Two

Beyond the stack, the safety net's edge was held in place by a ring of poles standing watch like border sentries for a dark city, one with a hundred-meter wide transfer aisle as its moat. From the aisle's disc-shaped outer edge rose the module's inner hull dome, vaulting over Saki and illuminating the stack with vertical strips of distant, dusty-violet light. Titanic crane and truss hardware loomed over the whole scene in sillhouette, awaiting the mythic-scale task of unloading.

Saki looked back, unsure what she expected to see. Past her long-socked feet, hull and net's twin horizons became more like cliff walls. A flash of vertigo dazzled Saki's inner ears as if she might fall into the chasm and dash her head open, or maybe never stop falling at all. She clawed her fingernails into the net's edge band to keep from drifting away. Across the aisle, a cargo bay wide enough to swallow one of the cisterns whole yawned open, bathing Saki and a slice of the deck in clinical white. Hulking, mid-aisle equipment tiedowns cut sharp diamonds of shadow up towards her while the airflow changed direction into the bay, gently pulling her loose hair down towards it.

As her eyes adjusted she saw rivulets of glistening, segmented hexapods converging on the door from all over the walls. These were the Ikoska, and in the two weeks since leaving Laclathan Saki had gathered they were an alien species rather than the machines they appeared to be. They marched on two pairs of walking legs sprouting from twin body segments as rigid, ball-jointed trunks tipped by whip-arms able to take on any curvature or stiffness required. Each whip flared out into several long ribbon fingers, the middle of which bore a large hook with a clasping hinge.

Saki heard a gentle clatter of feet echoing from the cisterns behind her. More teams of meter-long Ikoska emerged, carrying large hexagonal pods with their third pair of arms that poked backwards through flared gaps in their jointed neck armor. Their whip-legs curled and lengthened along spiraling paths, adhering to the deck while they kept their cargo steady in near perfect synchrony. Like the other times Saki had seen them, the Ikoska moved with uncanny coordination, watching each other with one of three flexible eyestalks. As they approached, one of them pointed a ruby-tipped eye straight at Saki and scanned her up and down.

"You may want assistance crossing?" the frame said with a flat, distant voice.

"No. Thank you," she answered, wondering if they'd be less creepy if they didn't talk. Turning back towards the bay, she spied the silhouette of a lone human figure who must have been her contact. They marched towards her, helmet cocked slightly to the side, boots holding them fast to the deck. Their shallow-bent arms trailed behind, bored in the absence of gravity's pull.

Saki crouched against the outside of the net and kicked off into free space ahead of the Ikoska. As her shallow angle of travel brought her closer to the deck, she gingerly crawled with her palms against its oddly warm, glassy surface. If she pushed too hard and went tumbling off, she really would need assistance! The suited figure stopped halfway across the aisle next to a tiedown and placed a hand on their hip. They stood tall on thigh-high articulated boots with a mirror finish, and the rest of their body was clad in a finely-stitched silvery spacesuit. An impenetrable golden visor hid their face from view.

"You've been called Saki Kayenlora," came a pitchy voice from within the suit, amplified and projected with a slight synthetic note.

"Yes. That's my name," Saki replied, pushing her own voice hard to match.

Extending her arm, the figure continued. "I've been called Sinóle One Intara, Initiate Cataphract of Oamadh. On behalf of the Imperial Army, welcome to The Arcaelit."

"You call it The Arcaelit? You know, Miss Intara, we used to call it the Arcaelit Empire."

Saki drifted past Sinóle without taking her hand and gave herself a boost by kicking off the tiedown. The Initiate turned on her silver-booted heel to follow. In the bay before them were neat rows of faceted, bus-sized spacecraft hunched down on splayed quartets of legs. Their broad, windowless, armored fronts angled forwards like a field of tank traps. Above them soared the girder-lined bay, a ribbed vault of dormant manipulator arms interleaved into a swirling, undulating fingerprint pattern.

