Where Angel Fears to Tread

Chapter 24

A Little Fascination

Every once in a while, news actually does travel fast.

The galaxy is an unfathomably large entity, and ways to talk between its farthest corners had always been reserved for the most special of its denizens. Though Gantu's home base had fallen prey to a vicious force, the high-priority communications channels — one of those special ways to talk — remained intact and Federation-owned. It was all chatter at this point, with far too many people talking without usefulness or purpose. But, the practiced ear of an admiral picked through the chaff, and pieced together an almost cohesive report. What remained from the noise had Gantu's stomach pulling backflips.

Yet, he knew he needed to take action. He produced his communicator. "Te'sudu?"

"Yes, Admiral?" The response was immediate. Gantu wondered if perhaps Te'sudu had sneaked his way into the priority line and gathered the same.

"Tell that worthless XO to set a course for Seefyus. Make sure he sets it right. We need to be there as soon as possible."

"…he's listening in on this, sir."

Gantu did not miss a beat. "I stand by what I said! Get it done!"

"Alright then, Admiral. Will do."

The red disk dallied in his palm for a moment. The frustrations of command had him snapping at good officers — a flaw that Gantu knew he would need to address. His cruelty concerning Strychim was unwarranted. The green saurian unfairly bore the brunt of Gantu's slow reconciliation with the horror just unleashed on Seefyus. So Gantu would need to make it up to his XO, of that he was sure.

Stuffing the communicator in his pocket, he activated the computer console in the desk. He had explored the captain's quarters and found nothing relating to her disappearance. After his thorough investigation, he decided the space felt more comfortable than the ostentatious conference room, and so commandeered it, all the while convincing himself that Captain M'Saliti would agree to the necessity of such a choice. The stark interior of her quarters seemed incongruous with her multifaceted personality — at times she could be demure, but plain walls and rough carpeting certainly had no place in her room. Her computer, however, was a state-of-the-art model, replete with all the extra trimmings. Gantu would need to figure out which quartermaster she had bribed to receive such a fantastic machine.

On that fancy computer's holographic screen, news reports had started filing in on what was being deemed the Seefyus Tragedy, the total of which was garrulous speculation and nonsense. And the Earthlings thought their news could be gossipy. Gantu had rather enjoyed the relative succinctness of Earth news — galactic media brabbled far too much for his taste. In fact, he had become intimately acquainted with the local Hawaiian broadcasters — he had endured many a Kaua`i newscast as he sat alone in his hidden scout ship.

The communicator chirped. "O-okay sir," Strychim stuttered, "w-we are locked in. W-whenever you're ready."

Gantu clicked the button to respond, but held his tongue. Reason had begun to criticize his rash and uninformed decision-making. Coalition infiltrators had blasted him through his office window and commandeered some significant portion of his armada several Turan hours beforehand. And though his meeting with senior staff on the Adesa had gone swimmingly, Gantu still could not fully trust the other creatures milling about the starship. Yet, he was about to fly his vessel straight into an at-best neutral planet's space to do…what? Offer planetary aid? Or do some snooping? How would the Coalition interpret the intrusion of the Federation's flagship into their recently acquired and now damaged territory?

"Belay that. Set course for the nearest adjacent star system."

"Um, okay sir…just a, uh, m-moment here… and…w-we are now locked into…the Khaestym System."

"Go ahead and initiate the hyperdrive."

"Aye sir." Gantu would not sense a change, but the ship would tear through the fabric of space-time and reach a fantastically far-off destination in a few shipboard hours. He tended not to concern himself with the deeply scientific matters. But, on occasion, when he could spare a precious moment, he would contemplate the vastness of space, and his insignificance within it as he sailed through the infinite void. Such an exercise invariably angered him in moments.

His chair — or rather, Captain M'Saliti's — was the only other ornate decoration in her quarters. The padding of the back and bottom enfolded its occupant in a cloud-like embrace. Nestling his hefty figure into the seat, Gantu leaned back to an unbelievably comfortable angle. The combination would have induced sleep in most creatures. Though he would not fall prey to the chair's wily ways, Gantu could salvage a fair bit of time for relaxation.

Yet, relaxation was fleeting. The media reports and the high-priority chatter, sketchy though it all was, flitted through his busy mind. A fusion reactor gives out…in such spectacular fashion, too. He had yet to memorize the specifications for the standard city-sized reactor, but Gantu did understand that such reactors were engineering marvels. They were designed to experience a hundred failures at once, and still operate safely enough to protect people. Something seems off, Gantu's paranoia prodded. The circumstances of the Tragedy certainly felt dubious to him — which was why he now felt compelled to conduct his own investigation into the matter.

But who do I tell about our snooping? His meeting with senior staff earlier had solidified the ranks, but he thought traitors still slinked about in their midst.

He found his communicator again. "Te'sudu, could you join me in the captain's quarters?"

