A Dart's Flight

"Approaching location of sixth key."

He swung his feet off the panel. "Already?"

"This universe is relatively close. The space-time wrinkle has placed our previous destination and present target as close to juxtaposition as we have ever chanced upon."

He leaned over eagerly and tapped a lighted square on the instrument panel he had been propping his feet up against, needing to be doing something physically despite the fact that a subvocal request would have been just as effective. "Have we merged yet?" The panoramic screen before him lit up with a soft blue color--as yet having nothing to show. Contained in their own little pinched off, three-dimensional "bubble", the Wayfarer floated through the higher dimensions, hopping from one "hill" of the three-dimensional universe to another.

"Commencing sub-dimensional merging now." As usual, he felt a tingling crawl of something passing over his skin, as if he was stepping through some kind of electromagnetic field, and he had to blink his vision back into focus. An ordinary being wouldn’t have felt anything, having senses that were tuned by millions of years of evolution to scan only the three dimensions that they occupied.

Dart, though, was far from ordinary.

"Merging complete. Present coordinates 55 lins, 42 lins, and 10 lins from origin." Once again, the celestial body the key occupied was dubbed the arbitrary "origin." "On screen," the soft, androgynous voice added a few seconds later.

A small, opaline gem of green and blue blinked into existence amidst a glory of bright specks large and small, a profusion of stars that cannot be witnessed beneath any sort of existing atmosphere with the naked eye. He drank in the biosphere’s cool, spherical perfection, contrasting it with the last key’s location—a suffocating, arid world of sullen reds and oranges, that cast any and all inhabitants into an everlasting chain of preys and predators.

Though he was new at this "empathy" thing, he was a little shaken by how much that desolate world had affected him. Perhaps it was because he was so inexperienced that it managed to hit him particularly hard. On the first origin, there had been a wealth of distractions as he got a handle of his emotions and what evoked them. But the last one...there was almost nothing that could actually be called "sentient" except for him, and the very earth seemed to radiate hostility toward all its inhabitants, when it should have nurtured all the creatures that it had spawned.

Somehow, Ship detected his mood for all that it contained negligible biological components. Perhaps the fourth-dimensional architecture that was essential to higher-dimensional navigation gave it some weird psychological advantage over normal-space AIs. "Dart?"

"Hmm? What?" He pretended to be daydreaming.

There was a pause. If Ship had a face, he/she would be staring at him with an unconvinced expression. But Ship let it pass. "This will be the second sequence."

He glanced to the side, at a hovering, abstract sculpture of geometric pieces. Though they were beautiful in a way, with their shimmering, abalone surfaces and nameless shapes, they had a higher function than mere aestheticism.

"Good. There’s been a hole there for quite a while, and I’ve been itching to get it plugged."

"The sequence in which we find the keys and reconstruct them is irrelevant—" Ship reminded him.

"I know, I know," he hastily cut in. "I just don’t like to see too many free-floating pieces. They look lonely all by themselves, and kind of unbalanced, you know what I mean?"

A pause. Then, bluntly, "No, I don’t."

Despite Ship's seeming coldness, he smiled. He knew it was Ship’s own sense of subtle, dry humor, trying to draw him out of his unexpectedly pensive mood. To tell the truth, he didn’t understand himself sometimes. The Creators certainly chose a strange creature to carry out their plans. Who would have thought the universe would have allowed such a species—so prone to wonderings and daydreams—to survive, always seeing things that weren’t there? "Well, maybe this time we can—" He abruptly straightened. "Hey, what’s that?" The green-blue planet before them, a half-moon of light, had been steadily rotating as they talked, as it will probably do for millennia more. The irregularly shaped patches of continents, liberally smeared by the grey-white of forming storm fronts, slowly drifted from one edge of the globe to the other...but what caught his eye as the origin’s other side swung into view were tiny sparks of silver light that appeared on the day-side, hovering just shy of the globe's circumference. "Magnify," he snapped, all levity forgotten.

