Guess what? Stuff actually HAPPENS in this chapter! *gasp*

Also, is it Kragmite or Cragmite? The R&C Wiki says it's with a K but I've always thought it was with a C. So which is it?

I don't own R&C or any of its characters.

Xxxxxx

The next morning we went back to finishing the blueprint. Once or twice I tried bringing up last night's conversation if only to figure out what the hell it was all about but every time I thought I was going to be able to steer the conversation in that direction Max would change the subject. Eventually I gave up and just focused on getting the work down. It took most of the day but eventually it was done. Max went to call the Institute of Research and hear how they wanted the plans sent to them. He figured he'd send the broken Praetorian omni-wrench as well. He said something about the two making a nice display together in a museum somewhere.

For the first time I wasn't so sure how I felt about one of these things being in a place as stuffy and boring as a museum. I still had Alister's wrench hanging on a wall at home. Thinking of the same thing being kept in a display case made me feel weird. I tried to forget about it and wandered off to find the ship Talwyn promised I could take apart instead, leaving the explorer to his work.

I made my way to the elevator and took it down to the docking bay. Clank was somewhere on the higher levels doing whatever it was he did when he was by himself. Talwyn had received a call from one of the Polaris government's officials and hadn't come out of her room yet. From what I could tell it had something to do with her dad and his research but I tried not to eavesdrop on her business.

I searched the dock for something I could dig my wrench into. Apart from Aphelion there was also Talwyn's personal ship as well as one I recognised from seeing Kronk and Zephyr use once. Otherwise there were two other starships, one of which looked half-gutted already. I decided to leave that one alone and focused on the one that was, at the moment, intact.

It seemed like a simple ship, probably Markazian by the looks of the design. I could tell it was still in factory condition and that just wasn't gonna cut it. I'd be damned if I saw any ship so insulted that it was left the way they churned them out of a factory. I tightened my gloves, pulled out my wrench, and descended upon it.

It was definitely second hand which annoyed me a little bit. I dunno who owned it before but they obviously didn't know much about ships if they were happy using it as-is when they bought it. By the looks of its engine it hadn't been used for too many long flights though and its warp-drive looked completely untouched, meaning it'd probably never left Polaris. I worked my way from the top downwards, lining pieces up on the floor beside me as I went, trying to find where to start first in getting it in some kind of acceptable condition.

I'd rebuilt and replaced about half of its engine before the elevator came down and Clank wandered over to me.

"There you are." He said as he came closer, his heels clicking metallically on the steel floor.

"Hey pal." I greeted, half an energy dispenser in my hands.

"I thought you were still helping Mr. Apogee with his work." he said conversationally as he climbed up onto the ship to see inside the hood.

"Yeah I was, but we finished." I fitted the dispenser into place, pulling my wrench closer and securing it.

He was silent for a moment as he watched me work before speaking up again. "Does Talwyn know you are taking apart her ships?"

I gave a slight laugh. "She said she had one I could play with right? Far as I could tell this was the only one that looked like it wasn't being used that much."

"So you didn't ask her."

"What's the better plan here Clank?" I waved my wrench in the air lazily as I gave him a pointed look. "Asking and hearing 'no' or just doing it and then have her not care because the ship'll be better than it was anyway?"

"As always, your logic is staggering." He gave me a blank look.

"Oh-ho! Sarcasm!" I laughed, picking up another engine part. "That's new coming from you."

"Do not patronise me!" He said, giving me a dirty look.

"Me? Never." I said with sincerity.

He shook his head at me. "Well, I know nothing about this. Just remember that when she comes asking about it." He watched me a little longer before adding. "Where's your checklist?"

I handed it over to him and he sat down to check me as I kept working.

Evening came and went. Clank and I were planning on getting ourselves packed and heading home the next day. With nothing more I could help with and now knowing how the residents of the station were doing there wasn't that much point in staying longer. I mean we could stick around if Talwyn wanted some company but I felt Clank was right and she should get some time alone with her dad. We'd already stayed longer than we'd planned anyway.

"So what did Qwark's people want?" I asked her before I went to bed.

She gave a huff and shrugged. "Just political stuff. Who has the right to the temple finds, what legal proceedings there needs to be to stop things blowing up in their faces. Stuff like that. It was profoundly boring."

"And bless you for doing it love." Max flashed her a smile which she returned warmly.

