Klordimus Axel Rex was an average fellow, with no discernible eccentricities of the personality. His sense-tentacles sprouted elegantly from above his eyes, his posture was appropriately slumped and his pheromones were neither too salty nor too sour. His hooves trotted rhythmically over the floor, with the scales on his six legs flickering with polychromatic splendor in the sunlight shining through the glass roof. What Klord didn’t know though, being an ordinary fellow, was that today was no ordinary day.

As he made his way through the Hall of Science, hooves clacking and clonking over the obsidian flagstones, Klord’s head was filled with ordinary thoughts. What species of bird am I to cook tonight? and Has Blordima Voxel Rax fixed my oko-toko flute yet? and Maybe I should Invite Bxard to have his hooves polished with me.

Such was the mundane chatter that filled his three brains when Klord reached the Gate of Science, which led to the Sanctum of Science. As was his daily habit, he joined the line of scientists who shuffled forwards one by one to gain admittance through the gate and into the sanctum, where the true work of the Hall of Science was conducted. See, for the average Morbldraxian citizen, the hall was nothing but a fancy museum full of doddering old fools who pursued useless pastimes such as resurrecting extinct species, looking at the stars, and tinkering with cogs and ratchets and pipes to create smoke-belching machines that moved way too slow. Indeed, the entire great edifice of the Hall of Science, stretching three kays into the sky, was nothing but an idle curiosity to the Average Zo of planet Morbldrax. Finally, Klord’s turn came and he made his way forward.

“Proffer your Pass of Science,” the red-saronged guard drawled as he studied Klord, his face set in an expression of glornox, which directly translated means ‘the surly, half-contemptuous, half-indifferent look on the face of a petty bureaucrat.’

Klord inserted his seven-fingered hand into the side pocket of his sarong, which was black and covered his entire back, ending at knee length. His digits closed upon a metal disk, which he took out and offered to the guard. After much ogling and a quick swipe, the card was handed back to Klord.

“Insert your senstacles for pheromone sequencing.”

Klord complied, shuffling over to a big machine with many screens and blinking lights. He inserted his sense-tentacles into two small, self-sterilizing holes, keeping them there for ten seconds while the amino-sensors matched his pheromone pattern with that on the database. When a green light flared up and the machine went ping, Klord stepped back.

“Welcome to the Sanctum of Science, Klordimus Axel Rex,” said the guard, which he said every workday and in the same unwelcoming, glornoxy manner. Klord nodded—his usual reaction—and made his way past the checkpoint and through the obsidian gate which stretched up ten times as high as he. After walking into a great hall he again joined a line, with all of his fellow black-garbed scientists having made their way to the appropriate elevator that would take them to the right research department.

And this was the fundamental nature of the Sanctum of Science—it stretched many kays deep and wide into subterra, forming a city beneath a city. Few citizens of Hrolxad, Capital of Morbldrax, knew that they were in their daily lives trotting over vast caverns equipped with no other goal in mind than conquering the universe through science. No, the Hrolxadians attended morning and evening oko-toko symphonies, applied themselves to breeding or acquiring ever-better tasting fowl and the spices to season them with, or were wrapped up in the ecstasy of having their hooves polished. And while they pursued such innocent pleasures, thousands of scientists were testing weapons, gathering intel and applying themselves to ever more arcane branches of research.

Klord’s line was shorter than the others and as he stood there, awaiting his group’s turn to shuffle forward so that a metal box could plunge them deeper into the planet for a decent day’s scientific endeavor, he spotted someone quite dear to him.

“Frakxa,” said he as stepped from the line and toward another. Frakxalko Nexel Mox, for it was she, smiled wide when she saw Klord, baring her blue-gums and the rock-hard, muscly outgrowths that served her species as teeth.

“Klord,” she said slowly, surely as she turned to face him. Klord’s heart jumped within its cavity when he saw her smile, when he saw how elegantly her torso slumped away from her back, how her legscales shimmered in the light. When they finally met, they embraced—their foreheads touching, their senstacles intertwined. With great pleasure Klord tasted that Frakxa’s pheromones were also finely balanced today and for the briefest of moments that most alluring smell of all came to being and swam through their brains—sweetness. Then it was over, and they stepped away from one another.

