XII. Map

"Why 'Perfect Dark'?" Samus asked, looking at Jo who sat in her seat across from the pilot chair.

"You mean besides the fact that 'Dark' is my last name?" Jo sarcastically replied as she chewed on a sandwich.

They had been traveling for six hours. The ship flew through space at a rate faster than Elvis' ship could manage and it still took a long time to get to the coordinates Creto had input to the computer. Jo and Lara took the time to catch up on much-needed sleep. Having been in stasis for two-thousand years, sleep was the last thing on Samus' mind. She knew, however, that she needed to get her body back into a regular routine and so forced herself to lie down for a half-hour. After that, she ran extensive tests on the circuitry and the rest of the ship, trying to determine what Jo had been up to, but finding nothing out of place. Eventually Jo awakened famished and asked for something to eat. She may have been paranoid about eating Samus' food, but she knew she couldn't go without and so finally gave in. Samus forced herself into a conversation with the young agent while Lara slept.

"Something tells me that's not the only reason." Samus suggested.

Jo smiled.

She's a sharp one, all right.

"Well, the 'Perfect' comes from my scores on the firing range which were all one-hundred percent all the time. My boss gave it to me. But I like the combination simply for the fact that I've always preferred the darkness. No one can see you there. You're perfectly safe, perfectly free to do whatever you like, and no one can say a word about it. It's perfect."

Samus did not reply, but stared at her. This was a woman who knew what she was doing and in her own time period, was likely a force to be reckoned with. Her mind was as sharp as the shrapnel that had pierced Samus' chest and the hardened bounty hunter knew she could not afford to let her guard down around her. Such a thing could be deadly, especially if she got on her bad side.

Joanna just stared back as she ate her sandwich.

"We're approaching the coordinates, Samus." Creto's voice called out.

Samus swiveled her chair back to the console.

"Anything unusual?" she asked.

"Nothing yet, Samus." Creto replied.

"Keep your sensors on maximum, all ranges. Watch out for anything."

Silence followed for several lingering moments. Still, Creto found no signal and still Samus found nothing unusual in her sensor readouts.

"Creto?" Samus finally asked.

"I'm not detecting anything unusual, Samus." Creto replied. "However, the stellar pattern is inconsistent with our own time period."

Samus slammed her hand down onto the console in frustration. Lara woke at the sound and looked around. Realizing nothing was wrong, she stood up, rubbing the sleep from her eyes. Stretching, she cracked several bones and looked to the two women.

"We seem to be having a problem." Jo said, still eating her sandwich.

"Didn't work, eh?" Lara inquired.

"What didn't work?" Jo asked, stuffing the last piece of sandwich in her mouth and dusting her hands.

"Well, we thought if we were all asleep, whatever brought the two of you to my time might happen again. It was a long shot, but it was the only idea I had."

"Would have been nice if you had informed me about that."

"Sorry. I came up with it after you were already out. No sense waking you just to tell you to go back to sleep."

"Alright." Joanna said, standing up. "So we're still in your time which means the Skedar are still inhabiting their planet. Which means we can't go back to where Samus found that artifact, unless you feel like battling through a horde of savage, bloodthirsty aliens just to see if we can find some clues."

"Can you bring up that image again, Samus?" Lara asked.

Samus complied and pulled up the image of the tablet on the main viewer.

Lara examined the image carefully, her mind separating and highlighting words, her thoughts coming out through her voice.

"…fire…all consuming…unquenchable…light…follow…narrow way…way everlasting…living waters…it is…"

Revelation came to her mind and she leaned forward, placing her hands on the console.

"Ten-to-one this is a map." She said confidently.

"A map?" Joanna asked, looking at her, "What makes you say that?"

"Look at the wording." Lara replied, pointing to the image as if the other two could decipher it. "Fire, light, water…I'm not sure how the narrow way fits in, but I'm betting it's linked with the way everlasting. If we follow these clues, we may find whatever it is this tablet is pointing to."

"Well that doesn't do us much good." Jo pointed out. "This tablet was on the Skedar holy planet. Whatever it leads to is down there, which means we can't get to it."

"Not necessarily." Lara stated. She then pointed to the bird-like figure on the end. "This figure could be the key to this whole puzzle. If we knew what it meant, it might lead us to a starting point, possibly someplace the Skedar have never even visited."

"There's a lot of 'IF's' in that theory. At any rate we don't know what it means so we're still up a creek without a paddle."

"No, we're not." Samus' voice cut a swath through their conversation. She had been sitting quietly, listening to every word and, at the same time, staring at the chozo symbol prominently displayed on the screen, her mind working through possibilities and finally coming to a determined solution.

At her comment, the two women looked at her.

"The symbol is from a people called the Chozo." She explained, still staring at the screen. "Depending on its use, it can mean different things: knowledge, wisdom, peace. But in this context, it seems to hold it's deepest and rarest meaning: truth."

"Well I don't see how that helps us." Joanna commented, not at all surprised at Samus' knowledge.

"The Chozo were migratory and inhabited many worlds. On a planet called Elysia, there's a lore among the Chozo.

'At the highest point of our city lies the fountain, a wellspring of pure water that flows throughout our civilization. It is the jewel of the Chozo, the life-giver, and yet its waters speak of a clouded future. As we come to understand the paths of time and space more clearly, we have begun to glimpse rough tatters of past and future, glittering behind reality like soft lights behind a curtain. We have seen the fountain in these glimpses, pouring darkness instead of water, and we cannot guess what the visions mean.'"

Samus fell silent then, as did the two women standing behind her as they contemplated the words. It was Joanna who broke the silence.

"Well, that sounds rather bleak." She said bluntly.

"Tantalizing, I'd call it." Lara said with an excited grin. "'Fountain', 'life-giver', 'living waters'. It matches up perfectly. 'Paths of time and space', your transports to my time and location; it's incredible! This tablets was left on a Skedar planet. Out of the three of us, only I could translate it. But it was clearly written by the Chozo, of which only Samus has knowledge. This was clearly meant for all three of us to find…"

Her voice trailed off and her grin fell as the words left her lips. There was among the three women an ominous sense hovering over them, as though they were but ants under the watchful eye and careful manipulation of an intelligence far greater than they could conceive. It was haunting.

"You would find all that tantalizing." Jo said, at last breaking the silence. "I'm more concerned about the fountain pouring darkness instead of water."

"Why didn't you tell us about the Chozo before?" Lara inquired of Samus.

"Wasn't relevant." Samus replied, still facing forward.

"Wasn't relevant?" Lara repeated in exasperation. "We- You- Ugh!"

Lara wrung her fists and paced around the cockpit, steamed at what she saw as a lack of reverence some people had for things of the past. After a few moments, she stopped pacing, took in a deep breath, and blew it out again. Her hands opened and she shook them out, attempting to remind herself that not everyone was like her and she would always encounter this.

"Alright." She said, her temper finally cooled. "So I take it we need to go to this planet…Elysia and find this fountain."

"I've already laid in a course and engaged the engines. We'll be there in a few hours." Samus coolly replied.

"Good." Lara stated. "The sooner the better."