Morning came and after packing the few things we'd brought with us I went back to the dock to give Aphelion a once over before the trip. I made sure she was full on fuel and that her shields were at full power in case we ran into trouble.

"Ready to get back home?" I asked her as I looked over the dashboard controls, checking the readout of her warp-drive.

"I think so yes." She answered. "Although the down time was a welcomed change."

I nodded with a smile as I got out, closing the cockpit behind me. "Better than crash landings that's for sure."

Satisfied she was ready for the trip I took the elevator back up to the Atrium. Clank came trotting down the stone path towards me as I walked back to the domed entrance.

"Something wrong?" I asked when he got close enough.

"I think you better come and look at this." He said, turning to lead me back.

I frowned, speeding up to walk with him. "What's up?"

"Just come and look." He said with a dejected tone.

I relaxed a little bit at the vague response. If it was serious Clank would've just given me a straight answer. We walked back through the domed entrance where the crates were still being kept due to the fact that there was no better place for them. Max was there, speaking to some-one I didn't know but didn't need to to recognise. The light-blue jump-suit, cap with a logo on it and the vacant expression all were the marks of that breed of people, 'the delivery man'. Max was signing something on an electronic clipboard before handing it back to the guy. He took it and looked it over without much interest before giving a nod.

"Have a good day sir." he said in a voice that cracked comically before turning and walking past us to the Atrium to take a shuttle back to the astroid belt. Not being a friend of the station he hadn't been allowed to use the docking bay.

"What's that about?" I asked to either Max or Clank, whoever decided to answer first.

"Oh there you are!" Max grinned when he saw me. "I've been wondering where you'd gone!" He walked over to a crate that was still closed and patted it. "Just arrived! I was going to come look for you to let you know!"

"Let me know what?" I walked over, inspecting the new crate. "What's arrived?"

Max's grin widened at me. "Well, since we ran out of gizmos for you to paw I sent word to the Society that I've got you here to unlock things. Things which they've been trying to crack open for decades! It took a bit of negotiating but I got them to send over a few items that we might get to open up! And record anything we find of course."

I blinked, first at him then at the crate. "You got more stuff?"

"Artefacts dear boy!" He laughed loudly. "If you want to be associated with these things you're gonna have to learn the terminology or people won't take you seriously!"

I didn't know what to say. I turned back to stare at him, dumbfounded. He was still smiling at me widely, a spark in his eyes as he stared back. He looked eager and excited but somewhere underneath all of that I wondered if he didn't seem desperate. I turned back to the crate with something between a sigh and a grunt as I rubbed an arm thoughtfully.

"Is something wrong?" Max said. The smile faltered just by a fraction, his eyes boring into me.

I shook my head almost automatically at this. "No nothing's wrong." I dropped my shoulders in defeat. "What've you got?"

The smile perked again as he turned to the crate, picking up a nearby crowbar we'd used on the others earlier.

"Wait till you see what the society's been keeping in their vaults! You thought I had good stuff? Wait till you see this!"

"Ratchet." I felt a firm hand grip mine and give it a stern tug. "May I speak to you in private for a moment?"

Uh oh.

"Yeah." I turned to look at Max over my shoulder as Clank almost physically pulled me into the atrium. "You start unpacking whatever it is. I'll be back in a minute."

"Don't be gone too long!" Max called eagerly.

Once we were out of earshot Clank let me go and turned to face me, his hands fixed firmly to his hips. "May I ask what you think you are doing?"

"What?" I protested, shrugging at him.

"You know very well what." He frowned at me. "Were we not getting ready to go back home today? Did you not tell the two of them we were leaving?"

"Of course I told them!" I frowned back. "I guess Max just... kinda forgot." I shrugged again. "Look this stuff means a lot to him. He was probably so excited about this that he forgot we're meant to be leaving."

"You are making excuses for him." Clank said pointedly.

"I'm just saying what I think happened." I argued. "Besides, would it really hurt if we stayed a day or two more? It's not like we've got some kind of appointment we need to get to."

Clank crossed his arms, thinking it over. I bent down so I could be at eye level with him. "Come on pal. It means a lot to the guy. Weren't you the one who wanted us to come here in the first place? You said we might find something useful right? What if it's in that box over there?"

He uncrossed his arms and made the motions of a sigh. "I do not mind staying a little longer..."

"Thanks" I smiled.

"...however I still find it a little inconsiderate of him to do something like this."

"Guy's been stuck in a jungle for 10 years." I lowered my voice slightly. "That's a long time to try and remember that other people have lives too when you've been living all alone."