"Ten times," Ship’s now expressionless voice intoned, and the image on the screen complied. The process was repeated once again at his curt gesture. "One hundred times."

He stared. "Oh no," he groaned, slumping back into his seat.

"The planet is unusually large, two and a half times Standard, second body from a relatively young, yellow star. All other stats conform. I imagine it might even be quite comfortable planetside. Strangely, I detect more bioforms than would be indicated by the sun’s age."

"Thank the stars for small favors," he grumbled.

"They are all human vessels. They might be merchants."

He rolled his eyes in lieu of casting a dirty look. He wouldn’t know where to direct it. "If that was a joke, it wasn’t funny. Yeah. I’ll tell you what they’re trading in...if they don’t shoot me with those big shiny guns first."

Chase glanced back at the man, then just as quickly looked away. He hadn’t needed the covert glimpse to have the strangely perfect features locked solidly into his mind, but he had needed to reaffirm the man’s location—and so far, the man hadn’t moved, except to smile and wink at him when Chase finally nerved himself to look the man in the eye. Chase wasn’t reassured by their unnatural, coppery-bronze shade. Just as he wasn't reassured by the man's entire attitude. Hells, he wasn't reassured at all, about anything.

The first sign they had received of any change in their situation had been a sudden flurry of confused reports over the Company’s bands. It seemed some ship of unknown configurations and without any identifying marks had suddenly slashed through their ranks, on a nose-dive directly for the surface. This had momentarily raised hopes that the SSC had finally found a way to penetrate the planetary lockdown to pick them up. Their hopes guttered as the panic over the comms gradually died down to be replaced by confused queries, and then, finally, silence but for standard reports. The ghost ship had disappeared as quickly, mysteriously, and completely as it had come. Fast on the heels of that incident, this man—Dart—had suddenly sauntered into their camp as if he was taking an everyday stroll through any one of the magnificent gardens on the capital world. Everyone had been too stunned to even breath. If the so-called Dart had been in Company service, everyone in the SSC camp would have died without a single shot fired in defense.

But instead of waving a weapon around and demanding their surrender, he had surveyed them with his bright, earnest face, and introduced himself. "Hi. I’m called Dart. Don’t mind me, I’m just here to observe." Chase shook his head, trying to keep his wandering mind to the task at hand, monitoring the perimeter by way of their few, still functioning WAVERs.

First, there had been suspicion. A new Company tactic? But why would the Company troops need a spy to gather intelligence on a group they were soon going to overwhelm anyway? Then came the excitement, new-budding hope of a transport that had somehow slipped through the watchdog ships overhead which was quickly nipped by Dart’s disarming shrug and half-sheepish smile. They weren’t getting off the dirtball anytime soon.

Of course, the question then came up as to what a news rep was doing on Ischia. That was the only other plausible explanation for the man’s presence. No other party would have the resources—or the interest—to penetrate the warzone...with the only intent being "observation." Yet Chase found it hard to believe Dart was "just" a news rep. As far as he can tell, none of the others did either. Dart looked and acted like a civie in his nondescript, strangely—probably fashionably, Chase had been too long away now to tell—cut clothes and his upright bearing, (foolishly) fearless of stray fire or snipers. He didn’t have anything beyond his two eyes to record anything, unless they had been Adjusted, though Chase was pretty sure technology wasn’t refined enough to hide biological enhancements that well yet. Dart had the required curiosity of every news rep, but was nowhere near as nosy as the reps they often viewed with disgust over tri-Ds.

And Dart didn’t fight like one, though many reps went through some form of combat training if they were going to be covering physically dangerous subjects. None could have done what Dart did. As soon as they finally broke through the embarrassing, mind-numbing paralysis of first-contact, they found out quick just how far his skills and his "support" ranged when they tried to neutralize him.