"That's because you don't know her," Sinóle rebutted. "TTMA, Telene Arcaelit, people call it all kinds of things. Know that when we act, it acts through us."

"So that's you, then? The one who's going to un-teach my evil ways, get me thinking and acting like you instead?" Saki said, drawing her knees to her chest and rotating upright relative to Sinóle.

Saki studied the Arcaelit through her suit. Her steady pace stopped for a beat and, though it was hard to tell through layers of material, it seemed like her shoulders were scrunched. Was she annoyed?

Sinóle squared her visor with Saki's indifferent look and answered, "We don't tell people what to think. In the Cohort, every member guides their juniors, in life and in craft, according to their own knowledge. I'm not your teacher, I'm… your roommate."

Swarming Ikoska had completely covered the transports. There were so many of them they stood still and passed cargo along snaking columns of their bodies, winding over and through the transports' wide open sides. Saki and Sinóle coasted and walked awkwardly through a narrow lane between them. Sinóle either couldn't or didn't hide a dismissive shake of her head.

“I snore,” Saki said finally.

“We can fix that!”

“I’m sure we could.”

An audible huff passed through Sinóle's suit speaker. Saki wanted to get angry, but couldn't find it in her. If she had to share a room with a preachy hotshot, she'd leave their talking for the practice range. Her left eye burned under the bay's daylight illumination while she drifted for a few more seconds, then a quick yelp escaped her as she crashed backwards into an Ikoska frame walking out of their transport!

The frame reeled, catching Saki by planting its center feet against the deck and bouncing like a loose spring. One of its lower limb tentacles curled around her bare arm to keep her from rebounding. She felt the tendril alter its roughness to grab on, then smooth out again as it released her. Saki spun around to find herself face-to-face with the frame's three eyestalks, which curled away from her shocked expression as she gripped the hatch frame and shrunk against the vehicle's frigid hull.

"You are this punctual as a habit?" the frame asked. It was so close Saki could feel its breath of sorts, the air it drew through its proboscis to emulate speech. She stammered while the frame interrupted, "Interdictor-often-reify."

"Huh?" Saki asked, scrunching her brow.

"That's Inofrei, for short, this frame and these I think," Sinóle butted in while strolling past them, gesturing at an approaching team of Ikoska. "An Ikoska frame by itself is preconscious; they awaken in groups. Inofrei's a person, but not the same way we are. Their bodies, these frames, come and go from their Pseudo Group Mind."

Five frames guided a cargo pod through the transport's open side. The sixth frame slid away with them, and Saki followed into the cabin.

"O-ohkay. Nice to make your acquaintance, Inofrei," Saki said.

"Interdictor-often-reify," all six frames replied, one by voice and all with a matching nod of their stalks. "Initiate Sinóle," a different one continued, "we are one procedure behind."

"Oh, yeah!" Sinóle said, turning from the flat-packed harnesses she'd started unfolding to pop open their cargo pod, "you're gonna want a spacesuit, huh."

"Do I get a pair of those boots?"

"And more." Sinóle passed a pair of boots through the air with one hand, and a translucent forest-green eel with feet wrapped in a bundle of silver fabric with the other. Saki grasped the boots, twisted her torso towards the bundle, then recoiled from the strange creature. It bumped softly against the front bulkhead, crinkly bundle absorbing what little momentum it had.

"That…thing's looking at me, Sinóle! Tell me what it is before I touch it."

"That thing is your very own Weaver! It's literally important you learn to work together. That little guy, like my pair, will keep you sewn in airtight. And besides, it matches your bandana." Sinóle gestured down the outside of her arms. What had first appeared to be shoulder and arm armor was actually a goldenrod pair of these creatures, affixed to her suit by eight stubby feet. Their tails were wrapped around her suit's collar ring from behind and braided like a decorative cord, while their sleeping heads rested near the top of her wrist. Saki didn't move.

