As darkness fell on the streets of Peterny, the shops began to close, the crowds receded and guards with lanterns began their night shift. Marietta la Verne sat outside on the balcony of the Black Cat Inn, watching the flickering torches. She did not drink; there was little point, as all it would do to her was corrode her circuits. A few of the other patrons were starting to give her odd looks. It was difficult being an android - especially one of the most advanced androids in the galaxy - on an underdeveloped planet. The last time she went to Earth, somebody tried to steal her. She was relieved when Mr. Deguares reappeared. He ahd cleaned himself up a little and wore some kind of perfume, although the expression on his face still made him look like a rat that had deliberately tried to drown itself. Around his shoulders was strapped a large black guitar. He bought a pint of ale and sat at her table.

"Hey, man, you're early. That's cool." he commented.

"Did your auctioneering go well?" she asked. He grinned slightly manically inr eply and retrieved a wad of notes from his pockets, "Weapons seem like an odd thing for a musician to sell."

"Well, you know, a few things I had lying around... in the basement..." he shook his head, "Did you really come to see me play? I don't recognise you. I try and get to know my biggest fans personally. Which performance were you at?"

"I was not at a concert. I heard about you from a Mr. Motoi. A small child. Do you remember him?"

"The kid with the weird machine? Sure, sure, I remember him. Funny kid, but he really appreciated my music. Not many people understand me."

"What sort of music do you play, Mr. Deguares?"

"Hey, call me Lionel." he insisted, "As for my music... I'm a screenie."

"A what?"

"An overite. A dirgehead." he said, "You know what I mean? I play Game Over tunes."

Marietta put her head on her chin thoughtfully. She knew something about galactic ambient soundsystems - the kind supervised by Motoi. You should never play a Game Over tune over one. Everyone who hears it will die. No wonder he had the song recorded on a distant planet and all copies erased. Marietta hadn't really picked up on the fact that there were no Game Over tunes and very few sad songs in Motoi's collection. Had he given all the Game Over tunes to this boy from Airyglyph to sing?

"The show's about to start." he said, taking his guitar into his hands.

"May I request a song?" she asked.

"Sure thing, lady. Anything for a pretty girl like you."

Marietta made her request, then watched the stage, ready for the show to start. The inn was becoming more crowded now. She recognised most of them as the pale-skinned, dark-haired people of Airyglyph. Two black-armoured soldiers sat at the bar, tlking in low voices and pointing to the stage. After a few mintues, the crowd fell silent, the lights dimmed and a spotlight flickered on in the middle of the stage. Through a back door appeared Lionel Deguares. He walked up to the microphone and began speaking.

"Hi everyone, I'm Lionel Deguares and this is the Black Cat Inn, Peterny. It was great of you guys to let me perform here tonight, your ale is great value for money. Now, a few of you might remember me as the guy who was banished from Airyglyph for lowering morale. This is the song that was banned, ladies and gentlemen, here, tonight... Theme of Rena!"

He then launched into one of the most soul-crushingly depressing songs she ahd ever heard in her life. It was difficult to hear the words because of the strong Airyglyphian accent he sang in, but it was beautiful in its own way. His finegrs ran expertly over the guitar strings, producing a rusty scrtaching sound that accompanied all his songs. His voice was also pleasant. Soft, sad, it was almost mesmerising. He poured his soul into his songs, as though he was really experiencing the black pit of despair. She recognised 'Theme of Rena', 'Fuyodol', 'Solemnity in Space' and 'Look To The King'.

"And this one goes out to the beautiful lady in the audience. I'm sure you'll all recognise it from my Aquaria tour. Rust Colour."

Oh, can you forgive me, my dear/
For everything I have done?

What in the world have I done, Madison/
And what's gonna happen to menow?
I've been in exile for far too long/
I really don't think I can go on.

When did I freeze to ice/
When did my sword turn to rust.

Oh, glory to Airyglyph/
Is all that I ever hear.

Oh, when did it get to be like this, Madison/
And what's gonna happen to us?
Will nobody hear me but you, Madison?
Will you be the last person I ever hear again?

When did I fade to black?
Maybe I'm not gonna come back

This earned him a round of applause. Marietta merely stopped and stared at him, her purple eyes looking straight through him, straight through the stage, through the wall, through the world... He responded with a look of utter terror and averted his gaze.

"G... glad you liked it, cutie... and n... now... G... Goldark's theme..."

The stars above will not go out/
The sun will not grow cold/
And the rain won't fall on Elicoor/
'Till the children of Tria are gone, are gone, are gone...

And oh, Tria, Tria, Tria,
In the name of Tria, I burn, I burn, tria...

"What's that you're singing?"

"Hymn." the first technician grunted, "My mother used to sing it to me."

"Sounds like a funeral march." the second mechanic grunted, "Help me with this sodding crate."

"Oof, its heavy. What's in it? An elephant?"

"Android."

"You're joking!"

"'Ere, listen to me..." lowring the crate into the ship's cargo bay with the winch, he turned around and whispered into his colleague's ear, "It's THAT android. You know, the one on the news."

"Oh shit!" swore the mechanic, "Bob, we've got to get out of here! That thing'll kill us!"

"Stay still, you moron. It's deactivated. It's going to the scrapyard. Even the military ain't insane enough to use that thing again!"

"But what if it reactivates?"

They looked at each other, nodded and ran.

Marietta blinked. The images were appearing before her eyes like a holo-vid from an internally wired device. This is it, she realised. Her emotion chip produced phenomena that she recognised as intense exhilaration coupled with inexplicable terror. Her lost memories. All the functions that she couldn't perform any more. All the missing parts of her fragmented personality. Everything that had been stripped from her.

