WSP 054

  The Path to the Stars

  It was once again meeting time in Vaughan’s cabin. As everyone ate the delicious food set out by the tag-team of Mary and Jeh, Vaughan stood at the main blackboard, scribbling on it with chalk in one hand while he examined a handful of papers in his other.

  “Well, I think congratulations are in order… it really looks like the space station is going to be built.” Vaughan drew a circle around the poor sketch of Ikyu he had made. “The three initial modules are approaching completion. If this declaration is anything to go by, talks are going down in Descent right now about the launch dates.”

  Blue nodded. “That sounds right, considering when Envila and Captain Auburn left…”

  Vaughan furrowed his brow, but nodded and continued speaking. “The road map to launch has a few more steps to go through. First, final testing of the three initial modules. Mostly checking that everything’s airtight and can handle repeated use. The blimps of Descent have the hardest testing job, considering that their module is the hangar with its huge door and sealing mechanisms. Our job… well, it’s not really ours, but the engineers at Axiom…” Vaughan shook his head. “Kroan’s job is the next hardest, as we have Crystal Control with most of the complex arcane devices, including the air restorer, drive, and this ‘managerial magenta’ that I don’t really understand.”

  Blue opened her mouth.

  Vaughan held up a hand. “I know what it does, just like how I know what the Seeker’s crystals do. But the blueprints are beyond me.”

  Blue nodded. “It’s… complicated, yes. None of us are master Magenta wizards, so…”

  “You can figure it out!” Jeh said. “There’s nothing you can’t do if you set your mind to it!”

  Blue chuckled. “That… might be true in this case, but there’s only so much information I can hold in me. Maybe learning the finer details of Magenta mechanisms isn’t the best use of that space.”

  “Wise words,” Lila offered. “We have to carefully pick our paths in life; to devote time to something is to not devote it somewhere else.”

  “Or she’s just being lazy,” Krays suggested.

  “Truth can still be gleaned.”

  Blue rolled her eyes. “Vaughan, continue.”

  “Oh, uh, right.” Vaughan returned to the papers in his hand. “Let’s see… Station module testing… After that, we’ll need to go to Axiom for an extended stay while final refurbishments happen and the various pilots will engage in training drills… and then launch will happen from the three locations on Ikyu simultaneously. We’ll actually be coordinating the timing with Benefactor and Wanderlust.”

  “Wait, what?” Suro blinked. “...We are?”

  Vaughan smirked. “Apparently, something that was worked out in the two’s long-distance conversations. Benefactor can send beams of light in almost any direction, and Wanderlust can move objects to basically any location in Ikyu’s gravity well with ease. Wanderlust will throw some rocks into positions where, if illuminated, they can be seen from the surface. Benefactor will shoot light at these objects to make it clear when to launch.”

  Jeh frowned. “Mikarol and Descent are on the complete other side of Ikyu, how’s that gonna work?”

  “Evidentially Benefactor and Wanderlust know of advanced techniques to bend light. This report doesn’t dictate exactly how they’re going to do it, but apparently they demonstrated this for the Crown already…”

  Suro tilted his head to the side. “Strange. I wonder why we weren’t informed of that…”

  “The program’s gotten too big,” Lila observed. “Keep in mind that since the designs for the station were finalized, we haven’t done much and just let the engineers in Axiom work since we couldn’t build it here. The mission, as it is heavily political in nature, also didn’t require our input after the initial phase. If it wasn’t for our experienced pilots…” she smiled at Jeh, Margaret, and Scurfpea as she said this. “...We wouldn’t even be required for launch.”

  Big G shook his head. “I don’t like it. I can feel it slipping out of our hands.”

  “This was always going to be part of the price for working on this at a national scale.”

  “Still don’t like it.”

  “Good thing we don’t have to like it,” Seskii pointed out. “Space will still happen regardless!”

  “There is still one thing we have some control over,” Vaughan said. “The Crown is asking our opinion about how to manage the permanent presence required on the station.”

  “Which means they want us to provide someone who’ll stay up there permanently,” Krays ‘translated.’

  “Er… well, yes.”

  “I’ll do it,” Margaret said.

  “No,” Lila said. “As much as you like solitude and appreciate space, I firmly believe that no one should be put up there permanently.”

  “Someone kind of has to, though?”

  Lila shook her head. “I intend to push for cycling people through the station, if I can. Let the pilots take shifts of a week or so. The station needs to be restocked regularly; there will be plenty of opportunities to exchange people. I already hear that Mikarol intends to do something similar with their people.”

  “Descent?” Blue asked.

  Lila sighed. “Apparently, they’ve already chosen Claire to be their permanent resident.”

  “She probably volunteered for that,” Jeh offered.

  “It would make sense from how you’ve described her…”

  Blue tapped her hoof on the table. “If your push doesn’t go through, Lila, I can probably get Via to push it. Explain to her that you’re concerned about everyone’s sanity and she’ll be on board in an instant.”

  “Thank you, though don’t push her until I say we need to, okay? Poor girl’s got enough on her plate as it is.”

  Mary huffed at this, prompting an awkward silence.

  Vaughan coughed. “Anyway, regardless of the final date of the launch, it looks like several of us will be going to Axiom for an extended stay. This is going to coincide with the onset of winter, which means it’s the Academy’s application season!” He pointed his chalk at Jeh and Krays. “You two have expressed some interest in signing up, so long as you can use the Skyseeds to travel there and back. This trip would be the perfect time to sort out all the bizarre and unusual paperwork.”

  Jeh slammed her fist into her other palm. “All right, time to show them what I’m made of!”

  “You won’t last five seconds in an actual exam,” Krays commented.

  “Hey! I learned to do the navigation math! …It made my brain hurt, but I did it!”

  “And the essays…”

  “I wrote up a paper!” Jeh crossed her arms and huffed. “I’m going to do great, you watch!”

