--Next morning--
It seemed that the night Buzz had given his wife, had been a real cure for her confused emotions. Yoka was back in her bright state, and up before her mate, heaping up breakfast in the kitchen. Proud Crescent liked coffee and sandwiches, so those she would make along with her own nosh. She did not really know how to make coffee -since deeply detesting it herself- but capsized half a package of coffee grounds inside the maker machine with a few cupfuls of water. While something that resembled thick mud dripped inside the coffee-maker, she whistling prepared huge bread slices at the dresser.
As she entered the bedroom again, Buzz was awake. He had been a tad baffled because of not finding her under his arm, and thus had scrambled up with a speedy hurry. Stagnating there in the mid-floor, his negligee inside out on, hair and beard resembling old messy brooms as not being combed, a lonely sock half-drooping from his right foot, Lightyear managed to look just stupid. Yoka burst into an ear-splitting croak-laugh, swayed to him and slammed a heavy food tray in his hands. Patting him on the top of the head from the highnesses, she warbled some good-mornings with broken accent.
Lightyear was more than two hundred percent astounded, but also relieved. Perhaps her depression really had been just temporal. However, there was still the yesterday's concern. He would not wipe out the idea of going to Capital Planet for a while. Her very peculiar sniffings had left a trace in his heart. So, as soon as he would get dressed, he would call Zurg and ask. Thus, to get fully awake, he took a good deep gulp of Yoka's coffee, his face warping almost into an overhand knot a second later. The drink was so strong and tart that it could have revived even Sleeping Beauty from her 100-year sleep. It burned his palate like vitriol. Coughing against his palm, he tried covering the effects of the horrid drink from her. Another thing to teach: how to make decent coffee. Thus as she was back against him, he dumped the liquid inside the nearest jardinière, where a large hibiscus was residing. And for his luck she noticed nothing.
Ten minutes later Buzz was face to face with Zora on the vidphone. The old emperor listened to his explaining a few minutes, then started complacent rubbing his hands together, gloating, "That is Jim-kraken-dandy! We shall have a marvelous family reunion! And we shall bake muffins! Uuhahaa! Loads of muffins! Mountains of muffins! Stormy oceans of muffins! Oo! I shall prepare my Hyper Muffin Ray that makes 25% fluffier muffins than a normal Muffin Ray! And popcorn shrimp we shall have also! Muwahahaaahaaahaha!" Obviously this was Zurg's outlook of being pleased about his son coming for a longer visit. In any case, Buzz and Yoka would leave tomorrow.
The Kalevan however was not too happy to hear that she would be left alone at home, while Buzz would finish his grand backlog today at work. On the other hand, she was in a way shy to make him a note about her fears, about the dread of a few hours' isolation. But if it was all the specters of her flustered mind, should they not fly away now as her soul was beginning to heal from the depression? Yet... it was only one day, Proud Crescent announced. One day, and the nightmares would be gone? Perhaps...
Before Lightyear left, he with concern told her to call, if anything strange would happen. Yoka was left to pack her property, so that everything would be accomplished for tomorrow's depart.
The morning's work at Buzz' office had begun with rustling papers. A pile of filled Space Ranger Academy application forms waited for his acceptance. Of course it warmed his heart that young men and women wanted to apply to Star Command, but today the desk job just did not really lift the spirits up. He would need to check the applicants' backgrounds from the Alliance Citizen Database, so that it was assured that the future cadets had no skeletons or other monsters in their closets.
Buzz took a big sip of his cocoa coffee, sat at his desk, and typed his login passwords on the computer. Glancing at the application papers, he picked up the first applier's name and social security number. "Neo Pion... Well, glad to see you willing to join Star Command, kid..." he gave a light smirk, and rattled the keyboard by inserting the required data into the database's search engine. The computer whirred a few moments, as it sucked information from the infinity-vast Alliance's network. However, some error had occurred. The holoscreen went nuts, starting to flurry and twirl, and ended up showing an episode of Teletubbies a nanosecond later.
"Tinky-Winky, Dipsy and Laa-Laa...Hat, hat haaat, Hat, hat haaat, Hat, hat haaat hat" the 3D-image squeaked with sappy overhappiness and falsetto, Buzz cringing in his chair and holding his ears.
"AAARGHH! No, no, no, NOOOOOOO! Not this again!" he whimpered and succeeded with efforts to shut down the torturous cartoon by kicking the CPU. The holoscreen sizzled again, turning the view to the previous search program. The bluster had ceased. Still trembling with fear, the Captain heaved a sigh of easement. "Brr! That's scarier than any of dad's old torture devices!"
