by Mary E. Lowd
An excerpt from Nexus Nine. If you’d prefer, you can start with Chapter 1, return to the previous chapter, or skip ahead.
The flight from Nexus Nine Base down to the surface of the planet took twenty minutes, and it was spectacularly beautiful. Lacy clouds streamed past the shuttle’s windows, and the world below expanded from a globe of gemstone brilliance hanging in the dark sky into a vista engulfing them, bright blue sky all around and rich green expanses growing wider and closer below.
It was the kind of view that never grew old, even in a thousand lifetimes. Mazel would know.
“Why are we flying again?” asked Lieutenant Libby Unari, a black cat who’d joined the captain, Commander Neera, and Mazel on their field trip. She was another scientist, though her area of specialization was biology with a focus on botany. She’d requested a post on Nexus Nine Base specifically to study the plants on Avia.
Neera’s feathers ruffled, though she stayed focused on piloting the shuttle as she answered: “The Temple of Yunib is under an anti-teleportation shield. We needed to protect our sacred places from the Reptassans during the occupation.” The bird didn’t seem to like the black cat much. Though Mazel wasn’t exactly certain that Neera liked her much either. The only person Neera seemed unequivocally to like was Omoleura.
“Yes, that makes sense,” Unari agreed. “But the Reptassan occupation is over now…”
Neera eyed the black cat levelly before shaking her head and returning her focus to flying the shuttle.
As they got closer to the ground, the emerald and gold expanses of forest and field resolved into clearer details. They flew over cities dense with spire-like buildings; villages of thatched-roof cottages; and patchwork fields of agriculture. They flew away from the city centers, towards the unchecked wilds. Finally, they came to a crater, a broad gash in the earth filled with a lake. In the middle of the lake, a tiny island was set like a jewel.
Neera landed the shuttle inside the crater, on the narrow shore between the cliff edges and the clear, blue water. She led the others out, and when they were all standing on the sandy strip of shore, Neera handed each of them a shawl.
Mazel turned the shawl over in her paws — it was made from midnight blue fabric with intricate beading. The shawl looked handmade, not synthesized. Although, with the right synthesizer and a patient programmer, Mazel supposed it could have been quantumly fabricated into existence.
“Put them on,” Neera said. “They tie around the neck.”
Bataille fumbled with his, the delicate strings evading the manipulation of his large paws. Neera helped him. Mazel and Lt. Unari had no trouble.
In the sunlight, the beads glittered, and the shawls split in the back. Like wings. Mazel wondered if the shawls for her, Shep, and Unari were supposed to be substitute wings — a way to make outsiders acceptable on sacred land.
Then Neera pulled out a shawl of her own and affixed it over her own back with the deft motions of extreme practice. Her shawl looked much like theirs, but the fabric was faded and tattered around the edges. Old. Worn. Well-loved.
“These shawls represent the wings of the Unhatched,” Neera said. “You must accept their purity and lightness into your heart in order to ascend to their temple.”
“Excuse me,” Unari meowed, “but I came along to study the strain of bonsai trees kept inside the temple, and I wasn’t told anything about accepting a new religion. I don’t even believe in the First Race!”
Neera looked surprised. “Aren’t you married to the white dog who’s always talking about them?”
“Just because Walker is a believer doesn’t mean that I am,” Unari snapped, trying to untie the shawl from her neck and snagging her claws.
“Stop,” Neera said, placing a wingtip over the black cat’s scrabbling paws. “Leave the shawl on, and you can come into the temple. The shawl is a symbol. You cannot enter the temple without it. However, whatever is or is not inside your heart, is a truth that lies between you and the Unhatched. If the shawl is a lie, only the Unhatched will judge you.” And yet, Neera said the words with a tone that made it completely clear she would judge Unari as well.
Unari sniffed and let her paws fall from the tangled strings. The shawl stayed on her shoulders, draped over her uniform. “Fine,” she said. “Purity and lightness.”
