A Tale of Two Lightyears p.1

A      T A L E     of     T W O      L I G H T Y E A R S

Sciren’s       Part          One -

S O U L S        A P A R T

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It was just another dismal, starless night for Sciren. He was perched on the same old balcony window of his clay and sandstone room staring down with the same old stony expression at the same old Seirian spaceport town. The town began to drift off to sleep as the candlelights and luxurious electric light bulbs gradually submitted to the dark night around them. Sciren gazed away from the spectacle and looked down at the broken voice-translator in his lap. In an instant, he speedily got back to repairing it in time for the last postal deliveries for the evening. The translator was one of the many items of broken techno junk given to him earlier on in the day, but Sciren had promised the owner of the translator that he would have it repaired by the following day.

Sciren lived a lonely existence on the desert planet of Seiria, repairing broken computers, gadgets, vehicles and sometimes, even ships. The giant grey furred beast that was Sciren always seemed to have had an understanding with all things mechanical. Even now, he reprogrammed and repaired the translator at an inhumanly fast speed with machinelike accuracy. But Sciren himself was still flesh and blood. He still had ambitions, desires, emotions … but he also had been programmed. All those years ago, Sciren had been programmed to kill. His part-hybrid mind made this programming so ruthlessly efficient that Sciren had been unable to break his instinct for so very long.

His target was a reality-traveller, someone who had done Sciren no wrongs, but was still part of his programmed destiny. Sciren had watched his target escape, and vanish before his eyes into another world. In a desperate attempt to fulfil his programming, Sciren killed many others in order to get to his target and finish the job. He stole a ship and tried to make the same journey through the reality barrier to follow his target to the new world, but Scrien was so young and full of monstrous rage back then. He had no experience in piloting a reality ship, jumped into this world and crash landed on Seiria, using up all the timeslide fuel for his craft. Now he was stuck in a reality where the compound ‘Tridrogen 4’ that powered his ship either didn’t exist, or had not been discovered yet.

Sciren found it hard to come to terms with the fact that he would never be able to complete his programming, one of the two functions he had been given in life. After many months of anguish, being torn apart by frustration, Sciren learned to control himself by holding on to the other instinct that he had been programmed with at his birth – ‘Keep yourself alive’. And that’s what he had been doing for the last 3 years. Living. Working. Eating. Sleeping. Trying to live a normal life and blend in with the rest of the diverse species on this planet.

Sciren made the final touches to the translator and it burst into life with a series of blips and beeps, illuminating his face with its sky-blue glow. Sciren was good at what he did, but he still felt this emptiness in the back of his mind every now and then, where his now-irrelevant programming remorselessly drove him to complete his destiny in life. Sciren always did his best to silence the voice, and it was getting quieter now … but the emptiness it left in its wake made the grey furred giant feel so alone. However, Sciren rarely showed any of his emotions to the world.

Just then, there was a buzz at the rusty metal door to Sciren’s small room. The beast himself pricked up his canine-like ears and flicked his organi-metal scorpion like tail. Only one person would call this late at night.
Sciren hopped off his balcony and quickly navigated the minefield of broken computer parts that littered the floors and walls towards the door. Upon opening it with a clunk, Sciren’s suspicions were confirmed. A small green and yellow iguanamander smiled up at the expressionless Sciren and said in a squeaky voice –
“Last post sir! You fixed all the junk you need delivered?”

“Yes,” replied Sciren in his much huskier voice as he slowly turned back to his room and began to pick up all the items for delivery.

“Goodgood,” replied the iguanamander, slightly un-nerved by the four-foot height difference between them. He continued, scratching the back of his scaly head awkwardly, “It’s a hot, wonderful night out there. I’m parched … would you mind terribly-much if I got a drink of water?”

“… Help yourself,” Sciren uttered after a moment of silence.

The small lizard scuttled over to the rusty tap in the corner of Sciren’s room and leaned in to the microphone next to it.

“Water,” he said, in as clear a voice as possible.

The tap immediately started pouring slightly cloudy water into the old basin, which the lizard started scooping up in a small hipflask. A large foot landed near him as Sciren stomped over with the 3 gadgets he had repaired. Jumping slightly, the iguanamander hastily filled up his flask and opened up the small bag he had on his back.

“… Yup, I … I can deliver these by third moonrise. No worries,” he stuttered as he carefully placed the gizmos inside his bag and marked them with a postage tag.

“Good,” said Sciren, not even bothering to smile.

The giant then stomped over to a soft old hammock in the corner. He undid his desert yellow loincloth and hung it up on one of the strings, just before he climbed into the hammock, which now made the walls creak under his weight.

“I will rest now. Thank you and good night.”

The small lizard wasn’t yet used to the multi-cultural nature of this world. And Sciren removing his clothing in front of a perfect stranger made the iguanamanda feel rather daunted.
“I’ll uhm … get going then … thank you verymuch sir, verymuch,” the lizard stuttered even more now as he hurried out of the room, stumbling over several pieces of metal as he went. Sciren glared across the room at the lizard as he hastily left and shut the door behind him. Sciren knew all too well that his gestures would intimidate the lizard, but he didn’t care too much as it had been a long, tiring day.
Sciren was a creature that didn’t have to sleep. His re-engineered, alien-esque DNA structure meant that he was only half mammal, and half Seta.
A thought suddenly hit the beast as he lay there gazing up at the ceiling. He could absorb knowledge from machines and the world around him, but he barely knew anything about himself. Who were the Seta? Were they responsible for his mind programming that nearly drove him insane? Could his mind ever be re-programmed? … He told himself that he was thinking to hard again.

Sciren was a creature that didn’t have to sleep, but he wanted to tonight.