  “I will be. From the top of the class.”

  “Big words for a simple glassblower.”

  “And small words for an immortal child who shapes history by existing.”

  Jeh blinked. “Um. Is… is that an insult or…?”

  Krays smiled smugly.

  “How many of us will be going?” Mary asked.

  Vaughan scratched the back of his head. “Well, uh, let’s see…”

  Alexandrite raised a claw. “I will fly myself there regardless of if my presence is required, and at least one person could fly with me.”

  “Right. I do think we’ll just take whoever we can in the Moonshot II. Jeh and Margaret are needed for the mission, me and Blue for science, Krays to sign up… I can hold one more in the Moonshot II for a trip like that.”

  Scurfpea jumped up and down. “Me! Me! Me!”

  “Oh, all right, you can have your big ride in the Moonshot II. You’ll get to the moon eventually…”

  Seskii smirked. “I think I’ll ride with Alexandrite. Think of the bonding experience we’ll have!”

  Alexandrite’s eyes widened. “Um…”

  “Come on, you know you’ll love it!”

  “I am not so su—”

  There was a knock at the door.

  Blue blinked. “Everyone’s here, who could that be? …Is Auburn back?”

  Vaughan glanced at the pages. “Pretty sure the talks have to still be going… and it’s night over there, they might want to sleep.”

  “Huh…” Blue got up and walked to the front door, opening it. “Yes?”

  Blue thought what she saw was a rigid at first. It had six metallic legs punctured into the dirt path leading up to the cabin, all immaculately cleaned and attached to a glassy, ovoid center. Numerous colored crystals sprang forth from this section; currently, only Orange and Green were glowing, but all of them could be used at any time. Metal reinforcements ran along the edge of the central ovoid, giving it the appearance of a very loose cage.

  Inside this construction was a black anglerfish—a wrinkled, fishy creature with excessively long teeth, large eyes which currently had glassy coverings over them, and the all-important lure, which was currently glowing a soft green. A Magenta belt of sorts was attached to his midsection, tying him to the crystals on the back of his… craft?

  As Blue stared in disbelief, the Purple crystal on the angler’s container lit up. Words began to appear in the air, written in Karli.

  You must be Blue! I am Wizard Gronge of the anglers. A pleasure to meet you.

  ~~~

  Via was extremely glad the meeting was taking place indoors—biting into an air cactus every five seconds wouldn’t have been very regal and would have made the talks run far, far longer simply so people present could take a breath. Plus, this way her hair wouldn’t get messed up. She’d had it done up in the shape of a balloon whale this time, complete with the natural mustache and a not-so-natural cute little hat. Which was also made of hair.

  The room she was in was… rather dull, though. Just a table with three chairs; one for each of the three sides present. No chairs for servants, which was bothersome for both Via and the Mikarolian representative, as they had each brought an assistant secretary who doubled as a legal advisor. They were forced to stand.

  Via’s Mikarolian counterpart was a human man in full spiked armor named Kinthred. He was apparently the highest-ranking member of the armed forces not currently away on the campaign against Vraskal. A campaign that, so far as he had told Via, was going so well as to be beyond expectations. He clearly had no idea that a deal had been cut, and Via wasn’t about to tell him.

  The third seat was occupied by a human woman who, by human standards, was extremely beautiful and shapely. Her eyes had sparkling makeup all around them, her eyelashes were far larger than normal, glittering jewelry covered almost every part of her body, and her multicolored fingernails were decidedly long—filed to points as well.

  This was Star Garnet, the blimps’ chosen spokesperson.

  Via found her decidedly odd. She spoke as if she were reading from a prompter of some sort, but unlike Via and Kinthred, she had brought no papers with her and no assistant of any kind. She was extremely knowledgeable about what the blimps wanted and the specific procedures for the final scheduling of the space program. As impressive as all this was, it gave Via the impression that none of Star Garnet’s words were her own. Not a single time during the meeting had the woman slipped and let anything else through, so far as Via could tell.

  While Star Garnet was unnerving, she was also effective. She had sorted out almost all the questions and concerns into itemized lists and had led the three of them in discussion on every point, finding compromises or reasonable alternatives for everything. This had culminated in the current question: what day should the launch be scheduled?

  They had already addressed most of this in previous questions; they wanted to launch before Northern winter since both Mikarol and Kroan would be limited by its presence. The timing was to be coordinated by Benefactor and Wanderlust. They were to meet directly over Benefactor’s position, as she was easy enough to see from orbit and was known to be safe to linger over. They would then fly into a stable orbit, the height of which was set by the various wizards and engineers working on the project.

  This could be done on most days. They just had to pick one.

  “We’d like it to be later in the year, if possible,” Kinthred said. “So the Vraskalian campaign can be complete before launch.”

  “Reasonable,” Star Garnet said. “The blimps have no particular preference for timing, as they are not limited by the weather as you are. It simply cannot be on the day of the Festival of Eyes. This day is earlier rather than later, so there is no conflict there.”

  Via was handed a piece of paper from her assistant. She quickly read it over. “We would prefer not to place it at the end of the season, because winter can sneak up on us. So we recommend…” She placed the paper down and pointed at a specific date. “Here. About a month and a half from now.”

  “Acceptable,” Star Garnet said. “Does Mikarol concur?”

  Kinthred scratched his chin. “...Given all else that we’ve discussed… I, using the power invested in me by the Emperor, concur.”

  “Then… I believe we are done at last,” Star Garnet said. “Thank you both for your time.”

  Via’s assistant handed her another piece of paper. Her eyes widened. “A-actually, I have a final item to discuss!”

  “Oh?” Star Garnet frowned. “This meeting’s purpose is the final scheduling of—”

  “Let her talk,” Kinthred interrupted, waving his hand. “I suspect it’ll be short.”

  “Correct,” Via said. “The concern is a simple one. We, the Kingdom of Kroan, have traded with a few smaller entities for particular technologies. We wish to record them as assisting powers to the Space Program. It wouldn’t be fair to take their ideas and not give them credit. This is a collaboration, after all, even the lesser collaborators should be recognized.”

  Kinthred nodded slowly. “This seems reasonable. Anyone on board I would recognize?”

  Via held out her hand and her assistant put a document in it. “This is a list of nations that have provided us with substantial innovations or resources that have had relevance to the space program. Most of these are either Wild Kingdoms or island nations.”

  “Hmm…” Kinthred gestured for a document from his assistant, evidently a list of all major powers. “The only one that would be somewhat complicated here is the Tempest… however, given the recent treaty, I have no qualms adding them to our list of collaborators.”

  Star Garnet tilted her head to the side. “Should we not be concerned about our public image of collaborating with such… small powers?”

  Via shook her head. “I don’t think so. If we give them credit, they’re more likely to be of service to us in the future. Keeps them from getting mad.”

  Kinthred scratched his chin. “While Mikarol usually solves such problems with conquest, I have been instructed by the Emperor directly to seek cooperative, peaceful solutions in regards to the Space Program. None of these nations listed have wronged the Empire in any major way; I see no problem in an official recognition.”

  “Then you’re okay with adding them?”

  “Of course,” Kinthred said. “Mind if I keep this list to present back at the Empire?”

  “Not at all.”

  Star Garnet tilted her head. “I am still unsure… but it seems you two are in agreement, and it seems nearly irrelevant to me. Granted. Simply let me see this list…” She quickly read over it. “Done.” She handed it back to Kinthred.

  “...You have a remarkable memory,” Via commented.

  “I thank you; it was one of the skills the blimps trained me to have.” She folded her hands together and smiled. “Now, I think we are done here. Let us retire for the night. Your rooms should have been refurnished by this time.”

  All three of them stood up in unison and ceremoniously bowed to each other. Then they all left through three different doors.

  Via opened hers to find Envila, Auburn, and a handful of servants from the castle.

  Auburn ran up to her, speaking in Vraskalian. “Did you get it did you get it did it work please tell me it worked please please please I don’t know what we’ll do otherwise and I’m really nervous and I don’t want to have to fight them and…”

  “It worked.”

  “...then there’s all this stuff to think about and can we just surrender but then that’s just nasty to think about and I hate it and—” Auburn stopped herself. “Wait. It. It worked!?”

  Via grinned. “Yes!” She put a hand on Auburn’s shoulder. “Your people are officially listed as collaborators on the Space Program. And from what the lawyers tell me, that means you are an official ally. They can’t attack you anymore without suffering repercussions.”

  Auburn leaped forward, clearly in an attempt to hug Via. Envila held her back. “Auburn, she’s a princess.”

  “Oh shut up, there’s no outside prying eyes here.” Via pulled Auburn into the hug. “You can rest easy, now. It’s okay.”

  In Via’s arms, Auburn burst into tears and started rambling in her mother tongue. No one could understand the words.

  But Via knew they were words of gratefulness.