"But what the hell is it? An advanced machine? Some kind of animal you train?" Saki asked while slipping her feet into the boots. Each one shifted and tightened around her legs, cinching her lower thigh. Her ankles and knees were cradled by intricate joints of overlapping silver so fine their edges could only be seen up-close, and the foot flexed enough she could grab with her toes if she wanted. Finally, her feet were planted firmly to the floor.

"Kinda both and neither. Weavers are what we call teleians, purpose-evolved organisms. So are Ikoska for that matter, and the Vimana towing this pod, and… You've never even heard of a Tethyan, have you?"

Blank-faced, Saki slowly shook her head. Her heart spiked with anxiety that Sinóle might be disappointed. Her well-practiced indignation shoved the sour feeling aside: who was this Arcaelit to judge her?

"So, let's start with this Weaver here. He'll rest around this guy's neck ring," Sinóle explained while handing Saki her own helmet. A dull alloy ring dangled from its flexible neck. Cautiously, Saki slipped it over her head. The sound environment shifted around her, clangs and shuffling from the bay falling on her ears as if the helmet wasn't there.

"This feels a little light for what it does. Adaptive sound reproduction?" she asked.

"Adaptive everything."

Saki walked over to the nestled Weaver. A pair of dark patches on its exposed end followed her, presumably its eyes.

"You offer your hand," Sinóle said. Saki shot a glare, not caring where or whether it landed. She gingerly raised her right arm towards the creature while keeping her fingers balled into a loose fist. Sure enough, it craned its neck towards her to expose its foremost pair of stubby limbs tipped by flexible, jagged nails. Saki's throat ran dry. She did not want to touch that thing! Sinóle's hidden stare and Inofrei's alien silence drove her forward; she was unwilling to retreat from them. The Weaver reached out. Its nails weren't nearly as sharp as she'd imagined as it shimmied up her arm. The bundle of fabric, attached to hooks near the base of the Weaver's meter-long tail, unfurled.

Saki swallowed hard as the Weaver turned to rest its head on her forearm and grabbed ahold, pairs of nails making audible pops as they clasped together. The bolts of fabric came to life as it signalled them to wrap around her, finding her extremities and the hems of her boots. She let her blood run cold to keep from squirming as she felt the Weaver guiding its many strands of weft through the base cloth, around and around her arms and chest, binding and sewing her in. An unfamiliar incense accompanied its work.

"I think it's secreting something," Saki grumbled.

"Weaver resin keeps everything airtight," Sinóle said while passing Saki one last item. She didn't like the shape of it or the bag at the end of its hose one bit.

"Slap it up there and relax, Saki. It knows where to go, and this one doesn't have feelings."

With a sigh, Saki shoved the waste processing system through a gap in her incomplete suit and squirmed. It did know just where to go! She thought she heard a muffled chuckle from behind her brusque guide's helmet.

"Yeah, yeah, laugh it up. I'll do the same to the next girl," Saki said.

"You did that so automatically!" Sinóle chuckled.

"I've had worse."

Despite some wide-eyed awkwardness, Saki soon found herself wrapped in a sturdy pressure suit. The Weaver's tail threaded through loops on her neck ring and its patch-eyes faded as it slipped into deep hibernation.

Before Saki could even finish locking her harness, Sinóle probed her new roommate. "So why join the Imperial Army?"

Saki turned her helmet visor to meet Sinóle's, her glare somehow piercing the perfect reflection.

"They're all going to ask, you know. They asked me, too."

"Hmm," was the only reply Sinóle got. She left it at that for now.

Their transport's modular hatches slid closed and latched with sharp, sucking sounds. After a few minutes, it was their turn. With gentle precision, the craft turned and maneuvered through the outer door of the massive dome module that seemed to hang there in space, suspended by long cables from the much-smaller starship that towed it. Rumbling, whining, the transport's main engines kicked in at about one-half Laclathan gravity, pressing Saki and Sinóle against their seats.

One of Inofrei's frames slid a finger-hook against the section of hull next to Saki. She let out a gasp as a square section of armor disappeared in front of her face!

"Window," Inofrei said.

"Window," Saki whispered, hesitantly tapping the invisible panel.