He wanted to dream …
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Falling …
Falling through space …
Stars, planets, moons, black holes and white holes flashed before his eyes …
Creation to the right of him, chaos to the left,
As he was plunged deeper and deeper into the heart of the universe …
Where was he being taken?
What was that noise? That microscopic noise made by binary code as is travels along a wire. It was getting louder … as a bright green star began to appear on the horizon.
This must be his destination … but he didn’t recognize it …

Then a voice …
An ancient, fragmented voice filled his mind …
It sounded very strange, like digital English … but he could somehow understand it.

“Look for the place where time cannot exist …”
“Look for the one who shares your path …”
“… Your pain shall be healed …”

Silence …

Falling …
Falling back to Seiria …
Watching as the hyperspace around him was sucked into the abyss …
Leaving him alone in this gaunt quiet …

… What a strange dream …
_ __ ___ ____ ____________________________________________ ____ ___ __ _

The next day was scorching and dry. It didn’t feel like there was a drop of moisture in the air and the wisps of desert sand felt like fire curling around one’s ankles, but nothing could stop the unrelenting hustle-bustle in a Seirian marketplace. The deafening throng of a hundred languages wafted across the rickety stalls as customers haggled and squabbled with salesmen. Currency notes, livestock, food, jewellery and other valuable items were being passed and exchanged so quickly that it was more than possible to get away with thievery. But no one intentionally stole anything. There was a certain peace about this marketplace.

Sciren’s psychedelic dreams had woken him up unusually early, and he was now shuffling through the sandy stalls in the market, rubbing shoulders with many strange and obscure species as he did. The giant found himself constantly shaking his head to refuse the generous deals from grinning salesmen to the right and left of him as he navigated his way through the frenzy of people towards a large square building in the centre of town. Sciren was on his way to the payment centre that handled all the money he and the rest of the engineering company made. The company had been very good to Sciren, taking him on without a job permit, or anything to prove that he even existed in this universe. But his 1-minute demonstration of repairing the coffee machine that no one had been able to fix for over a month was more than enough.

“Hey. HEY!! You! I know you!”

Sciren was no more than half way to the building before he heard someone shouting to him over the rabble and bickering. The grey-furred beast turned his head to the one shouting at him. It was a scruffy looking African dog with a disgruntled frown shadowing his brow, beckoning Sciren over from across his stall.

“Yeah, you! Git over here big guy!!”

Sciren slowly stomped over, wading his way through the crowd to the salesman. It was then that the eye-watering stench of pickle juice became apparent. Not just from the nearby jars of Eels, but from the merchant himself. He was dripping with the stuff. Sciren curled his canine-like nose at the smell, made worse by the blistering heat and looked down at the wet dog under a blank frown.

“… Yes?” asked Sciren after a while.

The dog glared back up at the giant, undaunted and barked, “You’re the one who ‘fixed’ my translator, right?”

The dog immediately produced the very same translator Sciren had been mending the previous night and held down a button to make the gadget speak.

“?Oi’p Guz’aou Chak, Mi laudo H^yh u’hpon, kitsou Wafer?”

The dog released the button and slammed the machine down on the wooden table, making the jars of eels wobble slightly.

“What the hell kinda language is that?!” snapped the dog.

“… Okhirian,” replied Sciren with the same blank expression, “You possess an alien translator which had been programmed to speak English before it was damaged. By repairing it, I reset the -”

“And just how many more sacks of credits are you gonna leech off’a me to make it speak English again, huh buddy?!” interrupted the dog, who’s rantings were attracting odd looks from passers-by now. Sciren didn’t bother to waste his breath replying. It was obvious that this dog was not in the mood to listen, so the giant just folded his arms and narrowed his gaze a little more. The angry African dog leaned up on his tiptoes to look at Sciren, calming his voice down a little as he spoke next.

“If you’re going to collect your pay, don’t waste your time. I haven’t given you a credit. I’ve already put in a complaint with your company about customer satisfaction. If you don’t fix my translator properly, I’ll see you fired before this day is done.”

Sciren unfolded his arms and twitched his tail in anger as he rose up to full height on his haunches.

“… That is blackmail,” growled Sciren through gritted teeth.

The merchant grit his needle-like teeth in anger too, trying to stand taller.

“I’m not afraid of monsters like you,” he growled back, reached up and poked Sciren hard in the chest.

… Mistake. The second the merchant made physical contact, he felt Sciren’s large paw gripping tightly around his neck, just tight enough to cut off his air. The dog’s eyes widened as he was slammed against the hot brick wall behind his stall and dragged further off the ground to look Sciren square in the eyes.

“Maybe you should be,” snarled Sciren as he raised his tailblade up to the merchant’s ear hole. The merchant gasped for breath and shut his eyes in terror.

Sciren took a quick look behind him and realised he had attracted quite a crowd. It wouldn’t be right to kill this dog. The anger made him say all those things … but this guy stunk, it was a very hot day, and Sciren wasn’t in the mood for it.

“… You smell terrible. Take a wash,” grinned Sciren as he hoisted the merchant over to his stockpile.

“Not again!” the merchant gurgled as he was thrown upside-down into a barrel of foul smelling pickle juice, complete with slimy eels. He barely had time to move, let alone cry ‘Get me out of here!’, before the lid to the barrel was fastened tightly by Sciren.

Several members of the crowd burst into alien laughter at the spectacle. Two small children ran up, tipped the barrel on its side and began rolling it about, muffling the various obscenities coming from within. Sciren smiled slightly as he leaned against the wall and enjoyed watching the comical performance himself. It was then that Sciren noticed a small open drawer in the side of the stall with a ton of credit notes practically falling out of it. With the crowd distracted by the performance, Sciren shiftily moved up and took no more than what the ill-fated merchant had originally promised him for repairing the translator. He then left the stall and began the scorching walk into town again, leaving the comedy show behind as more alien children joined in, twirling the barrel around.