  ~~~

  Wizard Gronge stood in his so-called “personal traversal vehicle” at the table next to the rest of the Wizard Space Program. Everyone was staring at him with a mixture of disbelief and shock; seeing a living angler in the flesh was something no known Kroanite had ever done. And yet, here he was, “standing” at the table with the rest of them like there hadn’t been an entire layer of the ocean separating them previously.

  It’s good to finally have faces to put to all of your names, Gronge wrote into the air. Especially you, Alexandrite, my loyal little scholar.

  Alexandrite awkwardly lifted up his head. “It is an honor to finally meet you, sir.”

  The honor is mine! I am but a consultant for this most innovative of endeavors! It is in no small part thanks to your work that I am able to be with you today. Your work on air restorers and environmental seals has enabled this wondrous machine of mine to work. Not to mention Benefactor’s influence being a requirement for constructing the tunnel in the first place!

  “I thought the tunnel wasn’t done yet?” Suro asked.

  It’s not officially, but I got special permission to traverse it early. It’s still rather narrow; they will be widening it. Genius way to circumvent the leviathans, truly. I just knew I wanted to get up here the moment it was feasible. I didn’t build this personal traversal vehicle for nothing!

  “How’s it work?” Jeh asked, circling the construction.

  Blue tilted her head. “It’s just a sealed container with easy access to crystals so you can move it, right?”

  Almost! Gronge wrote. Yes, all the manual motion of the legs is just me applying Orange to them; they have no real internal mechanisms. However, as I must sleep and cannot maintain the air restorer at all times, there is an additional component. Behold! The Magenta crystal on the back of his vehicle lit up, and various magical sparks emanated from the device’s interior. A fan blade started spinning somewhere to extremely high speeds, and air bubbles began to form inside the casing Gronge occupied. This is a process I call “re-airification.” By running external air through water, it becomes breathable again.

  Blue’s eyes widened. “But… that would imply… waitwaitwait…” Blue’s face lit up. “That whatever’s in the air that we breathe is also in the water that you breathe!”

  Precisely! Now, it is certainly possible that the compounds we breathe are two different ones that just happen to exist alongside each other, but that just seems overly complicated. Whatever the giver of life in the air and water is, the most likely conclusion would be that it is the same in both cases.

  “Hmm, but plants throw a wrench into that,” Blue said, gesturing at Scurfpea. “We have been able to extend the amount of time air is breathable by using her. Some plants don’t seem to need the same air we do.”

  I suspect that has less to do with whatever the “life-giver” is, and more to do with the situations in which bodies can metabolize it. My kind can only do it through water, yours only through air. Perhaps there are other criteria such as air temperature, density, or even magic content.

  Vaughan scratched his beard. “Hmm… Alexandrite, has he already seen the more in-depth research we have on the air restorer?”