Again he said nothing to this, he just shook his head and started walking back to the domed entrance. I got up and followed him.

"Everything ok?" Max asked, the smile this time looked a little shaky, as if he was afraid of the answer.

"Yeah no problem." I nodded reassuringly. "We just had to decide when the two of us have to get back home."

Max gave a nod at this, turning back to the new crate and digging around inside it. "Ah yes of course of course."

"Because... we were kinda thinking of going today but..."

Before I could finish my sentence he turned back to me and dropped something in my hands. It was a large, brass coloured sphere of some kind. It had gears and cogs engraved on it and it was heavy. I had to put it down almost as soon as he handed it to me.

"What the heck is this thing?" I asked, my train of thought interrupted.

"We're hoping you can tell us!" Max laughed. Behind him I was partially aware of Clank walking over to one of the older crates and jumping on top of it before sitting down to watch us.

I frowned at the large sphere that now sat in front of me. It was the size of a globe but was made of some kind of metal. I didn't think it was solid or I wouldn't have been able to hold it at all, but it was clear it had something inside it.

"A safe maybe?" I put my hands on it. It didn't react and I started feeling around it, looking for a button or something I could put my fingers on.

"They did some x-rays on the thing and whatever it is, it's got machine parts inside it." Max said as he sat down in front of me and the sphere.

I ran my hands over it, tracing the embossed shapes and smooth surfaces but nothing seemed to happen. After a few minutes I gave a sigh. "I think this one's a dud Max."

He sighed as well but with a lot more disappointment than I did. "Well, they're not all gonna be winners right?" He turned to scratch in the crate again.

"Have you tried it without your gloves Ratchet?" Clank spoke up from his spectator's seat.

"That's not a bad idea actually." I said, pulling them off and putting them beside me. I ran my hands over the sphere again and this time when I put my fingers to an indentation the sphere rolled itself open into a bowl.

Mechanical gears and parts seemed to uncurl themselves from its inside as the whole thing transformed. Once its insides were on the outside the bowl turned itself into a sphere again and we ended up with something completely different than when we started.

"What in the world is it suppose to be?" Max asked, staring at it in confusion.

I leaned forward and pulled it closer by the long steel bar that was now coming out of it. After a short inspection I couldn't stop myself from laughing.

"Well? Don't keep me in suspense what is it?!" Max said urgently.

"It's a unicycle." I laughed, standing up so I could get it the right way up.

Max pulled a face almost like disgust. "A what? A.. But why?! Why lock something like that?! It's worthless!"

"Hey hey now." I chuckled. "Somebody obviously cared about it if they wanted to lock it." I rolled it back and forth with a hand for a moment. "I always wondered if I'd be any good with one of these."

Max seemed far less amused than I was though and got up, going back to the crate as he muttered under his breath. From the sound of giggling from the other side of the room it seemed I wasn't the only one entertained by the weird find.

"Come on Max." I smiled at his back. "Sure it's no secret plans or anything but its still interesting right?"

He sighed as he turned back to me. "I suppose. Just a little underwhelming. This on the other hand, is gonna be interesting no matter what." He held out his hand to me again. "We know what it is, we just can't turn it on."

I opened my hands and he dropped a small circular object the size of an apple in them. Although I didn't know the design I knew what it was. In Solana people still mostly used infobots for relaying messages and making recordings but now and then you'd find a species who used similar but more compact devices for such things. They seemed a lot more common in Polaris than Solana. I probably just found out why.

It sat in my hands for only a moment before something like a cap opened up and a holo-screen shot out of the thing and opened up in front of me. My brain was still trying to process exactly what it was that I was holding so for a moment it didn't register what I was looking at. My brain then told me I was looking in a mirror but I quickly rejected this, knowing it wasn't true.

I watched as a face like my own took in a breath and started talking to me.

"The decision has been made that the council of elders and the Praetorian order will co-operate with this inventor's request of our military designs after General Azimuth gave his vote of consent. Plans are being made as to which documents we will provide him with and in what manner he intends to use them. The motion was put forward that his work be closely monitored during this coalition." The speaker made a loud aggravated noise and got up. There were details of the room he was in but my brain refused to focus on any of it, my eyes fixed on the speaker as he started to pace.

"I have no idea what the general is thinking! We've survived through all that we have because our's is a species who know how to keep secrets! And now he wants to open the doors to whoever waltzes in with promises of more advanced technology?! When have we ever needed any-one else's technology but our own?! Let alone from such a dubious source!"