For the first time in a while, Sciren was smiling. But as he continued to trudge through the market, the smile gradually began to seep away, like the sand of an hourglass. The feeling of emptiness was still there, gripping his mind … and it never showed any signs of letting go, no matter how happy Sciren was. As long as that voice kept telling him to kill a being that never existed in this universe, Sciren could never live a complete life. It was a curse.

Then something caught the beast’s red camera-like eyes. He tried to focus, zooming his vision in on the gleaming light coming from a building on the horizon. It was a glinting gem. Green within green, like the bright star in Sciren’s dream. It was beckoning to him, communicating with him. A slight zoom out from Sciren’s vision showed that the giant gem was held high above a huge temple on the sandy horizon. The ancient building had many scripts and writings carved into the sandstone and marble outside, and Sciren could vaguely see a huge crowd of pilgrims entering and leaving the temple.

Still, the starlight green gem beckoned Sciren to enter. To come closer. To explore within. The beast felt entranced by its glow and he began to leave the path to his job centre and wander along the path the temple.

“… look for a place where time cannot exist …”

… those words again … what did they mean?

_ __ ___ ____ _____ ______ _____________________________________________

The road up to the temple seemed long and crowded and the hot sand whipped at Sciren’s ankles, but a cool, gentle breeze seemed to draw the hybrid and the many pilgrims around him ever closer to the enormous structure. The strange scaly skin beneath Sciren’s grey and white fur seemed to reflect the mid-day sun as it seared down on Sciren’s shoulders.

Sciren was already half way to the temple, hypnotised by the giant green crystal at its tallest spire. It filled his head with so many questions about himself. He didn’t even know who he was, where he came from, where he was going … but he did feel that somewhere in this temple lay the answers to all his questions …

‘A place where time cannot exist.’
Was this temple the place? Or was this just the beginning of a path to that place? He would be able to find out all the answers soon enough, as he was now at the entrance to the temple. A mighty set of open doors allowed the light of the sun into the cathedral, but the fresh breeze within circled through the marble corridors, keeping the interior welcomingly cool.

Being approximately seven foot tall on his haunches, Sciren could see right over the heads of the multi-racial wanderers seeking guidance or faith. There was no pushing or shoving like there was in the marketplace as some of the pilgrims walked over to one of the seemingly endless shelves of books. Some of them shuffled straight over to odd-looking priests with no eyes, paws or legs. Sciren had seen these creatures before, a few times on Seiria, mostly within the smaller places of worship in the town. They were known as ‘worms’. Holy creatures similar in abundance to humans and in the way that there were several species and sub-species as mankind were to apes. On first appearance, the worms might have seen shocking to someone who hadn’t been exposed to the diverse cultures of this world. But even if he had been born yesterday, Sciren didn’t shock easily.

“Greetings, fair traveller,” said a chittery voice from below Sciren as he took a few steps forward onto the cool marble floor. Sciren looked down with a slightly more open expression at the smiling purple creature with one gleaming red eye below him. This was a ‘Forsyte’ worm priest, with fluffy yellow antenna, yellow markings all down the back of his body and a walking stick in one of the small tentacles down his belly. This seemed rather odd, as the creature didn’t look like it had any legs.
“Do you seek counselling?” asked the purple priest, wiggling its antennae.

“I seek answers,” replied Sciren, bluntly.

“Then you have come to the right place sir!,” chuckled the worm as it tapped the back of Sciren’s legs with its wooden walking stick, beckoning him to walk forward. Sciren followed the gesture and wandered further into the giant hallway, the claws on his feet tapping against the marble. The worm slithered forward as well and used its antenna to guide Sciren’s glance up to the walls and ceiling. There was not a blank space anywhere in this vast structure. There was writing of a thousand languages in every available space. Arabic, Japanese, Chinese, Latin, English, SecondEnglish, Mayan, Zatarian, Lreetan, script over the top of other scripts in places.

“We have been collecting information here since information begun. Any answer to any question you have will be written somewhere within these walls,” the worm smiled, proudly.

Sciren gave a slight, lop-sided grin back to the priest.

“… you know everything?”

The worm threw his head back in another chittering laugh.

“Do not worry traveller, it does sound a bit far-fetched I know! We have many people questioning the depth of our knowledge. And the strength of our faith.”

“… I fear I am not a religious being, worm priest,” said Sciren as he looked back at the holy gathering of pilgrims, feeling like a black sheep in this place of worship. The feeling was quickly neutralised by a reassuring tap of the worm’s walking stick to Sciren’s knee.

“Do not assume that faith has anything to do with Gods, O wise traveller,” the worm gave a cheeky grin, “You need not be religious at all to find faith here … and please, call me Chal’ N’kol’J ’iikov’li ’K ’K- … oh wait … sorry, just call me Chal’.”

“… Sciren,” replied the huge beast, with a slightly more visible smile this time and a slow bow of his head, “… and I’m afraid I’m not very faithful either.”

“We all must have faith in something,” countered the worm, “It’s what keeps us alive. The quest for life, the quest for answers. Religions are just multiple paths into the same heaven.”

Sciren shook his head with closed eyes and a smile as he continued to walk.

“I’m not worthy of your heaven,” he sighed, “I have done too many wrongs.”

“Even if you aren’t worthy of ‘our’ heaven,” chattered the purple priest has he shuffled back and glanced up at Sciren with a friendly, yet stern smile, “You are always worthy of answers.”

Sciren looked back at the mass of people entering through the temple gateway. Some of them only needed a few minutes worth of counselling before they could leave again. Sciren knew that he may not be that easy to ‘cure’.

