Full title: Home is a Place You Can Go But Not All At Once

Sorry for the long delay, as anyone reading further down will find out I had some formatting issues that I was trying to resolve. Unfortunately there was no easy way to do it, and what I did come up with was a compromise that still may not look right. In any event, when you get to the section with a lot of periods, mentally erase those and that's what the layout is kind of supposed to look like.

But here we are at the end. Thanks to everyone for reading, for putting up with a lot of characters that they'd probably never heard of, and for the nice responses I've gotten so far. For a story I essentially made up as I went along based on someone's idle question of "What if Wolverine met Han Solo . . .", it didn't turn out so badly.

And we're done. And out.



"I hope I speak for everyone when I say that I'm glad we're not dead," Solo said as he hit the button that opened the airlock, sweeping back into the familiar environs of its own ship. The way back had been uneventful for once, the port seeming to have drawn into itself, perhaps bracing for more assaults or just starting to recover from the ones that had been foisted on it. With the barrier down, Solo had expected the Empire to flood the port with more troops, simply as a show of force, but that hadn't happened. Any stormtroopers they had seen were simply entrenched, either awaiting further orders or getting ready to move off-port. In either case, they were easily avoided and didn't seem at all interested in stopping anyone. Returning to the Comout's sector, the empty quiet of it was almost a relief from the near oppressive silence that marked the rest of the port. Here, it was peaceful, while out there it simply too much like cowering.

Even though he fully expected the ship to be there, his footsteps still quickened as they came closer to where it had been docked. After all they'd gone through, to have it not be there would have been a blow to his day that he wasn't sure he could recover from. It seemed like months since he had last set foot inside his own ship and had been able to fly. It was time to go. No, better, it was time to get the hell out of here.

But the ship had remained where they had left it, as intact as ever. "Hey there," he said quietly to it, patting the hull as the baydoors opened to allow them entrance. "Told you I'd be back."

"I'll be glad when we're off this port," the Insepton commented. "How soon will you be able to take off."

"Only a couple minutes once we're fired up. As long as . . ." Solo ducked around the corner where the engineering consoles were kept. When he came back around he was flashing a triumphant grin. "Yes! Something actually went right for once. The engines are reprogrammed from whatever the Dark Riders were doing to it. We should be clear as soon . . ." Possessed of a sudden manic energy he started dashing around the cockpit, flicking switches and hitting buttons, while around them the ship began to roar into life, a slow humming at first. Lights blinked on and a subtle rumbling could be felt in the floor as the engines began to engage. It was a beast rising from an enforced sleep and ready to lift free again. The port, although it was out of view, suddenly seemed too close and too encasing, a box that kept them in and the rest of the Universe out.

"And this place is clean?" Logan said, sniffing the air. He was stalking about in curved paths, as if he were still dodging projectiles, a subtle slow dance. "We got no more surprises?"

"Don't think so," Solo said, sliding into a seat with a leap, hitting more buttons with a practiced flair. "I took the liberty of setting up the motion sensors before we left last time. And as far as I can tell . . ." he tapped the computer and called up a schematic of the ship, narrowing his eyes as he peered at it closely. With a wave of his hand he dismissed the image. "Until us, the only thing that's been moving on this old boat has been dust." The humming of the ship reached a slightly higher pitch, one that caused Solo to break out in an even wider grin. "And on that note, we are clear, gentlemen."

A few more switches and there was a bump as the ship detached from the port. Solo eased the controls to the side, reveling in the feel of it, the sense that he wasn't constrained by direction anymore, that up and down were simply concepts that could be ignored at his leisure and that no matter where he pointed the ship he would find a kind of adventure, or at least something interesting.

The Falcon lurched a bit as it drifted free of the port, Solo gently guiding it so that it was a safe enough distance to do a hyperjump. The viewscreen opened up wide, showing him a clear view of the stars ahead, glimmering and clustered and so very distant. The port lay a bit to the right and below, an angular hulk gradually receding. Various fragments of debris still floated around the mass of it, both space garbage and remnants of the battle from before. The pointed tail of a Comout craft drifted past, trailed by smaller particles that could have been any number of things but Solo swore to himself weren't bodies.

"I don't see the Star Destroyer," the Insepton noted, sliding closer. It seemed both calmer and more jittery, perhaps waiting for another obstacle to come up in its path, or simply feeling the closeness of what it sought.

"No, it's still out there . . ." Solo tapped another readout that showed a larger dot pulsating not too far away. "It's just on the other side of the port. I don't think they've noticed us and frankly I'm not about to give them a chance to. We should in place for a lightspeed jump in about . . . oh, less than a minute."

Logan walked over to the other chair, leaning on the back with his arms draped around it. He appeared to be trying to steady himself in place, as if the artificial gravity hadn't taken hold of him just yet. "Quite the ship you got here, Solo." Tapping the chair itself, he added, "You sure you don't need a co-pilot for this thing, though?"

Solo didn't react at first, his gaze going somewhere straight, far past the stars. "Yeah, well," he said offhandedly, "it helps, makes the trip go a little bit smoother but on easy runs an experienced professional like myself can handle it. A second set of eyes never hurts, especially with navigation. But I know where we're going, so all we really need is me." The ship jerked slightly, everyone shifting as if by instinct. Solo frowned and adjusted some parameters. "A little bit of solar wind, nothing to be concerned about." Looking over at Logan again, he said, "When this is over, I've got to go collect my partner and then we're off on the next run. I'll need him for that, trade routes are tricky. And besides, how much vacation can I give him?"

"Hm," was all Logan said. His expression was unreadable, seeming to stare not at the stars themselves but the voided absences between them. The view slid by placidly, the port was now out of sight, the rest of it all behind them.

Then Logan straightened up, stepping away from the chair. "This vessel got a head? If you're all going to stare at the sky for the rest of the trip, I'm going to try to clean myself up."

Without turning, Solo said, "Take the freight lift in the back of the ship, there's a washroom in the lower deck. It's not much but it'll get the job done. And don't use all the water, it's recycled and I really don't want to have to be drinking your processed sweat." He craned his neck to stare back at Logan. "You sure you don't want to stick around for the jump? It's something to see."

"Nah, I've had enough spaceships for one day." Logan stepped away, stretching his arms and cracking his back as he did so. Even with the lowered ceiling his fingertips barely brushed against it. "Yell for me when we get to wherever it is that we're going."

"You're missing out," Solo responded with a humor to his voice that didn't translate to his face. Sinking into his chair, he added in a quieter voice, "I never get tired of it."

"Good for you," Logan said from halfway across the ship, causing Solo to jump, not realizing that he had heard. A second later there was a deeper rattling as the elevator activated, taking Logan a half-level below the ship.

Solo merely stared out at the vista before him, hands folded under his chin and saying nothing. Then he seemed to rouse himself, leaning forward to hit a few more switches as the ship's engines increased yet again. "Everyone brace yourself for a jump," he said automatically.

"Excellent," the Insepton said from somewhere below him. Then with a quick motion it leapt onto the co-pilot's chair, curling up its long body so that it was level with Solo. The eyestalks stared at him unblinkingly. "But before you do that, and with Logan out of the way, I think it's time you and I had a small chat."

* * * * *

Turns out the belowdeck had a shower, which Logan didn't want to admit was the closest thing he had to sheer pleasure in months. As Solo had said, it wasn't that large but neither was he, so he got by. And compared to some of the places he had found himself lately, just the notion of running water put it head and shoulders above them.

Stepping out from the unit still dripping wet, he groped about looking for something resembling a towel, wondering if this was one of those ships that used vacuum or some kind of weird heat ray to drive people off. He hoped that Solo wouldn't mind the pool of dirty and blood streaked water he had left behind but it appeared to be draining away quickly. He made a mental note to not drink any of the ship's water for a few hours, if he was even on board for that long. His wounds from before had healed but it was nice to have all the caked on dirt and the rest finally washed off. His fingers absently probed at his skin, finding all the places where wounds had once been. He always seemed to be able to pinpoint exactly where he'd been hurt, even when his body covered up all traces. Maybe the nerves remembered, or perhaps it was his body's way of reminding him of all the times he wasn't fast enough. And how it wouldn't take much for him to never be fast again.

But right now the only thing he wanted to do quickly was get dry.

"What's he do, spin in place?" Logan wondered outloud, swearing as his search turned up nothing. There wasn't much to the lower deck, a simple hallway leading from the elevator, and a few rooms that appeared to be used for cargo storage. The room with the shower had an antechamber of sorts where he had left all his clothing. But he certainly wasn't going to dress again while soggy, there had to be a better way.

"Come on, you can figure this out." He went back into the shower, examining the buttons again. He had gotten the water started purely by accident, but maybe this button here . . .

A howling gale suffused with a tropical temperature sprang up in the small space as the door to the shower abruptly shut, the whole enclosure filling up with air, too much air, hands made of heat and knives crafted from warmth stabbing at him, coating him, he needed to get out before it smothered him in too many layers of blankets, he needed to just get the hell out of-

And just like it was over. Logan blinked, his ears still hearing the faint whistling that the wind had conjured up. But, he noticed, he was completely dry, his skin tingling with the gradual dissipation of heat. His hair felt like it was all standing on end, both from the residual static electricity and the buffeting it had just received. This must be what cats must feel like when they get caught in the dryer, he thought wryly.

It was then that he realized he had driven his claws through the door. Gingerly, he slid them back out, letting the blades retract into his hand. Tell him to take it out of my paycheck, Logan noted. He cast one glance back at the shower buttons, wondering what the hell he had done wrong. Apparently the heater had various settings and if the dial was any judge, it had been set on the highest recently. Who the hell needed that much heat to dry off? Solo washing bears in here?

Though he had to admit, now that it was over, he felt much better. He had never minded much getting dirty, with his life it was inevitable and even welcome sometimes. But it made him feel a little less like an animal to be clean again. Some days that bothered him more than others.

His clothes were still draped over the table where he had left them. For some reason he expected them not to be there, although he didn't think Solo was one for practical jokes. He'd have his hands full piloting this thing anyway. Logan slid his pants and boots back on. Most of his shirt had already been torn away in the fighting, and he looked at the tatters of it with some distaste. His jacket wasn't much better, and he could feel rips in it against his bare skin as he tugged it on. But at least it was still mostly intact. He ran his fingers over the worn fabric of his shirt, feeling the weary thininess of it and marveling at the damage done. Shouldn't have there been some place in this ship that repaired crap like that? Wasn't it supposed to be more advanced out here, the shows the kids watched all the time at the mansion had people hitting buttons and new clothes just sliding out of vending machines. They were always begging him to watch TV with them, like he knew anything about that stuff. He'd have to tell them how it really was when he got back. Wouldn't they all be surprised, especially-

With an inverted gasp he dropped the shirt, let it fall to the table. Hands still poised in the air while gripping nothing, his breathing seemed to cease. He refused to move as the seconds stretched out, became other times.

Suddenly, in a haphazardly sharp motion he emitted a strangled roar that trembled as his body strove to keep it in, flinging the shirt off the table and into the corner as he moved into the opposite direction, not stopping until he hit the wall just inside of the doorway, hitting it so that his hands were driven up into his face, fingers pressed into his forehead as if he could claw out a memory.

His body shook tightly, with only the single soft whimper emerging, a feather falling amongst crushed glass. Face hidden, he revealed everything.

Around him the ship shuddered quietly, perhaps in sympathy. He barely noticed the lurching moment.

Finally he gave one last taut jerk, speaking "Ah" as he pushed himself away from the wall with some effort. "Dammit," he whispered, less a word than a prediction, even as he rubbed one hand painfully over his face.

"All right," he said, both announcement and action. "Okay." But nobody was convinced.

It was then that he heard the voices.

* * * * *

Solo settled back into his chair, keeping his face very still and his voice casually light. "Sure," he said, doing his best to not make eye contact with the Insepton. "What did you want to talk about? I have to tell you, we're not going to have a lot of time, the jump isn't going to take that long."

"I'm aware of how long hyperspace jumps take," the alien replied stiffly. Reflections of stars mottled its skin, making it seem as if tiny holes had been poked into its body. "And it's not the period before the jump that concerns me but what happens after it."

"What happens is that we're finally rid of each other." Solo couldn't keep the ice out of his voice. "You sound like you're going to miss me."