Somewhere behind me I heard metal on metal as Clank got down from the crate and walked to stand beside me. The speaker sat back down in his chair, running hands over the white furred face in irritation before speaking again.

"In my opinion its a poor decision on the council's part. But the vote has been cast and there's little I can do about it now. My only prayer is that my fears are nothing but paranoia and the ramblings of a man who has seen too much war in his life. Only time will tell." He turned to face me again head on. "I will be recording an update on this matter in a few days. Note to self; remember to employ a lock on recording device. My gut tells me I need to start being a little more careful with my thoughts on the matter. Skyler Corona signing out."

The screen went blank.

I stared at the spot where it had been in silence. Only for a moment though before a large heavy hand gave me a rather painful slap on the back accompanied with a booming laugh.

"Now that is more like it!" Max beamed at me, he was practically glowing. "Good lord we knew an infosphere would mean something good but this is unheard of! A perfect undamaged recording from one of the higher-ups before Tachyon's invasion? It's unheard of! If it hadn't been for the lock I'd have sworn it was a hoax!" Another hard back-slap and a laugh. "Wait until I tell those stiff-necked pencil pushers at the society that we managed in two minutes what they've been struggling to do for almost 30 years! Oh man I need to set the screen to record when I tell them! I wanna keep the looks on their faces for prosperity's sake!"

I gave him a weak smile, shifting a little away from him in case he decided to congratulate me on the back again.

"This calls for a toast!" He took the circular object out of my hands before turning to a crate he was using as a table and writing some notes in the large leather-bound book I'd seen earlier. "Go tell Talwyn to get us some glasses! You go into my workroom and look in the bottom drawer. There's a large bottle of rum I swiped off Captain Slag. I've been saving it for something special. And to think we haven't even started on this crate yet!" He waved a hand at me as he continued to write. "Go on go on!"

I nodded and hurried up the stairs to the main living area. Clank following close behind. He started to say something but got interrupted when we ran into Talwyn on our way.

"What's all the yelling about?" She asked me. She looked unsure if she should be concerned or not.

I chuckled. "Your dad made me open up an infosphere that had some or other recording on it. Turns out it's kind of a big deal. He said to get some glasses so he could toast it."

"Taosting it huh?" She broke into a warm smile. "That is a big deal! I'll be there in a moment, he's in the entranceway right?"

"As always." I said as I continued to the workroom.

I opened the door and walked inside, going over to the desk and opening the bottom drawer. There was a stack of papers on top of what could only be a bottle. I started pulling them out to get to the rum.

"Ratchet."

I piled them next to me carefully, making sure not to get them out of order as I fished out the bottle before putting them back.

"Ratchet."

I looked up, closing the drawer as I did so.

Clank was staring at me. Hard.

"... Are you alright?"

I stared at the bottle in my hands, trying to think of an answer. Was I alright? I didn't know. I felt unnerved more than anything else. The only lombax face I'd seen after learning I was all alone was Alister's, and he was dead. Seeing another, if only in a recording, felt weird. I had my pocket watch sure but it was different. This had been a moving, speaking face. It wasn't just some faded photo in an old watch.

"Ratchet?"

I realised I hadn't answered him yet and looked up again. I gave a nod, if only because I knew it was what he wanted to see. "Yeah I'm good." I pushed myself up, moving to leave.

"That was unfair of him." Clank's words stopped me and I turned to look at him again, confused.

"He did not even ask if you wanted to see what was recorded on that thing." a slight frown was creeping on his face. "And he did not seem to care what you thought after he saw what it was."

"It's fine Clank." I said with conviction.

The bolts that worked like shoulders dropped and the frown disappeared. "Is it?"

I took in a long breath, sighing as I turned the bottle over in my hands, swishing the liquid inside. "It was just a shock that's all."

There was a pause between us but I didn't make a move to leave the room. I was sure there was more to be said although I couldn't think of what it was.

"Do you want to do this?" Clank eventually asked.

"What?"

"Do you want to keep helping him with these things?" He took a step or two closer to me. "And I do not want to hear whether you think he needs your help or not, I want to know if you want to give it to him."

I was silent again, thinking about the question seriously. When we went through the items in his crates before, I didn't feel anything for the stuff inside it. To me it was nothing but junk. Throw away antiques that had no value except for guys who liked writing books about those kinds of things. The omni-wrench plans had been exciting but that's because they were something mechanical, and when I got them to open I felt like I'd actually contributed something. But this... this was different.