“I can see you have many questions to ask, brother Sciren,” began the worm, scratching his chin with a feathery antenna in a mock-philosophical expression, “But the question you need to ask yourself, is - are you just looking for any old answer, truthful or not?”

Sciren thought about this query for a moment. Was he just trying to fill in the gaps? Look for a quick release that would silence his thoughts until he lost faith again? The beast swayed his tail in thought as he looked all around the room for a moment, then he looked back at the worm, who was grinning now, happy that he might have finally made a connection with his new pilgrim.

“… you are most wise indeed, priest Chal’.”

Chal’ wagged his tail and chuckled.

“Call it ‘experience’, if you will.”

The furry giant and the 3ft priest walked deeper into the immense temple, the rhythmic tapping of Sciren’s claws echoing across the domed marble and sandstone ceilings. Sciren flicked his cumbersome organi-metal tail to and fro as he listened out for the many sounds that resonated from deep inside the ancient structure. An Islamic prayer call, a creature with three tongues singing thankyou to the gods for his new child, an Indian man praising Ganisha, even a church sermon where a priest was reading verses from the New new-testament. … there were a thousand religions within these walls, and all of them were welcomed and understood so well by the worms. These collectors of faith and knowledge.

“Have you thought about which question you’d like answered first?” asked the purple priest worm suddenly as he slithered forward on his walking stick.

Sciren froze for a moment and stared at the floor. This made the worm stop and turn back to the beast, who was looking himself over. His giant organic-metal tail with a sharp blade at the end. His dark grey fur, so similar to that of the one he had tried to kill. The strange black flasks on his forearms which contained a substance he could change into any shape at will.

Sciren looked up at the worm, wearing an uncharacteristically tired face.

“… what am I?” asked Sciren, after a while.

“Surely you mean ‘who am I?,” questioned the worm, scratching his chin again, “You have a personal name, which makes you worthy of being a person -”

“No,” Sciren interrupted, catching the worm off guard slightly as Sciren spoke the stream of information,
“My name is Sciren. I named myself after reading my own project code ‘5C1-R3N’. I was artificially created with two sets of compatible genes by my father, Doctor Rufus Becket. I grew at an alarming rate because of my DNA. I had already matured to the size of a fully-grown adult within 3 days. My genetic code reads that I am one quarter badger, one quarter vulpine.”

Sciren held the back of his head as he frowned and grit his teeth in frustration.

“The other half is an ancient species that has never been seen in over ten thousand years, probably extinct. They can … ‘program’ each other. Living beings giving each other unbreakable orders, like machines. I never wanted to hurt anyone! I never wanted to think like that! How can you program a mind to do such terrible things?!”

Sciren lashed the sandstone floor with his metal tail in anger, cracking it slightly under his brutal strength. Several people stopped their prayers for a second to peer through doorways to see what all the fuss was about. Sciren stopped suddenly to give a frustrated look to the worm priest. The purple worm seemed unshaken by the show of force and just stood there silently, two tentacles resting on his short wooden walking stick, gazing into the furious red eyes of the beast above him.

“… I know exactly who I am,” Sciren uttered in a sigh, “But as to what I am? … I have not a clue.”

The worm priest slithered over to Sciren and gave another reassuring tap to the back of his calf.

“This has been troubling you for a long time now, brother Sciren,” began the worm in an understanding tone, “And you are very brave to seek the truth about yourself, where ever it may lie.”

Sciren looked down to the diminutive creature and was fixed with a strangely heart-warming gaze. Until now, only Sciren’s creator and father had looked at him like that before …

“And even if you have no faith in yourself,” continued the worm as he gestured his antennae over to one of the many vaults of knowledge within the temple, “… I have faith in you.”

Sciren looked down at the floor for a while, then he began to stomp over to a large vault directly infront of him, as it looked the least crowded inside. Sciren was just at the doorway before he looked back at the old purple worm priest with another barely visible smile on his huge muzzle.

“… Thank you, Priest Chal’.”

“My blessings and good luck to you, brother Sciren,” grinned Chal’ as he bowed his head down and closed the red eye on his head for a few seconds as a sign of respect. Chal’ did not leave at that moment. He waited in the hall for Sciren to enter the vault, before scuttling away, pleased in the knowledge that he had guided another soul in the right direction.

Sciren sat down in a quiet corner of the information chamber. One where he could use a computer. However, Sciren was now eager to find the hidden answers about his past. And now he had a library of information from across the universe at his fingertips, he didn’t want to waste time reading. He knew of a much more ‘efficient’ method.

The giant looked around with an inconspicuous expression on his muzzle to see if anyone was looking. No one. They were all engrossed in reading their books or processing text from a small hologramatic screen. Sciren took this chance to lean around the side of his computer unit, and quietly remove the side-panel, exposing the machine’s ticking and bleeping innards. He gave another quick look round before ducking under his metal table and giving a closer inspection to the inside of the unit. The machine itself was quite old, but it seemed to have a central processing unit, which was all that Sciren needed to see.

The grey beast sat in a cross-legged position and raised his forearm up to the bare processor. A short trail of liquid metal worked its way out of a black flask on his arm and injected itself along a few of the data lines in the processor. Sciren had not used his liquimetal in ages. It had been used as a weapon last time. But this time, the organic metal was flowing into the motherboard of Sciren’s computer, microscopic signals sent from his brain allowed him to tap into the vast database before him.

Sciren gave a sigh and shut his eyes, praying that the answer would reveal itself when he opened them.

He could hear it now. The inaudible sound of billions of data strands rushing past all around him. He could hear the codes, orchestrating messages into a language he could truly understand. Sciren used a special form of organic code called Trinary, which worked in harmony with the binary codes used in even the simplest electronic devices. If there was one thing Sciren did know about himself, it was that he could quite easily be the missing link between the sentient natural world and the machines its inhabitants created.