The Insepton shivered slightly. "Oh, there's little chance of that happening, trust me. But I must ask you this question and I wish for you to think carefully before you answer . . ." it leaned forward a little and Solo was struck by how much it smelled like he always imagined space would, of old dust strewn among impossible curves, of vast speeds and crawling time. What the hell? That made no sense. He hoped Logan wasn't starting to rub off on him. That would make this whole affair just perfect. "Is this truly it, Han Solo? When you make this jump, will we finally be there?"

"You think I'm stalling for time." Only the damn alien could make him feel uncomfortable in his own ship. The first time he had ever sat in this chair he had thought he was putting on a well-worn jacket, exactly tailored to his specifications. Fastest damn ship around, they had told him when he won it. And he had gone and made it faster. Not just faster, better. But it hadn't been just him. The notion clung to him and refused to let go. He wasn't sure if it made this easier or harder. "After all that's happened, you think I want this to go on longer?"

"I think what you want and what I want are two separate things." It slithered off the chair, pacing around the forward cabin. It feet made rapid tapping noises on the metal floor, almost approximating Solo's pulse. "I have always been clear since the start what I want . . . the forsgalai returned to us. Nothing else is important and nothing else ever will be. We are potentially a single leap from it." It was behind the chair but he could feel its eyes boring into his back. "Or are we, Solo?"

He resisted the urge to spin around and glare at it over the back of the chair. Absently, he double checked the coordinates, running over them in his memory, perhaps hoping that he could find some gap, some hazy recollection that might cast doubt. Something that would get him out of this. "If you're going to accuse me of something," he said, trying to make his voice as tough as possible, "then just do it. Don't dance around waiting for me to admit something."

"Very well." Its voice was elsewhere but suddenly its eyes were bobbing right around the arm of his chair, where he least expected it. He nearly pulled every muscle in his body to keep from leaping away in surprise. "I shall be blunt. Are you going to kill me before we reach the forsgalai?"

Even though he had expected some variation of the question, it still caught him off guard. "What . . . no. No, what the hell . . . where did you get that idea from?"

"It is simply logic." The Insepton's eyes bounced downwards, and he could hear its feet again. If his own legs weren't so tired Solo would have stood up so at least he could look at the damn thing. But he also had to keep an eye on the coordinates. That was a lie. The coordinates were set. All he had to do was press the button and trigger the jump. But his hand was nowhere near it. What was stopping him? "From the start you have never planned on returning it to my people. I am the only witness and your only obstacle. Killing me would make all of this much easier. I'm surprised you haven't done it yet, honestly."

"I'm not going to kill you." The words were dried paste in his mouth.

"That's reassuring. Then . . . what are you going to do?" There was a gentle probe in the alien's words, the mad sense that it was goading Solo into killing it, simply to prove that its own fears were correct.

"Get this over with, finally." He felt a flash of irritation at having to explain himself to the Insepton and that it wasn't going to truly believe him, no matter what. He had always been a scoundrel, he would admit that readily, but he had always seen himself as a straight one, consistent in his actions. There was never a time when he had killed in cold blood, not even for expedience. It was bad business and worse practice. I can prove it. I'll prove it to you. The gesture hovered, locked.

The Insepton leaned forward, eyeing the console readouts. "Are these the coordinates, then? Is this our final destination?" It still sounded doubtful, which only made him angrier. How dare you?

But admitting it was getting onto a road with no exits. "Yeah." His chest felt cold and tight. You can prove it. In seconds.

"Ah." The Insepton shivered slightly, as if the very notion of the artifact's location gave it a tiny thrill. "And yet, you haven't said what you're going to do when we get there."

He felt his teeth grinding together. Take the step and prove it. Where the hell was Logan? Go on. He couldn't take the stillness any longer. The world needed to move again or he'd risk being anchored for good. What exactly are you afraid of?

"Solo?" It asked, pricked. What, exactly? "I said, what are we-"

"Why don't we find out?" he snapped, almost slamming down on the button.

Immediately he was slammed back into his seat while outside the stars bent and stretched into impossible lines.

* * * * *

It was whispers. Close. Too quiet for being that close, which was the strangest part. Seeming to travel on sinuous lines of voice, he couldn't identify the source as other than near. Dark Riders, again? Solo had said the ship was clear but there was no reason another couldn't have teleported in since they had arrived.

Carefully he ventured out into the corridor, the hairs on the back of his neck sticking up. He had been in worse danger before, in firefights so fierce that the air itself melted and dripped down due to all the bullets flying overhead. And the sibilant kind as well, stalking down shadowed backways in Calcutta while being tracked by Smoke Assassins, their pinched quick whistles following him as targeted darts. This was only a ship and these were only voices. He would be fine. Even so, he let his claws slide out anyway, as slowly as possible, ignoring the gradual splitting pain that resulted from bringing them out at that speed.

The hallway wasn't long and even creeping up against the wall he could only see one other door. It was open and there was some pale light spilling out from it into the hallway. None of it was broken by shadows, so if someone was in the room they were in the tightest corner or otherwise obscuring themselves. But if they were taking that much trouble, then talking outloud was a foolish mistake. Something was wrong, here. But was it the kind of wrong that might get him killed?

Almost at the door and the voices hadn't gotten any louder. Were they receding even. The lights were flickering faintly, at so rapid a cycling speed that the eye almost couldn't follow it properly. His ears were trying to find words, to turn the sounds into fragments that he could relate to. Sometimes his head tumbled with jagged languages, glottal stops falling into angular vowels, and he had no idea how he knew them or where they had first been heard. By now, he simply ignored it.

But this. This. On the outskirts of the entryway it finally came to him.

". . . never thought we'd get out of that . . ."

Who . . . how is that possible? He knew that voice. He knew it.

One arm pointed at the ground defensively, Logan peeked around the corner.

And stopped.

* * * * *

"Not your smoothest jump," the Insepton commented, rolling back onto its feet from where it had fallen.

"What can I say, you make me nervous," Solo countered, heaving himself out of his seat. "Though my hopes that this jump was going to make you stop your complaining were apparently wrong." The same view from before greeted them, at least to the casual observer but Solo could tell that everything had changed. It wasn't the stars themselves that you had to read, he had learned that a long time ago. It was the gaps between the stars that were important, the voids that existed, each having its own particular shape and texture. Stars were all the same in theory, hot balls of gas that would eventually burn out. But the darkness would never leave and that was where all the mystery lay. The places beyond that you'd never see. That was navigation's true leap.

"If all goes well you won't have to hear me complain for much longer, Solo."

Solo flicked some switches, letting the ship bank gently. "I really hope you don't get offended when I say that I'd like that quite a bit."

"Not at all," the Insepton responded almost pleasantly. It was wandering about the ship almost aimlessly, briefly stripped of the purpose that so often guided it. "It's strange, Solo, I expected to feel more of a sense of anticipation upon reaching this moment. A quickening within myself, perhaps. Instead, it feels much the same. I feel much the same." Across the ship it turned to stare at him. "Tell me, have you ever encountered that? Coming so close to what you've strived for that you can stand on the edge of it and not know the difference?"

"I couldn't tell you," Solo said, bending over to tinker with the controls. He should have been sitting for this, but he needed to feel the motion of the ship under his feet, the slick roll of space sliding by. "I've never wanted anything that badly."

The Insepton made a clicking noise. "That is not true. Everyone wishes for something, you just have not realized it yet. Or you deny it, because you feel it is a sign of weakness to want. A loss of control." It wrung its hands together, tapping arrhythmically on the floor. "In a way, we have no choice, my people. From the earliest days in the nest we are subjected to the notion of the forsgalai, the piece that is missing from us, the hole that exists in everything that we are. I do not think it is a coincidence that our birthers leave us only days after we've emerged from this world. It becomes very cold and we quickly become hungry. But from there we are on our own, and scattered. All that lingers are the dreams." It looked down, stiffened for a moment. "I've never spoken to anyone else of my race, Solo. Does that surprise you?"

"Not from what I've heard about you. You're not exactly party people." His hand kept caressing the top of his laser but that was just a reflex. It was just a reflex.

"Indeed." If the Insepton found humor in this, it didn't indicate. "I do not think about my fellows often, not as individuals. But if I did get a chance to talk to them, to ask them . . . I would ask them if they dream as well. If they dream as I do, of the forsgalai and its closeness, the near-closeness of it, always just out of reach. It lingers when I rest, as if cursing me for daring to halt, even for a second." One hand was closed into a fist, waving at nothing but air. "Sometimes I feel that it is just me, but the dream has to be shared, does it not? We are all seeking the same end." The fist uncurled, pressed into the floor. "Perhaps even in our sameness, I wish to be unique."

Solo didn't know what else to say. "Don't we all?"

The Insepton crawled back over to him. "Ah, but I'm making you uncomfortable. It's this day, the strangeness of it . . . it drives me to confession, a feeling I am not used to." It pressed past him, lifting itself up on the console so that it could see clearer out the viewscreen. "But I suspect it will be over soon." The eyes strained, moving closer to the glass. "Where is it, though, Solo?" There was a ragged eagerness to its voice, a lost note being woven into a shambling symphony. "This was it, you said." For a moment it really did sound alone. "So why don't I see it?"

"Hold on," Solo said, sliding the controls so that the ship banked one more time. "Don't be so damn impatient." The stars curved again, silent and precise, moving only by staying still.

"But where is-"

And that's when it came into view.

* * * * *

A low gurgling roar sifted the air, but Logan was in no danger.

Even standing in the doorway the room revealed itself to him in stages, peeling back darkened edges from his vision. It was bare but for storage, the walls and floor scrubbed surprisingly free of dust.

"Can you tell me where the hell they came from? This was supposed to be an unmarked run. A whole squadron, why didn't you see them, weren't you paying attention to-"

The trembling trill again. There was a droid in the opposite corner from Logan, although it wasn't making the noise, not directly.

"Yeah, I know, I'm a little . . . I'm a bit rattled. The Empire's getting to be all over the place these days. Word is they're starting to declare some zones martially controlled and using it as an excuse to blow up whoever they want."

The small droid was rounded on the top, but squarish on the rest of the body. At least as far as Logan could tell, since it had been tipped over and was lying awkwardly propped up against the wall. The metal surface was dinged and dingy in contrast to the rest of the room's near spotlessness.

"Almost makes a guy want to join the Alliance." A flurry of snarled noise. "Whoa, hey, I'm just kidding, I don't want to give them a better excuse to shoot at us. Honest."

On the floor, the flickering, translucent image of Han Solo shrugged, his body at a forty-five degree angle. Small and fuzzed at the edges, it was definitely him. A tiny lens on the front of the droid appeared to be projecting the tableau, a conical wave of light pouring itself out onto the scene. The droid was cracked in several places and the brightness threatened to dim several times.

"Let's get our bearings and get the hell out of here. Where did we even jump, I just crammed the first coordinates I could think of into the navigator. I just wanted to get the hell away from those ships, we'll have to make up for lost time. The old girl can handle it though, let's just figure out . . ."

Hazy as it was, the image was clearly of the Falcon's bridge sketched out in a tinted monochrome, more implied lines than solid curves, miniature ghosts orating in limited space.

"What is this?" Logan whispered, crouching down even as the roar rang out again.

Darting around the shrunken stage with strobed quickness, Solo said, "I know, I'm lucky I didn't jump us into an asteroid. We're still here, right? Who else would have kept you alive?"

Tentatively, Logan reached out to touch the image. His hand met no resistance and passed right through, causing small ripples to evolve and fade, although nothing interrupted what he now was starting to realize was a recording of some sort.

A growl like running water being shredded was Solo's answer. This time a tall and impossibly hairy man stepped into view. "Okay, fine, without me you never would have gotten into any of those messes in the first place. But give me a little credit, your life is a lot more interesting with me around, right?" Solo went to the edge of the image, reaching over to fiddle with the ship's controls. "Boy," he muttered, "we really are in the middle of nowhere. There's nothing else out here but . . . hm."

The hairy man swaggered over, almost obscuring the view of Solo. He was talking again, in that cursive bellowing fashion, large arms punctuating whatever point he was trying to make. Even so, Solo was nodding, as if he understood every word. But how was that possible?

"Yeah, we'll leave in a minute, I just want to see . . . what is that?"

The shadow fell over him then. No, it didn't, it had always been there. He was just noticing it now. How could it cast a shadow, when the light source was nowhere near it, the angle was all wrong. Yet it did, yet it found him, yet it made him look up. It was that simple.