It was more than weird seeing some-one who looked a lot like me who wasn't Alister or a mirror. I still wasn't sure what I was feeling at seeing that so abruptly yet. Deep inside of me I felt like I didn't really want to find anything else that touched a nerve that raw again, but at the same time I wanted to tip that entire crate over and go through absolutely everything that fell out of it. I wanted to comb through every last piece of gadgetry until I knew exactly what was waiting for me to find. I wanted it all out in the open so that there'd be nothing for me to wonder about later.

Eventually I found myself back in the present. Clank hadn't said anything else, waiting for an answer patiently.

"...Yeah." Was all I said.

"Are you sure?" He walked over to stand next to me.

I shook my head, turning to exit the room. "No I'm not sure. But right now... I just want to dive in and do it."

"You can tell him 'no' if you want to Ratchet." He said, following after me.

"I know." I nodded. "But I wanna know..." I shook my head again quickly. "I gotta know what else is in that box."

"If you are sure." He said, giving in.

"I'm not." I walked back to the entrance dome. "but I'm gonna do it anyway."


Max and I toasted the... infosphere I guess. Talwyn joined us which I was grateful for. Having her there helped divert some of Max's attention off me. I was worried if we talked too long he'd notice I wasn't really as enthusiastic as him about the supposed breakthrough. We only had about one glass each. In Max's case it was because he wanted to go back to going through the new crate. In my case it was because whatever kind of rum he'd stolen from Captain Slag tried to burn holes in my throat all the way down into my gut. Luckily I'd taken a drink from my glass first, sparing Talwyn a similar fate when I pretty much coughed my lungs up.

After we were done Max immediately went back to work. I let myself get pulled back into the endeavour. I asked Tal if she wanted to join us but she declined. She said she had things to do and still needed to talk to Qwark's people about the legalities behind everything. I thought about offering to wait until she was done to go through the crate but I knew Max wouldn't be able to contain himself until then. I gave her an apologetic smile and told her she should join us when she was done. Time wore on however and she was still wrapped up in talking to the politicians. The two of us with Clank as an audience went on with the task at hand.

I was nervous about what else was waiting to be found. Max was quick to pick out objects that looked similar to the data storage we discovered that started all this. There were about four of them. Of these one didn't work at all and another's data was corrupted, but the last two were still usable. The first of these was actually a map. Nothing as interesting or dramatic as a treasure map but instead a map of what I could identify as a city. Max told me that is was a map of a Lombax Colony somewhere in the Antares system. The map not only showed the city itself but was also marked with hidden bunkers, hidden caches of what I don't know and other things that would give it cause to be locked. Max said it was from the early days of the Great War, making me wonder if the other lombaxes did anything before the war started.

The second one was the first thing we found I got excited about. It was another blueprint, this time of a ship. Its design was slightly different than Aphelion's but I made it my personal mission right then and there to copy it down later and use it to maybe give her an upgrade if possible. It was a simple find but it fuelled me and gave me some of my energy back to see what else there was without dreading it as much.

We went over various things after that. Some of them reacted to my touch while others didn't, either because they weren't suppose to or because they were too badly damaged by time and exposure. Most if not all the things we went through were all practical in nature. There were no locked family albums or music boxes or the things of the like. I was secretly grateful for this. I wasn't sure I really wanted to find something too personal. Max was pleased too but for different reasons. Practical things meant they could be studied and displayed. Personal items were apparently not seen as being very valuable as far as lombax research went.

The last of the afternoon went by and I managed to lighten up, getting lost in the task and enjoying Max's company, as draining as it could be at times. His enthusiasm and obvious passion for the work was contagious. Besides, as painful as they were sometimes I liked the praise he gave me. People tended to shoot at me more than they told me I was doing a good job. It was a nice change.

After a while Talwyn finally came downstairs. She was scowling and I could almost physically feel her fume when she got close.

"Guess who I had to talk to today!" She snapped at us as she leaned herself against a crate and folded her arms tightly.

"Qwark." me and Clank both answered. Only one person could trigger that much annoyance in a someone.

She gave an annoyed growl and shook her head. "Why hasn't some-one realised he barely has the brains to eat let alone run an entire galaxy?! Ok I get he's not exactly running the galaxy by himself but do you have any idea what it's like trying to hold a conversation with him about what should be done with this temple?! You try asking him about the conservation rights versus rights to claim and see how much fun it is!"