Jenny, the closest, managed to actually lay a hand on him, the only one who did—and then she lay sprawled in the dust in less than a blink of the eye, unconscious. The next closest, Randal, skidded to a stop as something drilled silently into the ground a centimeter from his toes. He stumbled back, staring hypnotized at a whiff of smoke that rose from the perfectly cylindrical cavity in the ground where his foot had almost been.

Dart—still smiling that maddeningly innocent smile—motioned toward Jenny. "She’s all right. Just had the wind knocked out of her." He raised his hand, loosely open, half-bent finger pointing toward them. And only then did they notice the thin, black bar protruding from his sleeve, molded to the line of his wrist, a spot of dully gleaming red in its center. "That shouldn’t have been necessary. I told you, I’m only here to observe. But if anyone wants to get in the way of my observing..." He shrugged. In other words, Is it worth the effort bothering someone who isn’t bothering you? "And in case you're thinking of rushing me, I...really advise against it." He lowered his arm and tucked his hands into his jacket’s pockets, cheerfully nonchalant in a campful of trigger-happy, professional soldiers who had been under threat of their lives for weeks, casually waiting for their reactions...

Chase cursed. He didn’t like it. Nobody liked it. But, of course, nobody did anything. They were already dangerously shorthanded, and they were surrounded on all sides by Company men. They were tired enough to just not care anymore. And nobody missed the fact that whatever Dart was a part of could produce weapons such as a portable, arm-mounted laser that had the precision of a jewel-cutter’s, but which also possessed the ruggedness and a compact enough power source that allowed it to be carried effectively in the field.

"Are you having trouble with something?"

"What’s it to you, observer?" Chase snarled back, startled out of his reverie, but otherwise unmoving.

Another of his damnable trademark shrugs. Chase didn’t even have to turn to "see" it. "Thought I could help."

"What can you do?" You won’t get us off this "hell-in-paradise"...

"I’m often told I have a knack with electronics, and I have the help of a very patient and very competent tutor. But even a grunt would be able to tell that that isn’t supposed to be there."

He continued to stare blankly at the screen for a moment, not yet realizing his rhetorical question had been answered—though not in the respect he had been thinking of. Dart wasn’t very susceptible to intimidation.

Then the display finally sank in, and not bothering to waste his breath, he smacked the side of the equipment. The display blacked out completely. Then reluctantly came back on-line with a whine of protest. He noted with satisfaction that fewer of the garbled, nonsense glyphs had appeared this time.

"Yeah, well, if you really wanna help, how ‘bout giving us a ride outta here?"

And for once, the effervescent cheerfulness waned, and genuine remorse replaced it. "I’m sorry, but I can’t."

Chase finally turned and locked eyes with him, barely keeping himself from flinching as he met the...not quite human eyes. Or rather, something behind them that was not quite human. Was it human for a complete stranger to be so cheerful in the midst of a war cum slaughter, stranded on the wrong side? The bright copper coins were like mirrors--nothing behind them, no depth to them at all.

Dart sighed. "Yes, it’s ‘can’t,’ and not ‘won’t.’ Even if I was able to convince my superior, and the ship was able to make planetfall, I still wouldn’t be able to take you all on."

"Shifts—"

He shook his head, cutting him off. "You misunderstand. I can't. I'm very sorry."

"Yeah, right," he muttered, turning back.

"I can send a message though..."

"What’s the use? Problem’s not letting them know, it's that SSC can’t get through to us, least not until reinforcements arrive to bale out the fleet from their current skirmish. And spread as they are right now, I think it’s more a question of ‘if’ rather than ‘when.’"

"What are you fighting over?"

"Nothing," Chase answered wearily. He caught the stranger cocking his head curiously out of the corner of his eye. "Nothing worth it," he elaborated. "Over a supposed mine of raw materials, a natural storehouse. The Company’s in decline, though it won’t admit it yet. It’s scrabbling fang and claw to hold onto anything worthwhile. SSC took offense at the Comp suddenly taking over supplies and muddling trade. Here, the two’ve been at it for about three months. Enough time for both sides to find out the mine was a hoax, the planet’s joke on us. It was also enough time for some grudges to get started."

