Milo took a look at the navigation monitor on the carrier's cockpit displays.
"This isn't the Quildalar system" Milo said. "Where are we going?" he asked having a worried feeling coming over him.
"This is a Latildra" the pilot told him.
"There's a lab here?" Milo asked. The pilot didn't answer right away. He clearly was hoping Milo wouldn't know how to read the navigation map and screen and that he wouldn't have to have this conversation.
"You might say that" the pilot answered back. "Like I told you, I'm going to take you straight to Lina. We can all pretend like your little meeting with her never happened." Milo knew the planet was Avistra's fiefdom and was wondering what was here, but didn't see any point in prolonging the conversation with a pilot who didn't seem overly knowledgeable or interested in what it was Lina was going to be doing.
His mind turned to Nadarska. He hadn't heard from him since he learned from him that Jenny was an elf and not human. He probably wouldn't approve of him going to the lab, but he was willing to gamble that no more tests would be done on him that could out him as the human conduit.
They entered Latildra's atmosphere and finally ended up on a palace-like structure on a large rock in the middle of what seemed to be like a fjord, except wider and higher. The carrier landed on a small pad on what looked to be the back side of the castle about half way up its height. Milo got out and he walked inside the door. An elf guard met him right inside and led him down a couple of halls and knocked on a door.
"Come in" said what sounded like a female voice behind the door. The guard opened the door and walked inside. Milo recognized the face of the elfess as Lina Hest. She got up out of her seat to shake his hand before both sat down to talk.
"I've been looking forward to meeting you" she said.
"Likewise. I have read your book and think it's fascinating" Milo remarked sincerely.
"Thank you" she said. "Do you understand why it is that I have brought you here?"
"You're interested in my neurotype?" Milo guessed hoping that wasn't the answer.
"Not really" she said. "I have shown scans of your brain from when you were in medical custody at the Humanology Lab to my specialist, and he has shown me that your brain possesses a pretty special quality that no known living thing has. Do you know what that is?" Milo's nervousness turned to curiosity and excitement.
"No" he said.
"Have you heard of the hyperplane?" She asked him.
"I have but know very little about it" he admitted.
"Well" she said, "basically everything you see in the universe as we know it is but only a subset of the actual universe. It's analogous to a flat picture or screen image in three-dimensional space. Most living things only have the neurological software to construct three dimensional images from light or sound or IR or whatever medium they are using. But you…you have a very special visual cortex that can create higher-dimensional images that will help you move around in the hyperplane." She paused for a few seconds.
"It's actually a very curious and interesting thing. Have you ever noticed you can see things that others can't?" she asked.
"I did well on the agency's 3D rotation test" Milo said, "but I've never had the sense that my vision was extraordinary" Milo lied trying to limit her scientific interest of him as much as possible. Lina nodded her head.
"So you want me to go exploring in this hyperplane and report what I find?" he asked.
"Not really" she said. "We don't know a great deal about the device we have that can put you in the hyperplane, but we know it leads to a sort of control room that apparently was created by Grithmeer. A device that Grithmeer created was regrettably shut off by Queen Adella and her Sci-Tech Ministry officials and it can only be turned back on in the hyperplane."
"What kind of device?" Milo asked.
"I'm sorry, it's classified. I can only tell you that it's of great importance to the Humanology Lab and if Adella had had… a wider understanding of things she wouldn't have turned it off." Milo seemed mostly satisfied and felt eager to go forward with what it was she was going to do to him.
"All right" he said. "Now explain this thing that it is you're planning to do for me." Hest nodded her head.
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"It really isn't that complicated. I take a sample of your love interest's sweat and from that I can edit your genes so that the resulting pheromones will have full olfactory histocompatibility with hers." Milo was surprised, expecting it to be some kind of highly advanced gray technology.
"You have this technology" Milo remarked, "and you don't market it to humans?" he inquired.
"Please" she said. "We couldn't do that without getting accused by your politicians and your media of trying to manipulate human birth rates or the human gene pool or attempting to intrude on or corrupt the so-called magic and wonder of love. The political costs of that could be very high." she said.
"You sound like you've got a pretty cynical view of love" he said. "For many people it works out well."
"Of course it does" she said. "Even many elves are monogamous and live happily. But it does not do good to view it for anything other than what it is…it's a process overseen by the most primitive and animal-like portion of our brains. We need its approval for our mates or we have no partnership."
"So how well will it work?" Milo asked moving the conversation on. "Do you have any case studies?"