  Alexandrite nodded. “It was one of the things he wanted to know about the most.”

  “Then I suppose we don’t know any more than he does at this juncture.”

  Which is one of the reasons I’m here personally! I have come to get a picture of how capable your facilities truly are, which is hard to express through letters. I already went to your laboratory and your launchpad—the Moonshot II truly is incredible, by the way, the drawings did not do it justice.

  Lila flicked her ears to the side. “Why would you need to know the particulars of what we are capable of?”

  Because you’re in need of better experimental procedures and coverage! You’ve done a lot with so little, but as you’re progressing, you’re leaving a lot of holes behind! The situation with different kinds of beings and what they breathe is just an example. With an organized experimental campaign, we could determine precisely how much air any individual needs, what mitigating factors there are, etc. However, I only see small-scale experiments focused on a more… practical application.

  Krays stood up. “Hey, listen here fishy, we aren’t here t—”

  Seskii stuffed a hand over Krays’ mouth. “Let’s not anger our guest, hmm?” She fixed Gronge with a smile. “She was going to say—in a rather rude tone, I might add—that our primary goal at the Space Program is not raw research, but rather to get spirited into space and explore. Arguably, the Crown does this for practical purposes such as advanced messaging, intelligence gathering, and potential resource extraction, but that’s just the funding source. We do it because we want to go to space, and space is cool.”

  I meant no offense, Gronge wrote, though none present could identify any change in his expression—in fact, no change had been observed during the entire conversation, an effect that was starting to be more than a little unnerving. But the fact remains that important scientific discoveries are being left behind and may be lost in the dust. My examination of your capacities indicates that you can surely do much more; you just need a proper allocation of resources, oversight, and experimental structure. You do remarkable things here, but the organization…

  This book is hosted on another platform. Read the official version and support the author's work.

  Vaughan held up a hand. “I understand your concern. You will perhaps be glad to know that there is far more organization and procedure occurring at the Academy in Axiom. We do things differently here by choice.”

  Why on Ikyu would you do that?

  Vaughan folded his hands together. “I suppose it’s more my choice than anything… I came here to this town because it was small, out-of-the-way, needed my services, and would keep me from the endless bureaucracy of the Academy. Some of that has returned—paperwork is required for our project, after all—but due to lucky circumstances, we have been allowed to retain our relative freedom and vision. We research what we feel like or seems most helpful for our current goals, not whatever will exhaustively cover everything.” Vaughan sat back. “Don’t get me wrong, there are places for that kind of research, and Axiom is filled with them. I would even encourage you to research the questions you desire and compare notes with us. But I don’t think we will be initiating any sort of ‘experimental procedure’ plan like you seem to be suggesting.”

  Gronge was silent for a moment. I suppose we have always been warned of the inevitable culture shock. Very well, rather than outline potential thorough investigation pathways, how about we simply discuss experiment designs I’ve considered and questions I want answered?

  “Of course,” Vaughan said, smirking. “What sorts?”

  Oh, well, there’s a large list, air restorers, and what different creatures breathe is just one of them. Another is the development of techniques to locate new objects in the Solar System—Wanderlust can’t have found them all, given how small some of them are. Then there are additional experiments that could be run on Jeh, of course, but no doubt that’s one you’ve been dealing with already, just with a bit more secrecy.

  Jeh shuffled her feet awkwardly and looked at the ground. Blue narrowed her eyes, preparing to say something, but by the time she’d gotten it in her head to do that, Gronge had already moved on.

  I recommend that you gather your major lead wizards and engineers for a somewhat longer meeting where we discuss technical details.

  Vaughan nodded. “I suppose. That’d be me, Blue, and Krays. Seskii, could you come with to keep notes?”

  Seskii saluted. “Will do, boss man!”

  “Good. I suppose the rest of you can hang around and keep talking, or go about your days.” Vaughan stood up and tipped his hat at Gronge. “I believe we shall move to Blue’s workspace. It’s a frightful mess to look at, but it’ll have all the information you could possibly want.”

  Blue rolled her eyes. “I’m not going to deny any of that.”

  “Because the truth is far worse than that,” Krays suggested.

  “Krays…”

