CHAPTER 18 - A SECOND MEETING

Kayden’s internal musings on these subjects were interrupted by a thought that crashed into his mind like a wrecking ball, demolishing the fragile building of serenity.

"Hold on! Saera! I forgot Saera! She’s literally in this city a few blocks over, I wanna find out what is it with her and not sending her any follow-up mail."

He pulled out his datapad and sent her a quick message.

> BreadLover07: Hey so we’re at kamo. New Taichung. Decided to not send follow up mail that would barley be faster than the ship but looks like you forgot? What’s up? You ok? Pls respond asap

No response followed, and her online indicator was grayed-out.

"You know what, maybe she’s busy now, let’s wait a few hours," he said, checking his old messages. "There’s apparently an anniversary this night, nice of her to calculate the transit times huh. Glad I told everyone I know months in advance."

Two hours of relaxing and unwinding passed. At some point, a somewhat sobered-up Lai joined in alongside Tiik. It was now early evening. Still, no response.

All five then walked up to Saera’s home, which was in a tall apartment building shaped like a narrow, tall trapezoid of neo-concrete, with octagonal windows, each of which had a small balcony with many plants, either Terran or native. Vines sometimes hung down into the air below or creeped along the walls.

After going up the elevator to the fifteenth floor, Kayden nervously rung the doorbell.

…

Words cannot describe how relieved he was to see her standing in the doorway as the metal door swung open.

Saera was a genemod, but in contrast to the one they met earlier today, she was a near-human. In fact, from a distance she could have been easily mistaken for a baseliner. But she was up close, and her unusual features were apparent. She had pale, almost fully white skin, very long pink hair, and a somewhat narrow face with delicate, elegant features. Saera’s eyes were like that of a cat, except somehow more reflective, appearing as bottomless green orbs, while her ears were ever-so-slightly pointed, and her physique seemed slimmer than humanly possible, though she stood a whole head taller than Kayden. Also noticeable was the slight digitigrade quality of her legs, somewhat less than that of a dog, making it look like she was constantly tip-toeing. Saera wore a breezy-looking, fairly low-cut, but otherwise plain blue dress and short skirt that seemed to shimmer ever-so-slightly, and a silver necklace. She was beautiful, but it was an almost alien kind of beauty.

"Oh, hello hello Kayden! I see you brought your friends with you. You’re all welcome to come in!" She smiled.

"Well, yeah, well I started with just Nheka and Lai," he waved in the two’s general direction, "and the others I kind of– oh anyways, what happened with the mail?"

"What mail?" Saera said.

Kayden sighed almost imperceptibly. "You promised more messages when we were just leaving NA. I put off writing more until you did– ah whatever."

"Oops! I’m sorry! I was distracted and completely forgot. Well, you arrived just in time didn’t you?"

"Id’s nice to meet youuuu! I like meeting new people alwaaaays," Lai said, his voice a little slurred.

"Um. Yeah. You know, it just hits different seeing you in person even after our conversations. I’m glad I could get to see you standing here," Kayden said.

They hugged for a few moments. Kayden then hastily introduced the others to Saera (having already told her about his two original companions), and entered the apartment’s kitchen, where she had apparently prepared food for them. It was fairly modest, and actually a bit smaller than Kayden’s, with colorful mottled blue-green wallpaper and octagonal wooden floor tiles. All the furniture was, however, weird to put it mildly. Nothing had legs, making the chairs sleek pods and the table a hollow cube of shiny metal.

"Interesting taste," Kayden muttered as he sat down– or rather simply lowered himself– onto the chair.

"Thanks, I looked for something that I liked the most for so long!"

"It’s certainly uniq– WAIT NHEKA DON’T!" He bolted up from the chair to see the chohjozra munching on what looked like a huge native pillbug-like invertebrate, perhaps the size of a human fist, that was sitting in the corner. "SPIT IT OUT! IT’LL POISON YOU!"

Nheka was startled by the sudden noise and movement… and swallowed.

"Oh for the love of… Sorry Saera lemme just talk to her," he crouched down, facing his lizardlike friend. "Now why did you do that?"