"Not even one" she said. "I can assure you, though, that the science of attraction at least on this front is entirely developed and sound. There's no guarantee your partner will love you. You aren't her counterpart in looks – no offense – but I'm confident you'll see a difference. We're not going to just create two-thirds or even three-quarters compatibility here, but full compatibility. My guess is that it will be quite strong and the young humaness you desire will be quite infatuated with you." She put on some lab gloves and took out of her desk what looked to be some kind of small assay.
"Give me the sweat sample" she said. Milo gave her the vial and she opened it and poured it all out onto some kind of smooth, absorbent material.
"And take this" she said giving him a flat piece of plastic. The plastic had some strange writing that Milo recognized as the ancient gray language. "Look for a switch or lever of some kind with those symbols" she said. "The guard will see you down to the gate to the hyperplane."
"Come with me, sir" said a guard behind him who grabbed his shoulder. He left with the guard and they walked down the hall, down the elevator to the ground floor, and walked out. He didn't have to wonder where the gate was and what it looked like once he was outside. It was quite a large and complex-looking device. Several elven scientists and technicians were all busy working with various parts.
"The subject is here" the guard told one of the elves. The elf walked over and shook his hand.
"You're about to make quite a historic journey no hominid has ever made" he said. "Too bad you won't be allowed to tell anyone about it" he remarked in a way that almost seemed threatening. "All right, everyone!" he said. "We're ready to try and turn it on again! Turn it to 50% power!" One of the elves pulled a lever on a control panel on a side of the device. A blueish cloud appeared in the middle portion of the machine, which was an arch that sort of resembled the gate he had walked through to Saint Vernon's Cathedral.
"Looks good!" the elf at the control panel said. "Ready to turn it up to full power!"
"Good" the head elf said. The elf at the control panel pulled the lever farther and the cloudy blue surface got thicker.
"It's stable" the elf at the control panel said after several minutes of just waiting and staring at it.
"All right" the elf said turning to look at Milo. "It's as safe as I think it can be made. Go right on through the gate. Milo walked up and through the cloudy, blue surface. When he got inside, he was as astonished as he had ever been in his entire life. At once he felt like his surroundings had immediately expanded outward in a way he couldn't even hope to put into words. He wished he could share it with someone…anyone. He figured he might no more be able to describe it than he could describe music to someone who has never heard. He looked at as much of his body as he could. It looked very strange. He figured it must have been what it looked like when expanded into higher dimensions. He then took in his surroundings as best as he could. He made his way around the surface on which he was walking, which he figured was four dimensions.
Then he spotted it in one particular direction…a panel with various buttons on it. The panel almost resembled a toy rather than some piece of advanced technology on it. The buttons were each labeled in ancient gray written language and a few were lit up and others weren't. Milo took out the piece of plastic that he had gotten from Lina. It had a different shape than it did in 3D and he had to turn it several times before he saw the writing again. The button with the writing that matched it was near the top. He slowly moved his hand over to where the button was and pushed it. It made a light beeping noise and the button lit up.
Milo looked over the rest of the buttons to ensure there wasn't another one that at least resembled the writing on the plastic slip when he noticed it. Milo recognized the writing by it from the letters he read between Grithmeer and Baycorf. It was how Grithmeer signed his name. The button wasn't lit. Milo just stood for at least a minute pondering it, one time extending his hand and almost pushing it. Finally, Milo summoned up all his courage and pressed the button down firmly, which lit up. "Well, it is now done" he thought to himself.
Milo looked back around. He had to look in many directions before he finally saw the cloudy surface of the gate he had come through. He walked over to it and exited. The feeling of being in higher dimensions was incredible, but he felt relieved to be back into surroundings whose spatial format he understood. Lina and the rest of the elves were waiting outside.
"I found the pane" he said aloud to them. "It's done". They all gave an enthusiastic ovation. Lina walked up to where he was standing. The blue, cloudy surface had already dissolved.
"I wish you could understand just how much you've done for this lab and all hominids" she said. "Let's go up and get you prepared for the procedure" she said. She walked him up to a lab with various large machines he didn't recognize. The "procedure" was really just a series of simple injections.
"All right" she said after giving him the last one. "Your help is greatly appreciated. I hope that you have good luck with your partner" she said. She seemed genuinely nice and sincere in a way that put Milo at ease. On the way back, Milo felt a lot better, not being able to think about anything but seeing Kayla again.