"Pal, tell me what the hell is that . . ."

Logan stood up so quickly that his shoulder blades slammed into the wall.

* * * * *

Seeing it was like looking at an abstracted version of an Insepton. Cigar shaped and otherwise featureless, it was merely drifting, its size impossible to tell against the vastness of the space surrounding it.

"There," was all Solo said. His breathing had become shallow and he seemed to be having trouble taking his eyes off it.

The Insepton, meanwhile, looked away sharply, his body rearing backwards. "That . . . that's it." Its words fell apart, sliding back into its own language as it tried to come to terms with its own impressions. "I did not think . . ." its speech rewound, fragments landing into new patterns. "I followed you, Solo, but I am not sure if I ever truly believed. You were always a brash liar, your word hardly to be trusted."

"Hey." Solo had the sense of mind to at least appear wounded at the notion.

"But here . . . and this." It circled around the main deck, its eyes constantly going back to the object floating out beyond them, ready for it to vanish at any second. "We're in there," it said, voice trembling. "Everything we were, everything that was lost to us in the days since our world was demolished. Our science and our history, images of our homeworld, the way it smelled and the sounds of its crystal seas. Our lineages, right down to the genes." Those eyes bobbed, bored into him. "How did you find it, Solo? How did this happen?"

"An accident." He had to mumble the words. "It was just an accident."

"Countless members of my race have scoured the Universe for this, for millions of years we have been searching. And you just . . . stumble upon it. Did you even realize what it was, at first? Did you have any idea?"

Solo didn't answer right away. "No . . . no, I didn't." He was gently guiding the controls, bringing the ship in closer to the object. As it grew larger on the screen it was easier to gauge its size, perhaps several miles long. The surface of it was smooth, not even pocked with stray meteor collisions. Did it reflect light, or give off a luminescence of its own? "But it's been . . . explained to me since then."

"Ah, yes. The Universe is rife with rumors of it. That's the nature of the missing, of legends." It was stricken with a nervous energy now, darting around the ship without any real sense of direction, its hands starting to go to its face and always dropping back down. "It was no doubt the reason the Empire and the Dark Riders were also after its location. But it would have been no use to them. It's woven into us. That has always been the way."

"Right." Solo spoke flatly. "Well, it's over now. You've found it." The ship was beginning to come along side of it, the closeness of the artifact now dwarfing the smaller ship. "We can all go on."

"Indeed," the Insepton said. Somehow, it didn't sound convinced. It stopped in the middle of the deck, staring at Solo's back. "So tell me this . . . how were you planning on taking it away from us, then?"

At the controls, Solo froze.

* * * * *

". . . looks old, whatever it is. Never seen anything like it before, have you?"

The other corner held it hidden. Somehow. It didn't seem possible, he had looked at every angle when he came in and yet he had never seen it. Flickering out of phase, perhaps? Those words didn't mean anything to him. Logan shook his head, slowly beginning to cross the room.

"Makes you wonder where it came from. There's no inhabited worlds nearby, nothing of any note . . . that anomaly could be a black hole but . . ." The image fizzed as Logan stepped through it, his footsteps otherwise making no sound.

The hairy man coughed, a stretched and pinched noise.

It was in the corner, stacked upright. Placed right against the wall, as if it had always been there, or had grown out of the ship.

"Okay, fine, we won't stay long but . . ." there was the tactacing of clicking buttons. "I just want to get a closer look at it."

Tiny prisms existed within it, captured light that was constantly bouncing inside and hoping to escape. The perfect edges, forming the exact right angles.

"It might be some kind of alien artifact, you know."

Tall and rectangular, it was. Right up against. Logan stood there and it was hardly present. He had to make himself see.

"You don't run into that just every day, that means something."

Gingerly, he reached out a hand and touched the surface of it. Cool, hardly registering under his fingertips. Solid but cloudy, perhaps made of crystal.

"And hey, to the right people, who knows what it could be worth? Right?"

Then the cloudiness resolved, or maybe his vision cleared or perhaps a new kind of focus was found.

"Don't you agree, pal?"

The growl came down as an avalanche, ricocheted.

And a hairy face stared out from the crystal block at Logan.

* * * * *

"What?" Solo turned around and stared at the Insepton, his hands braced against the console, his stance both casual and stiff. "Getting what you want has made you delusional."

"If only," the Insepton replied, coming forward. Even rapidly, it did so cautiously, forming a grim curve around Solo. On the ship they were both trapped but it was a question of who was more confined. "Do not play me for a fool, Solo. You had plans for this when I first encountered you. You had gone back to this ship with Logan with every intention of leaving. If I was not here now, you would still be here."

"Plans change." He looked about to say more but stopped himself.

"And this entire time you have made no attempts to rid yourself of me." It twitched, slapping its hands together loosely. "Which suggests to me that you believe you will be able to follow your original intentions even with me present." Solo lifted a hand to speak but the Insepton cut him off. "I imagine you wanted to sell it, even before you totally understood what it was. You are a merchant, Solo, I know what drives you. Money does, and the prospect of it. It makes your motivations patently obvious."

"Guess you've got me pegged," Solo replied, his face betraying nothing, as blank as the space outside. "So, now what . . . you going to take over the ship? Is this a mutiny of one?"

"It can hardly be called a mutiny when I was never part of the crew," the alien corrected. "Nor do I have the money to pay you what you might think would be fair. To speak in your own language, as it were. Instead, I shall do this . . ." it nodded, as if composing itself. "I will explain."

"Then talk." Solo folded his arms over his chest. "I'm listening."

"Truly? I hope you are. Have you ever lost anything precious to you, Solo? I suspect you have not, you move through life with the ramshackle care of someone who believes that his time will never arrive." Solo raised an eyebrow at this but said nothing. The Insepton continued, skittering around in fits and starts. "We lost our world through no fault of our own, and with it went a vital piece of ourselves. The forsgalai was the reminder, the link . . . but it was lost. And we had two options available to us, to regroup as a people and try to rebuild ourselves around that missing piece, or put ourselves on hold to find it. We choose the latter, to not lose what we were, so we would not risk becoming something new, and lesser. Do you understand? We decided, together, to let the entire Universe pass us by because we thought this was so important.

"We are barely a race anymore, but a collection of individuals who happen to share the same common heritage, the same unswerving purpose. We are hunters and searchers and nothing else. Do you know I have no ability to appreciate art? It is noise and colors and sensations that simply roll off me. But once we were among the finest artists. Is that difficult to believe? We created symphonies from the roaring engines of stars and framed dances that took flight and pierced all those who witnessed it. But we burned it out of ourselves, so that nothing might distract us. We have roamed and explored and died, for this . . . for what is out there. With it, we have a chance to rejoin ourselves, rediscovering what linked us as a race and plunging forward again. To take what we once knew and what we have learned since then and meld it together. That is the promise of it, Solo. That is the necessity of it."

Solo stared at him for a few seconds, the slow rumbling of the ship's engines the only true marker of passing time. Then he gave a long sigh, turning around so that he was facing the viewscreen again, the object outside regarding them without eyes, without blinking. "What do you want me to do?" he asked quietly, although it wasn't clear who he was directing the question to.

The Insepton edged closer. "You take this away, Solo, and you consign my race to further searching, to falling further behind. Nothing is finite, not you, not I, not our races and not the Universe itself. We are always running out of time, in every way. And I know that you have no affection for us, that the state of us means nothing to you. But I am asking you, give us this chance. Don't deny it to us. It is time we came back together and knew each other again. The decision is yours."

The Insepton retreated then, either to give Solo space or to get a better view of the object. Solo stood there for what felt to be a long time, or maybe it wasn't. He bowed his head, leaning heavily on the console, like he was trying to lift his body and shove it downward at the same time. Perhaps he whispered a few words to himself, but maybe it was just other voices, dust scraping against itself.

When he did speak again, too quickly, in infinite time, it was with the groan of a large object being dislodged from the bottom of the ocean and finally rising to the surface.

"Okay," and his voice was hoarse and lost and gone, "where would you like me to take it?"

* * * * *

And they think I'm covered in fur, Logan thought but it only an attempt at dark levity to keep himself sane, to avoid fully confronting what he saw in front of him. The man inside the crystal didn't move, he seemed both encased and displayed.

". . . just have to figure out how to get it back to a port. We've still got that tether, right, we can probably rig it so that it will stay attached during a jump. I really wonder what that is, though."

Black eyes stared back without seeing. But the man wasn't dead, Logan could tell that much, even if he was unable to explain how he knew. His hands were pressed up against the crystal, palms flattened as if he was still pushing on the unyielding surface, as if his last thought before entrapment arrived was escape.

"It's not junk. But who would lose something all the way out in the middle of nowhere."

Could I? Logan let a single claw slide out, scraped it gently across the crystal's surface. It created a shallow gouge but caused a sharp, arcing pain to leap from his arm and travel all the way up to the base of his brain. With a gasp he broke the connection, massaging his tingling wrist. The man inside the block had no reaction at all.

"Well, isn't that the best place to lose something when you don't want it found?"

The advent of the new voice, clipped and sighing and accented, forced Logan to spin around. On the floor the view of the image was still the same, the cutoff section of the bridge, Solo and the hairy man still standing on the edge. But there was someone. There was someone else.

"Plain sight really only gets you so far, especially when it's gigantic and oddly shaped. You can't exactly disguise it as a meadow full of flowers, you know."

At the other edge of the view was a chair. Or the edge of a chair, with someone sitting on it. All Logan could see were the person's crossed legs and their dark pants. A set of hands, perhaps, folded demurely in a lap. He tried to remember if the bridge had some kind of chair in that spot but all of a sudden he couldn't recall the layout.

"Who the hell are you?" That was Solo, crossing the space between but only halfway. Whatever he saw was making him wary. "How did you get on here?"

The hairy man called out, broken bells tumbling down a mountainside.

"See, that's your problem." A finger pointed, too solid for the flickering haze. "You're always asking the wrong questions. The better question is what I'm doing here." The voice had a smile in it that was completely out of place. "And what that means for you."

"We're just passing through." There was a cant in Solo's words that was both defiant and nervous. "And it's no damn business of yours."

"Oh?" The legs shifted, uncrossed. The voice remained light but Logan could hear the molten undercurrent. "I think you'll find that it's very much my business." The hands parted, fingertips pressed together. "But I sense that you are a simple man so I am going to keep this very simple." The voice became a sliver, a rapier resting right above the heart. "Leave this zone and forget you were ever here. And we'll all go on with our lives the better for having pretended that we had never met." He smiled off-screen and Logan didn't know how that was clear to him. "How's that sound? I think that's fair."

Solo stood there for a long time, or maybe it just seemed that way because the image froze and wavered, pausing to warn. The hairy man fretted in the background, his mouth open but no sound coming out. Meanwhile, Solo looked down, scratched the back of his neck.

"Well, since you put it that way, what else can I say but . . ." he looked up suddenly with a wicked, doomed grin, ". . . no."

* * * * *

The Insepton was speechless briefly, a pause that neither he nor Solo seemed accustomed to. When it found its voice again, there was a tentative push to it, the act of sticking your head around a corner in the hopes of not getting shot in the face. "Truly? You'll go and do this?"

"Yeah," Solo replied, still not turning around. "You've convinced me." He shifted from one leg to the other. "You want the truth? I was going to sell the damn thing, I've got some debts that needed paying off and it would have helped." His hands were dancing over the console and the view from the window was tilting, the object sliding off to the right. "But we can do this, I can do this for you." There wasn't any triumph in his voice, there wasn't any vindication. There was nothing but words.

The Insepton crawled forward tentatively, studying Solo's back. "We would be in your debt, Solo. Once the Regathering has commenced and been completed, anything that is within our power is yours. You will have no debts, anything that is within our grasp will be within yours as well. And having convened, the Universe will be ours." It snaked around, trying to get a view around his body. "What are you doing?"

"Setting up a tow." The object was just out of view now, a small piece of it visible in the corner. "It's going to be tricky to move because of its size but I think I can figure . . ." his forehead wrinkled as he worked out the calculations. "Ah, I was never good at any of this crap, you were always . . ." he stabbed at the console and the ship jerked slightly, the view jumping. "There," he said, rubbing his hands together as if cold. "I nailed it with some thrust to get it moving . . ." Indeed the object was starting to recede, although it wasn't clear if the ship was sliding away from it as well.

