+++

A few metres down the surprisingly well-lit security passage, there appeared a fork in the path. Appeared or was always there. One of the two.

Still being fake-immersed in his pad, Trig didn’t see it at all, and his legs were about to take him left when a voice shouted from up ahead, ‘go right, left is the holding cells.’

Raising his head up and swerving in the same move, Trig managed to do the improbable and bump shoulder first into the central partition, a wall with a long strip of pale blue light nestled just under its surface.

Just like those weird alien glyph lights in the Security Office, he thought, pressing his palm against the wrong part of his shoulder.

But why pale blue?

Wasn’t that a relaxing colour?

‘You stuck back there, Trug?’ shouted Jemba, seemingly from the air itself.

‘Coming.’

‘We’re in the pod already, hurry up.’

Trig didn’t bother replying a second time as he was already moving, intrigued by the use of the word pod. Based on what Jemba had said earlier, they were heading up to the second floor, and from the height of the structures he’d seen on ground level, it couldn’t be any more than five metres above them. Therefore, a pod journey would appear to be redundant.

Assuming what he was imagining to be a pod matched the reality of it.

What was he imagining?

An oval-shaped elevator, mainly.

Something similar to the things he and Salvo had climbed inside to watch that batshit induction earlier.

A capsule.

But climbing inside something just to go up a floor made it seem even more redundant. They weren’t geriatrics, after all. Not physically.

Turning a corner and passing another pale blue light, he arrived at the so-called pod and saw Jemba with his hand cropped against the opening. He wasn’t tapping the side with his fingers, but he didn’t look very happy either.

‘Get lost, did you?’

‘Sorry, I was looking at my pad.’

‘Plenty of time for that later. Now, get in so we can go somewhere a little more welcoming.’

Trig did as he was told and took a position at the side of the pod. There were no seats, no railings to hold onto, and some buttons on the wall that had strange, elaborate markings above and below.

Basically, it was an elevator, and those markings were alien script. Probably numbers if he had to guess.

‘Does he have a lot of power here?’ Salvo asked, keeping her voice low.

The question puzzled Trig for a moment, but then he realised that it was the continuation of a conversation she’d been having with Jemba while he had been busy bumping his shoulder against security walls.

‘In Trivial Security?’ Jemba laughed, pushing a button that sealed the pod then leaning back against the curve of the wall.

‘He acted like it.’

‘Ah, it’s a superficial position. No real power in it.’

‘What about that earphone alien he was carrying?’ asked Trig, half his attention on the lack of pod movement.

‘Though in terms of-…yes, I was just about to modify that. No real power when it comes to humanoids, but the others…especially the Eek-Eeesh…they have to be a bit more careful. Don’t worry, Anga won’t do anything too severe to them, it’s not permitted. They’ll just stick them in a cell for a day. That’s twenty-seven hours here by the way.’

‘Anga is a they?’ asked Salvo, tagging back in.

‘In most human languages, yes. I assumed that’s how it’s being translated into yours too. Trv don’t have gender, or sex for that matter.’

‘Huh?’

‘Neither do the Asaaaaa or the Eek-Eeesh…’

‘But the-…wait, none of them?’

‘Nope.’

‘I don’t get it. Who has the babies?’

‘For Trv, all of them. Any of them. Each is biologically capable of giving birth.’ Jemba gestured down at the pod floor, possibly trying to indicate the Security Office. ‘Don’t know who would want to have one with Captain Miserable though.’

‘But…who actually has the babies then?’ asked Salvo, taking her pad out of her jacket pocket once more.

‘I just told you. All of them. Any of them.’

‘No, I mean…are there couples? Do they draw lots to see who gets pregnant?’

‘It’s all in that pad, comrade. Alien profiles.’

‘Can’t you just tell us?’

‘Well, first of all, no, because I’m not a hundred per cent sure I’m right, and, b] if I started telling you this one thing, then you’d ask another thing and another and another and we’d be here all week.’ The pod made a beeping noise and the door opened again. ‘Okay, second floor, out we get.’

‘We were moving?’ asked Trig, looking down at his feet.

‘That’s generally what pods do.’

‘I didn’t feel anything.’

‘Of course not. It’s imperceptible. Designed for maximum psychological comfort.’ Jemba poked his head out of the pod, seemed satisfied and then shepherded them out onto a new, slightly narrower concourse.