The beast’s large red eyes flickered open and sighed at the beauty of the virtual world around him. On first appearance, the virtual library seemed to be exactly the same as the physical one, except the walls, floors and ceilings were transparent, yet alive and glowing with knowledge and information. It was quite literally flowing across every available surface, with no one to disturb it.

Sciren only had to take a step towards the technological masterpiece before a strange object manifested itself in front of him. Sciren stopped suddenly and observed the floating cube for a while. Then, the box split apart and started multiplying sides. In a matter of seconds, the box had morphed into the shape of another worm, made entirely out of polygons.

“You have done well to find your way in here,” it croaked, voice garbled like a corrupted sound file, “What brings you to this realm?”

Sciren took a closer look at the creature before him. As well as the entire virtual structure of this hall being made of fast-flowing data, so was this worm as he dipped his long tail into the floor, sucking up codes with every movement he made. Then Sciren glanced down at his feet, the same data codes lapping around them.

“I seek knowledge, micron worm,” said Sciren in a much more natural-sounding voice.

“Interesting,” hissed the Micron, grinning with it’s glowing binary teeth, “I have never seen a living person in this realm before. Your kind is meant to exist on the outside.”

“Then you have never seen a species capable of interacting with electronics in this way before?” asked Sciren, thinking this would lead to a dead end.

“Only one file found. I once heard of a mysterious worm from the physical world once used the very same power over machines and electronics, although his whereabouts today are unknown. But perhaps his wisdom can guide you further?”

“Yes. Yes, that’s what I seek!” smiled Sciren, holding his giant paws together hopefully, “I am not sure if I am related to this worm, but I wish to find an alien species that existed long ago. Will you allow me to search-”

“Wait, wait!” said the Micron, holding up a thin computer wire to Sciren’s lips. Sciren was instantly hushed. He knew he couldn’t do anything physical to this virtual creature, even if he wanted to. The micron carried on – “One needs information to find information, sometimes. Can you be more specific? Or, give me some clues as to what you are looking for?”

Sciren thought for a minute. There was so little he knew about the half of his DNA known as ‘Seta’. If only he had read into the computer banks back at Science Compound One more about himself and less about other people … but wait … what about the dream Sciren had? Could it have been some sort of subliminal message from the Seta beckoning him to find them? The green gem the same colour as the sun in his dream had led him this far …

“… I am looking for a place where time cannot exist.”

“How cryptic!” the worm smiled again as its glow began to fluctuate slightly, “Yes, yes, very interesting …”

In a flash, the hall around Sciren suddenly rushed forward, leaving him and the Micron still standing in exactly the same place. Another few jerky movements down the digital corridors, and they were in a completely different part of this virtual temple. The giant grey beast didn’t even flinch at the sudden rush. This was how a physical creature was supposed to explore the digital world. It moved around you.

“I shall not delay you any more, physical sir. I bid you good luck in your searches,” the micron worm said with a smile. The entity then began to morph back into a small cube, and when it was done, it slowly worked its way into a small gap in the digital wall, where it merged back into the coding.

Now Sciren only had his own thoughts for company as he searched deeper and deeper into the enigmatic clues from his dream. The halls rushed backwards and forwards all around Sciren lightning quick as he accessed all relevant data files stored here by the worms. ‘A place where time cannot exist’ … was it another dimension? A parallel reality? … Or just a metaphor?

The air was alive with clicks and electronic bleeps. Sciren scanned the walls as they flashed before his eyes, looking for anything that may lead him somewhere. He was patient. He must have been staring at those virtual walls for hours.

_ __ ___ ____ _____ ______ _____________________________________________

Chal’ was shuffling his way through the library at a leisurely pace, his walking stick clacking against the stone with every other movement he made. He had a book in one set of tentacles, gingerly flicking them and humming to himself thoughtfully, stopping every so often to give a friendly gesture to his brothers and disciples.

But suddenly, something caught the gaze of the pale old red eye atop Chal’s head. A large pair of legs stood in-between the towering sets of shelves, making Chal’ lower his dusty book. Looking up the familiar body, the purple priest was soon looking into the eyes of a familiar face. Sciren’s lost red eyes stared back at Chal’, who was grinning hopefully … but the grin soon melted away to match Sciren’s blank, disappointed stare.

“… You couldn’t find anything … could you?”

Sciren gave a sigh and a smile. He closed his eyes, dropped his head and shook it slowly. Chal’ tried not to look at Sciren for a while. He scratched his head with the back of his walking stick an hmm’ed anxiously for a while.

“… perhaps-”

“Perhaps your infinite knowledge is not infinite enough …” interrupted Sciren, still smiling and shaking his head. Opening his eyes, Sciren felt a bit guilty about saying this, after all the help this priest had given him. But the expression of the purple worm soon changed to another charismatic wise one as he held his walking stick in front of him with two sets of tentacles.

“You seem to be very sure of yourself, brother Sciren,” replied the worm in a thinking voice.

Sciren unfolded his arms and glared down at the worm, feeling that this whole trip had been a wild goose chase.

“I have just searched through every file in your temple’s database. I could not find any hard facts about the-”

“Ah! Facts! Yes,” counter-interrupted the worm priest, catching Sciren off guard slightly. Chal’ continued – “But facts can only get you so far, brother Sciren! Sooner or later, you will need to rely on your intuition. Take a leap of faith.”

Sciren stared at the floor in various places for a moment, trying to comprehend what the purple priest was telling him. The grey beast looked up.

“I … do not understand,” he said, confused.