"So now what we're going to do . . ." he leaned over the console, guiding the controls with an artist's touch. It wasn't clear if he was even explaining matters to the Insepton as much as simply talking to himself. There was a slight echo to his tone, threatening to blend in with the ship's ambient harmonics. The object suddenly soared closer, the surface rushing to them, revealing no seams or breaks anywhere in it. The Insepton said nothing, transfixed by the sight. Then, just when it was about to touch them, the view shifted and they sailed over it. "Now that it's moving, we'll get in front of it and match the velocity." More switches, a thudding sensation in the stomach as the ship achieved the new speed.

The object was completely out of sight now, although its presence seemed to linger in a ghost image burned into the window, in the shape left by negative space. His hand hovered over a switch, moving in a vaguely clockwise fashion while he waited. "Right, right . . . we just have to . . . now." He hit it and the ship seemed to move in two directions at once, shuddering right under their feet. A second later it stabilized, the engines churning just a little louder than before.

"What did you do?" the Insepton asked. It was standing almost directly behind him, its voice very quiet. Its hands stretched, grasped but held nothing.

"Gravitational tether," he said, almost as an afterthought. "It'll attach the . . . your artifact to us, let us drag it until we get to where we need to go." His hands were wrapped around the console edge, the knuckles slowly whitening. "We won't be able to do as far a jump as I'd like but a series of short ones will work."

"Where were you looking to go first?" The Insepton undulated, its eyes bending around Solo's body and staring at the readouts.

"Galix." Solo was already tapping at the navigation systems, numbers and letters flashing up quickly on the screen, elegant mathematics arranging themselves out of the abstract. Outside it was still space but it could be broken down and some direction found. Not a void but a grid, stacked in theoretical squares where nothing was too distant. There was the edge always receding in seconds. Until it came back. "A neutral port, it's run by some old family. The place is mostly used for refueling, but it's out of the way enough that we can wait until your people can come to collect this thing."

"You've thought this through."

Solo frowned. "It just seems that way. Maybe the problem has been all along that I haven't thought enough about this." Another few buttons pressed and the view tilted as the ship coasted into a gentle glide. The artifact was an invisible weight, sighted without being present. "How long will this . . . gathering of yours take?"

"Regathering." The correction appeared to be important to the alien. "Once on the port I can access their communication systems and send out the call. It's self-perpetuating, a vibrational signal that lurks virally inside other wavelengths. A few hours, perhaps, until a sufficient number is alerted and they can converge on the port. From there, we will handle matters in our own fashion. There are procedures already in place for this. We've had many years to prepare for the eventuality." It scooted forward a few inches, then danced back again. "And we are heading to this port now?"

"Yeah." He took a step backwards, wiped his hands on his shirt. "I haven't been to Galix in a while, but the old portmaster's wife loves me . . . I saved one of their kids years ago when a Gorax escaped from someone's cargo hold, started trampling around the port. In the confusion the kid got in the way. I was still at the bar, finishing my drink, everyone else had already scattered. At their prices, you don't waste a single drop. But it was just the kid, and the Gorax and it was heading right for him." He leaned back so that his legs were touching the chair, but he didn't relax or sit down. It was hard to tell if his eyes were watching space or his own reflection. "I ran out, don't ask me why. Probably because I had a couple in me, I'm not normally that brave. Or foolish." The flippant tone was at odds with his expression. "I grabbed the kid, I don't know what the hell I was even going to do . . . shield him? The damn beast was huge. I remember it leaning down toward us, it had breath like ash and it kept wheezing, like it was deflating. The kid never made a sound. Damn funny thing. I wanted to scream but from the kid . . . nothing."

"Perhaps the child was merely frightened? Though it is said, often humans are more frightened in the seconds when they do not know the end is coming, as opposed to being faced with its undoubtable finale."

"Maybe," Solo murmured. He held out a hand in front of himself, palm up, fingers rubbing vigorously at the skin, trying to work feeling back into it. "Is that it?" So softly, it wasn't said or asked.

"And what did you do?" There was no immediate answer. The Insepton had set the rear portion of its body down, folding its back legs under itself. One arm was reaching for a small pouch. "Solo, did you-"

"It was coming right for us." Was he answering or continuing? "There was no getting out of the way. So, I did the only thing I could think of." A slit of a smile crossed his face. "I threw the rest of my drink at it." He made a motion that could have been laughter, when sound existed. "Hey, I was probably drunk." He laughed silently again, his shoulders quivering. "What's funny is that it turns out that alcohol acts like a sedative on Goraxes. Strong one, too, the big lug was out like a light in seconds. I got the kid out of the way but unfortunately it fell on me, broke my shoulder. I was stuck there for a month, the old lady made sure I ate every day. Now, every time I go, she insists that I'm losing weight and cooks a big meal for me. It's nice. I should go more often, I don't know why I don't. Never any time, I guess."

"How long until we are there?"

"She makes a great casserole, I tell you." He blinked, the question finally striking him. "Ah, how long? A few hours, probably, once I start the jump sequences. Then it'll be over." He looked down at the coordinates again. "You're not going to need me anymore after that, I imagine."

"No, I can't imagine we will." It was holding a small device, pointed directly at Solo's back. The end of it was glowing. "But, why wait until then?"

A high pitched wail split the quiet air.

* * * * *

"No?" The hairy man echoed the word out of sequence, stretching it into a mournful noise. Even Logan found himself holding his breath, although he couldn't say why. He needed to leave here, every instinct told him to. The crystal was taking up more and more room, squeezing him away. That wasn't true. But this had to play out, there was no other way.

"Care to explain?" There was a light and friendly edge to the voice now, casting shadows all over the razors hidden within. The man's image had frozen, he had gone so still. "I'd be truly interested in hearing your reasoning."

Solo was pacing, crafting semi-circles around the man whose figure remained elusive. The scene was going abstract, reduced to lines, reduced to curves, reduced to implied presences in empty spaces. Voices as voids, stolen words occupying crowded harbors. Everyone was talking and Logan could only hear his own rapid breathing. It's already happened. It was important to keep remembering that. This could not hurt him. Nothing could hurt him.

And yet. His fingers traced the indented hole in his chest without comment. Meanwhile, Solo wove, wobbling. "Because that thing out there, whatever it is, it's worth something." His footsteps were making electronic ghost-images in the scene, fading too fast to truly remain. "Everyone else who ever sees it, they probably think it's just a hunk of debris. It's not, though, is it?"

Flickers, ripples. The image wavered as if drawn too tightly. "Solo. I'm warning you, don't force my hand here."

And he went, he went on, turning away. The evasive ascending spiral of your day, the way that the Universe had no direction but what we imposed on it. "You went to the trouble of hiding it out here. And I don't know who the hell you are but I don't like you already." Said with a snap, a flourish. He was riding the wave of his own bluster, forging trails in his own territory. "But I can tell you that whatever reason you have for sticking this thing out here, it doesn't mean anything to me."

"I see." The man had laced his hands together, slender and unreal. The scene curved, compressed a little more, tiny men in their sinking play.

Solo grinned, an electronic slash. All your warnings were nothing but static. "I'm taking it. Because I found it, because someone will pay for it and because . . ." a shrug, a set. "Why not?"

"This is not a good idea." The slow pulse of a patient quasar, or the gradual leaking of radiation into your body. "Stop this, Solo. Last chance." A knuckle crack, or an errant strain?

"No." One more time, as the nail. Turning away, already done but was there time for one last comment? Oh, there was. There was. "I've told you how it's going to go. And you want to know why? You want to know the main reason why?" Accusing, with all your force. Logan had crouched down without realizing it, as if being closer meant something. "Because you don't come onto my ship and start giving me orders. Nobody tells me what to do, you got it?"

"Indeed," and it was different now, so different. Cold beyond cold. The glacier breaking free, crumbling downward and you were just in the path. Every moment leading you. "Then you don't leave me with any choice, I suppose."

Castigation. Dribbling array. What was there to view anymore? He had to look away, he'd seen too much. Solo snorted, out of time, an expulsion of all reason. "I wasn't planning on. The only choice you get is whether you leave my ship voluntarily or I kick your ass off it. I'll give you a second to decide." Pointing away, he added, "Chewie, get the tether ready, I don't want to spend any more time out here than I have to."

The hairy man gurgled, began to shuffle away.

Even as the man's voice stopped him. Or maybe that wasn't it. "That's not going to happen." The hairy man threw his arms up suddenly, his growl elongating, stretching out beyond all hope of tatters. The man kept talking, so calmly. He never moved, never shifted from his seat. That might have been the worst part. "You see, you don't know what you've started by finding this. You have no conception." The hairy man twisted, writhing, but it was all theatre by this point, the swirling colors captured in monochrome, in the dispassionate film. He was being devoured, right before their eyes. Eaten by a prism. "You can't take it and it can't stay here. Not anymore, it's not safe. So what are we going to do?"

"What are you doing?" Too late, too late, too late. He was so small, diminishing by the second even as his friend tried to turn toward him, to take another step. His scream was caught in the air, fossilizing. Logan had reached out for the image before he could stop himself but it was intangible, one of them was the ghost and he couldn't tell who. His fingers found hard memory and it was just as elusive as the real thing. "Leave him alone! Stop that, what are you doing to him?"

"Making a point." The same way you'd make slim lines in chalk on the ground, just to see if it's possible to arrange the world on your terms. The colors were constructing themselves, hardening into rigid angles and solid borders, all gradients erased. The crystal behind Logan, already bearing down. "To show you what it takes to divert you from your own course."

He ran toward his friend but stopped just short, even as the monolith rose and took its final form. Solo spoke a word that wasn't a word, stepped back in a shaken stance. A stillness threatened, reigned.

"Don't do this." Insisting, insistent. Logan stood up, letting the image recede. "None of this was his idea, it was me. He's just my friend, don't take it out on-"

The eyes inside the crystal stared at him without seeing. Logan regarded the statue, trying to find the spark inside, some measure of help. All around, sentences waged.

"Exactly. This was begun by you, it has to be finished by you. It's really that simple."

"Damn," Logan murmured, running his hand lightly along the cool block.

"You son of a-" But when you have no weapon, how do you shoot?

"Solo, what did you start?"

"What is it, though? What do you want me to do?"

A light, gentle laugh. "Easy. You weren't able to find it before, I need you to not be able to find it again. How you go about that is entirely up to you."

He was diving for the widening chasm. "But wait, how do I-"

"Please. How will you feel a sense of accomplishment if I tell you everything?" A thoughtful pause. "But it's really more complicated than it needed to be."

"And now what?" Logan wondered, gritting his teeth. All the events clutched at him, more than he wanted to shoulder. The remains of his life, drifting apart slowly like spreading debris. "What a mess, Solo." He pounded one hand against the crystal, feeling the reverberations settle out of his fist, rumbling into the emptiness.

"Certainly not the way I would have gone about it."

"What a goddamn mess."

"Would you be terribly surprised if I said I didn't disagree?"

Wait. Wait. All of a sudden the voice didn't sound right, the film progressing long past the time when the bulb had gone out in the projector. Letting the crystal rest against his back, Logan turned around to face the image again, his heart threatening to burst from his chest.

The man had gotten out of his chair.

"But it's like humans have this need to turn everything into some hideously epic affair. They're just not happy unless the simplest tasks involve all of creation."

Walking toward the center of the image, but the image had stopped. Solo frozen, the scene hovering in stasis. And the man, moving casually, hands in his pockets. His face was a static blur, the edges of his form flirting with breaking apart.

"So what happens is that they wind up standing amidst all the wreckage, shocked at how it's turned out, and the best they can do is look around and ask me, 'Now what'?" Said in a childishly high voice, the man looked down and chuckled quietly afterwards. Logan found he couldn't budge, all his muscles were locked. That was all in his head. Certainly, definitely. Tiny, the man filled up the world.

"Who are you?" Logan asked, telling himself that he was only talking to a recording. It had to be true, in this world.

"I like to think we can do better than that." The man looked to both sides and up as well, at a ceiling that only existed in theory. Then, finally he stared out, and even without eyes, it was clear exactly what the fuzzed out deconstruction of his face was seeing. "At least I thought we could. Turns out that might not be the case. Which is very humbling, honestly."

He shrugged outward, his stance open. "So . . . now what?"

"I don't know." This was crazy. He broke away but the dimensions of the room were all wrong, constantly taking him back. "Why are you asking me?"