“Purity and lightness,” Bataille agreed. “I mean, really, who could argue with that?” The German shepherd cut through the tension with his wolfy grin.
Unari smiled back, and even Neera’s eyes twinkled.
“The Unhatched are very wise,” Neera said. “We would never have survived the Reptassan occupation without them.”
“How so?” Unari asked, clearly trying her best not to sound antagonistic. “The hope and comfort of believing in them?”
Neera strode away from the others without answering, hopping down the beach. She came to a pile of driftwood, lifted one of the pieces, and pressed a series of buttons on a control panel hidden underneath. Moments later, a small boat rose out of the lake, water dripping from its sides. “No,” she said. “They sent practical help — Broken Twigs from their Sky Nest. That’s what Lt. Rheun and the captain have come here to see.” She hopped into the boat and gestured with a wing for the others to follow. “Even without experiencing the Unhatched first hand through a Broken Twig vision, you will still see their beauty and wisdom reflected in the way that the Vees tend to the sacred bonsai trees. Though I’m guessing you’ll mistake it for nothing more than quixotic cultural practices and happenstances of evolutionary biology.”
“That’s quite likely,” Unari agreed, stepping onto the boat. The black cat didn’t seem at all offended, although the bird had clearly meant to offend her.
The boat wobbled under Mazel’s paws as she stepped aboard, and then it lurched under the addition of Captain Bataille’s weight as he stepped aboard behind her. Each of them sat on a wooden plank, and Neera pulled out an extendable oar for each of them that had been stored under the planks.
“We’re rowing?” Unari asked. Her whiskers drooped in disappointment. Mazel wasn’t thrilled either, but she knew better than to show it.
“Nothing like a bit of brisk exercise on a beautiful day!” the captain barked, trying to keep the group’s attitude light and positive.
“We row,” Neera said, staring daggers at the black cat, “to show our willingness to work for the grace and wisdom that the Unhatched will bestow upon us in the temple.”
“That’s beautiful,” Bataille said, dipping his oar into the water. “Deep and wholesome.”
“Also completely made up.” Neera began rowing in time with the captain. “We row because the anti-teleportation shield interferes with most technology near the temple. That’s it. No symbolism.”
Lt. Unari’s muzzle quirked into a reluctant half smile at Neera’s self-effacing humor. “I can see why Walker likes you,” she said.
“Does he?” the bird seemed surprised. Mazel wasn’t. Lt. O’Neill had seemed like a classic dog to her, the kind who liked everybody.
“Oh, yes, he says that the station would probably have fallen apart long ago if it weren’t for you.” The black cat’s green eyes sparkled when she was talking about her canine husband.
Mazel wondered how long Lt. Unari and O’Neill had been serving together, and if they’d met before joining the Tri-Galactic Navy or after. Perhaps they’d met at the academy. A lot of relationships began during academy years, when the stresses were more abstract and theoretical.
Mazel imagined that balancing two careers in the navy together must be difficult, and yet it seemed so much easier than she could picture a relationship ever being for her. She knew that her previous selves had pulled off long term relationships… Surely, it would get easier to imagine. This would all get easier, and she would spend less time feeling dizzied by her past lives.
As they rowed across the lake toward the island, clouds flitted across the sky, thickening and darkening until the sunlight broke into scattered showers. Raindrops caught in Mazel’s whiskers, making her nose twitch.
Lt. Unari’s triangular black ears flattened, but she didn’t complain. Captain Bataille turned his long muzzle to the sky and laughed. Neera seemed totally unaffected by the rain; the droplets literally rolled off of her feathers. Mazel had been thinking of the Aviorans as songbirds, but suddenly she wondered how closely related they were to ducks. Certainly their beaks were sharper, and their talons didn’t seem to be webbed.
Mazel was tempted to ask about Avioran evolutionary history, but she didn’t want to get something started between Neera and the biologist in the boat. The other cat and bird had already shown themselves to have enough spark between them without her helping to fuel the fire.