Why this appalling skirmish had happened? The network search program had a source code bug of some sort. It reacted oddly when someone inserted in it social security numbers with Morphean affixes. Sometimes it worked well and listed the wanted info, but usually crashed, causing odd errors to happen. Hence, several times it had changed the transmission into some infants' holo-TV-channel broadcast, starting to belch out Barney the Dinosaur or other afflictive shows.
Still shuddering, Buzz took another try. "Drat, someone should come and fix this thing. Upgrade the software or something. Of course Star Command HQ has everything tip-top, but when it concerns a minor bureau... blegh." He left the number code away, and typed only the person's name and home location instead. Whirr, buzz, surr... This time a success. An abridgement list of names appeared. Yet, there was over two hundred of them, all labeled 'Pion, Neo. Gamma Quadrant of Sector Four, Planet Morph, the Independent District of Kaon', some of them added with a middle initial, though. And of course, the summary list showed nothing about the birth dates, but spat out the personal details just randomly. Again, some software engineer had shone with brilliant designing skills. And it seemed that the search engine had also erred to ransack some pre-Alliance data, namely Kaon's old local population registers, and sorted them with.
"Blast..." Lightyear smeared his forehead with his palm. "Must be a really popular name around. Though, there was one of those on my own junior high class... Took the wrong path and ended up to PC-7 a few years ago, that sneaky hacker..." Sighing, he admitted that there was no other option but to go through the names one by one, if he was willing to check the applier's background. "Pion, Neo, born then and then... Pion, Neo Cordé... this one's a woman! Pion, Neo Anakin... Pion, Neo: died last year UGT... Aww craters, how am I ever going to get through this diabolic list?" Leaning to his arm, he snapped the buttons, scrolling downwards the list. Half an hour later he had ended up staring at some of those gray natives called Neo Pion, who had lived around two hundred and seventy years ago local time, and obviously murdered. Yawning, he was about to stand up and get more coffee, but his eyes abruptly got fixed on something. It was the few lines under the deathday row. It had jabber about autopsy results, but the target of wonder was after it.
"Cause of death sealed as Class M-0rd0-R666?" he tapped his forehead with a finger. As far as he recalled, this outdated classification code referred to ritual murders. The Galactic Alliance had had different categorization symbols for things like that already tens of years. However the local database branch where the info was from, still seemed containing a lot of dusty gibberish from the days when Morph was not even part of the Alliance yet. How Lightyear was aware of the classification's meaning, was a novel-length story. During his long career as space ranger, he had become acquainted with dozens of cultures and their laws, thus having his head stuffed with more or less futile things. Including a lot of legislative claptrap.
Yet, his interest towards this term was not any boasting with knowledge. The fact was that his cranium was suddenly overflowing with Mr. Hadron's hushed tale about the anomalous cult. Even the years matched. Ritual murder, what else could it be? In addition, there was a link on the display leading obviously to a subnet with further information about the topic.
He straightened his pose, and directed the screen's cursor to the link. The interest of finding the real Neo Pion's data had been flushed down the sewer. If Buzz had an opportunity to learn about this Nex Crucio -oddity, he would definitely not leave it unused. Although he knew he should do his work... but still. He had really no idea what intrigued him in the whole case, perhaps it was the quiet, smothered mystery. The stories he had heard Nana Lightyear telling, the ruins Yoka had seen in the forest... The link directed him to a page titled 'The International Bureau of Investigation of Morph: Police Department of Kaon, Detective Division Network'. The next line below the flashy headline told that the whole department had been closed around ninety years ago.
"Aw, blast!" he grunted, noticing then the login box at the lower site of the screen. It seemed that the subnet was still accessible although it officially had been shut down. Buzz conversely could not be ascertain of his sign-in rights. He was a high-rank commanding officer of Star Command, but still...
Exhaling, curiosity pullulating more and more in his abdomen, he started filling in the ten different ID boxes. Several access codes with master passwords were required. Someone must have updated the login rights after the subnet was closed, though. Otherwise it would not be asking anything about the Universe Protection Unit's ID numbers.