"Who else is there?" Gone missing, his expression was somber. "It's all up to you now, I'm afraid."

No. No. Did he say it outloud? He felt the bruised impressions the thoughts made on the air. No no no. The crystal, near, beckoned without pleading. All futures stalled.

The man inclined his head toward Logan. "I think you'll know what to do."

But I don't-

Just as the image blinked out, all the lights on the droid going dark, the scene going away. Leaving just him and the crystal and the man inside and nothing else. He staggered away, closer to the door, trying to find distance where no distance lurked.

Dammit, now what? Logan thought, in the echo of blended voices.

While above and around him, the ship rumbled painfully.

* * * * *

The bridge had fallen into a hush, punctuated by the snap of a frail voice.

"It makes no sense, but I keep wishing to turn the ship around and face what's behind us. Not being able to see it, I start to wonder if it's truly there or simply another dream." The Insepton stepped around a pair of legs, stumbling a bit as it crawled over them. The body didn't react. "I have to tell myself to keep moving forward, that the only path is the one that lies ahead."

It reared up, running its small hands delicately over the controls. Its weapon lay off to the side and discarded, the end of it still pulsing faintly. The aborted texture of its final scream still hung in the air. A hand was draped on the floor near it but the fingers made no move toward the opportunity.

"But that is easier ascertained than provided for, hm?" It slid to the left, eyes tilting from one display to another. "Even when the action is necessary and longed for, there still exists a certain . . . trepidation?" It shivered, its body curving into shaded colors, although it could have been a trick of the near-light. "Have you ever felt that way?" Silence answered him and said everything. "No, you always swaggered through life with the quicksilver abandon of your kind. There was nothing before you but the next day and the careening promise behind it. No direction beyond what you needed, or what need you thought you possessed."

It bobbed its head, resting it briefly against the console. Somehow the motion made it look very tired. "I've wondered what kind of life that might be. I suppose I'll find out soon." Without the body moving, the eyes travelled as far as the stalks allowed, examining every facet of the controls. A jawbite of darkness began to gnaw away at the edges of the view, a seeping stain. "I'll have no choice. I've spent my life searching for this, and now it's finally found. My primary and only goal, realized. Where does one go from there? I will wake up into a Universe where I have nothing to search for anymore. What do I do, then? Will I find another purpose?" It lifted its head off the console, peering blithely into space. "I don't know," in a voice it didn't want to let go of.

"After you've participated in a quest so grand," it wondered outloud, "do you even want to? Where do you go when you've reached the destination?"

Shhuff. The gentle scuff behind the Insepton was a noise allowed to happen.

"Seems to me," Logan said, his words pressing against the air without bending it, "that we ain't reached the end yet."

"Indeed." The alien never turned around. Somehow Logan's reflection avoided the curvature of the outer glass. "I've been trying to isolate the coordinates that Solo set for the sequential jumps. I noticed as he was inputting them that they were set for a degrading spiral, each jump leaping to a further center. I imagine he thought I wasn't paying attention."

As the Insepton spoke, Logan walked up to the main chair. Looking over the top of it, he stared at the man sprawled on it, arms dangling limply over the sides, his head lolling back and mouth slightly agape. His eyes were closed.

"Yeah, that's probably what he thought." Carefully, Logan rested a finger on the man's neck.

"But if I can trace the final source of them, I can see exactly what he has . . ." The console beeped, almost eagerly. "Ah. There we are."

Logan closed his eyes briefly and exhaled, lips pressed tightly together. Just as slowly, he pulled his hand away. "What?"

"He lied." There was a certain tinge of sadness in the Insepton's voice. "The courses were merely a disguise. We don't go anywhere, truly, it ultimately keeps us in the same sector. Its final waypoint is set for . . . " The wrinkles in space, gone smooth and dark, merely gaped from this distance. ". . . for a black hole."

"Right." Logan kept his tone flat. "Why would he do that?"

"Who knows? Your species rarely does anything that makes sense. Perhaps he sensed that whatever plan he originally possessed would never come to fruition and this was his way of ensuring a sort of victory. Fortunately I didn't trust him. I've never trusted him." It tipped its body, arcing toward another set of controls. "But these coordinates aren't locked, with your help we can certainly reroute the ship elsewhere. I know of several planets nearby that-"

"No." All of a sudden Logan was looming over the alien, his face set, a knot working feverishly in his jaw. His shadow lay heavy, threatened to split at the edges. "I don't think that's going to happen."

The Insepton stiffened, stopped. "Ah." A snowfall on a star, rare and brief, right in that moment when you blinked. So much magic and you never see it when you're not looking. "You sound very certain of this."

"I am." He gave no orders. No ultimatums were necessary. His hands were at his sides, light and loose.

"May I ask why?"

The scene had shifted into greytones, somehow. Dappled light, and then, barely breaking. "I said to him, not that long ago . . . I said that I couldn't think of a reason so important that he wouldn't give this back to you."

"And now?"

"I've figured out the reason." He twisted without moving, words dropping as ballast, because to be fast he needed them gone. Nothing extraneous, for this to go.

"Well." It let go of the console, thumped down with a tiny thud. It didn't pivot, although one of its eyes were staring at Logan's knees. The back of its body brushed against an unresponsive boot. "Well," it said again, one hand caressing the other, so sure. "When were you going to do it?"

Logan's eyes widened just a fraction in surprise. "It? Do what?"

It stared back at him with a head slightly tilted, as if disappointed. "Please. I am not foolish, Logan. I have navigated the Concursive Spirals, seen the dead husks of a long extinct Karameikos swarm, debated the Yuling monoliths while surrounded by the corpses of those who couldn't decipher their archaic babble." It pawed at the floor, almost running in place. "I have fought on both sides of a war that used colors as weapons and seen symphonies crystallized, held its tender vibrations in my hand. Witnessed the ghost ships of the Hurcanoids phase through a world silently, leaving nothing but fragile flowers in the soil they passed through." It looked up at Logan, perhaps trying to memorize him. "You do not survive as long as I have without knowing when someone is prepared to kill you."

Logan didn't say anything at first. Then, very deliberately, he sat down cross-legged, at a level that was nearly eye to eye with the Insepton.

"It doesn't have to that end that way," he said quite clearly.

The Insepton made a ground-up mewling that might have been a laugh. "Then what other way do you see it ending, Logan? Drop me from the ship at the next port to continue on our separate paths, like this was some adventure we all shared? No." Said so forcefully that Logan's hand twitched. "No and no again. What is attached to the ship is my life, and nothing less. The search for it has consumed me from the moment I was capable of conscious thought. I can no more walk away from it than you might willingly part with your limbs. Have you any conception of that need, so that every action you take is bent toward it? Do you?"

"I thought I did." Admitted slowly and after a long pause. "But I guess I don't."

The alien tucked its legs under itself, so that it was resting neatly on the floor, becoming that much smaller. "And yet you would still side with him, and keep it away from us." Its head dipped, a slight shake. "Humans."

Logan intertwined his fingers, pressing on his knuckles. "If it goes down how you want, he loses a friend." A spark ignited and died, right in the center of his eyes. "And I've lost enough to know how that feels. And I can't let it happen again." The words were coughed out of him, even as his gaze sought the floor. "He got into this because he was an arrogant idiot but he's been trying damn hard to get out of it. Because a man like him doesn't have many friends, not that many he can trust. I won't let him lose this one. It ain't right."

"So it's right we have to keep searching?" The Insepton's tone was gentle, as if it had already accepted the outcome.

Logan sighed. "It was missing before and you found it. Someone else will find it again. It's not a perfect solution but it's the best I got. Otherwise someone gets hurt who wasn't any part of this, and I can't stand that." His nails dragged across the metal, making soft squeaks. "I said, it ain't right. But it's as right as it can be."

"I see." It had gone dimmer inside the cabin, somehow, the two of them only defined by the impressions they made on the fading brightness. "Then I suppose we're locked into our courses. How would you like it done? If it helps I can look away, so that the moment isn't branded upon you."

"No." Logan unfolded from his stance and got to one knee. "It doesn't have to be like this. You can't have it, but that doesn't mean you have to die."

"Oh, but doesn't it?" The Insepton paced along the console, its small feet counting out rapid heartbeats. "I've told you, you cannot simply just let me go. The quest does not end, just this part of it. And now, I know. I know of Han Solo and what he's done. And I will try to find him again. I will get word to every one of my race and they will seek him as well. Every bounty hunter, every mercenary, they will all know his name. As someone who found it once, we will make him find it again. And we won't rest, nor stop. I will ensure all of creation drowns in our search, in order to find him." It came back over to Logan, its head inches from him. "So, you see, you don't have any choice. Perhaps none of us ever did."

"I'm telling you-"

"What is stopping you?" the Insepton demanded, a flash of anger finally entering its voice. "What, exactly? Must I retrieve my weapon and force a pretense? Is that all you have the stomach for? Do not prolong this, Logan, or perhaps I will escape."

Logan only grunted in response, let his body lean forward. "There's always a choice. It could have been different."

"Not in any world that we know," came the reply.

The two of them stared at each other for close to a minute. Then Logan seemed to come to a decision. Without words or expression, he braced himself into a crouch so that he was poised over the alien. Hand clenched into a fist, he let it rest against the back of the Insepton's head. It shuddered a bit at his touch but made no motion to pull away.

"If it were possible, I'd like to look upon it again." The Insepton began speaking quickly, the words coming out almost as chatter. "Just once more, to remind myself."

"Sh," Logan said quietly, his eyes stripped bare.

"But that's not going to happen, is it?" The Insepton wasn't facing him, its head pointed toward the console, the eyes straining to stare out into darkening space. "No matter, it's best this way. I've had the dream and I've had this, and how many get to speak of the reality of both?" It raised itself as high as it could go on its legs, as if excited for the view. There was nothing but brilliant stars. "Did I ever tell you about my dreams, Logan? Sometimes there would be singing, and it would linger long after I awoke. Always leading me. Always so vivid. And yet, having found it, what I cannot understand is why it looks nothing like-"

A shush slit the air again, soft and metallic. The Insepton jerked once, and that was all. "Sssh," Logan whispered, sliding his other hand under the alien and easing it to the floor.

His claws withdrew into his skin, blooming flowers gone into reverse. He rocked back onto his heels, both hands folded together and resting under his chin. One knuckle still had a splash of dulled blood, a stain he didn't wipe away. He stared out at nothing for what seemed like a long time, compressed and silent.

Finally, he stood, in smooth stages as a box being unpacked. His boots made no sound as he walked around the main chair, one hand tracing the outlines of it. His face was set, barely noticing the ship anymore. Coming clockwise, he finally came back to the console, his fingers just barely brushing over the buttons. He had to decide, had to make a move.

His hand wavered and swept, eventually settling on a small red one.

"Okay." Logan glanced around the ship, perhaps hoping for some kind of hint. If it possessed any, it wasn't about to give them up. Space was just as recalcitrant, the lights seeking to recede. "Here goes-"

". . . that's just going to . . . open the . . . waste tanks . . . pal . . ."

Logan spun at the sound of the voice, creaking and rough, his breathing speeding up for just a second. In the chair the man was stirring slightly, his head rolling from side to side, as if encased in loose rock.

". . . the hell?" Logan marveled, staring at the man with something akin to wonder. "You're supposed to be in a coma."

"Feels like I . . . still am . . ." Solo arched his back, trying to lift himself off the chair and failing. His eyelids were fluttering rapidly, seeking a kind of clarity. "I'm still impressed the . . . little bastard didn't . . . kill me."

"He didn't need to. He just wanted you out of the way, so he could get what he wanted. That was all."

Solo's arm twitched with the intensity of nerves catching fire, but he was unable to pull it out of its limp dangling. "Wonderful . . ." he was a man speaking through grating sandpaper. "Did you shoot him . . . out the . . . airlock?"

Logan glanced down and away just as quickly. "He's . . . not a problem anymore."

"Good." The word came out as a scale sliding along fractured bone. "Maybe we can . . . get this over . . . with finally." His fingers kept plucking at the air with no apparent results. His chest expanded with some effort only to end with him relaxing against the chair again, biting off a curse under his breath. "Ah. Looks like . . . you're going to . . . have to do some . . . piloting."

Logan kept silent, his eyes staring at the coordinates set into the console.

"Listen . . . it's not that . . . hard-"

"He told me what the coordinates were set for." Logan tapped at the metal, hearing it ring hollowly. He glanced at Solo with one eye, his expression chiseled. "He said we're heading for a black hole."