"Doesn't that make it weaker?"

"No," Sinóle interjected, "the armor's clear at rest."

Saki grunted and peered out the window, not at the dome, but up at its superluminal guide.

The Silver Ships. That monicker was all they'd known about the Vimana who carry the Arcaelits across the stars. They weren't wrong, exactly. The ship's flattened, flawless, double-diamond hull blazed under reddish dim starlight. With no atmosphere or terrain to lend a sense of scale, ship and module gave a toy-like impression as they receded. Saki looked over at Sinóle, then out the window over Sinóle's shoulder. A bright turquoise planet filled the view, far enough away for its curvature to be seen. Saki couldn't tell what was land or water, or if there was a solid surface at all.

Clear of the module, course locked in, the transport's engines cut gradually, the overbearing weight of leaving replaced by easy, careless weightlessness. The cabin's gentle white noise would've lulled Saki to sleep if she weren't surrounded by Inofrei's bodies. They fidgeted impatiently with wiry limbs, peering around the cabin from glassy lens-eyes, each eyestalk a flexible conduit that shone like blued steel but flexed like thick hide. They pinched and folded very differently from actual (or, she supposed, animal) hide, gathering and rising in hexagonal patterns.

What am I getting into?

"Oh!" Sinóle said, shattering the silence. Saki caught the startle midway, dulling the spike of anxiety with a deep breath before she could show any signs of it. "They wanted you to see this. It's an explainer for, um, outsiders."

"See what?" Saki asked. A jolt of lucidity washed through her mind as if she'd just woken up, even though nothing around her changed. Her face twisted into a glower. "Outsiders? You meant uncultured barbarians, didn't you!" Shaking her head and looking down at her hands, she screeched, "what the fuck did you do to me! I feel like I sat through a whole lecture about your TTMA, but I didn't!"

"Did you… I guess… you've never been on a Loop before?"

Saki wanted to tear off her helmet, but that would only cement her otherness, her primitiveness. Memories of a deep learning experience swam in her head, brimming with knowledge of TTMA, its origin, and—she gulped—its true nature. A chill radiated from her core. She and the whole Laclathani military weren't ever going to defend their world from this being called TTMA, whose mind is the chaos of civilization's ebb and flow across countless worlds. So the great Arcaelits really didn't have a government. They couldn't even if they wanted to, because, as Saki recalled, TTMA could be jealous.

No way, Saki thought, there's always somebody up there pulling the strings, like there has to be a factory for all this stuff! But, if it does exist, why would it need an army?

"I'm really, very sorry, I had no idea. Here," Sinóle said while reaching towards Saki with an outstretched palm. Did they shake hands here? Was anything or anyone safe to touch? Saki cautiously put her palm on Sinóle's, who clasped it.

Sinóle continued, "I promise to you, whenever there's something invasive, to let you know first." They let go of each other's gloved hands, and Sinóle placed hers over her heart.

"Now the promise is in my heart, so I won't forget!" she nearly giggled.

She's a tall, damn kid under there, isn't she? Saki wondered. It would make sense, after all, to pair someone without the slightest clue how to live in the world with an actual child.

"I've got a question for you, Sinóle. If I've got no idea how anything works, why are they letting me join the Imperial Army?"

"Well that's easy: Mutual Uplift. It's our way. Everyone gets a chance to do what they want, and everyone helps those around them try."

"Mmm. What if I want to fuck off by myself, instead of getting involved with all this?"

"Make your case, and a Vimana would be more than happy to drop you off somewhere out there." Sinóle gestured broadly to the window behind her. "People have done it before."

"You'd like that, wouldn't you?" Saki retorted.

"N…no, no I absolutely wouldn't," Sinóle said, building from sheepishness to steady resolve.

Both silver-suited warriors kept their feelings airtight. Behind their masks, Sinóle tucked her chin over crossed arms while Saki shirked away from what appeared to be sentiment, of all things! How annoying.