"I see," was the drawled response. Then, cautiously, "You’re giving me background information."

Chase snorted. "Anybody with eyes in their heads knows you aren’t from anywhere around here." To his annoyance, Dart looked at him with one of those knowing looks that fairly shouted "I know something you don’t!"

But instead of elaborating his thoughts, Dart chuckled and replied cryptically, "You’re right and wrong. Closer than you think, but with a whole universe in between."

Chase met the charming, meaningless smile, and knew he was stymied even before he’d started. Dart wouldn’t be giving any answers on his sojourn here. And that was exactly what it was. There was no doubt in Chase’s mind that Dart could leave anytime he wanted. That kind of insouciance didn’t come without backing, unless the person in question was insane. But Dart didn’t act insane.

At least, not until he stared speculatively off into the lush, jungle/forest—for which Ischia might one day become much sought after real estate, if it wasn't blown up in the current conflict—and murmured absently, "I think I’ll go for a walk."

Chase didn’t take him seriously until the man actually started to amble straight ahead into the thickly crowded vegetation...into a wilderness that was filled with more than the comparatively small and mild native predators. "Hey, what do you think you’re doing!"

Dart waved a hand airily over his shoulder. "Don’t mind me."

Chase opened his mouth, preparing for another holler, before snapping his jaw closed. Hunching over his screen with beetled brows, he wondered at his sudden concern, reminding himself that if Dart got himself caught or killed, they wouldn’t be obligated to share their waning supplies with him. Besides, so far it seemed he could take care of himself far better than any of them.

:Ship, you still with me?:

:As always.:

:And you can’t tell me where the key is beyond a twenty-five kilometer radius?:

This time the response was wry. :As always.:

He sighed. :Why is it our creators could construct something as sophisticated as you and as complicated as me, yet still be unable to devise a beacon that reduces the target zone to something less than two thousand square kilometers?!:

Ship’s voice continued to remain sardonic. :It is a bit hard to locate a target the size of your palm across several universes.:

He grumbled nevertheless. Ship let him grumble. By himself, as Ship exasperatedly cut off communication.

Although Chase was relieved to see Dart slip unharmed from the trees an hour before dusk, he knew that others were disappointed. Dart was only an added burden.

Unless he became part of the team.

"How was your walk?"

Dart looked at him, as if he couldn’t believe anyone besides himself had a sense of humor. Well, taken in context, Chase supposed he had a right to be surprised. But it didn't last long as the smile came back, and this time Chase found it cheering rather than sinister or out of place. "Why, yes. It’s a lovely countryside."

"When there aren’t slugs and explosives tearing it up."

"Yes." The man’s gaze abstracted, pulling toward the direction he had returned from. "A pity." Abruptly, Dart fixed Chase with a piercing stare. "You wish to make a proposition?"

A bit taken aback, wondering briefly if the man was one of the rare mutants who were psych-talented, Chase took only a moment to collect his thoughts before forging on, ever a blunt and candid man. All subtlety had been drilled out of him during SSC training, when he realized that the projectile that killed you wouldn’t care whether you were human, if you had a family, or if you were the heir to the universe. "Why yes, now that you mention it."

"You mentioned it."

He blinked. "I beg your pardon?"

Dart motioned him on, for once hinting at an even vaguely negative emotion: impatience. "You have a roundabout way of presenting things, but I caught the drift of your thoughts."

Chase cleared his throat, examining the Mark handgun he had been playing with in unnecessary, minute scrutiny. "Some people have been wondering at your exact status here—"

"An observer." As if the term explained everything in the world, clear as Mrindee crystals.

He cleared his throat again. "I think you understand what I mean. It might be easier if you helped us out a bit—"

"Pulled my own weight," Dart summed up.

"Aye. I mean, we would understand and all, if you didn't want to get mixed up in all the fracas. After all, you're not being paid to do this, and your loyalties are...obviously ambiguous..."