I laughed at her. "Geez Tal calm down!"

"Don't tell me to be calm!" She snapped but instantly looked like she regretted it. "Sorry. It's just... uggggh! That man!"

"Sorry Talwyn." I said with a more sympathetic look. "D'you wanna hang out with us and rant about it for a while?"

She gave a forlorn sigh and shook her head again, but this time to say 'no'. "I think I'm just gonna take a bath, grab something sweet and bad for me from the fridge and call it a night. I'm on the verge of a migraine and I really don't feel like watching you three geek out over ancient yo-yos or whatever. No offence dad."

He laughed at her. "None taken love."

She managed a smile at him and pushed herself off the crate again. "Any-one know where Kronk and Zephyr are?"

"They said something about receiving a transmission on your asteroid border and went to go investigate." Clank said. "It sounded like a Terachnoid had become lost and had run out of fuel."

"They're not the best pilots." I smirked.

"Right. When they get back tell them to keep themselves busy with something and not to bug me till tomorrow morning." She said as went back upstairs. She stopped half-way to give all three of us a stern glare. "And I don't want to hear how you guys got stuck in something and stayed up until 4 in the morning ok? That goes double for you!"

"Me?!" I frowned back up at her. "Why me specifically?!"

"Because you do it all the time. Don't think I don't know." She gave me a sideways smirk before climbing the rest of the stairs and disappearing from sight.

"She has you pegged boy." Max snickered at me.

"Yeah, like you're completely innocent." I grinned back.

Evening became night and we kept up our steady pace of sorting through what was turning out to be a very large shipment. We'd slowed down our pace a lot since that first night we found the wrench blueprint and took more time going through each individual item, inspecting it, seeing what happened if I played around with it for a moment and then letting Max take down detailed notes of whatever did or didn't happen.

It was just crossing the line between being a decent time and late that Clank stretched himself before hopping down off the crate he'd been sitting on all day and gave us a goodnight before leaving. A short while later I was planning to start making my way up to bed as well. After the newest artefact opened itself up for me (a storage compartment for some half-finished invention of some kind) I handed it to Max to make his notes.

"I think I'm gonna turn in." I said as he took it and put it down beside his book. "Talwyn might've been joking but I don't want to really wait and see how angry she'll be if we stay up all night."

Max laughed and gave a nod. "A wise decision if you ask me."

"You'd better take my example." I said, turning to walk up the stairs. "She'd be mad at me but I don't even wanna think about what she'd do to you."

He chuckled again. "You don't need to worry about me kid. For once I think I'm gonna hit the sack early tonight. After all I think we did more work today than any other researcher has in the past five years."

"No kidding." I pulled a face, turning to leave.

"Speaking of which I wanted to thank you." Max went on.

I turned back to face him and shrugged as I crossed my arms. "No sweat. It's kinda fun going through this stuff." I found myself smiling at the crate we'd been working through. "It's the most lombax made stuff I've ever seen in my life that's for sure."

"Yeah... er..." Max looked uncertain, rubbing the back of his neck as if wrestling with something. "But I wanted to thank you anyway. I'm sure it's not easy."

My smile faded at this as I regarded him silently. He looked uncomfortable but gave a sigh and went on.

"I mean, walking down here and looking all this straight in the face." He gave me a half-hearted smile which quickly faded. "Talwyn told me a little bit about you you know. Nothing private or anything, but she got me to kinda get a better picture of erm... your... situation."

I frowned softly at him but still kept quiet. I wanted to see what point he was trying to make before I answered. He obviously didn't like this and shifted self consciously in place.

"It's just... This stuff's important to me." He said eventually.

I gave a nod. "Yeah you told me."

He gave his head a shake. "No, no I didn't really." He gave a sigh and turned to look behind him before sitting down on the nearest crate, folding his hands together in his lap. I stared at him for a moment before I uncrossed my arms and walked back again, leaning against the crate we were working on as I waited to hear him out.

"Have you ever been marooned on a planet Ratchet?" He asked, a serious expression on his face.

"Unless roughly the first sixteen or so years of my life count no, not really." I answered. I knew it wasn't the same thing at all but I felt my guard being raised.

He gave a hollow chuckle at this. "No offence but I don't think it's the same." He turned to gaze off to the side for a moment. I waited, watching him gather his thoughts and wondering what he was trying to say.