For his surprise, he was accepted to enter. The link from where he had started from, continued its redirecting to the destination site concerning the murdered Neo Pion. The page loaded ages, lastly appearing to be a comprehensive report about the cause of death. His mile-wide-flown eyes were soon filled with disgusting pictures of the autopsy operation. Lightyear was near to vomit. But it was his own fault, the snooping had again done mischief. The person was horribly bruised, and apparently strangled to dead with a strange-looking ribbon, which was illustrated in the mid-page. Red silk it was, with a long black viper embroidered in its middle part. His finger sweeping along the holo-lines, Buzz read aloud with a mutter, "The victim was found on the western shoal of Kaon's Baryon Castle Island, 79th of Naksahtanut'Naakka-month... after twenty days of disappearance..." And at the end of the long paragraph, was stamped again the classification code M-0rd0-R666. With a second link. Another survey clarified that this report sheet contained nothing about the deepest reason for the dead, just merely the record of the post mortem. A bit frustrated, he clicked the next link and was granted with an 'access denied' -popup.
"Now what? What's so classified that even I'm not allowed to read it?" his temper was at the edge of a volcano. The nag screen asked for officer codes, which had not been needed for entering the previous information. Shrugging, he typed in his Star Command authoritive passwords. Yet, it was very evident now that a normal pedestrian could not just log in and study these things. Not every blob or galactic squid had such statuses.
Nonetheless, it appeared that Buzz was accepted in. Though, the contents that were slammed in front of him, made him raise a brow. The loading page consisted of scanned papers someone had scribbled with a rather messy handwriting, dated about as old as the Pion case. No-one had cared to clean-write them with a computer, but they had been left to drafts? Weird, definitely. But Lightyear had possibly now reached the final aim of his curiosity. Squinting his eyes, tilting his head rightwards in order to read the askew letters, he began murmuring once more. "The information heard from the unofficial sources may finally explain the unsolved homicides of tens of Kaonian natives that have occurred during the last few decades. Long it has been rumored about the existence of a certain kind of cult that has targeted its attacks mainly towards the Gray Morphean race. The unnamed source that has been contacted by Agent K-2, has informally received a small amount of information from a possible turncoat; also it has been announced that the original source has fled the planet. Thus there is no certain guarantee if the enclosed is one hundred percent fact..."
The captain blinked his eyes. Informal? Behind all these passwords was nothing formal at all? What the heck was this supposed to be? Yet, the text went on. "According to K-2, the turncoat was an associate member of an underground cult called Nex Crucio, also alternatively known as Red Ribbon or Death Viper. Its target appears to be to excite racial hatred against the Grays, and promote radically Human race hegemony. The turncoat can not name the head leaders, but has given a list of names applying to minor members..." He skipped a few lines, and got his pupils fixed on a pencil sketch that presented an unknown individual dressed in a peculiar outfit. He was wearing heel-length black robes with an external cape attached to them, its hood however pulled aside. The man was holding a staff of some sort, carved in the form of a ready-to-bite viper. Beside the picture was scribbled some notes about the image, declaring that it was an illustration of the official ceremony outfit of a Nex Crucio member. The snake stick was an efficient weapon, the script told it could blaze forth green-wavelength laser added with plasma pulses. Frequencies going from stun to kill.
The last few scanned, rather messy papers narrated much nothing else but about the torture ways of the cult. And contained some very faint information of how the killers so effectively beclouded their tracks, so that it was extremely difficult to find any fingerprints or foreign DNA traces from the victims. They seemingly used some by then unknown technological innovations for their sneaky-evil operations. The bottom rows were jabber about their assumed headquarters. K-2 was sure that they had a very large hidden base somewhere in Kaon's district, possibly enforced with T-ray radar interferators so that it could not be detected with common environmental scanners. Around five miles measured from somewhere towards some indefinite direction deep in the Xi Muon forest. Much more data there was not to provide, no external links to newer reports.
He reshaped his pose in the chair. No wonder the issue of Nex Crucio was rather unknown nowadays, just living in rumors and ghost stories. These pencil-written papers were the single evidence of the whole thing Lightyear had ever seen, and even they existed only behind a mountain of passwords. Was it really so that this part of history had been purposefully wiped away from the public archives? Though... that kind of things had happened uncountable times during the galactic history. This time it only touched Buzz rather closely. Or, so he took it at the moment as it was a part of his hometown. Yet, so disturbing and disgusting it felt indeed.
His oculars scanned the sheets once more through. There was one link left that he had not opened. It directed him to the hand-written list of some names that had been given by the traitor. Rather carelessly he had a dekko of it, nonetheless a few seconds later remaining frozen to gape at a woman's name in the mid-section. Zira-Jezebehl Lightyear.
-------
Yoka-hanen had had a calm midday back at the Lightyear household. No haunted noises had possessed the rooms. The only peculiar thing that had occurred, was the weirder than weird death of the bedroom's verdant hibiscus. It had turned all brown, and dropped all its leaves onto the floor. She could find no logical reason for this, nor why the jardinière's mould smelled like strong coffee.
