers to crawl across the floor; their eight outer movement tentacles, usually hidden beneath their robes or uniforms, whipped forward, dragged their body, pushed them forward, and released the floor behind them. The less junior showed practiced ease with the motion, while the most junior looked to be floundering and flaying. Each arriving priest placed data packets on the table before their high priest.

The high priest looked at the destination and slid the thin circular boxes to their destination priests, usually the Senators’ ship, but not always.

Lesser priests in the other temples picked up the packets and ran out of the temple to be logged the packets into that ships’ computers.

Suddenly, the Signet’s high priest looked up at the bowl of eternal flame held by the three goddess statues. His senses were correct.

A minute, nearly undetectable deviation between his ship’s flame and the rest of the Heliograph Network. The licking tongues along the edge of the bowl lagged.

He pushed himself onto his leg tentacles and rose to his full height.

Proper forms must be observed.

Creating a waist, he bowed to the other high priests. “May the Lighthouses shield you—”

The temple shook. Distortions and vibrations fell out of the necessary harmony.

The remaining high priests immediately opened their speaking mouths and sang. Determined to keep the connection between all eight Senate’s Leviathans open.

But the high priest aboard the Signet ordered the table to sink into the floor.

The slight sinking of that single table exceeded the temple’s tolerance for differences between the temple chambers.

The image of the Signet’s high priest blurred and multiplied and faded.

Jump sands touched the exterior of the Signet’s temple. The materials so carefully mined, purified, forged, polished were annihilated into gamma radiation.

Even inside their radiation-resistant battle robes, the other high priests knew they were dead Aquari singing.

The eldest of the high priests bowed his head. “Connect to Senate Prime... before it’s too late.”