"I ssimply felt compelled to… the glint of itss carapace and wriggling of its ssegmented feet caused Jkhtyiirzcha to take over my soul, I could not do anything but eat it…"

"Well I don’t look forward to the hospital trip because that’s where we’re going today. Control your instincts, or whatever Jekh-whatisit is, next time."

Ray stood up from their own chair and intoned "Kayden, please unworry. Chohjozra digestive system very strong and rugged, adapted to eating raw and or otherwise poisonous food. While alien proteins unlikely full-digestible, toxicity able to be handled. Worst case: stomach ache."

"Yea Kayten, don’t ya know her species, they eat weird things all the time."

Saera sighed. "I knew you were traveling with a chohjozra friend so I prepared actual food for her. Same for you, Lai."

She pulled two trays out of the fridge that, respectively, had a hexagonal plate with what looked to be several slabs of strange purple meat, each with many long yellow worms burrowing into it that began to wriggle as the dish warmed up. The other dish seemed to be a bowl of the relmai equivalent of a salad, composed of many fruits, vegetables, and meats in neon colors, some iridescent and some changing coloration like a mood ring.

Kayden averted his eyes as best as he could from the first dish and covered his mouth. "Anything for me?"

"Of course!"

Saera took out a plate of boiled potatoes and synth-pork, then set it to heat up.

Everyone thanked her for the food.

"Ya know," Lai said as he chewed the salad, "We had this exact dish at home. Really makes me nostalgic. I dunno if Kayten told ya, but it’s my bhavorite, mwiubuuotai."

"He did!" she said, "Sorry I only got one portion so you’ll have to share it with Tiik."

Lai shook his head and winked. "Ya say that as ibh that’s a bad thing! One complaint tho. I’m not used to humie kitchenware," he said as he fumbled with the fork that was given to him. His white-furred partner, meanwhile, nodded and ate silently.

"Sorry, my mistake, should have got some disposable wooden ones."

Nheka, meanwhile, ate with her clawed hands, first plucking out the worms and biting them in half with a horrible squelching sound, causing them to squeak, then bit into the slabs of meat, which tore in a way resembling a very rare steak, swallowing whole large bites with a gulping sound. Kayden cringed, while Saera watched with interest.

"What is this… thing called?" he said.

"Nmmrrkuz. It iss a delicacy…"

"Well I can tell, I see it’s cooked! Maybe. I think," Kayden chuckled.

Nheka just hissed and kept eating.

"So how’s life, Saera?" Kayden said.

"Well," she said, "The usual. I’m still working on my novel. Sort of! In the past three days I have only written the word ‘when’. Every time I sit down to write I have no idea how to continue. And, well, my book’s setting is really, really weird so every PS-AI I try doesn’t give me anything that fits its vibe."

"Ah. I get that feeling with game dev sometimes. Just no idea what to do next… remind me of your book’s setting?"

"It’s about living computer programs living inside still-working servers in a ruined world, called ‘echoes’. They fight each other and stuff. It’s a bit complicated and I’d have to sit down and explain it for a long time."

"Interesting, but eh maybe later. Speaking of sitting down, I uh. I wanted to ask if I could stay over at your home but it’s a little small so I doubt all five of us will fit."

"Unfortunately, yes. I made accommodations for you and Nheka but yeah don’t worry about it," Saera sighed.

Kayden kept eating for a minute or two.

"You know, I just realized, we’re more than halfway there. To Earth I mean. It went by so fast," he broke the silence. "Didn’t feel that long at all. Ugh. The artifact crate shit made it all a blur I feel."

Saera’s green eyes widened. "The… crate shit? Like the ones that were stolen? That made Federation news! What do you mean it made it a blur?"

Kayden tapped his fingers on the table with a hollow echoing sound, then explained everything, with occasional interjections and corrections from Lai, Nheka, and Ray. Saera sat there with her head resting on her palm.

"You’re all heroes! I have no words. Do your parents know?"

"No. They will in due time I feel. No need to write them a letter even I feel, they will write me one themselves I feel." He was on edge and didn’t notice how he was repeating those two words, like a broken computer in an antique movie, made long before anyone had a computer.

