Aleph watched Quarti belt out and sing and dance in the free floating drift of their journey for hours.

She ‘heard’ the song around her as conveyed by Pylo and the other terran washing over her minute after minute, hour after hour.

The music rose in waves, there were choruses together and a deep timbre to it all. They crashed over her and swept her up.

Every performance was new, fresh, unique and the duets, quartets, counter songs and reprisals echoed and mingled and changed with every single one.

She found herself moving whenever she stopped paying attention more than once. She caught herself and Squidgie and Omega swaying and wiggling in the floating freedom of the bubble.

And every stanza, every moment, every exchange was a story, words and vocal cries telling tales and challenges, dueling with Pylo in a debate or somehow testing her with riddles. But more than that were the voices and sounds around them, flowing with and joining behind every piece.

Haunting sailing tones would pierce through for her. Suddenly silencing the rest, or just making the contrast so sharp she lost focus of everything else, going on to serenade in a metallic wail that would soften and blur back into the background only to emerge again like it was emerging from behind a veil.

Deep bass that rumbled like thunder through her chest.

Shrieking discordant screams that hissed into and out of harmony with one another.

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Aleph could occasionally turn and spot where an instrument was coming from, sometimes she was certain she could spot them and knew that the moving things so far away she could not even see the players that were the source of the noise.

Other Times she was at a loss to tell whether the sounds were coming from one source or somehow emerging from ones in opposite directions meeting inside her.

There were voices singing in aorian and almost familiar. So perfect it she mostly forgot they were translated by Pylo, but others that were guttural, sharp animal cries in the very same voices that were none the less part of the songs and chants all the same.

Sometimes there were lulls or moments where she was not even sure that the sounds she was hearing was music at all, sometimes she was sure it was interference or indistinct murmuring and then suddenly it would crystalize and she would realize the rhythm had been there, building, waiting to reveal itself.

Occasionally everything would twist around, change tempo, snap into an entirely different rhythm. In concert, in unison, like a wave of motion through all of the teeming froth of indistinct crowd all around them.

Percussive cracks and sharp twangs followed with the flash and spark of light spiraling in unison around them. Were those actual canons?

It was a spectacle constantly new and unfolding.

Too many stories to follow every word, every lyric. It was like being in the middle of a murmuring crowd in a valley, but every murmur sang alongside and in wythm with each other. It was piercing, it was beautiful. It was like a musical expression of what her teachers and lecturers tried to sensationalize the great choral network of Terra as.

It made her feel almost like maybe she could understand the endless poetic nonsense that passed for sensible communication about the afterlife between Quarti and Omega.

But it also just kept going on.

She had actually fallen asleep after Quarti finally had to admit defeat and give up.

It is just for all the endless beauty of every intricate melody an endless concert was just too much for her to keep attention on.

When she woke up it was the music. She felt refreshed but also a bit deeply uncomfortable.

The droning, rising emotion was just as beautiful and haunting and new. It was a chant of lives, of living, of celebration. She could put attention on those voices in the background, pick out their individual stories if she wanted.

But there were some rather desperate needs that were becoming very prominent. And having those issues come up once in the bubble way back in Redweed was enough for a lifetime.

Which is why Squidgie was a wonder and a blessing and she was really even more guilty for giving her ward such a silly name.

But Squidgie did not mind and was wonderful in spite of it.

“I figured you would want a partition tent and proper facilities Ma’am.”

It had taken her several more hours to be able to actually admit she had to use the thing. Especially with the intense gaze of so many upon them.

But eventually she was fit to burst!

She was not going to think about it. The partition had not felt very thick against the weight of so much attention. Lead lining and faraday-cage-layer notwithstanding.

The entire population of Terra in curious aliens had been staring at her little tent in her little bubble while she used the facilities.

Quarti and Omega seemed a lot less shy about it.

At least the smell was somehow taken care of and Squidgie seemed completely nonchalant about stepping through the membrane of the bubble after folding up the little tent and then waving to one of the ‘lesser masters’ that was trailing behind them and making gestures and various motions that were not translated or provided to her by Pylo or the little box embedded in the bubble.

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She watched anyway, because she could only gawk at the slowly enveloping ‘sheets’ wrapping around them for so long.