They rowed in silence, accompanied by the music of the rain.
When they arrived at the island’s shore, a bird in impressive red and gold robes that offset her blue feathers and a crown-like headdress on her brow met them with wings wide.
“Welcome to the Temple of Yunib!” the bird twittered in a melodic voice. Definitely songbird-like. “I am Vee Wya, and I’ll be curating your visit to the Broken Twig of Foresight. We are honored by your visit here to commune with the Unhatched and heartened–” Here the bird folded one wing over her breast. “–to know that the political leader sent to our world by the Tri-Galactic Union has more than mere politics in his heart.”
Vee Wya helped them out of the boat, which they left beached on the sand. Then the Vee led them toward the base of the temple. To Mazel’s eyes, the temple looked more like the scaffolding for a building under construction than a finished building itself. Yet the bare beams were decorated with hanging tapestries, carefully painted with scenes much like those Mazel had seen in stained glass windows from ancient Earth churches. The tapestries darkened with rain spots and fluttered in the slightest breeze. They must have been made from weather resistant fabrics.
“We keep the Broken Twig in the highest spire of the temple,” Vee Wya explained as she led them through an arching doorway. On the other side of the doors was a courtyard, and the walls had so many open windows in them that Mazel barely felt like they’d entered a building at all.
“The Vee is saying there will be a good deal of walking,” Neera warned.
The Vee’s eyes twinkled merrily. “We stay in good shape here, climbing to the skies to commune with our gods and then returning to the ground to commune with our world twenty times a day. I trust the stairs won’t be a problem for you?” The Vee’s head bobbed as she seemingly took the measure of her guests.
“Not at all,” the captain agreed.
Mazel remembered how positively Neera had responded to her quoting a single piece of scripture last night, and she searched her memory for something appropriate. Fortunately, the Rheun chip’s greatest skill was remembering things. Mazel found the words slipped over her tongue easily, “When your wings beat weakly, remember that the body is to be ascended, but do not stop beating your wings at all, for there is no greater use of the temple of your soul than to rise upward in the joy of movement.”
“Ah,” the Vee said, spreading her wings wide, an impressive gesture on any Avioran, but even more so with the Vee’s draping robes. “I see we have a student of the Unhatched here. Wonderful!” The Vee caught Neera’s eyes and nodded in approval, seemingly pleased that Neera had chosen an appropriate acolyte to bring to the temple.
Neera’s feathers puffed out in response to the Vee’s approving nod. The commander looked quite proud of herself, and maybe also of Mazel.
As the Vee and Neera began discussing the scripture Mazel had quoted, Lt. Unari wandered away from the group.
The black cat seemed magnetically drawn toward a row of tiny ornamental trees displayed in colorfully glazed clay pots. Each tree seemed to be an entirely different variety, and they were arranged as a progression — from needled evergreens to small-leaved deciduous to broad-leaved succulents.
The black cat’s green eyes gleamed at the sight of the trees, and Mazel could have sworn that the other cat was indeed seeing the beauty and the wisdom of the Unhatched — whoever or whatever the Unhatched were.
Lt. Unari approached an Avioran, in simpler robes than the Vee’s, who was leaned over and tending to one of the tiny coniferous trees. The black cat asked something which Mazel couldn’t hear, and the Avioran turned toward her, straightening up, and revealing her face.
Mazel gasped at the sight of the Avioran’s face — instead of blue feathers, this Avioran had pebbly green scales around her beak and between her eyes. From what Mazel could see of the Avioran’s wing tips, tail feathers, and the crest of feathers on her head, the rest of her body looked normal for an Avioran. But the scales on her face were far more reptilian than bird-like.
Mazel hadn’t met any of the Reptassans yet in person, but she was pretty sure that she was looking at a mixed-species individual, partially Avioran and partially Reptassan.