"Maybe you should. They’ll worry for you. Your mom is so sweet from what you told me of her."

"She is. Shame dad is horrible. I bet he has some hidden sympathies for the True-Humans. Though I know he isn't a member or anything."

Saera raised an eyebrow. "Who?"

"True-Human Organization. An anti-alien and anti-genemod ‘political party’ that’s actually more like a terrorist group. They had to flee the Federation into a planet the Hegemony prepared for them, but they regularly send terrorists and infiltrators our way. Active in the southwestern frontier these days, makes sense that you don’t know them. Responsible for murders, bombings, sabotage… their leadership is wanted by the whole Alliance and a good number of neutrals."

"Ah…" she frowned.

"Basically the same kind of people as the ones who attempted the First Contact Coup in 2122 and then got killed," Kayden said.

"I mostly failed history in school. It’s all so dull to me!" Saera said.

"Well I have some vague interest in it since childhood so I got a B-alpha in it. I mostly focused on culture however."

They kept talking like this for a long while, as the conversation segued into more and more mundane subjects relating to Kayden and Saera’s lives. Nheka got up and left for someplace more secluded for her daily prayers. Lai and Tiik similarly vanished shortly after, thanking Saera for the food, while Ray went to recharge. The two humans– well, close enough to humans in the latter’s case– were now alone.

Kayden sat up and placed all the dirty dishes and utensils into the nano-dishwasher. "It’s been nice visiting you. But we have to go now. We’ll meet again this evening, probs, so don’t miss us."

"Stay safe, Kayden."

The rest of the day was generally unremarkable.

***

Already in the early evening, there was quite a commotion in the city center, with various displays being assembled on a large empty square with a few fountains and large statues of the planet’s first explorers. In the middle of the square was a large lander that resembled an unusually blocky, oversized airplane with massive engines, some of them downward-facing. It was clearly the one that first brought colonists to this place. The square itself was cordoned off with faintly glowing tape that gradually pulsed between yellow and red, so the group decided to wait for a while.

After an excursion to the outskirts of the city, to marvel at the majorly-eusocial flora and fauna of Kamo, the planet’s two smallish moons became visible in the pitch-black, light-polluted urban sky.

Access was now unblocked, and there was a huge crowd in the square, lit up by arrays of lights surrounding the area. It was 24:50, and the days on the planet lasted 25 hours.

"Ugh we should have gotten here earlier," Kayden said as he and his friends followed Nheka, who gently pushed through the crowd like an icebreaker, "Feels like half the city is here."

Kayden had reason to say that– the overall scene was packed with bodies skinny, fluffy, and scaly. There was nowhere to sit down– besides some bleachers right next to the stages and displays that were already booked when Kayden and co even made planetfall. He felt a little odd being in this place, thanks to his homeworld being fairly sparsely-populated due to the dome-based settlements. It was just sparse enough to move around and breathe– somewhat. The group managed to get to somewhere a bit less… packed, and waited for a few minutes.

The start of the celebration hit him like a hammer. Immediately, the anthem of Kāmohoaliʻi blared. It felt a lot more bombastic than New Arizona’s anthem, which was very tinny and forgettable, however it was at the same time slow like a waltz. As this happened, a cascade of swiveling searchlights lit up row-by-row and pointed into the sky, their beams so strong that every small cloud they pointed at started glowing, creating a rather weird ambience.

As the anthem reached its height, huge glowing letters, clearly assembled by swarms of thousands of drones, assembled themselves, each one coming into place while spinning wildly.

100 YEARS OF KA¯MOHOALI’I

Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.

"Uhhhh," Kayden said and pointed to the last word, "the overline thingy…"

The letters hung there for a bit before the offending diacritic dissolved outright, and the letters moved to fill in the blank space. Soon after this little mishap, and after the anthem faded away, were various concerts performed by the planet’s most famous bands, illuminated by variously-colored searchlights that swept across the entire area…

Right as he finally got into the rhythm of a really good hard-aethercore song, Kayden felt a tap on his shoulder. He twitched and turned around to see Saera standing behind him.

"We never had something this flashy at home!" Kayden shouted. The beat here resonated through the air, but unlike at the relmai bar this was just soft enough for Nheka to begrudgingly tolerate it. There was a reason she didn’t come within a hundred meters of the latter hellscape.