‘What do you mean, psychological?’ asked Trig, stepping out and then holding his hand back for Salvo. As always, she ignored it and walked past him, her pad going back into the jacket pocket.

‘I suspected you would ask that. Okay. This one I’ll give a little time to, mostly cos it’s matter of aesthetics. Look around. Look back at the pod. Notice anything.’

‘Not really.’

‘Nothing?’

Trig shrugged. ‘It’s a weirdly-shaped elevator.’

‘Exactly. It’s an elevator. And if you ask any of the humanoid species on this station the same question, they’d say the same thing. It’s a weirdly-shaped elevator. Only to them it’s weird in a different way.’

‘You mean…’

‘It’s a compromise. An approximation to appease all. Sorry, was that what you were going to say?’

‘Maybe,’ Trig said, either hesitant or lying.

‘Okay, so it wasn’t. Never mind, it was a hard thing to guess. The point is…everything on the ground floor and above on Dah Station 7 is a compromise. To the Krsnik, that elevator is too slow. To humans, it is a little bit slow. To Asaaaaa, it is a bit too fast. Yet all tolerate the process.’

‘Why don’t you just put a button in there to regulate the speed?’

‘Of course, voice command for this very purpose exists. However, it is rarely used.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because it would be rude. And far too much effort to move up only one floor. And annoying for the next species that uses it cos it doesn’t automatically reset after the first species has finished using it.’

Trig nodded along. ‘Also impractical if there’s more than one species in the pod, I guess.’

‘Exactly. Compromise is king, comrade. Remember that. It’ll steer you well here.’

Jemba moved his head forward, possibly to indicate a full stop, then turned to Salvo, who had wandered down to the left of the concourse and was currently standing outside either a toy shop or a restaurant on fire.

It was hard to know for sure as the pictures on the lozenge-shaped windows were full of balls of various colours. And next to the smoky entrance was a human-sized holographic image, a no-leg alien holding a few of those balls in their giant three-claw hand, its facial expression utterly inscrutable.

Trig followed Jemba closer, peering in through the white mist clogging up the entrance. Mist that was oddly transparent the closer he got to it.

‘Well?’ asked Jemba, adding no elaboration.

Foregoing another shrug, Trig poked his head an inch deeper.

The lighting wasn’t the strongest, but there were humanoids inside – green fur aliens like the security guy, no leg aliens, some others he couldn’t recognise – standing next to tubes with one half cut off, the balls from the pictures hovering like Phantasm spheres in some kind of upwards jet stream.

‘This is the Pos Pos Cantina. One of the most popular on the whole station. Down there you’ve got the Trv Restaurant, also quite popular. Then there’s the snack shops, the ritualism squares, the Kontolian Forgiveness Pole, Therapy Centre, Language Exchange Depot…other things I’ll have to check the map for cos, honestly, I haven’t been up here in a while.’

‘It’s all humanoids,’ whispered Salvo.

‘Pretty much.’

She pulled her face away from the mist barrier and looked both ways down the platform. Just like the restaurant, it was also filled with humanoids. Looking in windows, mingling, chatting, swaying awkwardly from side to side. And there were humans too, just like them, just like Katya, with no obvious sign of green fur or red skin or any other supposedly alien decoration.

‘Feel better?’ asked Jemba, placing a hand guru-like on her shoulder. ‘Surrounded by your own kind. A familiar tapestry of faces with acceptable skin tone.’

‘You make me sound xenophobic.’

‘That’s because you are.’

Salvo’s eyes doubled in size, while Trig attempted and failed a whistling noise.

‘Temporarily,’ Jemba corrected quickly.

‘What?’

‘Come on, don’t take it so hard, comrade. It’s completely normal, especially for new arrivals. You see something non-human, you feel estranged. Happened to me too, first time I came here.’

‘I’m not xenophobic…at all. It’s just…’ Salvo paused, debating with herself as to whether or not she should attempt the ‘some of my friends are Indian’ line. Fortunately, Trig was on hand to redirect things.

‘If it’s only temporary, why does it seem so segregated up here?’

‘Segregated? That’s a strong word.’

‘I mean, in terms of the weirder ty-…the more exotic-looking aliens. You can hardly see any of them up here.’

‘There’s a few.’ Jemba pointed at the Pos Pos restaurant. ‘Look, over there…an Eek-Eeesh. And inside, there’s an Asaaaaa.’

‘That’s another thing, how can everyone eat the same food? Even humanoids. Isn’t that biologically impossible?’