Lt. Unari beamed at whatever the mixed Avioran was telling her and then came running back. “Excuse me, captain, Vee Wya, would it be alright if I stayed here with–”
“My name is Isstis.” When the mixed Avioran spoke, her voice hissed more than twittered, and Mazel could have sworn she caught sight of a forked tongue.
“–Isstis, yes,” Unari continued. “She’s generously offered to show me all of the bonsai trees and teach me about them.”
“Most certainly,” the Vee said. Turning to Isstis, she added, “In fact, why don’t you take cuttings for our visitor? I’m sure she’d like to take them back up to Nexus Nine Base and study them more in depth.”
“I would!” Unari exclaimed, clasping her black-furred paws together.
Mazel noted with interest that the Vee hadn’t stumbled over calling the space station by the Tri-Galactic Union name for it. Neera seemed to struggle with that every time.
Vee Wya led Mazel, the captain, and Neera to a spiraling staircase with a worrisome lack of walls or handrails.
As they began to ascend, Neera tweeted quietly to the Vee: “Is that wise, Vee? Lieutenant Unari is unlikely to care for the cuttings as sacred vessels of the Unhatched’s generosity. She’ll probably cut them into pieces and feed them through gene-mapping machines.”
Mazel watched the Aviorans climbing the stairs ahead of her. The birds’ talons grasped grooves built into the steps as they ascended. Cat and dog paws weren’t designed that way. Though Mazel did extend her claws, trying to steady herself, but the steps were built from metal that her claws couldn’t grip. She wished her arms had long pinion feathers like the Aviorans’ — they were clearly using their wings for balance too. She felt so unsteady on these stairs, but as they climbed, the view of the island and the lake around them expanded, growing more and more spectacular.
“My fledgling, we each study the wisdom of the Unhatched in our own way,” Vee Wya said. “Science is not at odds with my religious beliefs.” She tilted her head and eyed Neera ascending the stairs beside her. “Is it at odds with yours?”
“Of course not, Vee!” Neera exclaimed, losing a step and falling behind.
For the rest of the climb, the three visitors from Nexus Nine Base listened quietly while Vee Wya told the history of the Broken Twig of Foresight. Although, Mazel got the sense that Neera was struggling against herself to keep from interrupting the Vee to add details to the story.
The Broken Twig of Foresight was the newest Broken Twig on Avia. The Twig had been found orbiting Avia and was first claimed by the Reptassans on Nexus Nine Base — which the Reptassans had called Sesserak T’ih. The commandant of Sesserak T’ih, a Reptassan named Sukast, had looked into the Broken Twig and been granted a vision of Reptassans dying by the millions — their scaly hides splitting down the middle, sloughing away, and leaving nothing but a pile of loose feathers inside, feathers which had blown away on the wind.
Commandant Sukast had been so shaken by his Twig vision that he’d begun seeking spiritual guidance among the Aviorans he kept enslaved. He brought one Vee after another up from Avia to Sesserak T’ih and asked them what the vision meant. One after another, the Vees answered that the Unhatched would only forgive the Reptassans if they recognized the fundamental similarity between all sentient creatures, represented by the feathers inside Reptassan skin, and that they must leave Avia, restoring Avioran independence and freedom.
One after another, the commandant threw the Vees into the Sesserak T’ih prison cells, displeased with their answers. Supposedly, the commandant’s orders grew increasingly erratic as the images from his Twig vision ate away at him. One after another, he made mistakes. And one after another, the freedom fighters took advantage of the growing opportunities to thwart him.
Supposedly, the discovery of the Broken Twig of Foresight led directly, tangibly to the Reptassan commandant’s downfall, and when the Avioran workers took control of the Viper’s Perch, the war on the planet’s surface below finally turned their way.
After many, many flights of stairs, the Vee led them into a room with a panoramic view, only slightly obscured by fluttering tapestries on every side. They were at the highest point of the Temple of Yunib. The room was open to the elements, enclosed only by arching beams that gave the room, oddly enough, the feeling of a birdcage.