“Made any headway with the parameters?” Frakxa asked, casually continuing their last conversation where it had left off. Klord gazed into her eyes for a second, three, then nodded his head. “Not yet. The search function is still far too barebones, and while we can lock onto the same instance after the initial pull, temporal drift still occurs, and we are no closer to isolating terrestrial targets. Norda has a new system she wants to try out today though... She said it has something to do with making it select only spaces with a certain gravitational threshold.”

Frakxa shook her head, liking the idea.

“Makes sense,” she said, “because at least this way you’ll be able to remove void-captures from the equation, which will make things go swifter for you lot.”

Klord sighed, hoping that his breed-mate was right. Seeing that his group was about to shuffle on into the elevator, he let his hand run over Frakxa’s shoulder as he smiled.

“See you next meet-day, Frakxa. Let’s hope they approve us this time.”

Seeing the slight twitch of sorrow pulling at Frakxa’s lips, and faced with her silence, Klord turned away and went through the doors. When he turned around to have one last look at her, Frakxa put on a brave face and waved at him. Klord waved back, seeing that she remained as much bothered as he by the matter. If the government didn’t soon approve their breed-day, thought Klord, things between the two of them might become rocky indeed. In this matter their hands were tied though, for such was the rule of law on Morbldrax—you mate when you are told to mate, a fate that... Klord shuddered, and so did the steel cage he was in as it plunged into the depths.

He well remembered his younger years, and while he had stepped the same path as all his fellow specie members, he had found little delight in it. To be taken from your parents at birth, to be raised by the government’s machines, by their driven yet dull socializing agents, and to meet those who have created you only once every sun cycle—Klord had found the entire, twenty-year long process of isolation and indoctrination to be harrowing, especially as he had loved his parents, a rare phenom for one of his species. If only he had been able to farm fowl with his father, and if he could have listened every night and morning to the peaceful yet complex tunes of his mother’s oko-toko... Klord shook himself out of his reverie. He had work to do and such personal qualms should never be allowed to overshadow this prime directive. Besides, the government did what it did for the good of the species, not the individual—and it has done so for countless millennia. Morbldrax has stood mighty for many aoens, so what right did Klord have to question the system? As a scientist it was clear to him that this path made his people strong, and the existence of sorrow within it was merely a required, sharp-edged cog that made the entire machine function fluidly. When the elevator doors slid open, Klord extinguished this line of thought and started heading through the labyrinthine tunnels of the sanctum, toward his department.

He passed many doors, some small, some wide enough to dwarf the passerby. All the doors where marked, from ‘Department of Xenopsychology’ to ‘Hall of Music’, the latter of which always sent shivers down Klord’s spine whenever he passed it by and heard the anguished screams and atonal chaos of musical equipment being employed toward the goal of murder. Finally, he sighted a plaque which simply read ‘Transportation.’

Klord pushed open the two unassuming wooden doors, entering a small room with a door at the opposite side. To the left was an alcove with seven lockers, one of which Klord opened. He stowed his lunch, his Pass of Science, as well as his wallet, which contained his parents’ and Fraxka’s vid-papers. As usual, he first looked at the laughing visages of those he loved as they moved about on the flat surfaces before putting his wallet away. Then he took a deep breath and pushed through the final door.

The room which Klord entered could only be described as cavernous, so large in fact that management had decided to cut costs and keep the walls and roof bare stone. Only the floor was tiled, and Klord’s hooves clacked on the white marble as he made his way to the center. And there, by far the most prominent feature of the great room, was a box which seemed to be made of glass, a perfect cube twenty by twenty meters on each side. Around it were gathered the five scientists Klord called colleagues, all busy at their stations; Nordaxmil Hoxel Arx, head of the Department of Dimensions, and three strangers who were garbed in black sarongs with twin golden horizontal stripes running along the sides—Council of Science bigheads.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

“Klordimus, you are late,” said Norda, not bothering to turn as she sighted his reflection in the cube. “No matter, you are on time,” she determined, only now turning in Klord’s direction.

“My apologies, Chief Nordaxmil,” came his reply, with him making sure to remain formal in the presence of the council members. They seemed little bothered by him and his slight tardiness, though.

“No matter Klord, no matter. As you see, we are honored by a visit from the council today, and I assume you well know why.”

“The new gravitational parameters?”

“Indeed! Our little project has been running for three years now, with varying results,” Norda stated, more for the sake of the council members than Klord’s. She now turned to address them. “As your excellencies well know, we have summoned portions of suns onto our planet, we have plumbed the depths of alien oceans, we have captured asteroid chunks that can be mined for ...”