  “Oh, don’t worry, I’ll be a good little gari in this meeting. It’s not like I want Seskii’s palm all over my mouth again. Tastes as bad as my gauntlets do. Which is saying something.”

  ~~~

  These days, Ashen patrolled the forest around Willow Hollow, performing a sort of self-imposed guardian service for the town. As this activity was not simply sitting around, she expended a lot of mass every day, far more than she accumulated naturally over time. She was fortunate that Vaughan noticed and had started giving her significant portions of his Red crystals; otherwise, she may have literally wasted herself away doing this.

  She was often accompanied by others, even though most people avoided her. Visitors to Willow Hollow didn’t usually know about her, natives found her terrifying, and the Red Seekers knew not to bother her. Her companions were usually a particular subset of the children of the village who loved playing in the branches of her tree as she moved. They would cheer whenever she took out a monster or scared someone nefarious away.

  Today, Scurfpea and one of the Sourdough Twins were racing through her tree’s branches, jumping up and down, left and right, giggling. The other twin was sitting with Jeh in a Red crystal bowl closer to Ashen’s base.

  “I think I finally understand why it was so hard to get Blue to do experiments on me back when all this started,” Jeh said.

  Either Rina or Rona—Jeh still had no idea how to tell them apart, even after all this time—nodded and closed her eyes. “It’s not just as simple as ‘wanted to make sure you were really on board,’ is it?”

  Jeh shook her head. “Yeah. Gronge visited today—still reeling from that—but then he just off-handedly suggested that lots more experiments be run on me. And ever since the whole Rigid Plague thing I haven’t… exactly liked that idea.” She pulled her left hand into a fist and it lit up with fire. “The things the Rigid Plague did to me to get to this point…” She shook her head. “I don’t think I want to sit on a table and be cut up into a lot of pieces over and over and over again just to see how I tick.”

  “You wouldn’t have said that before.”

  Jeh nodded. “Yeah… I… guess I’ve changed?” Jeh sat back, looking up at the sky through the leaves of Ashen’s tree. “I really would have signed up for being put on that table if anyone thought it would help the Space Program out, no problem. But now it feels… different.” She opened and closed her hand. “I don’t think I’d even sign up for the suffocation tests anymore.”

  The Sourdough Twin tilted her head to the side. “Do you regret having done it already?”

  “No…” Jeh frowned. “No, a lot of good has come from it.”

  “Then maybe the change you’ve had isn’t a good one, but a negative one. Maybe it is better to be perfectly fine being cut up into a thousand pieces for the sake of knowledge.” She stood up. “But… it is also something most people wouldn’t want and wouldn’t be able to go through. So it’s understandable.”

  “Hmm…”

  I, for one, would rather I stayed in one piece, Ashen offered.

  The Sourdough Twin put her hands behind her head. “Obviously, you would prefer that, we all would, but there are times when there are more important things at stake. The question is if space travel really is that important.”

  “Sandy would probably think so,” Jeh offered.

  “It took us a bit to figure out why.” The twin sat forward and smirked. “But if she really does believe the world will explode at any minute, of course getting off this planet is a great idea.”

  The other twin fell out of the tree next to her sister. Without missing a beat, she continued the thought. “We used to think the Space Program was just another stepping stone on our quest to rule the world, but it’s become rather clear that it is the step.”

  “Are you telling me I should let myself be chopped into bits?” Jeh asked.

  The twins shook their heads and responded in unison. “Only if you think it’ll greatly help the Space Program. It doesn’t seem like it will at this point; you can’t get more indestructible.”

  “Ah. Right.”

  Scurfpea landed in the middle of the three of them. “So, when do I get to go to the moon?”

  “Probably a few months?” Jeh said with a shrug. “Since Benefactor and Wanderlust can communicate complex ideas with the code we’ve set up, there’s not really a big need to go back right away. We’ll probably do it after winter.”

  “Another winter?” Scurfpea groaned and flopped onto her back. “So loooong… Why did silly Captain Auburn get to go before I did…?”

  “She gave us gyroscopes,” one of the twins said.

  The other nodded. “Though that’s not the only part of the deal. I hear when situations are favorable, she’ll take some people on a tour of the Wilds.”

  “Assuming the political maneuvering to protect her people from Vraskal has gone well.”

  “But given the insignificance of her people and the cleverness of Kroanite lawyers, she’s probably fine.”

  Scurfpea sighed. “...At least I get to go to the moon.” She sat up, tilting her head to the side. “Those blimps don’t have any way to go up… I feel sad for them.”

  Jeh nodded. “Though… if they had a way to do that, I’m not sure they’d be working with us.”

  “Everyone should still have the chance to see Ikyu from above!” Scurfpea held her arms wide. “We should try to think of something… Ashen! How can we send blimps to space?”

  As I understand, they’d pop from the pressure difference.

  Jeh nodded. “I think so too. They need a container. But making a container large enough to hold them… the Moonshot II is already pretty large to lift into orbit, the station sections are going to require teams to lift, a blimp container would be even larger.”

  “What if… you started small and made it bigger?” Scurfpea asked. “Like a seed!”

  “Seeds need supplies to grow; they don’t get it from nothing,” one of the twins pointed out.

  “You’d need to have all the material already up there,” the other agreed.

  Scurfpea deflated. “Oh… that… yeah…”

  Jeh, meanwhile, was scratching her chin. “...The idea might still work.”

  Scurfpea lit up. “Space plants?”

  “No, no, not plants. But like… You can cram soft things into small spaces, like the space suits. If you made an entire module out of the suit material… start it off bundled up in a small ball and then inflate it…” Jeh pulled a notebook out and scribbled the idea down. “Balloon… module…”

  “But balloons will pop like the whales!” Scurfpea said.

  Jeh smirked. “That’s why we use the spacesuit plast. It’ll work just fine. The problem is getting enough of it… Oh well, I’ll tell Blue about it, she’ll probably eventually send the idea to the blimps if it really was a good idea.” She put her pen in her mouth and frowned. “Protection from the rocks up there might be hard for a soft material. How can you force layers…?”

  The Sourdough Twins giggled.

  “What?”

  “You’re turning into a regular wizard researcher.”

  Jeh smirked. “I guess I hang around brainiacs too much.”

  Scurfpea gasped. “So if I keep hanging around you all, I’ll get smarter!?”

  Everyone laughed at this.

  As amusing as that was, Ashen began, she does have a point. The more you interact with intellectual things, the easier they become to understand. Jeh brought me books, and while they were difficult to understand at first, I can now deal with them entirely on my own. Just because she came here to talk to me about them.

  “I’ll be a genius!” Scurfpea declared.

  ~~~

  Vaughan, Blue, Krays, and Seskii sat in a handful of randomly assorted chairs that littered Blue’s private office-slash-laboratory. Gronge stood as his vehicle didn’t have a “sitting” mode. As he was suspended in highly pressurized water, this did not bother him in the slightest.

  It amazes me how much work can be done on this paper substance. Gronge observed as he took in the mountainous stacks of disorganized paper everywhere. Writing is not as routine down in the depths, we have to grab special materials. Keeping them on hand is often rather bothersome. I do so wish paper was waterproof…

  “You’d need trees to make it,” Vaughan observed. “Don’t have many of those at the bottom of the ocean.”

  True enough. Still, a man can dream. He moved over to a shelf that had a few potted plants growing in various soils, including a rather sickly one in some moon dust. This is what I was referring to. There is so much more you could learn with a larger volume of experiments running, testing more variables. Try different levels of water, different levels of sun, form it into a grid…

  “Wanderlust is performing some tests like that on the moon,” Blue pointed out. “She took our seeds and has been interacting with them just to see what happens.”