"When you're all by yourself..." He started. "And I mean... completely by yourself, with not even strangers or people you don't know to talk to, you start going down some pretty bad roads. Mentally I mean."

I shifted uncomfortably, not sure I wanted to hear this.

"There was a time where I would wonder if there was any point to keep going. Ten years Kid. Ten. Damn. Years. That's a very long time to be stuck anywhere. With no-one to talk to, or listen to or even look at. You start wondering if there is any real purpose to anything at all. Stuck on some god-forbidden planet in a hot sweltering jungle with no company except every bug known to science, blood thirsty predators and the occasional monsoon. It's a wonder I didn't start talking to trees and crown myself prince of the dandruff fairies."

His dark eyes fell on me again and once again I felt like they were drilling holes right through me. "Do you know what I did? To stop myself from going completely mind-bendingly insane? I gave myself something to focus on. I had no delusions about being rescued or escaping that tropical hell, but I knew that someday, there would be some-one who'd come across my camp. If simply going by the rule of averages. I wanted people to know that Max Apogee, One of the greatest explorers ever seen by the galaxy did not waste away in some rainforest slowly going insane."

He sat up a little straighter. "So I threw myself into my work. Captain Slag and his bunch of cut-throats had dropped me right on top of some Zoni ruin. It was their idea of a joke or irony or who knows what. It turned out to be my salvation. It became my rock as every day of my lonely life I'd throw myself at it, digging deeper into its secrets. Hellbent on discovering why it was there, why it was built and why it was so very different to all the other temples I'd ever seen. At first it was just a way to keep myself distracted from my situation as I stupidly waited for some kind of rescue. As months became years though it soon became my sole reason for waking up in the morning."

He paused for a moment, his face looked hard and lined with the almost permanent smile gone. A battered and weathered face was suddenly staring back at me and I felt like I was talking to a stranger all over again. Like there was no way this could be the same person I met almost a week ago.

He ran a hand over his face, rubbing his eyes before letting his fingers stroke over the goatee before he took a deep breath and went on.

"Resigning to the fact that, in my mind, there was no way I was ever going to leave that planet alive, I put my whole existence into my work. Do you... do you have any idea what it felt like when I saw that hulking mass of a spaceship coming out of the sky? I thought I'd cracked."

He gave a single mirthless laugh. "What do you do when you've accepted your life and then the universe decides it's gonna make all your dreams come true? You know what you do?" His eyes dug into me again. "You reject it. Not consciously maybe but you reject the idea that this is how it's gonna be from now on. You just don't have the faith left to believe it. So you cling to the familiar and to what you know you can control. To what keeps you sane."

He turned to the item he'd been taking notes on last in his book and picked it up, turning it in his fingers as he looked it over with a lack of interest. "Because you're not ready to face what's suddenly become your reality."

He put the mathematical tool down and turned to me again. "And I wanted to thank you for indulging me in all this, even if it's a little uncomfortable for you."

'Uncomfortable' was a vast understatement but I said nothing, holding the aged explorer in my gaze. When the pause dragged out and I realised he had nothing more to say I took in a breath, trying to think of some kind of reply I could give.

"Maybe it's not the same thing..." I started, choosing my words carefully. "...but I think this stuff is important to me too. Only I'm having a hard time accepting that." I gave a shrug at myself. "So uncomfortable or not it's something I gotta deal with I think." I gave a frustrated sigh. "What I'm trying to say is you don't need to feel guilty about it. There's more to it than just me trying to do you a favour."

Max smiled again and his age was hidden once more. The smile wasn't the one I saw practically every day though. It had more maturity to it, and more understanding. "You're a real life-saver my boy."

I returned the smile, thanking him although for what I wasn't sure.

I wasn't able to sleep that night, staring instead at the ceiling of the room as the conversation played itself over and over in my head. I wondered if I really was helping him out of some obligation, or if there really had formed some sort of personal investment in what we were doing.

Eventually I told myself that it didn't matter since both had the same result at the end of the day and tried pushing it to the back of my mind. However once I did so the recording from the infosphere and the face of Skyler Corona came back to me and refused to go away.

I rolled onto my side and closed my eyes, but I wasn't able to sleep.

Xxxxxx

I always feel I should have something to say in the A/N ….but I never seem to do. :|

Please leave me with feedback on your thoughts, critiques, opinions, corrections and anything and everything else :D I like to think I'm a nice person, or I try to be, so you don't have to be shy.