A ledge all around the edges of the room made the space feel far more secure to Mazel than the twisting spiral staircases had felt. And she found a certain thrill in looking out at the lake from so high above, feeling the fresh, cool air and all of its movements in her whiskers. She even loved the feel of the ceremonial shawl on her shoulders, lifting slightly in the breeze. It felt a little like having actual wings, or so Mazel imagined. In all of her lifetimes, she’d never had wings.
Cats may not have ever been able to fly, but they do love high places. Captain Bataille looked much more nervous and unsure of himself on his large paws, tiny shawl flapping behind him.
In the middle of the room, Vee Wya lifted an ornate, gem-encrusted, golden dome from a raised platform. She set the decorative dome aside, and held her wings over the distorted, twisting, kaleidoscopic image of space-time underneath. A force field sparkled around the distortion, protecting them from it — or protecting it from normal space-time.
Reflexively, Mazel unholstered the uni-meter at her hip, flipped it open, and tried to scan the distortion. But her uni-meter was dead.
“Most technology doesn’t work here,” Neera said. “Remember?”
“Right…” Mazel re-holstered the uni-meter in frustration. Fortunately, she had a less powerful, antiquated, hand-held scanner that she kept in one of her pockets. It had belonged to her when she’d first joined the Tri-Galactic Navy… lifetimes ago. And Rheun had continued to carry it, for good luck, ever since then. Mazel pulled the antique scanner out and found that it did work.
“How old is that thing?” Captain Bataille asked, marveling at the ancient piece of technology.
“Older than your great-great-grandparents,” Mazel said. Turning to the Vee, she asked, as respectfully as she could, “May I scan the Broken Twig of Foresight?”
“Be my guest,” Vee Wya said, lowering her wings and stepping aside. “Though I believe you’ll find the Unhatched are much more forthcoming to those who seek their visions directly.”
“And I would be honored to do so,” Mazel said. “After I’ve reached out to them in my own way.” She scanned the distortion that danced before her eyes like a trick of the light, like an optical illusion, like someone had scratched a gash in the face of the universe and space-time was leaking out through the crack.
Then she lost herself in the numbers that danced over her scanner’s screen. She wouldn’t be able to tell from this scanner’s limited abilities whether the Broken Twig of Foresight came from a nexus that her own neural chip had passed through. Its computational abilities weren’t powerful enough for that degree of complex pattern-matching. But it could store the raw data necessary for her to find out once she returned to Nexus Nine Base… as long as there was a science laboratory available for her when she got there. She hoped Lt. O’Neill had finished setting the laboratory up for her.
“Are you ready?” the Vee prompted, gently.
Captain Bataille put a large paw on Mazel’s shoulder and said, “You can analyze the data when we return to the station. Would you like to go first? Or scan me while I go?”
Mazel hesitated, her scientific caution battling with her all around curiosity. As a scientist, she wanted to scan the Broken Twig’s effect on Bataille before subjecting herself to it. But… She’d spent hours reading about the visions granted by the Broken Twigs, and she wanted to experience one herself. She wanted… She hoped… Maybe it would tell her that she was about to find her origins. Maybe it would show her origins to her directly.
“I’ll go first,” Mazel said. She handed the antique scanner to Bataille. “Make sure the scanner is running. I want everything recorded.”
“Of course,” Bataille agreed, balancing the small piece of electronics in his large paws.
“What do I do?” Mazel asked the Vee.
Vee Wya pulled a stool up to the platform and invited Mazel to sit on it. When she did, the Vee said, “I’m going to extend the force field protecting the Broken Twig to envelop you inside it. You’ll feel a slight tingling as the force field passes through your body, and then–” She clapped her wings together, hopping as she did so. “–the Unhatched will share their foresight with you! So exciting! Always exciting.”