"That makes sense! Your whole planet might as well be an outpost." Saera chuckled.

Kayden rolled his eyes. "Oh come on, it’s a hugely important research node! Thanks to the research on previously-found archaeotech, Terran battery storage capacity was increased by… um… I forgot. A few percent? And there’s an important Navy base around Vantablack and another near the boundary! If the Kjee invade we will be the first line of defense," he rattled off.

Saera giggled. "Yes I know, you told me a million times. Still, tiny population."

Meanwhile, the music continued to blast. Kayden tapped his foot to the beat, every thump of it seemingly sending a wave through everything and everyone. Even Nheka seemed to be enjoying the quite dreamy and, true to the genre’s name, ethereal instrumentation, even though her civilization’s native music sounded like something between the howling wind and a humming power transformer. She mostly stood there and gently, almost imperceptibly, swayed from side to side. Ray was similarly static, however the two relmai were dancing together wildly, spinning around in an energetic trance.

Perhaps for everyone else here, this celebration was for their homeland’s founding. But for Kayden, this was a celebration for his vigilante quest being over. He let himself get lost in the rhythm, finally discarding all his anxieties. All was well. Lai’s head also cleared up enough to fully realize the gravity of what happened earlier, and he hugged the human.

"I made a mistake, Kayten! I’m sooooooorrryyyy for mocking ya so much!"

"It wasn’t that bad. I mean where would we be without you."

"Meeee? Naaaaah I’m just the messenger. Thank Amani."

Kayden glanced around. Surrounded by countless concertgoers. "Can we talk about this later, you know?"

Lai laughed. "Yea yea sureeeee."

Kayden started feeling very sleepy and tired– and so did Nheka– after about an hour and a half, and he said he wanted to go back to the room.

Lai rolled his eyes. "I’m not tireeeed at aaaalll!"

"Of course you aren’t. You two can stay," Kayden said.

"Booooring! Ya don’t wanna see the ending! I do! Ray agrees!"

"Well you and Tiik are from a culture where this is child’s play, and Ray barely needs any sleep, so."

***

Kayden sipped some tea, looking out at the pitch-black and completely moonless sky from the window, which took up the entire side of the motel room. Said sky was half-blocked by the variously-shaped buildings that still had lit windows, in many colors, from yellow to blue to pink. Kayden was reminded of patterns in cellular automata– the same patterns with which he was boredly fiddling on his datapad.

"Maybe this cockroach-copperhead-and-Lancelot-based metamorphic unlimited novelty pattern will have something truly odd happen to it if I run it for a few more nonillion generations," he thought.

Nheka was looking over his shoulder curiously. "What iss that?" she said after a few minutes, as Kayden zoomed into one of the dots bouncing between two lines, revealing a few moving patterns traveling in the same direction.

"Well, so uh basically, there’s a grid of cells and when a cell’s neighbors are certain states, the cell changes color according to a set of rules," he rubbed his eyes and yawned.

Nheka tilted her head. "Ssoundss familiar… Iss it like rge ‘triangle game’, but with ssquaress and jusst one color? I tried to implement it once…"

"Well I dunno what that is but probably," Kayden said and typed something into a searcher. "Yep it’s exactly like that. Not a big leap of logic to have this kind of thing for any civilization, I guess. Evenmoreso than physical objects. Math is the same everywhere. Bet if there was anything sapient on a gas giant they’d also have the same kind of math. I think the fluids inside the Blue Web of Craterworld also have math of a sort."

"What iss that?" she repeated her question.

"Right. So there’s this low-atmo but habitable-ish planet in a system somewhere in iywkaa space with lots of asteroids, and the whole damn thing is under a non-stop barrage of asteroids. That’s Craterworld. The iywkaa use the system as a shipyard because of the huge amount of metals but the planet is unremarkable and nobody wants to live there– I don’t think it has an accepted name even. Not much in the way of native life either. Except! There’s a kind of continent-spanning network of biological tubes… maybe the width of this cup," he pointed to the teacup, "and guess what? The different fluids that get pumped around it are, by some measures, sapient."

