Gondo once more approached the lava moon. The accuracy of his casts had increased exponentially since the start of his experiments with the formula. Where before he was lucky not to miss the dart board, now he hit it every time. Today he hit the bullseye. He had opened the neon door into the exact spot where he started his last cast.

As he zoomed towards the flaming orb he kept his mind on his focus. Maintaining it was paramount; he could marvel at the experience afterwards on replay. If he kept his mind on his task and let the gaps fill in on their own, he should be ok.

He touched down on the surface once more and began walking up the incline of the volcano. Then he lifted off again and drifted over its rim, staring into the pit.

Communication would be limited on this trip. Anything to keep him in the moment. Lowell had gone over the plan before they started. He was to examine this moon and then try to reach another distant location. He spent another few moments zipping around the surface and investigating various features of the moon. Massive oceans of bubbling lava. Bulbous rock formations and endless darkened chasms.

He bent his focus back into outer space. The small solar system he had chosen had several interesting planets and moons. He was scanning a large celestial object with bright purple rings when he noticed something odd.

Was Matisse up to some cosmic mischief again? No, as reassuring as his presence was, he was an illusion and shouldn’t ping any of Gondo’s senses. Come to think of it, Gondo himself was an illusion that didn’t have any senses...

Gondo felt himself becoming carried away. He dove back into the cold security of his focus.

He assessed the new phenomenon. His astral form could sense it in a way that he had only experienced when projecting closer to his home world. Could it be? Was this another traveler?

He tried to use his telescopic focus to view the newcomer, but each time he closed in it would flit away. He attempted to follow as it pinballed around the stars, but could never get a clear view. All the while the newcomer was getting closer to his position, like a firefly in a distant field. Then it disappeared completely.

He scanned the areas that the newcomer had been frequenting and couldn’t find any apparent connection between them. Then, suddenly, he felt the presence behind him.

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As he slowly turned his astral form 180 degrees the newcomer came into view.

Gondo had never beheld an astral entity before. While he had definitely encountered other travelers, either in his training or his covert operations, he was unable to interact with them. He couldn’t join another caster for a fireside chat halfway across the globe. The Moonshield must be once again enhancing his senses, or this being was immensely powerful. Or both.

It appeared as a bright yellow sphere, a tiny sun, that was surrounded by a slightly darker aura which dissipated in all directions like smoke. It floated there, investigating him just as he was investigating it. Was this mankind's first interaction with an extraterrestrial entity?

Even with all the advances afforded by Casting, science had still never achieved that milestone. The universe was just too incomprehensively vast. While scientists had proved the probability, our solar system seemed to be in a boring part of the infinite reaches of space.

Now here Gondo was, floating lightyears from his home planet, about to make first contact. It was all he could do to maintain his focus.

“Uh, hey there!” he blurted out abruptly, immediately regretting his choice of words. Another blunder in the great history of human space exploration. The newcomer darted away, waited, and then cautiously approached again as if tiptoeing. If floating alien spheres could tiptoe.

Finally, it reached him again and was still. Gondo wasn’t sure of his next move. He didn’t want to be aggressive; the entity had shown him no hostility and he was not motivated to do so towards it. He started to raise his hand in a wave...

Suddenly his mind was flooded with a series of geometric images in quick succession. Complex 3-dimensional shapes flowed through his brain like water. It was surprising, but it wasn’t unsettling. It was like a huge calm wave had crashed into him and gently deposited him on the shore, leaving him with a peaceful feeling.

Gondo laughed and the entity brightened, bobbing back and forth. Then it waited expectantly.

He tried to reach out to it psychically but encountered steep resistance. Whatever this thing was, its mind was well guarded. And it had just overtaken the senses of one of humanity's best trained psychics like it was playing with a toy.

The entity sent a few more waves over Gondo and he struggled out a couple more sentences before it began to move away from him.

“Wait!” Gondo proclaimed and started to bend his focus towards it. His form paced after it. The entity began retreating more quickly, building up speed. Gondo matched.

Then it suddenly leapt away, out of his vision. He could still sense it in the ether ahead of him. He centered himself, and using the same cognitive process that allowed him to travel from his starting point to the lava moon, he followed.