“You look like a fledgling on her hatch day!” Neera said, also looking pretty excited.
“Every vision is a gift from our gods, my fledgling,” the Vee admonished Neera, suddenly serious again. “Let us begin. Stare into the Twig.”
Mazel glanced at the captain and saw he was scanning her. Then she let her gaze fall into the roiling void of space-time in front of her. It was like staring at the edge of a waterfall, watching the water suddenly change direction, folding itself in response to the gravitational shape of the ground beneath it. Except space-time was the water, and the ground… was something deeper, something impossible to understand, something Mazel’s scanners couldn’t pick up.
Mazel felt the tingling sensation of the force field pass through her body, tickling her whiskers and then passing out through the back of her head and finally her tail tip. Her heart raced with anticipation.
But nothing happened. She stared harder at the crack in space-time where the universe was folding in upon itself and draining into an obscure hyperspace. She stared so hard that her eyes watered; her ears and whiskers flattened. But she saw nothing more strange than the crack in space-time itself.
Eventually, the tingle of the force field passed through her again, from tail-tip to whiskers this time.
“What did you see?” Neera squawked, overcome with excitement.
“Nothing…” Mazel said. She felt like a failure, even though she didn’t believe in Neera’s gods, and she certainly couldn’t control the physiological effects of a rip in space-time on her brain.
“Nothing, like, everything gets destroyed?” Neera asked in horror.
“No,” Mazel said. “Just… I didn’t see anything. Nothing like a vision. I felt the force field pass through me, but then nothing happened.” She felt profoundly, strangely disappointed, and she could see both of the birds eyeing her skeptically, warily, as if she might be a demon. “Maybe it doesn’t work on mammals?” she asked. “Here, let me see the scans?”
Mazel reached toward the captain, and the German Shepherd let her have her antique scanner back. But the readings were inconclusive. Of course. There was a reason the scanner was an antique — they made much more powerful scanners now.
Mazel sighed. “Why don’t you try it, Captain?”
The German Shepherd squatted down awkwardly on the tiny stool, legs akimbo and tail wagging excitedly behind him. Vee Wya began adjusting the settings for the force field, and the sparkly sheen of blue progressed through the air toward Captain Bataille, ballooning outward, reshaping itself into a bubble that could encapsulate him. When the sheen of force field touched his nose, Bataille’s tail stopped wagging. He sat statue still, the fur above his eyes quirked into expectant eyebrows.
Once the captain was entirely enclosed in the bubble of sparkly blue, he closed his eyes, and a peacefulness crossed his face. He looked like he was dreaming, eyes twitching ever so subtly, and tail drifting through a slow motion wag. He looked like gods were speaking to him.
Mazel glanced back and forth between the captain and the readings on her antique scanner, trying to make sense of what was happening, but she simply didn’t have enough data. Eventually, she gave up on the scanner. It would store whatever data it collected for later. For now, she watched the captain as he dreamed.
After only a few moments, surely less than a minute, Vee Wya adjusted the force field’s controls again. The blue, sparkly bubble shrank back down to a sphere enclosing the Broken Twig of Foresight and nothing more.
Captain Bataille opened his eyes.
Mazel couldn’t bring herself to ask what he’d seen. If he’d seen anything. She wanted to believe the Twig experience didn’t work for mammals — perhaps the Unhatched only spoke to those who had been hatched? Aviorans and Reptassans both laid and hatched from eggs.
“What did you see?” Neera breathed.
“Give our visitor a moment to recover, my fledgling,” Vee Wya admonished.
But the captain said, “It’s all right. I…” He shook his head, flapping his triangular ears. “I don’t understand it, but I want to tell you.” He looked at the Vee, his eyes full of wonder or confusion, seemingly seeking her guidance. “I was surrounded by people I’ve known… some of them gone many years now. My father. My first captain.”