Nheka tilted her head even more. "How can that be?"

"Well, essentially a research team determined that the planning of the tunnels its feelers dig, the way loose strands use tactics in their ensnaring of wildlife, the fact that it seems to outright cultivate lichens and shrubs in neat rows, and the fact that subnetworks can solve puzzles that were arranged for them, and the fact that unlike, for example ants, these behaviors seem learned… yep, sapient. Probably."

"But can we talk to it…?"

"No. Mental frame is too different."

"Then how can it be ssapient…?"

"Well a mute person is sapient aren’t they? Or, better way to spin it, for communication there needs to be a shared frame of reference. It needn’t be big, there’s certainly less of an overlap required than some people thought in the 20th century… but there needs to be some kind of overlap. I and you at least have individuality– okay you have a split kind of individuality– and our species have eyes and ears and live in cities and build things. That’s enough. The Blue Web doesn’t have those. Makes sense?"

Nheka paused. "Makess ssensse."

***

8 Feb 2230

Kayden slept well, having exhausted himself physically and mentally the day before. They arrived at an unremarkable depot on the outskirts and took the cheapest tour bus out of town, towards nature. The vehicle was clearly of an older model and was optimized for passenger density, not speed or comfort. It was likely a few decades old at the very least, and its once-sleek form was dented and rusted in many places. A row of alternately-inverted triangular windows, some of them cracked, went across its sides. The wheels and underside were caked in dirt, and one of the fenders was outright missing. An annoying humming noise emanated from the electric motor. Along the way, they met up with Saera, who they told about their plan yesterday. She was quite groggy and not very talkative, merely greeting everyone.

"Maybe this trip was all a dream and I’m on NA again," Kayden grumbled as he entered the decrepit bus. The inside smelled stale.

Lai snorted. "Maybe ya shouldn’t have sorted by cost, cheapskate!"

"Yeah yeah but we already spent a lot of money I didn’t exactly plan for, I don’t feel like being stranded here or on Heph," Kayden said.

Tiik looked at him. "You could have asked me and I’d have paid."

Kayden shook his head. "Felt bad. Why would I use you as my personal bank? I asked for enough handouts."

"Well you do you…"

They sat down on the half-ragged, floral-patterned seats, of which there were three on each side of the bus, with Nheka sitting next to the window and Kayden and Saera further out, while Lai, Tiik, and Ray sat across the aisle. Soon, the bus began moving– rather slowly. Artificial buildings and gardens slowly gave way to a thicket of mushroom-like trees with green caps. The stalks were of varying shape and coloration: thin and spiral, thick and ribbed; white with specks, striped like a tiger’s tail. On and around the trees was a dazzling variety of fauna: some kind of snake-like creatures nesting in holes of the stalks and blending into the fungal flesh, swarms of three-limbed and clawed critters of different castes scurrying along some kind of twig-walkways between caps, and what looked like living vines swinging around by attaching themselves to the gills under said caps. Kayden took photos with greater frequency than he did during earlier parts of the trip, trying his best to get a good, non-shaky image of each species, something not made easy by the bus’ beaten-up suspension.

The road gently started curving uphill, and the humming of the engine grew stronger. Nheka was clearly in discomfort now, and poked her head out of an open window so that the wind would drown out the buzzing. The forest grew thicker, and so did the stalks of the trees. In this region there were some immense and varied flowers growing sideways on them. One commonality of said growths was their long yellow stalks, with full-looking bulbs at the end that seemed to vibrate ever-so-slightly.

The bus passed by very close to one of those flowers. Red, with folded petals like a colossal rose. Nheka turned to look closer, reaching even further, wanting to smell it. She leaned out so far that her beak almost touched the tip of one of the bulbs…

BANG! The sound resembled a gunshot.

Kayden jumped out of his seat in fear– and so did many other passengers. He turned to look at Nheka to see her retracted back into the cabin, curled up and trying to clean her face, which was absolutely caked in light blue pollen– or spores? Said pollen also formed a light dusting on the seats.

"Whew! Are you okay?" he said.