And honestly after the twenty-fifth epic battle of ballads she was getting a bit numb to Pylo’s perfectly precise take downs.

Omega was filling two notebooks at once with a vaguely distant look in her eyes still though, so at least someone was entertained.

A big shimmering clear off white orb was produced from the little bag, and the ‘lesser master’ hefted it from hand to hand with some kind of expression. it might be discerning, or she might just be projecting human mannerisms to the way the eyes closed slightly and seemed intent to focus on the sealed orb.

It could be disgust considering the undeniable nature of what he was handling.

However after a slow blink of all four eyes staring directly at Squidgie and some bob of the remodeled clerk’s own head Squidgie came back into the bubble with a wide grin on her screen and the folded up ‘facilities’.

Aleph leaned a little over to spot the lesser master stowing the orb in a sleeve, which gave her enough pause that before she could ask Squidgie about what all of that was about the clerk was already gushing in a stream of delighted words!

“Oh splendid news ma’am! It turns out that you have several much sought after enzymes released by and molecular transformations performed in your digestive and circulatory filtration processes!”

Quarti nearly choked on her own tongue smothering her laughter.

”I will need to confer with Elsie and the gastronomicist’s profiles but it is likely that we can pay for quite a number of local goods in exchange for you eating some specified prepared materials.”

Aleph blinked a bit and opened her mouth to speak but was interrupted by her exuberant ward.

“Oh and don't worry, I checked already, and they are both commonly practiced as and projected-to-be delicious delicacies. We just need to make sure there are not any long term health impacts my own data processing would miss.”

She paused long enough for it to get awkward, but also just in case Squidgie had anymore to say.

Then she cleared her throat and spoke up over the choking gasps of Quarti.

“They want to pay us”

Squidgie nodded.

“To eat food they prepare that you say will be delicious?”

Squidgie nodded.

“So they can keep the... result?”

Squidgie nodded again then made a face of wonder and realization.

“Oh of course! Terra is still a monoculture! I apologize that this must be very confusing for you! It is extremely common across the reef for many cycles of high grade processing to be performed in this manner. There is naturally usually mostly closed loops as very few organisms can survive without their precise biome’s chemical balances and trace elements or lack of less common ones to their niche for that matter.”

Squidhie nodded and their screen showed an image of arrows moving from one person to another.

“But of course, Naturally in monocultures waste is waste for all involved and best to be removed and dealt with, but in poly-cultures as is common throughout the reef even the byproducts toxic to entire ecosystems can often be cycled, filtered or accumulated in another and these can nest between well... everyone”

Aleph blinked a bit and considered that.

Quarti finally catching her breath gasped a bit.

“Wait-wait-waita so you be saying is like we shit bricks o gold?”

Squidgie smiled happily.

“Oh certainly not, no one would expect anyone but star corpse scavengers to have such heavy metals as a waste byproduct. It is closer to say you expel several useful pharmacological compounds for further refining”

Aleph furrowed her brow.

“So drugs?”

Squidgie turned back to the lesser master that she had been ‘haggling’ with and something apparently passed between them before turning back.

“I believe in this case they say that there was a very good compound for dye fixatives and a potent precursor to a um... It is inaccurate to call it such but I believe the equivalent is a Draconic painkiller and neurotoxin. You will have to ask Ship Mistress Pylo when she is less busy to clarify.”

Aleph looked over at Quarti, then out to the vast billowing folds of a tent filled with as many people as lived on all of Terra when they left.

She wondered how many lived there now. Did they already begin a new batch of colony deals?

Were there more charity cases like them?

Was Terra already starting to turn a profit for traders now with some random thing?

Were they one day going to be much like these people here?

All of them singing for sparse reoccuring visitors.

Her thoughts were broken by a sudden and great haunting deep tone joining the songs as the envelope drew ever closer together. Like the petals of a vast flower.

The ‘sound’ was too big for her.

It was something that felt like it should make her bones tremble.

It blasted all thought and musing for a moment from her mind.

Then in the quiet Aleph could not help herself and just murmured in baffled confusion.

“We poop dragon painkillers?”

Of course Quarti could not stop laughing for almost thirty minutes after she finally said it. And Aleph was pretty sure she only did that because she couldn't properly breath and laugh at the same time.