Captain Bataille glanced at Mazel. At first, she thought he was trying to share the feeling with her, trying to connect over a post that he and Darius had been assigned when they were first cadets. Then she realized, the captain was thinking of Darius himself. The Great Dane she’d been in her last life had appeared in the captain’s vision.
“They spoke to me,” Bataille said. “They called me… the Apex.”
Both birds gasped, and the Vee took a step back. Neera hopped forward.
“The Apex?” Neera asked. “Are you sure?”
“They kept saying it, over and over again.” The captain shifted uncomfortably on the tiny stool. “Apex. What does it mean?”
Mazel had seen references to the Apex in the scripture she’d read about the Sky Nest, but she hadn’t read about the Apex directly.
Vee Wya shuffled forward, lifted the ornate golden dome from where she’d left it on the floor, and covered the Broken Twig of Foresight, hiding its disturbing space-time machinations from sight again.
“There must be a mistake,” Vee Wya tweeted primly. “Could you have misheard them? You must have misheard them.”
“I know what I heard.” The German Shepherd stared levelly at the fancily robed bird. “What’s the big deal?” he barked, voice raising. “What’s the Apex?”
Neera’s beak hung open and her gaze kept darting toward the Vee, as if she wanted to speak but couldn’t contradict her religious leader.
Mazel said, “From what I read, the Apex is a figure in Avioran mythology. A messiah who will lead the Avioran people into a new era.” She couldn’t remember anything more. She hadn’t focused on the passages that mentioned the Apex, because they’d seemed more like morality tales and fairy stories than poetically phrased history. In her mind, she’d classified the Apex with First Racer tales of humanity returning from the stars; the stories from Ursa Minuet of a Honey Golem who would train all righteous ursines in battle before their judgment day; and ancient humanity’s traditions involving Santa Claus.
“An era of peace and enlightenment,” Neera said, softly, reverently. She seemed lost in a world of deep thoughts.
The Vee’s feathers ruffled, irritably, and she turned away to gaze out at the faraway cliffside beyond the lake. Even her tailfeathers splayed in a disorderly array.
“You mean, like an era of membership in the Tri-Galactic Union?” Bataille asked, rising from the stool and moving to stand beside the Vee. “I mean… I am here to help lead the Aviorans into joining the TGU.” He broke into a jovial laugh, probably trying to break the tension. His tail wagged in the way it did when he wanted very much to please someone. “But I have to say, I’m no messiah!”
“No, you are not,” the Vee snapped. All of her warmth and welcoming seemed to have melted away, and she looked terribly discomfited to be standing beside a canine who was more than a head taller than her. “Is this a hoax?” She turned aggressively toward Mazel. “Did you read up on our scripture and plan to come here and make a fool of me?!” Her melodious voice cracked into a discordant squawk.
Neera looked doubtful, yet she eyed the calico cat carefully. Mazel considered it a huge win that the cantankerous bird wasn’t immediately siding with her religious superior. Neera must have really warmed to her. There was hope yet for a friendship between them.
“I think you’d better leave,” the Vee said, before Mazel could figure out how to address her bizarre accusation. “My fledgling, please take your visitors back down and away from my temple.”
“Thank you for your hospitality,” Captain Bataille said without the slightest trace of irony. Only a dog can be so sincerely grateful while getting kicked out on his tail.
Mazel admired that about him, and she knew better than to try sounding half as sincere with her barbed feline tongue. Instead, she slipped her antique scanner back into her pocket, loaded with precious data, and clasped her paws demurely behind her back.
Captain Bataille led the way back down the many flights of winding stairs, stepping slowly and carefully. Mazel followed him, watching his tail droop listlessly before her, brushy fur ruffled by the wind. Behind her, Neera followed in silence. Mazel couldn’t tell if it was an angry silence or a sad one. Either way, Mazel figured it wasn’t good.
When they reached the ground level courtyard, Captain Bataille asked Neera to find Lt. Unari. He and Mazel would ready the boat for rowing away.
Continue on to Chapter 5…