Jemba laughed, taking them both by the arm and leading them over to a store or centre that appeared to be closed. A no-leg alien – or a Pos Pos – was jabbing on a machine dug into its wall, but soon gave up and left as they parked themselves nearby. ‘Now we’re getting to the curious part.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘The obvious questions. How does everyone eat the same food? How do we breathe the same air? What is the level of gravity here?’

Trig and Salvo looked at each other, then at all the different types of humanoids shuffling up and down the platform around them. Their mouths stretched open just enough to give a faint impression of gormlessness.

‘Don’t feel embarrassed, it happens every time. Unless the new arrival is a scientist, then it’s different, but those types are becoming increasingly rare. See, you’re conditioned not to think about these questions. Movies, media, TV, humans and aliens chatting with each other in one language, breathing the same air, having babies together…then you come here and you see it looks kind of the same, so your brain eliminates those questions.’

‘I didn’t even think about gravity,’ muttered Salvo.

‘Or the air,’ added Trig.

‘Why would you? Every alien you see is walking or rolling about, no problem, so you assume the answer. None of them are gasping for air, so you assume the answer.’

‘So…what is the answer?’

‘To the air question?’

‘Okay.’

Jemba laughed again, repeating ‘okay’ in the same nonchalant tone as Trig. ‘Actually, that one is quite simple. Humanoids use a nano-filter implant to regulate the gases that come in and go out. Some of the non-humanoids do that too. The Eek-Eeesh, on the other hand, are quite different. They absorb cosmic rays…I think it’s the beta particles, but I’m not sure…again, you can check the pad.’

‘I don’t get it,’ said Salvo, a little more strident than intended. ‘Do they breathe the same gases as us? Oxygen?’

‘And nitrogen. Some of them, yes, but in varying quantities. Some of them breathe in hydrogen, helium, other less well-known ones, so the nano-filter will pick and choose.’

‘You mean all those gases are in the air around us?’

‘Harmlessly floating around, yes. As for the gravity question…like most things on Dah Station 7, there is compromise. Tolerance. You are aware of artificial gravity plating, right?’

Trig nodded and, after a few seconds, so did Salvo.

‘Well, that’s what we use, as well as…’

‘No spinning?’

Jemba held up a finger. ‘Let me finish.’

‘Sorry.’

‘As well as marginal spin to make docking easier. Yeah, don’t make me explain that, I don’t really understand it either.’

‘Okay.’

‘So, this station is…I believe…set at a gravity level a little higher than on Earth. One point one seven. However, your dorms, and all the humanoids dorms, in fact, are built with surplus or deficit gravity levels depending on where you’re from.’ Jemba paused, noting the two blank faces staring back at him. ‘Ah, maybe it’s better if we leave dorm gravity for later. When we have a visual aid.’

‘I’m still confused,’ said Salvo, looking down at the floor and lifting her feet up and then planting them down again.

‘And xenophobic?

‘What?’

‘I’m joking. What are you confused about?’

‘If we’re walking in higher gravity, won’t our bones become heavier?’

‘Ha, good question. As I said, it’s different in your dorms, and you have another nano-implant acting as a kind of brace for your internal functions, skeletal support, blood circulation etc. That’s all the parts I can remember anyway.’

‘What about the non-humanoids?’

‘Yes, I was just getting to them. Do you remember the station layout map from the induction film?’

‘Not much of it.’

‘Okay, doesn’t matter, that’s what the pad’s for.’ Jemba pulled his own pad back out and swiped the screen a few times until a 3-D image of the station appeared. ‘Look, this middle section is where we are now, the three main floors. Ground, First, Second. Above this, the trade and tourism ring, and above that, the science and control centres. All of these are operating on a gravity setting close to comfortable for all humanoids. Now these rings…’

‘What are these long, tentacle things?’ asked Trig, pointing at what he’d just fairly accurately described.

‘Not exactly tentacles. They’re the docking ports for outside ships. I believe they are compartmentalised, meaning they can be detached in case of ship core overload or sabotage. You don’t need to bother with them.’

‘What about the one in the middle?’

‘That one you probably won’t need to bother with either, unless you find yourself in Major Security. Or Trivial Security for that matter.’

‘What is it?’

‘Station Maintenance, Waste Extraction, Glib Manifolds etc.’

‘Glib manifold?’

‘Ah, too hard to explain. Check the pad later.’

‘What are these over here?’ asked Salvo, running her finger through isolated blocks orbiting the station.