  But you have a laboratory and people working under you, it shouldn’t be— He suddenly stopped writing in the air. Forgive me, we already had this discussion, you’ve made your stance clear. I am here to simply suggest further experiment types for your consideration.

  Blue watched as one of Gronge’s fins extended from his side and pulled out a scroll made out of some leafy substance. He unrolled it and examined it, though his eyes hardly adjusted, and there was no change in his expression. There never was. Blue still found that unnerving. Even more unnerving than the rigids that didn’t have faces—at least there was nothing to try to ascribe emotion to. All of Blue’s attempts to read Gronge’s emotions fell flat, leaving only his words to go off of.

  First off, since we’re on the topic, there are multiple confounding factors in the growth of plants. Here, on your surface world, sunlight and humidity are major concerns, while where I come from, such things are irrelevant. You’ll need to test as much as you can in Ikyu conditions to replicate other worlds. By controlling various parameters in the air, sunlight, and…

  He went on like this for some time. At first, Blue was trying to keep it all in her head, but she realized rather quickly that Seskii was writing everything down with alarming speed. She had some kind of shorthand Blue couldn’t read, but nonetheless seemed to correspond exactly with what was being said.

  Her presence was fortunate, because Blue was getting more and more fed up with Gronge’s attitude. The angler had just waltzed into the cabin, declared that he knew better than them, and was listing off his ideas as though he were some kind of elder sage of incomprehensible wisdom. For being from such a distant, unconnected culture, he sure sounded a lot like the old farts who ran the Academy. Had Blue not known who Gronge was and what he’d done for their program personally, she most assuredly would be giving him a piece of her mind right now.

  Admittedly, Blue was surprised Krays wasn’t. Besides the outburst in the earlier conversation that Seskii had quickly covered up, Krays basically hadn’t said anything unless Gronge asked a technical question related to her expertise. Krays never behaved this well. The moment Blue noticed this, it began to bother her. Had something happened? Had Krays identified some kind of danger that would come about if they insulted Gronge? Was—

  “Blue!”

  Blue snapped to look at Vaughan. “Wh—sorry, spaced. Uh. What?”

  “Gronge was just asking about the finer details of your ‘infinitesimal’ mathematical concept. Try as I might, I’m still not able to answer the questions well.”

  “Ah, right, right.” Blue glanced at Krays one more time, finding nothing on her face to clue Blue in on what was happening in her head. She pushed her thoughts out of her mind and began her explanation of her ‘new math’. It became clear rather quickly that the vague calculations she had done without proof were not to Gronge’s satisfaction.

  “Look, I know it’s not how you would do things, but I am assured the mathematicians in Axiom are working on it,” Blue finished. “I have received a few… complicated letters from them, as the idea doesn’t fit in well with their rigid framework, but they have been forced to admit it is a vastly superior method for calculating a large variety of things.”

  I am all for haphazard experimentation, don’t get me wrong, but isn’t it somewhat dangerous to base things on unproven mathematics?

  Blue tilted her head. “It’s shown me no indication it’s ever wrong. There are a few traps here and there, usually where you try to apply the infinitesimal to something nonsensical like an infinity or a discontinuity, but those are always obvious.”

  As far as you know.

  Blue clenched her jaw. “Yes. As far as I know.”

  I shall visit these mathematicians when I am in Axiom. Which I will have plenty of time to do, as I intend to stay above the sea until the launch of your space station.

  Please don’t offer to let him stay here, Blue thought, knowing it to be wishful thinking.

  “I believe I have an extra room for you should you desire one,” Vaughan said.

  Blue heard Krays snicker. The sound was cut short as the gari forcefully stifled it.

  Gronge wrote in the air. I thank you for the offer, but I already have lodging arrangements and will be spending most of my time in Axiom anyway. Your lab may be absolutely amazing, but there are simply more people to see in Axiom. The Wizard Space Program is merely at the top of my list of projects I’m interested in—I have put my fins into dozens of others, which I would like to engage with prior to launch day. In fact, I believe I will have Alexandrite fly me out tonight, unless we get caught up in some “mad science” or related topics.

  Vaughan chuckled. “Naturally. Can’t ever tell when one of those might happen! Perhaps the rotation experiments…”

  I find myself most interested in your pilot. If you can talk of such experiments…

  Seskii put a hand on Krays’ shoulder, forcefully keeping her seated. “We have some files you may peruse, but we hope you understand that we don’t like thinking of her as a test subject. I know that things are done differently down in the Hegemony, but to randomly experiment on people up here is somewhat of a cultural taboo.”

  Ah, more culture shock, more culture shock… very well, can you show me these files?

  “Right this way.” Seskii opened up the door and let Gronge out. The moment he was past the doorframe she shot Vaughan, Blue, and Krays a slight grimace and a shrug before closing the door.

  “...I want to boil that fish,” Krays said.

  “Why didn’t you say anything?” Blue asked. “What do you think he is?”

  “Simple,” Krays said, leaning back with a frown. “This is essentially one of the first in-person meetings between the Hegemony and Kroan. If it went badly, there could be massive repercussions.” She looked down at the ground. “Had Seskii not made that clear to me, I likely would have ruined the whole thing. Hopefully, it wouldn’t have started a war.” She paused. “Hopefully.”

  “Thank Dia for Seskii,” Vaughan said. “None of us would have been able to navigate that well.”

  “You would have handled it badly?” Blue tilted her head. “The two of us were likely to blow up on him, you?”

  “I’d not challenge him at all or question anything. The easy way out.” Vaughan sighed. “I’m not very confrontational, you may notice.”

  “...Point taken.”

  “Maybe we should throw some kind of Seskii appreciation party at some point.”