"That's . . . right."

"And I'm supposed to go along with this?"

"Why not . . . it'll make a . . . hell of a . . . story, someday." Solo opened his eyes wide but the pupils were dilated, constantly shifting.

Logan laughed, surprisingly himself. Shaking his head, he murmured, "You're crazy."

"No," Solo shot back. "You're crazy . . . I'm a pilot. That's . . . the difference."

"Maybe," Logan allowed. He was quiet for another few seconds, perhaps considering a facet. "All right, what do I do?"

Solo grunted, shifting in the seat again, one hand flopping into his lap uselessly. "We can go the . . . direct route . . . now so . . ." he rattled off a set of coordinates to Logan, who quickly figured out how to plot them into the navigation system. After a minute the numbers were staring back at him, the course set. "And that's . . . it . . ."

Logan stared at the button that would trigger the jump, absently chewing at the inside of his cheek. "You never struck me as the suicidal type."

"Probably because . . . I'm not . . ." his voice seemed to be getting stronger although he was still unable to move properly. "Having . . . second thoughts?"

"A black hole," Logan mused, glancing out into space as if he might spot that infinite maw among all the other patches of darkness. "Back at the port, Solo, when we were arguing over whether to wait out the riot or act, you wanted to hide out. At least you did until I mentioned the Dark Riders might get the ship. Only then did you want to move."

"What can I say . . . I'm attached to . . . it . . ."

"I thought you were a coward, only caring about your precious ship." His lip curled into a sneer as he said it. "But that wasn't the case, was it?" He glanced back at Solo, only to find the man's eyes nearly closed again, his body sagging against the chair. He looked tired, for maybe the first time during this entire affair, like his frame had finally worn out.

"Just . . . do it . . . already . . ." the man wheezed.

Logan let his hand rest on the button. "I just wanted you to know, you did the right thing." Why he waited for a response, he couldn't say. If he heard, Solo didn't react.

Without looking, he let the button depress.

Outside the stars stretched again but instead of leaping back into their original shapes they kept stretching, growing longer and longer until they were just strings bound across all the sky, holding the various pieces together, the edges fraying, the seams of it all coming apart. He could see it now, how tightly the skein was bound and yet how easily it could be torn. A single rip, an errant claw, and it could all be cut. But it always came back together, that was the trick, the reason it kept proceeding. The knots binding it all together, they were slicing through and falling in between, lacerations as strobes. Was that his vision? No, his vision was fine, it had to be, with these eyes.

They were racing ahead, falling in line with the stars, outrunning every luminous drop, forcing themselves into a blackness that lay in the center of their velocity, that pushed every other light away. Racing right toward it, unless it was devouring all they saw, every other smear of brightness fleeing. There and there and there, inexorable and outside and was that the ship lengthening? People were talking but it wasn't words, it was the hammerblow of forward speech, careening past all the possibilities of what he might say, crashing into him and dropping and falling. How did it get so heavy? He wasn't moving but he was sinking, matter finding its own patterns of dissolution. Starlines shoved off to the side and it was just dark ahead. Dark and dark and oh, could he see through the walls now? Transparent or simply the way the Universe always was, touching the rigid gossamer and finding the spaces in between. Scraping up against screaming velocity. Going so fast and yet they hadn't left, all their motion was reaching into the dark, what everyone did the first time that a notion of the difference occurred to them. The ship was groaning into elongated cries, the metal threatening to buckle, rattling in its own dissonant harmonies, seeking the final frequency. And what then? What? The stars were falling out one by one, giving up the race with a fond wave, letting the opaque press against them and how had that happened? Take a breath, he had just taken one, the weight on his chest increasing per second per second per second. Move, a voice ordered. But it hurt to move. They had never told him how much it would hurt, this world. But he had to. How long had it been? He needed a hand to mark the time, if time was left to mark. A watch baked too long in the sun, finally starting to cool. Ticking clocks and evasive color and and and

.....................................................................................................................................................he turned, against all hope of friction

...........................................................................................................................................................to find the man gone monochrome

...........................................................................................................................................................his body flattened and pulled taut into forever

...........................................................................................................................................................and he was grinning, teeth as infinite jewels

...........................................................................................................................................................answering the question that hadn't been asked

...................................................................................................................................................................................and he looked

...................................................................................................................................................................................and he looked

...................................................................................................................................................................................and he said

..........................................................................................................................................................."Sure, I guess this counts for hazard pay . . ."

..........................................................................................................................just as they

.............................................................................................................................................tipped across the edge

...................................................................................................................................................................................went past

.....................................................................................................................................................................................................and

.............................................................................................................................................................................................................every

.............................................................................................................................................................................................................sense

..............................................................................................................................................................................................................went

...............................................................................................................................................................................................................black-

* * * * *

...............................................................................................................................................................................................................and-

...................................................................................................................................................................................................faded

..........................................................................................................................................................................................into

......................................................................................................................................................................................a

........................................................................................................................................................................pristine

..........................................................................................................................................................blanket

.....................................................................................................................................................of

..............................................................................................................................................all

................................................................................................................................colors

................................................................................................................bleeding

..............................................................................................together

......................................................................................and

..........................................................................gone

..............................................................pure

................................................. white

.......................................just

...............................like

....................that

time

"when a bunch of them, trying really hard to look all tough in that black armor, like I'm supposed to be frightened of something I can invert . . . but anyway they've got me cornered and the tall one with the deep voice steps forward . . . he's a bit of a jackass honestly, I mean, you think the rest are pompous, they've got nothing on the king, trust me. But all right, yeah, he steps forward and announces that they're going to trap me in a two-dimensional pocket."

The hardness of the seat hits him first, a pressure pushing up. His senses scramble and reconnect and it's not right.

"So I go and act all scared because if you don't play along they get all mopey and there's just no dealing with them when they get like that, trust me."

The edge of the table bites into his forearms. Footsteps clack by, the gentle brush of soft hair and the sharp scent of primrose sweetened with a decadent promise. But it still wasn't right.

"Um, excuse me?"

"Hold on a second, this is the good part. So the tall one gloats a little more and next thing I know it's all . . . poof and I'm good and two-dimensional, as flat as theoretical physics will allow me to get. They're getting better, normally they can't help telegraphing their so-called masterstrokes. Generally as soon as the bwah-ha-has start you know it's time to duck and cover but here . . . no warning. Maybe they're finally starting to learn. About damn time, if you ask me. How often can you get your asses kicked before it occurs to you that you might be going about this the wrong way? But hey, why listen to a winner, hm?"

They're smoking exotic Nilbonian spices nearby, the rough scent rolling like fluid mercury across the air. A bartender is listening to some mook's sob story about the girl that got away. Except the girl was purely conceptual and disappeared when his theories were disproven, leaving nothing behind but unvalidated data and one tender night of passion, albeit properly footnoted. The facets of the place swirl against his senses.

Except.

"Listen, is there a reason I can't-"

"Now, keep in mind that I've spent time in a two-dimensional zone. Plenty of time. You know what I go there for? The romances. Don't laugh, you won't find better proof that love still exists than among those couples. It's like they work extra-hard to make up for their lack of depth. Their poems will get right under your skin, I swear."

"No, but-"

"Right, I'm getting off-topic, good catch. So, me, another dimension, flattened. Following so far? Of course you are. And I bet you're probably thinking, oh gosh how is he going to get out of this one? Easy. What happens when you take a dimension away from something that's technically infinite? Exactly, it becomes infinitely flat. So yeah, in essence you become a very large doormat . . . except. You've got . . . come on, what now?"

Overhead is the swoop of a bat's wings and the clinking of glasses following suit. A cup slides down the bar past him, just brushing against his knuckles and sighing as it does so. A sneeze sends droplets of liquid to lightly tickle his neck, but he refuses to give into the urge to wipe it away.

The counter rattles in the wake of a hand slamming against it. "I'll tell you, something that's also infinitely sharp at the edges, that's what. So I did the only proper thing and turned myself sideways, cut my way right out of the dimension, sliced completely through. I know, I was impressed too. Not as much as they were, mind you, when I dropped right through them and chopped about half of them in two. Lengthwise. Very neatly, too, I might add. They've never said anything since but I think my point was made." There's a snorted sniffling, the soft rasp of a napkin being wiped against lips. "Oh, but here I am, monopolizing the conversation. You had a question?"

He's not ready for it, even though he's been bursting to ask. "I, uh, I . . . what the hell are we doing here? What is this place?"

The laugh splatters. "Come on now, where were we going to go? Your favorite bar? Like I'm going to get free drinks there. Besides, I think we've got a better class of clientele here." Breath bends down, whispers into his ear. What she says isn't his language but it sends a trickle down his spine anyway. "Present company excepted, of course."

"I don't understand a damn thing you're talking about. And why can't I see-"

"Just the kind of place you take a man who has done something utterly ridiculous." A elbow hits the table with a hollow clunk. "A black hole, Solo? Are you even pretending to think this stuff through, anymore?"

"Well, it-"

"Don't go telling me that it sounded like a good idea at the time."

"Honest, it did." He hopes he doesn't sound too defensive.

A hand slaps him on the shoulder, feeling like a meteor shower of hot needles. "That's why I like you, Solo. You don't let the infeasibility of an action stop you. It just seems to make you try harder." A creak as presumably he leans back. "But now what are we going to do with you?"

"Give me a large reward for my efforts so I can retire young?"

The voice is a dry buzz. "So you can spend the rest of your days hugging babies and sewing clothes for the elderly, no doubt. How about this . . . you get one drink, so enjoy it."

"That's generous of you." Somehow he finds it, the glass soaked with condensation. It's slightly viscous and tastes like the first moment you slip free, the burst yell in the back of your head as all of gravity's hands slacken and let go. The notion that the forces that kept you bound were falling rapidly away behind and what lay ahead was only everything. He found he enjoyed it quite a bit, actually. Not as much as the real thing, though.

"You're lucky, you know." They've started a bawdy drinking song on the other side, about the prescience of glass and her magic number of legs. "I happened to poke my head in during your little stunt, against certain other's best wishes to leave you to your own devices. Good thing I did or right now you'd be somewhere you really didn't want to be."

Perhaps it's the drink that's made him bold. "Nah, I knew you'd be along."

"Oh? Do tell."

Someone drops a utensil and the sound rings out like an aborted symphony. It has to be coincidence. "Because whatever the hell you are, you're not a cold blooded killer or you would have blown the ship up in the first place. You used me. I've used enough people to know when I'm someone else's pawn."

"Aren't you very clever?" But there was some amusement in the voice, tingling as static. A circular scraping across the bar suggested a glass was being spun. A bottle of Uldavian Prime was unsealed, flooding the place with the rigor of incense and the memory of when he'd first tasted his own blood. She'd had a hell of a left hook. But that had just made the aftermath that much sweeter. Turns out it wasn't all she had.

"You needed something done and you took the opportunity of me stumbling in to get it done. You were trying to keep it away from those guys in the armor, right? You didn't want them to know you were involved?" He should take the silence as a hint but he keeps interpreting it as encouragement. "I assume you used the cover of the black hole to move it to where you really wanted it."

The low rasping laughter again, like smoke developing a sense of humor. "Why would I go and do a thing like that?"

An array of cubes fall down in a cascading clatter. Or so it sounds. It could have easily been a Vilgid's love song, written sideways. "But didn't you want-"

"I've got no idea where it is, I let the event horizon take it to wherever. Can't touch it, that's the rules. Well, that's what I'm told at least. One of these days I'll finally get around to checking up on that because it really strikes me as kind of contrived . . ."

"Does that mean this is all over?" He's never been in a bar that he's wanted to get out of quickly, but this place is coming close to being that first time. If only he knew what was-

"Your part in it is, yes." A certain pause occurs. "Although you never really had to have a part, you know. Right from the start you could have walked away."

"No, I couldn't." Said so fast he could feel the burns inside his mouth. "You didn't give me any kind of choice." It forces a clenching inside his stomach as the notion hits him. "Where the hell is everyone else? Why am I the only one here? Are they-"

"They're fine. Honest."

"But it's just me here." That's never bothered him before. They're singing a lament outside about the loss of another star. The counter-harmonies are trying to shout them down, saying who will notice, it's just one. That's all it is. "Does that mean I . . . didn't make it?" But even one missing makes the sky that much darker.