Nheka hissed something incoherent while Saera giggled. Kayden took out a wet towel, held down her head, and wiped it clean. "Now I am… Thank you Kayden… Thosse flowers are evil…"

"Well that’s how they spread. You just had shitty luck, or maybe you disturbed it," he once again asked his datapad. "Yep those stalks go boom with the slightest touch. Maybe don’t stick your beak into things you aren’t familiar with."

"It ssmelled more fragrantly than the besst incensse…"

"Alright then, I’ll trust you on that because I can’t smell anything from a moving bus."

The road increased in incline and made a sharp curve as he finished talking, leaning the vehicle sideways. The thick forest started sparsening and sparsening, becoming a shrubland of short, branching mushrooms liberally spiced with basalt and obsidian boulders. After another twist, the road stretched along the edge of a sheer cliff. The city of New Taichung was visible in the green distance. Something curious caught Kayden’s attention along the way: what looked to be an empty pedestal, about half the length of the bus, with some shards sticking out of it, and what looked like colorful epithets carved into its black stone. He looked quizzically at Saera. "What is that?"

"Oh, there was one of the first explorers, Agus Suryono, who later became the governor of Kamo when it was still a full-on colony. An obsidian bust of him was placed here. He sided with the UN government during the civil war, and essentially became a cruel dictator after a revolt here. After home rule was achieved and he was made to resign, Kamo’s new government wanted to remove the bust, but before the red tape was done, a bunch of teenagers rolled up, smashed it off the pedestal with sledgehammers, and tossed it off the cliff. That was that. The bust has been overgrown by plants by now."

"Huh. Did anything happen to them?" Kayden said.

Saera shook her head. "No, as far as I know there wasn’t even an investigation. It was what, a bit less than fifty years ago? They kept the pedestal as a reminder."

"Right. Fifty years ago my planet wasn’t even settled. This place is old."

The road kept curving as a new cliff face appeared, causing the road to be flanked by a wall on one side and an abyss on the other. This wall lasted for about twenty minutes before one last curve was made– inwards. The thick forest returned here, now on a steeper incline. The bus really struggled going up, but not for long until the road made another turn into rugged, rocky terrain. This continued for somewhat less than an hour, which was spent looking out of the window and making small talk. Then, there was a sudden increase in inclination, to the point that there was a very visible slope. The road zig-zagged constantly, causing dizziness in everyone. There was an odd mixture of gradually-sparsening mush-trees, rather short ones at that, and shrubs here: a kind of volcanic semi-forest. Yes, volcanic. Somewhere up the slope was visible a jagged crater.

Here, really deep and wide ditches, actually resembling ravines but clearly artificial, were visible, perpendicular to the road. Kayden looked down, and they seemed almost bottomless.

Saera noticed that he was confused. "Well you see, Kayden, Mount New Taichung erupts a few times a day. It’s never a huge flow, Pompeii-style, and more like a few spurts, so usually it cools down far above the ditches, and tourists can come and see it, but if there’s a fluke decently-sized eruption, the lavabreaks should catch the brunt of it."

"Ah. Doesn’t it like, hurt the environment?" Kayden said.

"Well that’s why they’re dug here and not in the forest itself."

"Right."

The crater came closer and closer, though it was still in the distance. Gone was the vegetation, and now only the bare ground, composed of the stacked, matte black remnants of lava flows surrounded the asphalt road. The air here was notably warmer than down below.

The road made another turn, and abruptly ended at a parking lot next to a small gray concrete rest stop. Kayden was hungry, so he bought a shrimp sandwich and a cup of tea. The shrimp was, of course, a shell-less slab of tender synthmeat resembling a square brisket. Kayden had never seen actual seafood in his life– and the idea of it felt kind of gross to him. Meticulously picking off chitin and other unsavory things to get at a small morsel of meat? Even in a society where nobody has to work, who even has the time for that? But this way, there is more shrimp per shrimp.

The rest stop was very bare-bones, so the only relmai comestibles were some soft drinks– though by human standards they were very much hard drinks– and there was nothing for chohjozra. Once Nheka chomped down on one of her snacks, the group set off along an uphill trail paved with basalt cobblestone. In the distance, the rumble of the volcano could be heard.