All at once, five of Inofrei's frames curled their eyestalks to look at the last, which warbled, "Nemesis Origin is descending under attack. We will enter this atmosphere and land, prepare yourselves."

"Prepare for what?" Saki asked, perking up against her harness.

"S-2. Surface survival," Sinóle answered with a mixture of seriousness and reticence.

Their transport flipped end-over-end with a loud thruster bang and lit its main engines at full power, slamming Saki and Sinóle against their crash couches while Inofrei swayed back and forth like reeds in the wind. Above the rumble Inofrei called out, "a positive opportunity for you, Sinóle, recall your last unknown planet excursion."

Sinóle responded with an unintelligible growl.

"Intara…" Saki pushed.

"I passed out. Big deal!"

I died last month, and I'm about to do it again, aren't I? Saki thought, then shouted, "do I get to know what the fuck is going on?!"

"We've been dogged by these anti-Adventists ever since leaving TTMA space," Sinóle said, adopting a graver tone, then roared, "looks like they caught us. It'll be the last thing they ever do!"

The craft snap-rolled hard to the left, aligning their deck with the flattening horizon. Saki's stomach turned at the sight of clouds scattered across the planet underneath, too close for comfort and turning backwards! Their engines were firing against their trajectory, bleeding off every bit of orbital velocity, an insane maneuver for any vehicle Saki had ever heard of. A high-pitched scream imposed on the roar, then the engine cut entirely as the small craft tore through the planet's upper atmosphere, swerving back around and swaying into its neutral reentry position.

Sinóle shouted, "Inofrei! Sudden ambush, leaving one Vimana to get caught. Are we doing 990-A?"

"Initiate, you know plan 990-A specifies no confirmation will be given of its status, to avoid detection by adversary simulation." Inofrei had what sounded like emotion in their voice, although Saki couldn't place it.

"Amazing! I just know we're gonna pull it off!" Sinóle exclaimed.

Eleven gees silenced any further conversation. Saki could barely breathe, even with her suit pumping her lungs and forcing more air down her trachea. She fought her head over towards Sinóle, who calmly held her spread fingertips to the sides of her helmet. Rosy reentry plasma gave way to hollow, brightening sky while the hypersonic roar faded to a train-whistle rush of thickening air past their plummeting craft. Their landing engines gave forth a crackling scream, balancing the craft on four plumes and wrenching Saki and Sinóle down against their harnesses as the planet rushed up to meet them. Their velocity towards the ground dropped enough to count as a landing rather than a crash. As the vehicle crunched onto the surface, several blue-green spikes stabbed through the cabin floor with a vicious tearing sound!

"Eeeh!" Saki shouted while Sinóle gasped.

"This foliage must be sharper than the survey site!" Sinóle groaned.

Inofrei tapped on one of the piercing fronds with a frame's proboscis.

"This specimen is edible. For us. This atmosphere is dangerously thin and unbreathable. For you," they said.

"Great," Saki asked, "so now what? If the other guys saw that, we gotta move no matter how bad it is out there."

"Right," Sinóle answered, "switching over to voiceloop. Saki, you'll hear our voices as if they were inside your helmet. We won't hear each other's thoughts or anything like that."

You don't have to tell me literally everything! Saki thought as her cheeks burned with embarrassed anger. She couldn't blame Sinóle for overexplaining events wildly outside anything she knew. That wouldn't stop her from fuming at her helplessness.

Sinóle rested her fingertips against the inner hatch. All the craft's side panels swung open together, sending what remained of their shirtsleeves environment whooshing away to reveal a dense forest covering shallow rolling hills, all made of absurdly-sharp-looking plant life. The local star perched high above the horizon, baleful yet dim behind the sky's ghostly pallor.

"So…how sturdy are these boots?" Saki asked through gritted teeth. She could tell her own voice had a different quality, as if the sound of it was unrooted from her own body, stolen by whatever a voiceloop was.

"About that sturdy," Sinóle groaned, pointing to a sticky orange fluid boiling away from one of the hull breeches. "Tread lightly."