Chal’s giant red eye looked to the left and to the right of him, then the priest worm tapped on Sciren’s knee with his wooden walking stick and his short tentacles indicated for Sciren to come lower down. Sciren bent down on his haunches and the worm wrapped a tentacle around the giant’s shoulder and began to whisper in his ear. Sciren listened, curiously.

“I am not supposed to be telling you this, brother Sciren. But I like to tell my fellow brothers and priests about some of the more ‘interesting’ individuals we’ve given guidance to during the day. And you, brother, are the most interesting person I have spoken to today!”

“… thank you,” said Sciren, blankly, knowing that the worm meant no offence. Chal’ whispered on.

“Welcome. Anyway, I was just talking to my closest brother, Yal’, who has been speaking to someone … with a very similar description to you.”

Sciren jerked back to full height and his eyes lit up. He wasn’t sure what to say as the worm gave another large grin back at him. The giant blinked once or twice, still slightly confused.

“… you do not think … … but … what does this have to do with fact?”

“It doesn’t!” replied the worm, shaking his head with a grin still fixed, “Sometimes one has to leave the facts behind … and rely on their inner feelings.”

Sciren blinked once more and cocked his head at the worm, beginning to understand the advice. Chal’ shuffled closer and stared up at Sciren with a friendly gaze.

“Brothers and Sisters in search of something more than facts, something which only the creative mind can understand … they usually find what they seek at the pool of dreams. I am told the warm waters can be quite inspiring.”

The worm slowly indicated in the direction of the pools with his knobbly wooden stick. Sciren’s gaze followed the indication to another large hall at the end of the library. Then he glanced back at Chal’.

“You have helped me greatly, worm priest, brother Chal’,” Sciren said as he gave one of his first ever genuinely grateful smiles down to the worm priest, “… One day, I shall help you.”

…

The pool of dreams was deceptively cool on entrance. The huge body of warm water in the centre of the echoey room cast dancing blue ripple effects of the stone ceiling. Sciren entered, casting a dark, towering shadow over the walls as he stomped closer to the warm waters. There didn’t seem to be anyone around again as Sciren laid down on his front, rubbing his belly fur up against the heated stone floor. He was alone. He felt like he had always been alone. Even in the market, even in this place, where he was surrounded by people of a thousand different cultures, no one knew what it was like to have such a viscous circle so deep inside your mind, constantly begging you to perform an impossible action. He was gone. His target, Scifer Sharpclawe was gone.

Sciren leant forward and peered into the deep water. His own stony face stared back at him from his reflection. Sciren held up one of his giant paws to his face and felt its contours slowly. He hadn’t seen his own reflection in months. He gave a long, deep sigh and collapsed on his folded arms, still staring into the rippling mirror. But what was this? He stared past his reflection, down further into the pool. It was surprisingly deep, and there was something at the bottom. A dark figure, just sitting there, not even any air bubbles coming from its nose. Something flicked out behind it as the figure stretched out further. A tail. A most similar tail to that of Sciren’s. The grey-furred beast had to check his own giant metal tail again for a match. The rippling water blurred Sciren’s telescoping vision slightly, but the figure’s attributes were pretty much identical to that of the rather bemused Sciren. Except … this figure was female. A very dark, flexible female. The giant arched his back in awe, still gazing down into the deep water, unable to take his eyes off her.

She was beautiful. It was like watching a black flame flickering underwater. But … no … she couldn’t be. Could she?

Could Sciren have finally found another Seta? Or even a Setarrian hybrid like himself? Sciren leaned closer forward and was just contemplating whether or not to investigate her further when the black silhouette at the bottom of the pool erupted to the surface and dashed off down the hall, leaving a long trail of water in her wake. She had completely failed to notice Sciren, who just sat there, wide-eyed and still at the sudden break for freedom the dark figure had made. Sciren was quite a shy person really. He preferred not to talk to people unless he really needed to. He didn’t even want to think about engaging in a conversation with her … but how else would he find out anything about her? The grey beast followed her with his scarlet gaze for a few seconds … he had to find out more.

As he watched her dashing off down the hall towards the great library, he jumped up and quickly chased after her, then skidded to a halt, only a few meters away from her as she turned sharply into the library. Sciren didn’t want her to know that she was being followed, so he just leaned up against a stone shelf full of books, occasionally peering around the corner. The creature looked wet and slightly ragged now she had jumped out the pool, but she didn’t seem to care as she spoke with another priest worm. She seemed so ecstatic, like the pool of dreams had inspired her as well. Then something caught Sciren’s ear. A word, spoken by this girl to the priest. ‘Angels’. She asked the worm priest to look up all the books detailing the creation of angels. Sciren stuck his head back around the corner and scratched the back of his head, giving a curious and slightly anxious sigh. A psycho-haze whirled around before Sciren’s eyes. That word ‘angel’ … it meant something to him. Maybe just on a subconscious level, but he felt that it was the link between the Seta, Sciren himself, and this girl … this dark girl was an angel. Now Sciren had to find out more.

The library had a sandy, musty smell to it as a couple of large brown creatures that moved at a snails pace shuffled over to a nearby bookshelf and began to fuddle through a set of bibliographies with their short tentacles. This great library was one of the few places where writing wasn’t inscribed all over the curving, echoing 100 ft walls. It all appeared to be written in the books. A warm ray of desert sun was shining on Sciren’s angel from one of the library’s tall windows.

In the dark corner of the great maze of books, Sciren gave a flick of his tail and carefully removed a few holy writings from the shelf at his eye level. He slowly peered through at the priest worm and the angel girl. The blue priest mentioned something to her about all the books she needed being located in the temple’s ‘hibernaculum’. Sciren knew the word. It was a place where creatures desiring hibernation as part of their religious beliefs could spend several months on end. But in the middle of a Serrian summer, hibernaculums were left abandoned … and an excellent place to study in peace.