‘It feels like we’re veering off topic a bit here. Why don’t we get back to the main point? What was it? Oh yes, non-humanoid aliens. See, down here, the rings between the ground floor and the docking ports…that’s the living area for them.’

‘They live down there?’

‘As the humanoids live mostly on the first and second floors, yes.’

‘The earphone aliens too?’

‘For the fourth time, they’re called the Eek-Eeesh and yes, them too.’

‘Do they need to sleep?’

‘Not in the humanoid sense, but they do need to recharge. Of course, they do it in a very different way, a type of sauna where the cosmic rays that-…ah, scratch that, we don’t really have time right now.’ Jemba put his fist against his temple and hit it twice, firmly. ‘Why don’t we go and find your dorms?’

‘Your head is hurting again?’ asked Salvo, observing further knuckle beats.

‘It’s nothing serious, just a reminder.’

‘The schedule…’

‘Actually, we did manage to save a bit time by skipping half the ground floor. Why don’t I quickly show you the loop line? It’s got a great view.’

‘We’re not behind schedule?’ asked Salvo, confused again.

‘No, close to it. But we’re okay…’

‘You don’t have a headache?’

‘…if we get moving. No, head’s fine, just a mild prod. Don’t worry about it. Come on, loop line’s on the other side of the ring. Ah, we can pass by the Language Exchange Centre on the way, see if Yoto’s still assigned there.’

‘Who?’

‘Feet, move them, go.’

+++

According to the description laid out in the pad, which Jemba accessed and then instructed them quite sternly to read [just like everything else they asked about], the loop line was a renovation added after the initial construction of the station. Apparently, the pioneers thought the lack of viewing ports on the second floor was depressing and proposed an upgrade. In any Earth country, the workers would’ve been told to fuck off, or look at a picture book, but on Dah Station 7, the Control Centre was empathetic to their citizen’s psychological needs, and, within a month, the loop line had been designed, constructed and ‘smashed open’ with a bottle of Nabian grape wine.

How much of it was propaganda and how much was true, Trig had no idea, and when he showed Salvo the same information, she had no idea either.

The loop line itself, though, was quite impressive, as was the almost panoramic view of the planet they were orbiting, which had an uncanny resemblance to the cartoon blueness of Neptune.

Basically functioning as three quarters of a ring attached to a larger, complete ring, the walkway had a continuous window line wrapping the entire loop, with intermittent bumps sticking outwards for the bars and cafes to set up in.

Most of them had alien-script names, as did the niche stores that ran along the inner part of the ring, or humanoid alien names, but there was one they did remember. Yum La. The one Katya had mentioned, the one that sounded like ‘drink, motherfucker,’ in Cantonese.

It was a modest place, vaguely round in shape, with only a few, very low tables dotted about inside [the chairs were also low]. The bulk of the atmosphere was provided by mixed shades of red lighting on the ceiling; dimmed in the corner, brightly pale near the bar. The bulbs themselves, if that’s what they were, looked odd too, not unlike the alien script they’d seen earlier on the pod elevator’s buttons.

No sign of Katya inside, though Jemba assured them she’d be in there at some point that night. ‘Don’t think she’s ever gone one full day without going in Yum La. Missions excluded, obviously.’

‘Do you go in there?’

‘Before. Yes.’

‘Not now?’

Jemba held up his arms as if that was supposed to mean something.

‘That means no?’ asked Trig.

‘I’m a hologram, activated temporarily.’

‘You can’t drink?’

‘No, you’ve misunderstood. I’m not usually here. As soon as I’ve packed you off on your first mission, I go back upstairs.’

‘Upstairs?’

Jemba breathed out and pointed farther down the walkway. ‘There are some viewing bubbles down there, should be relatively quiet. You can get a nice view of Napla’a and its four moons.’

Trig and Salvo took the hint, both returning to passive wonder mode.

+++

The viewing bubbles were [thankfully] empty except for one humanoid.

A dark haired, dark-skinned female sat alone on the upper part of the bubble, scratching her neck with some kind of bone-spike attached to her wrist. Tanzanian goth perhaps? Or Terzo whatever goth?

When Jemba, Trig and Salvo arrived and leaned on the window below her, she did absolutely nothing in response, just continued staring out at the Neptune-like planet that was apparently called Napla’a.

But when they started chatting, she stopped scratching and looked down, brazenly, not even attempting to hide the fact she was observing them.