As his boss continued her presentation, Klord shuffled his way over to his workstation, coming to a comfortable stand as he stretched his arms out and activated the screens with a swipe.

“Listen to that,” Hradixos Kexan Arx muttered from the next station over, throwing a glance Klord’s way. “She talks of stars and rocks and muck as if such tasteless things are the true goal of our work, skipping the most important practical application.”

“Which is?” Klord asked as he began running a system check, deciding to humor Hrad.

“Elementary, my dear Klordimus—what is the most noble pursuit we Morbldraxians can apply our interdimensional transporter to? Why, finding the most succulent, exotic fowl in existence, of course.”

Klord chuckled when he heard this, throwing a quick glance to make sure his betters were still busy with exposition. “I sure can go for some Red-Crested Booghen right now, Hrad. Might not be the otherworldly flesh that you hunger for, but sure is tastier than the Klongfowl breast I got packed in my mealbox.”

“Hey now, don’t sell Klongfowl short. My neighbor, the one I always tell you about?”

“Porx?”

“Yeah, she. Well, she’s been breeding Klong for thirty cycles now and I tell you—she’s unlocked their secret. You see, with them the flavor isn’t in the breast, nor the thighs, but in the legs.”

Klord shook his head, seeing that his station was in faultless operation and that the containment field, which was his responsibility, functioned as it always did—fully. He turned to Hrad, intrigued despite himself.

“Everyone knows they have tasty legs, so what’s your point?”

“Patience, my dear Klord. See, Porxika has devised the perfect solution—if the legs are the fowl’s most endearing attribute, why not give them more of it?”

“She added legs?”

“No, no, she bred to enlarge. Ten times the size, Klord—ten times... Imagine that sweet, succulent limb—well spiced, of course—popping its flavor into your mouth.”

“You’ve had some, then?”

“Hah, pity me, no. Porx might be a good neighbor, but when it comes to her Klongs she’s a straight-backed proprietress. She fears that someone will copy the genetics by keeping a piece tucked away in their cheeksacs—something you know that I, noble Hrad, would never do.”

Klord gave a short guffaw, nodding, for he knew well how cunningly perfidious his colleague truly was. “Problem is,” Hrad continued, “once you get a generation with a tenfold increase in leg size, mating becomes difficult. This much Porx at least shared with me—first she mounted them by hand, then developed a special harness. Last week I saw a team deliver an insemination unit, so she might have got tired of doing things man-”

“Hradixos, Klordimus, do we bore you?” Norda suddenly interjected, having sidled up behind the scientists. Before either one could mount a defense, she continued.

“No matter, no matter.” She retreated a few steps and began addressing all present, arms outstretched.

“My esteemed colleagues, as you well know, the council graces us with their presence on this day. As they already know who we are, and as we have no right to infringe upon our excellencies’ privacy, introductions are complete.” Norda walked over to the central console, which had far more screens than any other. “All systems are operational, therefore we commence. Our sensors have been keyed in to a limited set of permitted gravitational fields, and this I believe will make finding desired planets, at least, far easier. Current search parameters are based off of our own home, as well agglomerated data on other solid planetary bodies that we have thus far observed. As was the original conception of the Transporter, we will aim for a piece of upper crust.”

Klord shook his head, seeing the sense in this new approach. The Transporter was by all means new tech, developed by a true Morbldraxian genius a mere three decades ago. The creating of the box itself had taken over twenty years, with it being constructed from gralxide, named after its inventor. Being the toughest material known to science, gralxide could withstand the heat of novas. It had required the power of an entire city to construct such a large cube of the stuff, and the only other place Klord knew of where gralxide was employed was around the Council of Science chambers. If the entire Morbldrax were to be disintegrated, the council chambers would remain, floating sealed through the void.

Since the invention of the Transporter, it had been quite the monumental task to figure out just what could and could not be done with it, and a greater majority of all catches had been empty space. Seeing as the goal of the construct was to rob other advanced species across all dimensions of their most potent weapons, scooping up a big piece of nothing served no purpose at all.

“Sign off,” Norda commanded by habit, despite her station showing her that all systems were in order. The scientists started doing so in turn.

“Plasma furnace gyrating and operational.”

“Containment field up.”

“Dimensional phaser tuned and ready.”

“Coordinate field prepared for capture.”

“Analysis array functioning.”

“Subsystems are running as intended.”