The black angel said her final thanks to the worm priest and nimbly bounded off towards the other end of the library and its second huge doorway arch. Sciren started to wander after her, but then stopped himself, shuffling his feet a bit. He hid behind a second bookshelf until the angel had vanished down the hallway, and the blue priest worm had returned to his menial tasks in the library.

“Why have you stopped? … Follow her.”

“Why?”

“Your dream … The Emerald Sun, led you here … Now she may help you find the other clues.”

“I … do not want to frighten her.”

“… You must discover a path before you can follow it … Discover hers … Follow her.”

That voice. Sciren hadn’t listened to that voice in a long time. He’d blotted it out of his mind … but this time he had to listen to it, for it was right.

_ __ ___ ____ _____ ______ _____________________________________________

Sciren shuffled through the sandstone halls and chambers as quietly as he could, looking for his dark angel and a way to the hibernaculum. The occasional worm priest or pilgrim wandered past Sciren, staring at the floor infront of them as they meandered further into the temple. Then Sciren stopped. He suddenly realised that he had walked all the way to the other end of the temple as the last dim rays of the second sun cut through the dusty air from the rear exit arch. It was only at this point that Sciren realised it had taken him all day to walk from one end of this enormous structure to the other. Either that, or time had flown quickly during his quest for knowledge. A few last, weary travellers waddled in through the door, praising to their deity with a clop of their hooves as they entered. They then looked at a small open book infront of the giant stone arch, before one of them pointed in a direction and started walking in it.

“A map,” Sciren thought, as he stomped over to the book. Sure enough, this entire section of the temple was laid out across two pages, even though the whole book looked like it went on for 20. Sciren’s lightning fast camera-like eyes made short work of the diagram laid out before him. The first hibernaculum should be just at the end of the hallway to the west. But … it only appeared to have one door, and one window.

Sciren walked outside through the giant stone arch and onto the cool evening sand. He scanned up and down the side of the temple, trying to match the mental image of the map to what he saw.
And there was the hibernaculum.
A tall, thin tower it was, scratching at the yellowish clouds with a pointed dome on the top. Sciren zoomed his red gaze on the small window at the top wall of the tower. There was someone sitting in the window. Someone with sandy brown stripes all over her body, heavily engrossed in a book on her lap. Then Sciren suddenly recognized her. He darted back around the corner so as not to be seen and scanned the stripy girl with his heat-sensitive second vision. She was giving off the same heat signatures as the black angel he was following earlier. Maybe she had the ability to camouflage her skin to her environment? Sciren barely had time to think of another explanation before she nimbly leapt back inside the window and vanished into the dim interior of the tower.

Sciren, now driven by curiosity more than anything else, crept over the warm sand towards the outside wall of the tower. The last rays of gleaming orange sun tinted Sciren’s fur as he looked up to the small window. There must have been about 200 feet worth of sandstone from the window down to the ground. But there were ledges in the stonework every 20 feet or so. Sciren rubbed some of the desert dust into his big paws and after a few seconds, he gave a mighty leap into the air, grappling on to the first sandy ledge. He quickly lifted himself up with his muscled arms and sidestepped along the wall a bit further. He repeated this process of jumping up and regaining his balance, until he was about half way up. After sidestepping, a strong gust of wind caused Sciren to grip onto the sandstone ledge more tightly with his feet, crumbling the stone under his strength. In a flash, Sciren slammed both of his arms into the surrounding wall and deployed liquid metal inside the cracks in the stone work. Slightly shocked, Sciren was now suspended 100 feet in the air by the strong metal in his arms, watching the broken remains of his thin platform go tumbling back down to the desert below. With a quick and precise movement, he swung his body around and moulded his liquid metal into some more cracks in the outer wall. Gradually getting the hang of this new method of climbing, Sciren gradually began to scale up the wall, to the point where he was almost at the top window.

A small colony of sand whales gracefully floated past the setting suns as Sciren climbed onto the final ledge with the agility of a cat. He took a breath of the warm air to regenerate for a second. The red-eyed beast slowly peered in through the small Arabian-style window and looked around for his angel.
The interior of the hibernaculum was nice and cool, decorated with a thousand lifetimes of knowledge, like the rest of the temple. And in the centre, resting in a crater of books, was Sciren’s angel, still coloured in desert streaks. From this distance, she didn’t look like she was breathing much … She was asleep …

Slowly, so as not to make any noise, Sciren crept through the small window and moved in slowly towards the angel. She was asleep alright. Her eyes were shut tight with exhaustion. She looked like she had travelled from far away to get to this vast desert. Sciren skimmed along the floor as low down as he could get and peered over one of the small piles of books. There were lots of other scriptures and scrolls around the angel, including a large book underneath one of her black claws. Sciren slowly turned his head to one side in an effort to read the text. The writing was very old, written in some sort of SecondHebrew, but he could just about read it.

The grey beast froze, his red eyes wide open. Could this be true? He scanned further into the book

Eighteenth sector. Planet XX51B in orbit with a star – ‘Li-bynu’. Or the ‘green light’. Other planets in the sector are XXV5B7 (see notes on page 321) planet XX6HV (named ‘Chal-nock)(note son page 321, and map of planet in the records room under shelf XXV) and planet XX591 (called ‘Ve-Aiea suta’.)

The ‘green’ light? Surely that couldn’t be describing the lurid green sun from his dream? The bright burning ball appeared in his mind’s-eye again, beckoning him to dig further into the clues.

‘Ve-Aiea suta’, he thought, ‘What language is that? And what does it mean?’