They locked stares for a moment, and then Chase dropped his eyes. He still couldn't stand looking into those eyes for long. They seemed sympathetic, as if all that they saw were being measured to a higher—but kind—standard, and found the measurement wanting, yet not without potential. And, at the same time, they were hungry, like a convict starved for sunlight and a scene other than gray steel walls. Was that what Dart was? An escapee who got stranded on the wrong planet when authorities caught up with him and brought his ship down? Then why the game with all the "observing" crap? And he had that laser. Where did he get that? Stolen? No, Dart didn't act like a man running for his freedom—or his life, for that matter. He seemed...more like a child than anything else, with a child's confidence that nothing he attempted could go wrong, a strange, endearing niavete that was disturbing to see in a grown man, especially one that obviously had means.

The silence drew out, growing thin and brittle like the surface of a deep lake in winter, then Dart fumbled at something in a pouch on his left hip in the near dark. "Don’t worry, I come with my own support. I won’t be a strain." He pulled out a small display with a few buttons on it, pressing one and then squinting at the luminescent screen. "When I said I am an observer, I mean that I am going to be an observer. That means I am only going to observe, which, in this case, might be taken as synonymous with being ‘objective.’ I have no interest in taking sides."

That finally got to Chase. "Then I’ll never understand why of all places you chose our camp to drop in—!"

"It was the closest."

Chase felt himself once again helplessly drawn toward the strange eyes, but this time was also caught by the flat remark. Dart was now devoid of all amusement. "Closest to what?" he asked sourly, then hastily wished he could have changed his tone when he realized he was finally getting a hint as to what the man was really after.

Dart cocked his head, in that familiar, bird-like way, as if listening to something else besides Chase. "You might want to alert your people. The opposition is taking positions around your eastern perimeter."

Chase stared at him. "You can’t possibly—"

The lopsided smile was back, and he could see the glint in feline eyes, even in the false twilight. "I have support, remember?"

A few heartbeats later, when his news finally sank in, Chase cursed, then fumbled at his belt for his comm even as he shouted the warning to the nearest man—no, woman. He paused as the alarm rippled through the camp, peering up from his seated position with his own maniacal grin. "You’re not an observer."

A brow lifted.

"At least, you won’t be for long. Not if you want to remain able to observe."

If anything, the corners of his mouth lifted even more. "Touché."

Dart, lounging comfortably in the remarkably pine-like tree, shook his head sadly as he peered through the foliage. Without a sound, he shifted his position with languid ease, waited a moment, then dropped smoothly toward the ground—impacting a gun-toting man in uniform along the way. He slipped a finger through the rifle’s trigger guard and lifted it with a disgusted expression. Eyeing the unconscious figure at his feet doubtfully, he tossed the rifle out into the dark. There was a faint rustle and then a muffled thump as it landed.

Dart focused on the Comp agent, tilting his head to one side as he deliberated, then toed the man roughly in the ribs. There was a barely discernible twitch. He quickly reinforced his previous work with a quick jab at the bundle of nerve cords just behind the man’s jaw.

Satisfied that the agent wouldn’t be moving under his own volition for the next few hours, he dragged the man by his collar one-handed into some thick bushes he had spied nearby, then scrambled up into his favorite perch again.

:I have formalized a hypothesis as to one reason you were made a human.:

:Oh?:

:Surely you benefit immeasurably from the tree-climbing genes passed down by your hairy forefathers.:

:I have a pet theory too. As to why you were created with--:

:Silence!:

Dart immediately complied, the thought that Ship was trying to change the subject never crossing his mind. The fingers of both hands half-curled, the right in preparation to activate the arm mounted laser, the left to force out a long knife secreted in a surgical sheath within his forearm. Its blade was made from a super-dense element unknown to even Ship, with properties very similar to glass—the most important of which was its ability to hold an edge of but a single molecule's thickness, but with the a strength more reminescent of steel. It had always been with him, the knowledge of its presence implanted into his mind, along with his psyche and other "skills."