By the early afternoon, most of the packages had been done. The Indian had no planet-sized fortune, and perhaps there was no use for a crossbow, or axe, or metal cauldrons in the place where they were going. She was about to climb upstairs to get some of her parcels down, when there doorbell rang. Yoka pursed somewhat, wondering. Possibly the postman again with some larger mail. She pressed the slide-door opener on the hall wall, wincing though as the entrance zoomed open.
"Buzz?" she tilted her head. A man stood grinning in the open doorway, leaning casually against the doorframe. But had he not said he would be sweating at his office until the evening? In that case, why was Proud Crescent perching there now, leisure clothes on and without a keycard?
"Yu home now alre-eedy?" she asked slightly astonished, being however pleased to see him this early. "I done pack-eets and theere..."
"Yea yea", the male interrupted, a tint of impatience in his tone. "Lunch hour, went for a walk. Wanna come with, tootsie? Got something interesting. Packets can wait." He curved his mouth into a weirdish grimace.
She crumpled for a nanosecond. Tootsie? What the drat was that supposed to mean? He never had called her that way before, not at least as she recollected. As she cast her regard on the person lounging there, she noticed an obscure gleam in his eyes. As if behind his pupils had been emotions, or something that did not actually belong to her owner. A slight sense of discomfort wriggled up her nerves, but shrugging admitted that she had nothing against a small promenade. The weather was sunny, serene outside. And she had enjoyed her lunch, so why not. "I get thii thingee the translateer if wait yu..."
"I don't think we need that." A snap, and her hand was snatched in his one. The touch was not gentle at all, moreover commanding, rather harsh. Startled Yoka faced his visage below. They were as if endeavoring to carry a semi-bland smirk, but failed somewhat to make it one-hundred percent plausible. And before she had uttered any comments, he had banged the door shut and was dragging her out of the garden and next along the sand path.
"Wheere we-e go?" she gave a hesitating pant of broken English. His walkspeed was unnaturally fast, forcing her to jog in order to keep up with it. The meters went onwards, and his hand's grasp had begun to hurt. No answer, simply a half-cunning side-glance faced her. The macadam rattled heatedly under her bare soles, as his steps seemed only to accelerate their already peppery pace. This whole thing had little by little started to feel like a mistake. Why was Buzz like that?
"Buzz? I pleese like know where we-e..."
"Oh you'll see it then. Got a li'l surprise for you back there..." a chuckle retorted.
"But..."
"Ahh you just love the forest, eh? Got something to show you, so why all the whining?" some more knowledge was given. But it did not comfort her awareness at all, in addition that there was a minor taste of insult in the sentence. The grip of those thick, strong fingers stayed even more aching. A white serpent of fear crept suddenly along Yoka's backbone. Something was wrong either with Buzz or with this whole rushing towards the green misty trees ahead. And, she abruptly recalled the vision seen in the house, the case of the wardrobe. He had a same kind of glint in his eyes as then.
"Buzz... I no want go I..." she gave a nervous objection. If he wanted to show her something, why not to tell it in a gentle way?
"Oh sure you want to go, tootsie. Got time to pack later." Another yank of her arm. The edge of the woods was only a few tens of meters ahead. The male had taken a sidetrack that leaded to a narrow hole in the dead-end fence, a rocking board put over the furrow to serve as a fancy bridge. She pursued forced, with an acid taste on her palate. She could not go on objecting her owner, could she? In the strict tradition jungle of Kaleva, the husband's word was a law for the vaimo. Whatever whim would then spin around the hubby's mossy scull. And well... Buzz had these odd vagaries from hour to hour, Yoka could not deny that. But this -now and here- had somehow started feeling more like one of those appalling chases she had had with the ghoul.
"What yu show want me?" she inquired once more, as they rushed through the coppice towards the beginning firs. A meter... ten... twenty... hundred... nothing happened. How deep were they going to spurt? She started experiencing more and more helplessness. Her small hand was almost numb in that coarse clutch. The light grew scarcer and scarcer... She was stumbling to the roots and stones, but his long strides were even, balanced. How on earth was he able to keep that pace on in this very bumpy terrain? Usually Yoka won the running races with him, since being far much taller and had longer legs than Buzz. Now, because of some reason, it seemed to be the opposite.
She cast a leer towards his feet, when there was a patch of plain, grassless soil under them. Then, a shrill scream escaped from her throat. He looked like as if walking, but his boots did not even touch the ground! The man literally traipsed in the air, the shoe bottoms only skimming lightly the fallen fir needles below. How had she not spotted this before? Everything was wrong; either this person -or thing, or whatever- was not Buzz. Or then it was the schizoid, evil half of him that apparently kept hiding under gentle cover. She ripped her hand free, pushed fiercely the momentarily surprised man aside, and began in blind panic to run back.