The angel’s smooth black claw covered up the rest of the page, and Sciren daren’t move it. He looked at the page on the other side of the open book for more information on what his angel was researching.

Mathematical study. XX591 has a class 17 orbit around Li-bynu, giving it 486 days in a year. However, XX591 spins at an equilateral angle to its orbit, constantly exposing one side of the planet to the G class sunlight of Li-bynu.

Sciren’s eyes widened again as all the clues fell into place like an elaborate jigsaw puzzle and the mammalian side of Sciren made the beast wag his enormous metal tail slightly.

This planet, XX591, was the answer to the clue in his dream. But it wasn’t a clue, it was a riddle. ‘A place where time cannot exist’ was just a metaphor for a planet that had no seasons. A planet that only had one side constantly facing the sun would have a permanent, scorching summer on one side of the world, and an eternal, freezing winter on the other.

Blood raced through the 6 valves of Sciren’s heart. He had solved 2 of the clues from his dream. Whatever his destiny was, it lay waiting for him, somewhere on planet XX591 … but what about the third clue? ‘Look for one who shares your path’ … Surely the sleeping angel in front of him would lead him further? She had led him this far, and she was reading the book that solved the hardest part of Sciren’s mystery.

But what was this in her other claw? Sciren’s eyes locked onto the odd, metal cube. There was a lot of strange, alien writing all over the artefact. Without thinking, Sciren slowly moved his giant paw over to the angel’s to take the mysterious cube …

Her eyes flickered suddenly, and Sciren leapt 50 meters in the other direction, his muscular legs propelling him out of the window in shock. The beast was now clinging on to a sandstone ledge just below the windowsill, heart pounding.

‘What were you thinking?!’, his mind shouted at him as he swung up his other arm to stabilize himself on the ledge. A bit bits of dust and crumbling stone fell past Sciren’s face as he managed to lift his leg up onto the platform below, then freeze. He couldn’t see her, but he could sense his angel was awake, and gazing out the window, wondering if she was being watched. ‘She mustn’t see you.’ Sciren could hear the barely audible sounds made by her leaning on the windowsill and a slight yawn as she stared towards dark, fiery horizon made by the last of the setting suns.

Sciren still didn’t move a muscle. He daren’t even grip tighter to the wall suspending him over the 200ft drop.

‘Not a sound.’

… The sound of delicate claws tapping on the stone, getting fainter and fainter. Finally, she was leaving.

Sciren had snapped back into reality while he was left clinging to that sandstone wall. He really couldn’t believe what he had spent his whole day doing. He had been perusing a dream that could have meant absolutely nothing, and following a long line of, what could have been, pure co-incidences. He had let his imagination take control, for the first time in his life, and the leap of faith had led him nowhere. Sciren sucked in the cold evening air and breathed it out again, more heavily as he started to carefully abseil down the wall, stopping for balance every now and then.

He reached the bottom with a gentle thud and a large spray of sand, and recoiled slowly from the jump. Gently dusting himself off, he calmly made his way back over to the giant temple doors, with a calm expression on his face. As he entered the now-dark temple, a cold gust of sand blew in with him, and Sciren started to stomp over the stone floor harder and faster now. The grey beast’s anger with himself grew, and his pace quickened, until it became a jog, then a run … then a sprint. He charged past a few wandering disciples and religious folk, bookshelves and alters as fast as he could, his huge legs pounding like the pistons of a steam train. The grey monster maintained his speed and energy. The other door was in sight. Sciren had to escape this waking dream …

_ __ ___ ____ _____ ______ _____________________________________________

It was just another dismal, starless night for Serrian Spaceport 1 and its surrounding town. The residents were beginning to drift off to sleep once more, the lights within their small stone houses and apartment blocks flickering off into the darkness. There was no one about on the sandy street down below. The market stands were shut and locked, shops closed, but a grey blur shot its way along the street, a plume of silver sand in its wake. Sciren’s machine-like legs powered on, the moonlight shining brightly in his soft fur. With a sharp turn, he bolted inside his residence block, up 3 flights of stairs and into his room, slamming the old rusty door shut behind him with a loud bang.

Sciren gasped for breath at an alien-efficient speed, mopping the sweat from his brow with his shouldercloth. The giant gave a long sigh and he collapsed on his haunches in front of the door. He was back home now. He felt safe. Safe in familiarity. He just sat there for a while, lifting his head up against the cold wall with closed eyes.

‘What were you thinking? … Did you honestly think your life was going to change, just like that?’

‘… I did what I felt was right.’

‘You trusted a false instinct.’

‘… yes …’

The beast gave a weary glance over to his humble room with his dark eyes. The floor was still littered with mechanical items that needed repairing. Sciren hadn’t done his usual chore of marking the most urgent repair order this morning. He’d better get to work.

The first and second moonlight beamed in through the same old glassless window, casting a silver light upon the same old Sciren, repairing the same old technojunk with the same old stony expression on the hard stone floor.

… Then he stopped. Sciren looked up from his lightning quick repair work and fixed a stare out the window. With slow, purposeful movements, he dropped the containment device he was mending and stood up, tall on his haunches. The silky white touch of the moons caressed Sciren’s giant, toothy muzzle as he leaned out of his window towards the stars.

What if he had been right in the first place? What if he was so close to finding out the truth about his past, present, and maybe his future that he could almost touch it? There was nothing really standing in the way of him finding out. Only the dull, very real life that he already had, repairing broken technologies on this sleepy little desert planet. But very recently … it had become too real.

Sciren smiled to himself. He hopped off the windowsill and hopped into his hammock. The hybrid giant had never slept 2 nights in a row before.

‘Will I just drop my life in search of a new one? Will I continue wandering after my dreams until my step falters?

… In your case, my angel …

Yes I will.’

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