Everything...

"Lady? The concert's over. Want another drink? Lady?"

Marietta blinked once and her eyes snapped open. Instinctively, she grabbed the person who had come too close to her by his neck and held him at a safer distance.

"Y... you didn't like my music?"

Throwing him to one side, she strode out of the building and looked up. She could see 15 planets, 35 white dwarves, 6 red dwarves, 3 pulsars, 1 sun and 12 orbital defense satellites that she knew the root passwords for. In a split second, she could activate all the systems at once and order them to fire at this planet, completely sterilising all life on Elicoor 3.

Then she saw the signal.
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Eruaqs was the first to wake up for once. His face pressed against the glass, eh stared out at the steadily expanding form of Styx, a barren lump of micah that seemed oddly layered, as if some of its strata jutted at unnatural angles, even floating in some places. He was so transfixed by the alien bizarreness that he hadn't even eaten. Chisato stood next to him and took pictures as they slowly descended into the olanet's orbit. There was a small asteroid field here, so Commander Revorse took extra care to maneouvre down to the surface.

"Are you two prepared?" asked the merchant over the intercom. The atmosphee was breathable and the gravity only a fraction too strong but it was still extremely cold with a strong wind. They would need blankets and tents, as well as lots of food supplies, medicine and weapons just in case anything nasty made its home here. Chisato confirmed that she had packed her bags.

"Everything okay with you?" she asked Eruaqs.

"Ssh... pretty music..." answered Eruaqs. Chisato didn't hear a song. One of the first things that hit her about the planet was its eerie silence. Apart from the wind, there was no background music. But Eruaqs was singing along to something - a quiet, very simple tune, as if Tria herself had abandoned the planet before it could be properly created. She had heard of some very underdeveloped planets, but this twisted lump of rock seemed almost unreleased.

"Your hearing must be much more acute than mine, Eruaqs." she said. He just ignored her and carried on singing. She sighed and went off to pack his bags for him. She was now seriously concerned for his sanity. He wasn't even on the surface of the planet and he already spent all day ranting and all night plagued by nightmares.

"Okay, we beam down in T minus 20 minutes." said Commander revorse.

"Did you hear that, Eruaqs?" asked Chisato.

"Falling through the world..." he grabbed the rail in a vice-like grip and started humming 'Tense Atmosphere' under his breath.

After ten minutes, Chisato managed to pry him away from the observation deck with a cookie. They picked up their bags and walked into the short range teleporter. Commander Revorse was already there, laser rifle cocked across her shoulder. They waited to be beamed down to the surface of the dead planet, Styx.

The wind hit Chisato like a knife through her. Her teeth chattered and she wrapped her blanket around her shoulders. Eruaqs ignored her, immediately walking off ahead, humming the inaudible music to himself and jumping over small cracks in the ground. Chisato looked up at the cyan sun that spilled over the bone-white rocks like a pool of spilled ink. It wasn't just the cold that made her shiver. Even though they could teleport away at any time, she felt trapped, utterly alone. And now she was beginning to hear voices in the wind, beastly howling and agonised shrieking. Ghostly shapes poured out of the cracks. Even the cracks didn't look natural. They could have been carved in the shapes of eldritch runes by a mad, extinct race for all she knew. No, she chided herself, don't tell yourself scary stories. Don't let your imagination run away with you. Not here. Its just the light, the stillness and the silence playing tricks on your mind. But then who was Eruaqs having a long conversation with? It sounded like a job interview.

"I'm picking up a high energy reading from that direction." Commander Revorse pointed in the direction that Eruaqs was walking. Chisato shrugged and walked after him. Out of all of them, he alone seemed to know where he was going.

They had just camped for the night when they saw it. Chisato and Commander Revorse were huddled around the fire, barely able to keep a flame going in the wind. The dancing flames cast unearthly shadows that threatened to come to life and devour them whole. Neither of them could sleep. This wasn't helping their ever worsening mental state, so Commander Revorse poured them both a stiff drink and played some relaxing msuci on her laptop. The internet signal was weak here, their latency 5000 and climbing. Chisato couldn't get a phone signal at all. As she drank whisky and swore at the phone, she caught sight of Eruaqs wandering off. Eruaqs had been fast asleep. The reporter ran to fetch him again.

As she approached, she saw that his eyes were utterly blank. He pointed to a spot in the distance. Chisato followed his finger and saw a tall, perfectly square shape in a vallet. Intrigued, she walked closer to it. It was pure white and made of some kind of metal unlike any she ahd seen before. It protruded from the ground as though it had always been there. Leaving Eruaqs, she ran back to Commander Revorse and pulled on her arm until the merchant ran after her, swearing.

"Holy shit. That's... that's the Gate of Styx." she gasped. Chisato looked at her questioningly. "Its something every space pilot hears tales of. Apparently, its been there longer than any recorded civilisation. Every race has leegnds of it - even the Moorians. Its said that nobody who steps through it has ever come back."

"Eruaqs, weren't you found outside the Gate of Styx?" asked Chisato. There was no answer. The reporter looked around. Eruaqs wasn't there. Commander Revorse yelled and pointed. The young man was already halfway down the valley and was waslking purposefully towards the Gate. Chisato began running, but Commander Revorse put a hand on her shoulder.

"Let him go." she said, "He's here to recover his memories, isn't he? I think he remembers something important about the Gate."

"But nobody's been in there and come back!"

"I've heard what he yells in his sleep." said Commander Revorse, "Maybe he doesn't want to come back."
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