  Krays snorted. “And who’d plan it besides her?”

  “...Ah. Fair.”

  ~~~

  It was early in the morning, and the Sourdough Twins were in their secret “conspiracy room,” wordlessly considering everything they had strewn around. There were far more people and places represented now, but things were also more organized. Their timeline had more holes filled in. The jink board’s pieces were in more definitive places, with colored string tied around them to represent alliances and potential relationships. Notably, there was a cord from Sandy’s piece to the Emperor, but not to Kroan or Descent. There were still plenty of question marks strewn about: the Twins still weren’t entirely sure on what exactly the Tempest’s Guardian was, or on the timeline before the First Cataclysm.

  But they had a lot of cords pointing to one figure.

  Eyda, represented by a yellow hexagon with six black eyes.

  The more they looked, the more they found tying back to her. Which was saying something, since apparently she hadn’t done anything to Ikyu since before the Second Cataclysm. And yet her influence was everywhere, threatening Ikyu simply by existing, not to mention the demons.

  The Twins had to admit, they hadn’t considered the fact that a goddess or goddess-like being would be in the way of their ultimate goals.

  “...We might have to settle,” one said.

  The other sighed. “We agreed not to.”

  “Obviously, we’ll still try. But we have to be prepared to take a deal and not crack.”

  The other nodded, furrowing her brow. “Space gives us an opportunity, though. If we understand how magic works…”

  “...Then demons can’t leave Ikyu.”

  They each gave each other the same knowing look. Without a word, they left their secret room, sealed it up, and went to the ground floor to open up the bakery.

  Seskii was already leaning on one of the shelves full of yesterday’s bread, a glass of a glittering yellow substance in her hand.

  “We’d ask how you got in,” one of the twins said.

  “But you wouldn’t answer anyway,” the other finished.

  Seskii gave the both of them an extremely smug grin. She sat down at a table that hadn’t been there a second ago. Both Rina and Rona were in chairs and didn’t remember sitting down. Seskii passed two glasses of the golden liquid to them. “How’s this for an answer?”

  The twins glanced at each other. With a quick nod, they spoke as one. “You’re not even being subtle. Why?”

  “Because it’s time for a change.” Seskii tilted the liquid in her glass back and forth. “You could think of it as a business proposition, albeit one I am absolutely certain you will say yes to.”

  The Sourdough Twins leaned in. “What kind of proposition?”

  “As far as the world is concerned, you two would be apprentice secretaries to me, helping to manage all the paperwork.” She folded her hands together and smiled. “On its own, that is extremely lucrative, is it not? Trained by me, access to all the important government paperwork I know you two have been stealing looks at when you’re not supposed to, a greater cemented role in the space program, etcetera, etcetera.” Seskii raised an eyebrow, chuckling. “You two would, naturally, take that deal entirely on its own. Apprenticed to me? Gaining almighty secretary access and more ways to investigate my own bizarre curiosities? The only price to you is giving up your lives as bakers and we both know you wanted to do that eventually anyway.”

  “You’re right…”

  “...we would take that.”

  “A good deal if ever there was one, eh?” Seskii asked.

  The twins nodded. Then they spoke as one. “But what are we really getting?”

  Seskii set her glass on the table and looked from one twin to the other. Her smile faltered. “...Many things. Secrets. Knowledge. Things working in the shadows I see but don’t tell anyone about. Much of it would be yours.”

  “Carefully curated, of course,” one of the twins said.

  Seskii grinned. “Been paying attention, have you?”

  “You are particularly slippery, but we try,” the other added.

  “In that case, I’m curious. What do you think of me?”

  The twins glanced at each other, speaking with their wordless expressions once again. They nodded and spoke as one. “You are a being from the past, much like Sandy, trying to manipulate the course of the world down a particular direction. For some reason, this involves space travel.” The twins narrowed their eyes. “Sandy wants to use it to escape Ikyu. Are you the same?”

  Seskii’s eyes sparkled unnaturally. “It’s a tad more complicated than that, but remarkably close, considering what you had to work with.” She folded her hands together. “Let’s get one thing straight. I cannot tell you everything. There is a very simple reason for this.”

  “Demons.”

  “Exactly,” Seskii said. “Almost no mind is safe from them.”

  “Except yours…”

  “...Which is very telling.”

  Seskii chuckled. “It is, isn’t it? Regardless, if you two agree to become proteges of Seskii, you will be taking on a mantle where your teacher can tell you both so much and so little. And, as a fair warning, the path of being my protege is not a kind or peaceful one. It is often brutal and dangerous. Some of the things I will tell you will be dangerous to know. People who have taken this mantle in the past have often ended up in tragic ends. And, I will be fully honest, I doubt you two will end up ruling the world in the end.”

  The twins narrowed their eyes.

  “And it’s not because of the usual ‘it’s impossible’ reason. You two can definitely do it.” Seskii leaned in, expression hardening. “It is simply because those who conquer worlds are evil, and you two aren’t.”

  “Dia permits the cruel to rule…”

  “...and the benevolent to suffer.”

  “Close, but I wasn’t actually referring to Dia’s will there. At least not directly.” Seskii leaned in. “Our world lives and breathes, you two. The path may twist and wind, but a path there is, and we are on it.” She was suddenly leaning back, a straw in her drink. “Or you can ignore all your highly improbable, lucky, and telling experiences and consider me crazy. That’s an option too.”

  “You’re obviously crazy,” the twins said. “But that doesn’t mean you’re wrong.”

  “So, what about it?” Seskii held up her glass, gesturing at the two she had given them that they had yet to touch. “Would you two like to learn my ways?”

  “One question…”

  “...does it involve learning how to brew potions?”

  Seskii was suddenly holding a potion in her free hand. “Not in the way you’re thinking, but absolutely.”

  “Then yes.” The twins lifted up their glasses and clinked them with Seskii’s. “We accept.”

  “Then as your first duty, I have a test for you.” Seskii downed her entire drink in one gulp while the twins merely sipped theirs—the flavor was akin to that of a honey flavored with hot peppers. “Why do you think I need you two?”

  “Secrecy is of paramount importance to you…”

  “...but it is becoming harder and harder to manipulate events on your own without allies…”

  “...and we meet whatever unusual criteria you have…”

  “...to help you guide events without drawing a big target on your back.”

  The twins closed their eyes and thought for a moment. Their eyes flew open and they spoke at once. “You’ll be getting more help, eventually.”

  “That’ll be your job, eventually,” Seskii said. “The fewer people who know I’m actually at the top of this hierarchy, the better. As far as anyone is concerned…” She pointed both of her hands at them. “You two are now the masters of this brand new secret society!”

  “The cover story being made here is almost too perfect,” one of the twins observed.

  The other nodded. “It’s remarkable how, once we allow ourselves to consider the fact that the world itself may be guiding us, that we can see it everywhere.”

  “Careful of confirmation bias, that’ll get you killed real quick,” Seskii said. “So, let’s begin in earnest.” She stood up, and suddenly all three of them were standing in a very tall rigid tree overlooking Willow Hollow. One of the twins stumbled, but the other grabbed her and hoisted her up.

  “We’re going to have to get used to that, aren’t we?” they asked.

  “You’ll have to get used to a lot more than that!” Seskii said, grinning. “You know what, I was a little nervous about taking proteges on again, considering… well, how badly it’s gone for them in the past, but now that we’re here I feel so liberated! Last person I actually got to talk to about any of this had a whole dramatic history with me…” She clapped her hands together and let out a squeal. “All right, team, here’s our mission! Get to space!”

  “By any means necessary?” the twins asked.

  “No! We’re gonna have to get that determination and pride in you two sanded down, make some soft edges.” Seskii put her hands on her hips and looked to the sky. “The point is to win without becoming Sandy. Got that?”

  The twins nodded.

  “Good. Now, lesson one… you can’t predict your teacher.”

  She jumped out of the tree and vanished behind one of the lower branches, leaving the twins alone in the rigid tree. Which had basically no branches below the few dozen at the very top.

  The twins sighed and nodded to each other. They wrapped their bodies around the trunk and slowly started shimmying downward.