In a flash, Te'sudu strode into the spacious room. He had dressed in more formal attire, eschewing his traditional pilot's jacket for a deep black coat better suited for a gala event.

"Te'sudu, what are you wearing?"

"Ah, this? Yes, well, y'see, I have…a date tonight, sir."

Gantu was dumbfounded. "A date?"

Te'sudu cleared his throat. "Yes…sir. A date."

The revelation of Te'sudu's evening plans drove Gantu from his seat. He slammed his fists into the table. "Did you not hear the news? A city was annihilated by nuclear fire. They'll have riots in the streets soon. Other planets will start to panic. Pandemonium is at the galaxy's doorstep! And you're going on a date?"

"Well, yessir. You gotta enjoy the little things in life, too. Can't be serious all the time…" he trailed off as Gantu's face contorted in odd ways. The pilot deftly shifted. "So why'd you call me in here?"

Gantu fell back into his chair. "Well, when you're done with your…date…we need to discuss some plans for a charitable aid mission to Seefyus. Just the two of us."

An illuminated expression glided across Te'sudu's face. "Understood, sir. I'll need about three hours then, sir."

Gantu motioned for him to leave. But as Te'sudu made his way to the door, Gantu snappily followed up. "So who's the girl?"

"Oh, no one you'd know, Admiral." With that dodge, he slithered out of Gantu's sight.

The computer screen reabsorbed Gantu's attention. "Hmph. A date," he grumbled to the floor. Despite his dedication to perennial grumpiness, a smile crept up on Gantu. I can trust him implicitly. More news stories flitted into view, each a more bromidic clone of the one before it. The chair leaned back, letting Gantu fall deeper into its soothing embrace.

"Where's your girl, Gantu?" The pink trunk swung through the clouded air. A nicer establishment than their usual dive, selected at the behest of Toobihya's female companion. A graceful creature, two-thirds Toobihya's height, slender, bunched up against the Admiral's corpulent belly. Her gracile sienna arms, coated in supple down feathers, wrapped around his rotund waist. Her silver beak clattered with whispered playful banter in Toobihya's ear.

"Oh, um, she, uh…."

"Isn't coming. Right?"

Gantu huffed. "No! No, of course not, she'll…be right along."

"Sure." A hoofed limb motioned for their waitress. "We're ready to order."

As Toobihya named off half the beverage menu, Gantu stared at his feet, which wiggled between the strands of the lush carpeting. He sunk back into the ludicrously expensive chair, savoring its velveteen padding on his weary back. Frosted lamps hanging above their obsidian table cast an intimate glow over the scene. In the seats across, Toobihya and his lady-friend peered at their singular guest between their treacly hushed words. Gantu fondled the armrest of the empty seat next to him.

"And for you, sir?"

"Water to start."

The waitress excused herself and left the triad to their own devices under the soft light. "Oh my, Captain Gantu, please tell me you won't stick with just water," a lilting soprano sprang from the silver beak. Her indigo irises gazed deeply into aquamarine orbs. "From what I've heard from this one over here, a celebration is in order!"

Gantu prepared to answer, and then promptly forgot her name. He stared slack-jawed, fumbling for anything to keep the conversation alive. She bated him with a patient look. "I, uh, I'm not too sure there's cause for celebration yet."

"Damn, Gantu, relax, will ya? You're a shoe-in for the spot! They'd be idiots not to give you this here red uniform." The admiral pulled on the edge of his sleeve, and his companion yanked on the fabric covering his shoulder. They both laughed in an elegant harmony that was a blessing for the stuffy establishment's heavy air. Toobihya's exuberance was infectious, and soon, Gantu was smiling. When the waitress returned with the first tray of the Admiral's order, Gantu asked that she bring a repeat of it, too.

"So Captain—or soon-to-be Admiral—I've also been hearing about your time on some uncivilized planet very far away. Can you tell me what it was like? Living amongst…primitives?"

A small white straw bobbed in the girl's drink. Gantu watched her spin it around for three revolutions, passing enough time to evoke sufficient drama. "It's…not easy. Those beings on that planet were truly savages. No place for them in our galaxy."

"Ah Gantu," Toobihya hopped in, "that seems like an awfully harsh critique, even for you. I'm sure they had some saving graces, yes?"

In a memory, a young girl offered kind words. They had always been at odds, but before he left, she had found him in his ship, alone save for the Kaua'i newscast. She said sorry for all the Big Dummies and Fish-Lips to which he had been subjected — even the ones for which she was not at fault. Her sincerity was clear. And he had smiled— a rarity. "Well…." A noxious peal of laughter abruptly ruined the thought. "No."

Toobihya squeezed his lady-friend's shoulder. "Don't worry, my dear. Gantu here is merely playing the part of hardened explorer. No doubt there's something pleasant that he is neglecting to mention."