But that did not last for long. Behind her, the male had suddenly risen up to hover high in the air, taking next a lightning-fast sweep down towards her. She could not see behind her back, how he fumbled his pocket, and fished out something that looked like a silvery staff with a snake's head on the top of it.
"You're going nowhere!" Her ears caught an icy curse. For a microsecond, she saw a flash of green light in the corner of her eye. Then, a pain, an excruciating pain greater than anything she had ever experienced, filled her every body part. It stabbed like a hundred daggers being stung into her flesh at the same time. Then... it was all black. She felt falling... falling... falling... into a limp swamp of nothingness.
-----
The darkness had fallen. Buzz whizzed towards his white tower with his speeder. Ah, how pleasant the cozy home would feel, finally, after the confusing workday... The last hours had been like jogging in a fen; every gait leaded deeper inside the tacky, sanious bewilderment. Once again, his overactive curiosity had caused harm. The whole issue of Nex Crucio... indeed, a piece of the city's history had been almost extirpated. Perhaps people had wanted to forget... just like Mr. Hadron had whispered. And the name in the age-old backslider's list. Lightyear. Another dark Lightyear. A minor member, but still... it abhorred Buzz to even consider that someone of his ancestors would have participated in such things. And he had always believed in the virtuousness of his family, and furthermore wanted to believe. But there had been also Zurg. And Mizar.
He tried pushing the bleak sentiments aside and concentrate on other topics. Hopingly his Yoka would be on a good mood... in the morning she had been such a sunshine, beaming with her wide smile. No call had come during the day. Obviously everything was all right; her strange fears hopefully had blanched away and no more eerie noises had been heard. He could start his luggage-packing, and thus the mates could merrily blast off towards Capital Planet tomorrow morning.
In the garage he tapped off the vehicle, locking it. The lights were on downstairs, but no-one rushed to hug him at the opened front door. "Yoka? I'm home..." he hollered, "Wouldcha come to me...?" But no response, just the shady eventide's silence glided in the hall. Shrugging, he started wandering around the rooms. The living-room was empty. So was the kitchen and the backrooms of the first floor. He searched the garden, and the rest of the floors. The woman was nowhere; she seemed to have vanished like a coin dropped in the Atlantic Ocean. Assumingly not even hiding, but just plain gone. He was getting utterly nervous. His wife was supposed to be at home, had they not planned to leave tomorrow? Or had she gone to visit one of the neighbors, or what kept her vanished? His regard abruptly met the girl's lonely wrist communicator on the hall's hover table. She would go nowhere without that. A nasty cold tumult wriggled in his stomach. Had something... serious occurred?
Buzz decided to attach his boots back and go for an ask-tourney around the neighborhood. Yet... just at the moment a faint knock was heard from the front door. The Captain's heart jumped up to his throat. That had to be she! Though... why not to use the keycard, if...
He slid the door open with a rough sweep. But he faced only the empty garden path, the yellow lamp crystals riding in the air above the grass, the black willows obscuring the view further on. Plainly no-one stagnated there, the least of all Yoka-hanen. Scratching his hair in blank wonder, Buzz glanced at the both sides of the flat scala in front of the entrance. Who had knocked? Nevertheless... was there something attached to the doorframe...? It looked like a piece of birchbark at first sight, but as Lightyear loosened the tiny pin that was keeping it fixed, he understood it being a slice of parchment. Something he had seen only in museum displays. Who the jumping Linux-penguin possessed parchment these days? And what was more, there was some scribble in it.
He brought it in the light, squinted, and read the bizarre text with a low voice. "I am anywhere and everywhere, nowhere to be seen. In the mirror maybe you can meet you and me. What is precious to you, will be gone at first. And no one will hear, when you cry out loud and finally burst."
Buzz blinked, many times, as if his eyes had produced glue and were in danger to get fastened shut for forever. Was someone harshly joking at the cost of him? He scrutinized again at the handwriting, shrugging. It looked artificially theatrical, as if someone had hard tried imitating complex hieroglyphs, failing pathetically. There was something distantly familiar in that scrawling, he though, while turning the writing upside down and back to its own position. The message however was odd, frightening, though almost naively bombastic and stupid with the mismatching rhymes and all. What was it supposed to mean? And still no sign of Yoka. Only the night fell deeper...
...to be continued...