  ~~~

  SCIENCE SEGMENT

  Fish breathe oxygen! The oxygen is dissolved in the water, and they extract it by running water through their gills. Gills are extremely good at extracting oxygen; as water passes through them, the protein structures within the gills grab most of the passing oxygen and transfer it into the fish’s bloodstream. A fish would drown in pure water.

  But wait, if fish breathe oxygen, why do they suffocate in the air? There’s a lot more oxygen in the air than in the water. This much is true, but gill structures collapse without water to support them. Some fish are able to breathe atmospheric oxygen, but they tend to have special organs beyond just their gills. (Some of them are literally breathing through their skin.)

  So that’s that, all the science you need to know, fish breathe oxygen dissolved in the water. Case closed, Gronge’s little vehicle just puts more oxygen into the water, no problem.

  …How does it do that, though? Why does water dissolve things?

  For substances like salt, water’s polar nature comes into play. Salts are made up of positive and negative ions in a lattice. Inside the center of these lattices, the ionic forces are in balance, and water’s not breaking them apart. At the edges, though, ions are exposed to the environment, interacting with it. When ions (either positive or negatively charged) interact with water, water molecules orient themselves in particular ways. Water’s hydrogen atoms are slightly positively charged, while the oxygen is negative, a property that marks water as a polar molecule. Around a specific ion, all the water molecules will point in a particular direction due to the distribution of charges across the water molecule. Each water molecule now exerts a force on the ion in the salt lattice, and their combined force can remove the ion from its lattice. Now the ion is surrounded in a “cage” of water molecules that flow into the rest of the solution, and the new water that flows in starts to work on removing the ion that was just under the one taken away.

  This also works for other charged molecules that might not be in a lattice. The water still surrounds the molecule in a little “cage,” dragging the molecule along with the flow of water. Water is considered a universal solvent because it is so good at making these “cages.” Notably, water struggles to dissolve nonionic and nonpolar molecules, as the cage cannot be made.

  Oxygen and other gases, however, are not charged, or even polar. They also do not form lattices, so water does not pry them off of anything. Why are they dissolved, then? It turns out water has another way to interact with molecules: the London dispersion forces, otherwise known as the van der Waals forces. The reason behind these forces is quantum mechanical black magic, but the intuitive non-quantum mechanics reason is that atoms are formed of positive and negatively charged parts, and the negatively charged part is an electron cloud that moves around and shifts in response to interactions with other molecules. Because of this, the electron cloud can become offset from the atom’s nucleus. This creates what is known as a dipole in the atom, where there is one side with slightly more positive charge than the other. The nice thing about atoms is that the moment one of them gains a dipole, nearby ones will tend to arrange themselves to match, providing a very weak but noticeable binding force. As water is already a dipole by nature, it will noticeably enhance this effect. Larger atoms have more electrons and more force to work with, and thus are easier to dissolve. Xenon, for instance, loves to dissolve in water. Helium does not. Oxygen is in the middle, but closer to Helium. This is why water doesn’t have a ton of oxygen dissolved in it naturally despite being in contact with an atmosphere that’s filled with the stuff.

  The short explanation is that water dissolves things so well because it is a distinctly polar molecule that can make liquid “cages” around other molecules. This is not why all solvents are good at dissolving things: there exist nonpolar solvents that work well with dissolving nonpolar molecules. They work entirely within the London dispersion forces. These do not work like water, manually disassembling things, but instead operate on the principle of “like dissolves like.” If molecules feel and exert similar forces, they are more likely to be able to form a homogeneous solution. Water’s just a little special with its cages.