‘Hello,’ said Salvo, still pissed off at the xenophobic remark Jemba had made earlier, ‘we’re new here. Humans. From Hong Kong.’

‘Earth,’ added Trig, his throat too dry to stop it sounding like a hacked cough.

As reply, possibly an alien one, the humanoid woman pulled something metal out of her jacket and tossed it up in the air. Without looking, she caught it in her left hand.

Then did it again.

And again.

‘Is that an answer?’ whispered Salvo, first to Trig then to Jemba.

‘Krsnik,’ the hologram replied. ‘Notoriously frosty.’

‘Krsnik is her species?’

‘Yes.’

‘That name sounds familiar,’ said Trig, pretending to look at a higher part of the window, but, in truth, observing the white markings on the Krsnik woman’s legs.

‘There are some on Earth.’

‘What?’

‘Covert. Other planets too. No one knows they’re there.’

‘Then why do I know their name?’

‘Mythology. They’re in a lot of legends. It’s quite interesting, of all the humanoids here, they’re probably the closest to us humans in terms of physiology. Yet they always seem to be pissed off at us.’

‘Now who’s being xenophobic,’ said Salvo, almost in triumph.

‘Ha, fair point. Pissed off was a bit of a reach. They’re not all like that. She’s not either, judging by the way she hasn’t spat bile at us yet.’

‘She can hear us?’

‘Oh yes. Their hearing is quite good.’

Both Trig and Salvo silenced themselves instantly. They tried a few guilty glances up towards the Krsnik, along with a few neck tilts towards Jemba, but she clearly didn’t care as she was back to staring at the planet again.

‘It really is quite beautiful, isn’t it?’ said Jemba, his voice returning to a moderate volume.

‘Looks like Neptune,’ replied Trig.

‘You will find that a lot of planets look like each other. If you ever get around to reading the pad.’

‘Where are we exactly?’

‘Dap Notta System.’

‘I mean, where are we in relation to Earth?’

‘Eh. Wasn’t that in the induction film?’

‘I don’t think so.’

‘Odd. I thought they personalised it to each species. Ah well, Earth is about seventeen light years that way.’ He pointed diagonally upwards to the left. ‘Not too far.’

‘Seventeen light years…’

‘Fuck.’

Jemba tilted his head left and breathed out ‘CHE’, which in Nabian culture meant seriously? When this got no response, he went back to human words. ‘You do know how big the galaxy is, don’t you?’

‘Doesn’t make sense. How did one portal take us this far?’

‘I guess not.’

‘Seventeen light years. It’s insane. It’s-…’

Salvo stood back from the wall and stared directly at the planet opposite, losing herself in the depth of its azure blue. There were no more questions or words. Only a determined attempt to remember how far Alpha Centauri was from Earth. That was the best she could do, the only reference that could make sense of the distance they were from their home.

Trig, on the other hand, had already moved on and was now scanning the stars points of  his new neighbourhood.

‘Where are the other aliens from?’

‘You mean, where are their home planets?’

‘Yes.’

‘Scattered around. Krsnik are twelve light years away…I believe. Their primary home at least. Anga’s home world, thirty-three light years. Pos Pos, around twenty. Nabia, fifteen. I forget the others. None of them are closer than five though.’

‘What about the earphone…sorry, I mean, the Eek-Eeesh?’

‘They don’t have a home planet. They’re nomadic.’

‘How?’

Jemba did his habitual I’m tired of this shit practice and clapped his hands together. ‘To avoid spending the next two hours answering that question, why don’t we get to the dorms? I assume you must be pretty tired by now.’

‘Is the alien information all in the pad?’

‘Yes. And in the embassies on the ground floor. Now let’s get moving, shall we?’

Trig rubbed his neck, rotating instead of nodding. ‘I am pretty tired.’

‘Great. Salvo?’

‘What?’

‘Are you ready to move?’

‘Can we come back here later? To the loop line…’

‘Of course. You can spend the next two weeks here if you like. Outside of training time and brain scans.’

She straightened her shoulders out and took the chance to look up at the upper bubble area. The Krsnik woman had gone. Apparently, they had ninja-like movement skills as well as sharp hearing.

‘Okay, enough stretching, it’s dorm time,’ said Jemba, turning his back on the planet Napla’a and leading them out into the relaxed ambience of the loop line. ‘And no stopping to gawp out the window. There’ll be plenty of time for that later.’