“Very well. Your excellencies, today’s capture is directed toward Dimension 21x9026, which we have in our previous explorations proven to be at least as amicable to organic life as ours. Though we have yet to gather any proof of such existence within it, I am certain that our new parameters will offer results within the year. Our current target, based on the preliminary scans I have conducted throughout the week, seems to orbit a red dwarf and is the only large solid body within the system. We commence.”

Norda started swiping her fingers across the screens and soon enough a low whirring hum could be heard reverberating through rock as the cube began drawing on the furnace’s power. The capture, as always, wasn’t slow but instantaneous—where the gralxide cube had been empty, it was suddenly filled with black basalt from top to bottom, with small veins of magma snaking their way through the rock.

“Analysis,” was all that came from Norda. Jurdimok Drax Vex, a wizened old fellow, stepped forward with pixslate in hand.

“Igneous rock with molten components. Based off of planetary norms, it seems to be a portion of the upper mantle. Geomorphic analysis-”

“That’s enough, thank you Jurdimok. As your excellencies can see, it has been our fortune to accurately capture a portion of what appears to be a solid planetary body. Gerdix, adjust vertical axis by three hundred kays upward. We try again.”

Detanglement always took minutes more than capture, but worked in basically the same manner—whereas the chunk of basalt had been transported from one dimension to another, it would now be returned by the dimensional phaser to the exact spot on the coordinate field from whence it had come. While the furnace whirred, Klord double-checked that the containment field was still up. It existed outside of the gralxide cube and therefore was always as stable as stable can be, but with magma coursing through the rock and councilors in the room, Klord was taking no chances.

Soon enough, the rock chunk disappeared and there remained no evidence that matter had ever been transported into the cube.

“Second capture. Commence.” This time, the cube remained empty, or at least seemed so. “Jurdimok?”

“Atmospheric. Fifty-three point six nitrogen, twenty-six point zero nine methane, nineteen point four seven oxygen, zero point eight nine carbon dioxide, zero point three three assorted gasses and solid particulate. Comparative climatological models suggest that this area is most probably between troposphere and mesosphere.”

“Promise!” exclaimed Norda. She studied the data on her screens for a while. “Very well, adjust vertical axis downward by thirty-seven kays. Let’s see what we find.”

Again the Transporter did its thing, and this time around every Morbldraxian in the room let loose a deep sigh of wonder, for Norda had guessed the lay of the land perfectly. There, in the cube, was about a meter of topsoil and from it sprouted a lush tangle of crimson and orange vegetation, colors vibrant enough to dazzle the eyes. So large were two of the slick, oily trees that their root systems went a quarter of the way up the cube, with their trunks cut off at the top.

“A marvel! Your excellencies, I present to you a life-bearing planet. Surely, fortune favors us this day.”

The councilors, and everyone else, were too dumbfounded and entranced by the sight before them to form any response. It was then that Klord saw it—through the colorful tangle of vines and leaves and branches, a flash of blue.

“See that?” he asked Hrad.

“See what?”

Klord motioned to the cube.

“Something moved. Something blue. Wait... watch...”

Hrad studied the spot, as did Klord, yet both saw nothing.

“Jurdimok, will you please do us the hon-”

“There!” shouted Klord, unable to stop himself from interrupting his boss when he saw the flash again.

“What is it, Klordimus?” Norda demanded, not bothering to hide her irritation.

“Chief Nordaxmil, something’s moving in there, something blue. It was low first, then I saw it up high and-”

“If it’s there, we’ll catch it in the scan. Jurd-”

This time, everyone saw the blue blur as it moved at an unimaginable speed, slamming into the gralxide— and cracking its surface.

“By Zogel’s hooves! What the frax is-”

Again it rocketed into the side of the cube, the crack only enlarging.

“Containment!?” Horda bellowed as she near-galloped to Klord’s station.

“Field is utterly stable, no signs of breach. I-”

This time, Klord saw the movement early enough. The... thing aimed itself at the crack, almost seeming to fly at it, slower now but with more force. Klord got a quick glimpse of its blue furry body, four jet black eyes, and then... the gralxide shattered. Worse, far worse immediately transpired when, in front of Klord’s unbelieving eyes, the field fizzled out. Broken gralxide careened into the room, ricocheting off walls, with one fragment cleanly decapitating a councilor. And close behind the shards, slower now, came on the loping, blue bipedal thing, madly tittering and howling, long arms swaying at its side as it charged straight toward the scientists.