"It’s gonna erupt soon, as it does every three hours or so," Saera said, checking her datapad’s clock.

"Wonderful," Kayden replied.

Soon, the trail came to an abrupt stop just like the road did, ending at a small, narrow patch of cobble with a row of sleek white benches, some of them occupied by tourists like them, looking into the distance either via their datapads or via the old-school way, binoculars. About five meters from the benches was a slightly-charred metal sign:

YOU WILL DIE PAINFULLY IF YOU GO FURTHER

With the message repeated below in several alien languages.

"...weird, why is it so foreboding, there’s no flow anywhere nearby."

Lai squinted. "Ya knooooow what would be funny? Kayten, would you take a photo of me standing behind that sign and leaning on it?"

"Uh…"

"C’mon, don’t be a wiiiiimp!"

The relmai stood up before Kayden could say anything else and jogged towards the sign, taking a pose with it covering his body, leaving only his head, legs, and two raised arms visible, with his left hand raising his mirrored shades slightly and the right firmly planted on the sign. People were pointing at him and mumbling something. Kayden tapped the wrong button and started recording a video instead of taking a photo, but decided to roll with it.

Suddenly, Lai looked behind himself, gulped loudly, turned around and absolutely darted back towards the bench, his fluffy tail low to the ground. "No no no nooope nope noooope! Bhak that shid!" he whined while doing so. Saera put her hand over her mouth, while Tiik simply cringed, and the strangers surrounding them tried and failed to stifle laughter.

Kayden looked up to see a very rapid flow of red-hot lava running down the uneven slope. It was as if someone tipped over a large jar of ketchup on some stairs. As Lai sat down next to his human friend, his whole body shaking, Kayden sighed.

"So now who’s the idiot?" he said as he refocused the camera on the flow, which roiled and fumed as it trudged down, engulfing boulders along the way. The lava started to dim and slow somewhat.

Lai just whimpered something garbled.

The flow rolled up to the sign and almost reached it. A gust of warm air blew into everyone’s face, the kind of gust one gets upon opening an oven. Then the flow, already a very deep maroon color, finally ground to a halt and became black with ominous red veins. Tiik reached into his pocket and pulled out some kind of thin, sharp, yet rigid rod with a coil at the end of it, as well as a small bag. He impaled a few chunks of some kind of transparent gelatin on it, then pressed a button on the coil. Soon, the chunks roasted over the lava as the rod extended several meters with a click, turning from clear to shifting, bubbling rainbow colors. After retrieving them with the same effortlessness, Tiik shared them with his partner, eating slowly and carefully.

"Not gonna lie, that actually looks delicious," Kayden said. "Honestly all relmai food does. I remember eating replicas of it at home."

Lai chuckled. "Yeaaaa, replicas not dhe same."

"But it said so on the packaging!"

"Well, dhe Kamo audhorities are boooooring and strip out all the psychoactives from the human variants on this planet."

"Ah. Well we talked about this on Alacrity. You know my trauma with that kind of thing."

There was an awkward period of silence. Everyone knew, of course. Lai didn’t push the issue this time.

***

Much of the rest of the midday and afternoon was spent wandering around the volcano park, looking at various fumaroles and strangely-shaped boulders (as well as taking a few large obsidian shards as souvenirs). By the end of their stay, a drone equipped with a camera was flown over the crater during the next eruption, and Kayden narrowly avoided getting it burned to a crisp by a stray droplet. The molten, yellow, smoking cauldron was quite the terrifying sight, though there was a hardcoded limit preventing the drone from descending too far.

After this, some more exploration of the city was performed, trawling through various shops selling things that were not sold on NA, mostly niche electronic gadgets. Nheka took a detour to the local chohjozra enclave and did not return for hours. When Kayden saw her again, she looked very happy and satisfied.

Soon, in the mid-evening, the quintet of travelers had to start packing up. Saera met them in the sunset-lit depot, by the doors of the elevator.

"I hope to meet you again eventually, Kayden!" she said, her bottomless green eyes now teary.

Kayden cried too. "You will, Saera. I will miss you. In the meantime I will write to you."

The others also said their hearty goodbyes.