FALAHA'S JOURNEY: A Spacegirl's Account in Three Movements

Episode #68

If my calculation was correct, now Somg wouldn't take away the access level of a Yajur Sangu he had granted me, for he needed me, and I made that need even more obvious. If he decided to do that later, after everything was over, it didn't matter.

There was another reason he didn't choose any of the adults present, and it had to do with having his system damaged once before. I was safe for him and he wasn't far from truth on this one. He also knew what it meant to be running out of time. Curious or not, he wasn't here to play with me.

Something still was bothering me, though. Wendala must have been an Ari. That meant he hadn't had his first form change yet, which could explain Tagai's worry: the kid was useless in combat in this tiny body. His only weapons were his soma, which so far wore him out like it did me, and his saliva—that was the first time a substance affected a person with soma, and so quickly at that. Well, it made sense with a Maok.

But I saw it: on Wen's neck, just below his left ear, there was a black marking, a twelve-vertex star, intricate and complex in design, the same as every other Maok had. What kind of creature is born with a serial mark? Could I find the answer to this in the memory of Somg himself? Would he tell me if I asked?

"This is the place," Eyuran said, when Bradoh exited dive in one of the hallway collectors near the closest gates to the prison level to investigate.

"No one's here?" Baro asked in surprise, inspecting the seemingly empty path to the massive gate in the floor.

"No, they are," I said. "Look closer and through a different filter. Our bubble is being observed with attempts to scan this space." Of course, I wouldn't let them. But without the level of Yajur Sangu keeping them off our backs it would have been problematic. So Wen knew about these too. And since these things noticed the disturbance caused by our presence, had Dorgu reinforced the guard since my father's escape or were they always like this?

"Oh, so the Baali actually have some battle tech, eh?" Eyuran licked the corner of his drying lips.

Along the walls of the hallway, tall armed figures lined up. Silent and still for now, they watched the path with their multiple eye sensors on their elongated skulls. Clearly mechanical in nature, there was something unsettling about them. A mix of organic and inorganic, their form resembled the pale Hunters that had attacked us on Quennah, with long limbs and slender, sturdy bodies. Yet these, encased in black armor—no, rather being skeletal armor itself—were standing on two legs and were much, much taller. Bradoh appeared tiny compared to them. Their left arms formed massive cannons from the elbow joint down.

"Two hundred... Either they are not very effective, or they are very effective and the place is strategic enough to keep them here," Baro noted. "Somehow, I don't look forward to tempting these things. And what do they have there? Dive-cannons?" His head turned to me. "Hey, isn't this—?!" his lips whispered.

I nodded. They looked like Bradoh-types. The question was, had we stolen the tech from them, or they from us?

"We don't have to tempt them," I replied. At least for now. "Eyu, dive to cross the gate. This is your next point." I showed him the location that was far from the gates on the opposite side.

"Understood."

Once we exited dive, leaving those monstrosities behind, I heard a breath of relief from Baro's side. But the place we ended up in made him take a deep one again and hold it for a moment. I bit my lip. My palms turned cold and sweaty. I felt sickness building up, making my head spin, and my body fluffy-soft and weak.

Ugh, again!

This place was much wider than anything we had seen so far. The complete opposite of the surface we were standing on, it was pure thick darkness that went far and wide into equally unobservable floor and walls. This whole megastructure, grim and intimidating, circled along the outer surface of the bioplant torus.