There's a snuffling sound and the man doesn't answer right away. Beyond the door the chorus is winning, dragging the defectors with them into a sonnet about the new cycles. It sounds so beautiful, he wishes he knew what it looked like. But there's no way to tell.

"You, sir, can't ever not make it." Spoken like a cloth wiped gently across the face. "That's another rule." Then, in a louder voice, "You finish with that drink yet, slowpoke, before they think we're taking up too much real estate? Besides, we've gone about ten minutes without a crisis and I doubt things will stay quiet for much longer. We're almost at a record as it is."

"I . . ." and it turns out he has, although he can't remember drinking the rest. But it's empty and so must be true. "All right. What happens now?" The rest of the bar must have shifted to the other end of the room, they sound so far away now. He needs that waitress to come back over again, just to feel the breeze of her passage and imagine the outline she leaves on the air. None of them are near and what does that mean?

"Now?" He sounds like he hadn't considered the question yet.

"Yeah. I did your dirty work, got this whole mess wrapped up neatly for you . . . so what happens to me now?" Cautiously defiant but it's shouting at a river in the hopes of getting it to flow in the opposite direction. If it still drowns you, it's nothing personal.

"Well, Han Solo," the man says, as the blindness inverts, "I imagine for starters that this is the point where you

.................................................................................................................................................................................wake

.................................................................................................................................................................................up

Solo opened his eyes with a gasp. His back arches spasmodically, shoulder blades slamming into the metal floor of the ship. He could see again but all that was visible was darkness. The ship had gone quiet, all the consoles and machines powered down, like it was keeping some kind of vigil over him.

"What the . . ." he muttered, blinking rapidly. Why the hell couldn't he-

Overhead the darkness rustled, resolved itself into a coat of fur. A low trilling sound came to him then, gradually growing louder as the realization set in. It was a roar that Solo wasn't quite sure he'd ever hear again.

Thank you, he thought, or maybe said outloud, even as the Wookie swooped down to scoop him into an embrace, nearly suffocating him in the process. Even so, he laughed, hardly hearing himself over his friend's whoops. After going through this whole mess, it was about time that something decided to go right. The two of them had been through too much to-

Wait.

"Hold on," he said, breaking free suddenly and sitting up straight, glancing almost frantically around the ship. "Where's Logan?"

* * * * *

I don't know where I am. It's the softness of the sheets that alerts him first, the sharp clean scent of them. Before coming to the school he'd never spent a day in his life on a normal mattress, had never been able to fall asleep properly without having to brace himself for a possible attack. Even now he'd find himself sleeping outside when the bed became too intoxicating. Sometimes he wouldn't even remember making the decision to go outside. It wasn't sleepwalking. He kept telling himself that.

This, though, this was different. He opens his eyes to blurred whiteness, a reflection of sunlight against a mirror and plastered to the walls. Blinking does no good, the view remains hazy, all contours indistinct.

Past the edge of the bed he hears the clinkaclinkaclink of a spoon inside a glass, casually stirring.

"Ah, you're finally awake," a cultured voice says. "Perhaps you'd like some tea?"

Logan flips over, the blankets reluctant to let go of him, the voice startling him more than he'd like to admit. The room reels, if he squints hard enough he might be able to make out a small round table at the other, two objects near it that could be chairs. Trying to see is staring through a warped lens coated with rainwater, the scene continually shifting and melting, sharp details falling away into broader shapes. It's a man there, definitely, pressed into the soft wax of the scene.

"I ain't much for tea," he says after a second when it's clear that if this is a dream he's not waking up right away.

"Oh thank goodness," the man says. It's hard to tell but he seems to press down on top of the cup, pushing it down into the table itself. "I never developed a taste for the stuff myself, but it seemed like the proper thing to offer given the circumstances." His contours wobbles, one leg maybe crossing over the other. Why the hell is everything so out of focus?

"I'm not really that thirsty." He manages to shove his legs off the bed and plant both feet on the floor. It's strangely warm, perhaps a type of marble. The room, as far as he can tell, is cut with perfectly straight lines, somehow both utilitarian and graceful, sweeping across in continuous motion even as it lay static.

"How are you, then?" There's a slow scrape as the chair goes back but it's not clear if the man has stood up. Logan isn't looking at him, he's staring at the floor with his hands pressed up against the side of his head, sweeping back his hair. But even the floor is wrapped in solid haze.

"Tired." The admission comes frighteningly easy. He continues to stare for a few moments without blinking, feeling the man's gaze on him. He's being studied, he's been prodded and examined enough in his life to know the sensation. "And confused. What am I doing here?"

"Resting, mostly. Beyond that, I imagine we'll get to it in a few minutes. I suspect you'll be gratified to know you aren't dead."

"I figured as much," comes the answer. "I can't be dead if I'm around to ponder it. Besides, I'm not exactly one to believe in an afterlife."

"Even if it was real?" There's a teasing, evasive quality to the question.

He raises one eyebrow. "Is it?"

The motion blur that is the man wavers slightly, like the fireflies holding him together are about to violently disperse. "Oh, I have no idea, I don't get involved in that sort of thing. I've got enough to worry about without having to keep track of souls and all that. Where you go is where you go and that's all." There's a dismissive note to his voice but with an underlying weariness, perhaps he's rehashing a debate he came to terms with a long time ago.

Logan glances around at the room, seeing it as solid shadows without a light source to cast them. "And here? What's here?"

The man's pacing around the room loosely, fingers tracing blocks that could be furniture. He's got eyes now, two dark and glittering holes. "A pause. An exhalation between frantic moments." It's watching him with all the intensity of a negative image of a steady flame.

Logan meets them without wincing, arms resting on his thighs and his hands just barely touching in between. "We went into the hole, didn't we?"

The man's mouth becomes a mirthful slit. "Against all better judgment and sanity, yes. It's not the most ill-advised action I've ever witnessed but it certainly ranks up there."

He ignores the jibe. "And we all made it out."

That's when the man turns serious. "Yes. Everyone did."

"And where are they?" He doesn't know why he needs to ask.

"Not here. Elsewhere." As if the two phrases described two utterly different concepts. "The ship broke apart during the journey, flung you all out. It got put back together but it struck me as a good time for everyone to go their separate ways. You caused enough damage for one day."

Something about his tone makes Logan bristle. "Us? You were the one who put him up to this, weren't you?"

He frowns as a sunset landing. "That's one theory, certainly. But he got himself into it and it was his job to get himself out. It's not our fault that he decided to take the roundabout route."

Now Logan is standing up, although he stays by the bed. The change in stance causes blood to rush down from his head, creating a shower of sparkles and forcing him to sway for a second. The man only maintains his stance, head tilted slightly to the side, perhaps waiting.

"So all those people died so you could teach him a lesson." He can feel the tips of the claws biting and scratching against the underside of his skin, gnawing to get out. Why he's so angry, he's not sure, perhaps it's the man's cavalier attitude or maybe even at Solo for doing just what the man said and making it take even longer than it should have.

"No," the man replies coolly, "all those deaths occurred because a lot of people can't mind their own business." Hands clasped behind his back, which makes his shimmering form seem even slimmer, he cranes his head to stare at the oblique ceiling. "Are you beginning to find the interior stifling? Perhaps a change of venue is in order."

Slid in slenderly, the notion catches him off-guard. "What?" There's nothing resembling a door in the place. "But I'm not even wearing any-"

The world folds and twists, tries to pull his stomach out through his pores. The sterile placidness of the room is immediately replaced with a wash of nature's odors, the crisp snap of leaves, the gentle rustling of a breeze over branches, a steady and looping warbling that could be a bird and just as likely not be one. The ground is packed dirt, uneven but firm.

"Any . . ." he tries to finish, then realizes that his clothes are back, repaired and perhaps cleaner than before. The man is already ahead, a sight his eyes can't focus on properly, his vision always threatening to slide away from his form.

"Now this is much more peaceful," the man is saying when Logan finally catches up to him. Without turning around, he adds, "I believe you were about to ask me about violence?" There's flowers on either side of them, lurching into prismatic shades depending on how the light falls. The path twists, doesn't appear to go where it leads.

"What did they all want with it?" It's not the question he meant to ask, but it'll do. "The stormtroopers, that I understood, because I know their kind. All they do is take what they don't have, until there's nothing left. But the other ones . . ." stems curve into cursive language all about his head, intertwining above their heads. He can't see the sky, even though it's right above.

"They had their own silly reasons." He was a drop of water flung at the sun. Animals scampered underfoot as vapor, too quickly for the eye to follow. "Perhaps it was as profound as reintroducing any dangerous knowledge contained within, or as petty as finding it to make us look foolish because we let it get misplaced." His hand brushes against a series of stacked bushes, creating a sound not unlike humming wind chimes. "It could have been a very small piece in a very large game, or they were just doing it simply because they could." He looks down at the ground, his voice dropping. "It's not always as straightforward as one would like, I'm afraid."

They've come to a high field, the ground swishing quietly over humps of hills. Down below Logan thinks he can see small houses in the distance, arching heaps of stone arranged in elegantly spiraling lines, always spreading outward. The wind smells of age. At the end of the formation there appears to be a small hole, freshly dug. Figures too tiny for the distance are each handling one end of a object whose size is impossible to judge. There's a sense of ritual at play as they maneuver it toward the hole.

"And time ensures that every loss is unavoidable," the man whispers, bending down to pluck a few grasses from the dirt. He lays the strands flat in his hand and begins caressing them with a thumb.

Logan watches him, as much as he can watch. Staring at him is trying to find someone through the veil of a waterfall, you know there's someone present but you can't say who. "Is this over, then?" Hearing his own voice is like punching out a window in a church, even when you're familiar with it, the contrast turns it into something new. "Can we go on with our lives?"

"You always could." Carefully, he's arranging the grass-strands against his palm, narrowing his static saturated eyes as he tries to put the same sense of space between them. Above, stars pinwheel in the light past the sky's smoothness. "Your lives never really stop." The silence counts out a few beats. "Have you decided where you're going?"

The question catches him by surprise, the man seems to have a knack for that, deliberate or not. "I'm not going back to Solo's ship?"

"I think the two of you have caused enough mischief together for one day." The man doesn't sound entirely sad at the prospect of it continuing though. He's tying each end of the grasses together with deft fingers. "If you truly insist, then I suppose arrangements can be made." He takes a second to glance back at Logan. "Although . . . you don't strike me as the type of man who says goodbye."

Looking away, Logan rubs the back of his neck with one hand. "Nah," he answers, when enough time has gone by to make him wonder how much he means it. "Best to leave it where it is. I'd hate to see the man get all sappy about it."

"Indeed." The man stands up, holding the grass up to his lips. He blows through it softly, creating an off-key humming sound. Frowning, he pulls it away and begins adjusting the spaces. "You could always stay here, you know."

"Here?" He's been expecting this, somehow. "I ain't much of a groundskeeper, or a gardener. You sure about that?" There's parts of exposed columns of stone snaking through the grass. For some reason he's reminded of veins, though he can't say why.

The man, preparing to whistle through the grass again, halts. "Oh, no, not here. I meant . . ." one arm arcs to indicate all the places that aren't touched by sight. ". . . here. Out here with us. You've gotten a taste of it already, the port was just the edge."

"And you're saying it's different?"

The man stares outward, rippling humor evident in his voice. "Oh, you have no idea. Anything can happen, more than anything. There'd be places for you and you would certainly never be bored. There's always work to be done, plans to ferment and stop, sights to witness. Events of a scope you can't even conceive. Infinitely malleable." He blows again, but the sound is flatter still. "You'd be more than welcome."

Logan says nothing, kicking idly at the dirt. There's scattered stones buried in the dirt, all different shapes, laying about as if cast. One in particular catches his eye, perhaps a glint of sparkle on its surface, or maybe its inherent roughness is evident. Bending down he scoops it up in one hand, holding it up and squinting with one eye to stare at it.

The man stands poised as a ramrod. "Well?"

"No." He tosses the stone up, catches it easily and stuffs it into his pocket. "You said what I saw today was just the edge and what I saw . . ." he swallows thickly, "I saw people dying for no good reason, because of some stupid artifact that nobody even knew what it had. And then I find that it's deliberately missing, that all this was caused because of some . . . game?" Logan tucks his chin into his chest, frowns. "You're the man I saw on the ship, aren't you? In the recording?"

"Sort of." Even vague, he senses it's still true.