The first tray of drinks disappeared. Their table was becoming increasingly louder with each emptied glass. Toobihya's companion waited for their group to down half of the next tray before beginning her interrogation anew. "So on this planet, Captain, you probably saw all types of strange organisms, besides these, ehm—the taller bare-skinned ones you mentioned—"

"Humans?" Gantu was surprised that she had been so well-acquainted with the particulars of his time on Earth. Even though the files of his sojourn had made their rounds, he did not suspect such familiarity from a layperson. He wondered how much information Toobihya had sweetly poured into her ear over the past few nights.

"Yes! Them. Besides them, what else did you find on that world?"

"Oh, I don't believe I could name them all. There were all kinds, ones that flew, swam, ran on land—"

"Okay then, how about more alien ones?"

"Um…well from, uh, my perspective, guess they were all alien."

Her laugh was a strange little warble that Gantu found incredibly alluring. "No, Captain, I mean another alien for that world—like yourself. I want to hear about them!"

A graveness hardened Gantu's spirit. He leered at indigo irises. "No, not them—"

"Come off it, Gantu!" Toobihya tried to defuse. Instead, Gantu steamed. Toobihya turned to his companion and admonished her. "My dear, it is best not to prod him on this point. He becomes quite defensive about the Experiments."

"The Abominations," Gantu growled. She jumped in her seat, bumping the table with one of her long legs.

"I didn't mean to offend, Captain," she hurriedly apologized. "I only meant to…." Her eyes closed, shuttering away those indigo irises, and she hummed. "Mm…you know, I remember exactly where I was the day the Experiment was brought in for that trial." Eyes flew open excitedly. "I was affixed to my screen. It was mostly fear that kept me there—I was so worried, I knew the danger something like that Experiment could pose. But there was another, smaller part of me that was intrigued by it. Fascinated, I would go so far as to say. Creating life on our own—so successfully, and so publicly— and the ways that creature flaunted authority, so vibrantly and outlandishly. Oh, I was enthralled, Captain! So I only meant to learn more about this being that has…captivated me so completely."

"Believe me, after all the time I've had to learn about it." He swirled a tiny crimson straw around in his next drink. "There's nothing you'd want to know."

"Maybe so, Captain. Yet this social…taboo, at even mentioning the Experiments, the impropriety of it in a place like this, it's…exhilarating." She closed her eyes and fanned a gracile arm above her head. Her companions looked on, stunned to silent gawking. She breathed deeply. "Don't you think so, Captain?"

"Um…."

She laughed. Gantu slumped further into the chair. "There is a danger, Captain, I do not ignore that." Her eyes laboriously drew open, and indigo irises swam freely before finding Gantu. "Fear, though, is useless without a little fascination."

Mercifully, the waitress returned to take away the spent glasses, with the promise of fresh ones arriving soon. Gantu took the reprieve to regain composure. Her eyes unrelentingly pursued him as he searched for anything else in the restaurant to stare at except her. "The, uh, taboo," Gantu launched clumsily, "is there because it is dangerous. You know there're more of them out there. Many more. They are tough, scarily so. A lot of power to give to a being, to be sure. But what they represent—that is what makes them dangerous."

"Hmm…what they represent…how dangerous indeed. An argument used before, by the Federation of course. And, by another organization of, shall we say, rapidly rising clout."

Gantu's authoritative tone soured. "Do not compare me to the Coali—"

"Alright!" Toobihya threw his arms into the air. "Enough of this discourse! We have another whole tray coming our way, and there's no way we'll get through it if we keep talking like this. My dear, let's save all this for another day, okay?"

Gantu sat still as she turned to him and plainly winked. "Absolutely."

"Stupendous! Now, let's have some fun and some actual small talk—oh but wait! I almost forgot…the toast!"

Gantu, still cooling off, wrinkled his brow. "The toast?"

"Yes!" Toobihya flew from his seat, and precariously balanced himself using the table. His thick pink skin glowed in the soft light. "To Gantu—the future Admiral that we will need for these—dangerous and fascinating times!"

"To Admiral Gantu!" she warbled.

Gantu raised his glass. The triad of liquids sloshed high above the obsidian table.

"Three is such a strange number," she blurted out.

"Well," Toobihya started as he returned to his seat, "if Gantu had found a girl…." Gantu listened to them laugh, then cheer as the next round was delivered by a melancholically haggard waitress. He was going to tell Toobihya, but the several more glasses he drained helped him forget.

But as he sat in the quiet office, the chair creaking as he returned to a straighter posture, Gantu remembered. "I did find her," he murmured, frowning at the computer screen.

Suddenly, curiosity poked its way into his pensiveness. In a flash, it had him vacate the desk and hurry out into the hallway. The shipboard club was several decks down from his quarters. "The little things in life, eh?" he told himself as he stepped into the ship's lift. "We'll see about that."

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