"Then all of this, you forced him into it for a reason that don't make any sense at all to me." He cracks a knuckle, merely to hear the sound. In the valley they've placed the object into the hole, but one of the figures has gone down and appears to be taking something else out. "You caused all that, so you could get the outcome you wanted. And what I can't wrap my head around . . . how much else did you cause?" The man is only watching, a vibration trying to escape this too solid earth. "Did you . . . make his ship go off in the first place, to give yourselves a reason to get this going?" He fixes the nonstop man with his most rooted gaze, feels it slide right off. "Can you answer me that?"

Logan waits, but he already knows what to expect. With one eye he sees the figures take a smaller object away, carrying it far from these fields. It might be moving in their maybe-arms. It might be wailing. Excoriated motes wheel above in melodic instances.

Scratching roughly at his face, Logan looks away. Suddenly, he doesn't want to see any more. "You can't. And this place, your lives, it's nothing but that. Where I come from, a man either makes his own way, or he deals with whatever chance hands him. But here . . . this is how it always is, isn't it? Never knowing what's random or what's just part of the plan. I can't live like that."

The man hums across the knotted grass and finally a sweet, mournful note emerges, as if coaxed. Long and sinuous, it curves across the end of a season, a cushion to support the onset of the grayness.

Without looking up, the man says, "Nobody killed your friends."

The bluntness of it causes him to wince, although he recovers quickly, a bit of hardness returning to his eyes. "Maybe not. But if I stay here, I'll always wonder. And I don't need questions like that. I've got enough as it is."

A shorter, shriller note is blown, escalating into a staccato run before dipping low and rising again, held long enough to just tremble.

Logan stuffs his hands into his jacket pockets. "I think it's time I got the hell out of here."

The man coughs, unleashes a curious lingering note. Above, clouds track upwards across the sky's edge, hastening toward an up that always exists somewhere else. It's summer here in its last throes, the light gone deep and long, the shadows nothing but drenched impressions. The circular buzzing of particular insects. All fading into the slow slide.

"You could have left any time you wanted to," the man says finally, perhaps sadly. "The door's always been there."

What? Logan blinks and suddenly it's true. Set in the ground it's there, like the entrance to an old cellar, or a shelter from a tornado. I don't get this place at all. Made of simple wood, the paint dull and chipping, the doorknob tarnished. It shouldn't open at all. But then, it shouldn't have been in the ground either.

Crouching down, he yanks on it and finds it opens easily. He refuses to be surprised anymore. What lies down it he can't tell, the interior tapers into a complete darkness that stubbornly clings to any fine details.

"I'm just supposed to . . . go in there?" he asks, snorting.

The man chuckles softly and for a second he's almost clear. "What's any day but a leap into the dark?" He starts to play a full song finally, lilting and pulsing, tones impossible from strands of grass. And yet here, it's not. It's still a song, notes overlapping on each other, swooping in and careening off their own echoes, faster and faster until it's not just the rhythm of a day but every day, of every heart all at once, chaotic and lurching and perfect, a myriad of beats all out of time and forever pushing ahead, dropping and regaining and never stopping. He doesn't wait for the crescendo, it's just coincidence. And yet that's how it happens.

With one step, Logan goes in. He goes down.

And falls.

Even as he does, the music follows him, whirling down at his heels as the darkness rushes past him, notes breaking apart and fading away as he goes, not able to make the fall, stripping the song down further and further, a thousand notes, a hundred, a dozen, ten, five, three, two.

And then there's just one, simple and pure, ringing and sustained, following him stubbornly through every distance and what it reminds him of he can't immediately say. Just when he thinks he knows, that's when the bottom finally arrives and crashes down, sending that thought and all others skittering away, nothing more than silent sparks in the grasping dark.

* * * * *

"Well," Solo said, flicking a few more switches and getting the same placid beeping results that the first four had told him, "I've been over the old girl twice now. It all checks out." He put his hand on his hips and looked around. "Yeah, we're good to go at any time."

Behind him Chewbacca was examining another console nearer the ceiling. His low growl seemed both acknowledgement and confirmation. And maybe something else.

"I know, I'll be glad to get the hell out of here, too." He stared out the window for a good minute, doing a mental exercise where he gauged what three dimensional shapes the stars would make once you factored in their relative distances. But every one he made seemed to consist of nothing but jagged points scratching at the void. "One black hole was enough for one day."

The Wookie came over to stand near him, leaned forward so that his head was craned over Solo's shoulder. It fired a burst of shredded roared sound at him, with perhaps a note of admonishment.

Solo both laughed and sighed, shaking his head even as he sat down heavily in the pilot's chair. "Yes, it would have made more sense to perform a whiplash maneuver and fling the damn object into the black hole with the tether. I'm with you on that." A string of crushed consonants followed that statement. "It didn't occur to me, sorry! And you know I'm no good at that type of thing anyway, my timing's all off and skimming the top edge of a black hole isn't the best moment for on the job training."

Chewbacca spat out an elongated bark again. "Well, I didn't have much time to be clever, all right?" he answered with some mock indignation. "If you'd been here maybe I would have been able to-"

Solo cut himself off, all expression fleeing. His friend spoke gently, almost a purr.

"I know, I know," Solo said quietly, waving away obstacles that didn't exist. "It just . . ." he stared out into space again. "Chewie, you all right? I mean . . . really? You feel okay?"

The Wookie answered with a moan that Solo seemed to take as an affirmative.

"Right, I'm turning into my grandmother," Solo muttered. "You've never even met my grandmother." His eyes narrowed, added as an aside: "In fact, neither have I." Settling back further into his chair, he crossed his legs, resting his ankle on the opposite knee and pressing his fingers together into a sort of steeple. "I keep wondering what happened to him." He turned his head to stare up at his friend. "They took him, I guess, who knows why. And nothing I can do about it but still . . ." He trailed off, frowning.

Chewbacca bellowed again, a low interrogational rumble.

"No, he'll be fine," Solo said, straightening up in the chair. "Trust me on that, the guy can take care of himself, wherever he is. I wish you had gotten a chance to meet him, that would have been-" the Wookie interrupted with a stabbing pronouncement. "Yeah, you were otherwise occupied, I know. I know." Grimacing, he squeezed at his chin, a certain light leaving his eyes. "I'm sorry. Really."

His friend only answered with a burst of harshness, swooping and cut off.

Solo smiled. "Thanks. I tried. Though what was it like being trapped inside a block of crystal, it must have . . ." he stopped himself, shook his head even as he leaned forward to tinker with the controls. "Never mind, I don't want to know. Fortunately, I doubt I'll ever get to find out."

The Wookie's response didn't need to be translated.

"Right, let's go." A few more buttons and the ship's engines responded with an escalating hum as more lights began to blink into existence on the consoles. My ship. Solo didn't even bother to hide his grin. "I think we both need a vacation after this, I hear Zeltros is pretty nice this time of year. Actually, it's nice no matter what time of year it is." Chewbacca nodded, stalking over to the navigational computers. "Let's set a course for that, if we slingshot it right we can probably skirt the Kessel-"

He stopped, his grin growing wider as an idea came into his head. "Hey, pal," he said, tapping new coordinates into the system, "mind a little detour first?" The Wookie looked at him with a questioning tilt of the head. Solo's eyes twinkled mischievously. "Oh, nothing serious . . . just how do you feel about seeing what this baby can really do?"

Chewbacca's stuttered laugh was all the answer he needed.

"All right, then," Solo replied, stabbing the switch with a flourish and sitting back. "Let's go break a record."

The stars pulled closer to greet them, and they were off.

* * * * *

All that he'd been through and he still didn't know where the hell he was.

But at least it was a place he could deal with.

"Another drink, gentlekind?" the rail-thin and blue man behind the counter asked him. Logan grunted and slid his empty glass back across the bar. The man tapped his wrist and a chute opened in his palm, disgorging more liquid into the cup.

He lifted the glass to ram the drink down his throat but stopped himself. Holding it up to his eyes he swirled the clearness of it around, just to see the motion. Then he took a more reasonable swig, putting the cup back down on the bar and cradling it between two hands.

His first plan had been to stay here and drink until his money ran out. But he didn't think that was going to happen. When he had ordered the first drink and the bartender had asked for payment, he'd experienced a tense moment of not being able to pay. It wouldn't have been the first time in his life that happened but he just wasn't looking forward to a brawl at this point. Not right now.

Fortunately he had reached into his pocket and pulled out a handful of little plastic chips that the bartender had called "credits". He had taken one and stuck it in a tiny machine that immediately started emitting whoops. The bartender's ears had unfurled slightly and next thing Logan knew the being was almost his personal assistant.

That had been four hours ago. Now he was the only person left in the bar and the staff didn't seem about to ask him to leave.

When he had taken out the stack of credits a small note had fallen out onto the bar. Unfolding it, Logan saw that it said Nobody works for free. He had just crumpled it and tossed it onto the floor. How it had gotten there he wasn't sure but he had his suspicions. And Solo had nothing to do with it.

The reminder made him restless for some reason. He thought he would have enjoyed the relative quiet of the bar but it was starting to get to him. Pushing the hovering stool back, he caught the bartender's eye and said, "I'm going to finish this outside." The alien had the decency to look sad about that prospect, although his expression was alleviated when Logan threw another credit down onto the bar. Its chiming cheered cries were the last thing he heard as he pulled the door shut behind him.

The air outside was artificial, he could smell the difference immediately. It was clean but with a tinge of introduced gases, a bit too sterile for his liking. The cup seemed to get cooler the second he stepped out of the bar but he didn't finish it.

He didn't know what time it was, but it must have been late because the strip was empty, with nothing but floating lamps to provide any kind of brightness. Even that was strained, shadows pressing in from all sides. There wasn't even any drunken bums launching into rambling songs, or thugs or anyone vomiting against the wall. Still, that was fine, he really didn't need the distraction.

Boots clicking quietly on the pavement, Logan walked over to the railing. Out and below and around was nothing but space. He leaned on it, trying to take the sight in, to get past the deception that it was all empty. It only looked that way, the stars nothing but pinpricks, the darkness between them so small and so distant all at once. But it was teeming, that was what had tricked him at first. The stillness and the headlong rush, able to exist at the same time. That was space. That was everything he hated and what he was slowly starting to admire about it. The stars seemed to be thrown against the background at random but maybe if you stared at it long enough there was a pattern. Or maybe the pattern wasn't real, but could be imposed. Something about that appealed to him.

He looked for Earth but there was no way to tell. He'd have to get back eventually. And elsewhere, there was a broken ship and maybe some answers. Already, he had his work cut out for him. That was fine.

Until then, could he live out here? The dark gave him no kind of answer. A life of wandering, with no place and no destination? What had the man said? Anything can happen, more than anything. Staring out at the expanse of it, he could certainly believe it was big enough to hold nearly everything. On his terms, it could be a good life. He could certainly get used to it. Maybe even like it, after a while.

Yes. With a sardonic grin, he raised his glass toward the sky. "Are you ready?" he asked no one at all.

But as he prepared to knock it back, a voice off to his right spoke.

"Logan."

The sound of it, measured and smooth, nearly sent a spasm down his back. The squeak of wheels that followed was almost too much to bear. Hardly daring to look, he glanced anyway.

It was them. He felt his heart clench and told himself it was the wound still healing. It wasn't, he knew that. It was all of them, the professor in his wheelchair, the thin man with eyes like narrowed suns, the woman with the hair like flames and a mind that could pull down buildings. All of them, the large brilliant furry man and the small rapid furry man, his tail whisking against the ground. Every single one . . . except. He tensed, thinking someone was missing, but . . . no, there she was, toward the back and staring at him shyly, her quiet breathing a bellows to him. You all made it. He leaned further against the railing, exhaling a breath he didn't know he had been holding.

The small furry man spoke, laughing around his thick accent, "Verdammen, my friend, you are not an easy man to find."

Logan only nodded, not trusting himself to speak for a second. I thought you were all gone. The stars stared down without judging. I thought this was all I had left. And yet.

The man in the wheelchair glided just a fraction closer. "Logan, let's go home."

Home. Logan looked up finally, one last glance at the sky, at all the people and motions scurrying about in it that he couldn't see. It would have been interesting. He turned his head a little to hide his grin. Wouldn't it?

"In a minute," he said, holding his drink up, "just let me finish this."

THE END

April-September 2008
MB
RP