He tensed, but as the muted sound of bodies moving stealthily increased, he relaxed again though he kept the "trigger" muscles ready.

:How many?: he asked.

:Eleven. More are coming.:

:A regular convention.:

:You can take them out.:

He shrugged, preferring to wait. :Not easily. Besides, I think I’ve risked enough exposure this night.:

:Then you chose the wrong tree to roost in.:

He grudgingly acceded the point as the promised arrivals began to appear. Dart had chosen that particular spot when he had spotted the inviting perch previously on his "walk," its relative distance from the SSC unit's camp—and any disturbance that might erupt there—an added bonus. But it now seemed that the disturbance had followed him.

:Ship, do you detect a distinct pattern here?:

:What, that you manage to attract the most unlikely inconveniences within half the planet’s radius?:

:Am I jinxed?:

Ship suggested too innocently, :Maybe your creators mixed up the quantum numbers while they were incorporating your fourth-dimensional link.:

:Don’t forget, my creators might be the same beings that created you.:

Dart called for a pause in their conversation when the crowd of Comps—twenty-three in all—hunched down in a rough circle. He subvocalized for a magnification of their voices, and through his bio-link with Wayfarer, felt as if he were sitting in their very midst.

His request had been instinctual, made without thought. The result he received was completely unexpected, once he realized the--supposed--futility of such a command.

:Ship, where are you?!:

:In that mountain right behind you.:

:You were supposed to—:

:And how am I supposed to pick up voices out in a vacuum?:

He shook his head wearily. :You Threaded...:

:Naturally.:

:How many times have I told you about submerging into a planet’s—:

:I can calculate the exact odds,: Ship snapped, sounding prim. Dart thought he heard a disdainful sniff. :Don’t be telling me about the risks. I’m no child—not any kind of fallible biological being—to be lectured by you. Besides, I wished to see if I could get a better fix on the key.:

He hesitated. :Doesn’t the beacon swamp the area? You didn’t have any luck on this techni—oh. Except for the third key.:

:Exactly. And you stumbled upon the fourth key almost instantly, precluding any further experiments.:

:Fortunately. I was on that ball of lint for all of fifteen minutes and was nearly poisoned, crushed, mauled, suffocated, drained of bodily fluids, fried, and swallowed whole. Feel free to use the above choices more than once, and you’re not restricted to selecting only one per unit of time.:

:Hmph.:

:Don’t you start acting superior on me now. Just remember, you might have titanium hulls and can leap between third-dimensional wrinkles, but you still need me to get the keys. Have you had any luck?:

:Negligible. It seems the magnetic and meteorological phenomena were unique to the planet on which the third key had resided.:

:So much for that.:

:Have you asked—:

Now it was his turn to interrupt Ship, as something caught his interest.

"You must be out of your mind!" somebody exclaimed.

"No! That cavern is absolutely perfect!"

"He must be hittin’ the hardware too much lately," another man stage-whispered with a grin that could be heard, earning a curse and a punch that didn’t manage to land on its intended target, who had scrambled back even before the last word had escaped his mouth.

Whatever that meant, Dart thought with a shake of his head. He was a newborn dropped into a culture millennia old, with millions of sub and splinter cultures scattered throughout the galaxies. Why couldn’t everyone just use normal plain-speak? After all, the sole purpose of language was communication...clear communication...

"We need time to regroup," the one advocating for the cavern continued gruffly. "They were prepared tonight. Something—or someone—slipped. Tonight was supposed to be the last ditch effort, but obviously, we’ve come up short. We’ll need to find out how many we have left."

"Wouldn’t be surprised if we came up with less than two score," came a grumble from another quarter.

Oho! :Ship, did you hear that? This operation isn’t as large as everybody thought, and the SSC troops aren’t as crowded as they imagined!:

:What of the ships in orbit?:

He thought a moment, then shrugged. :You tell me.:

:I have been picking up their transmissions ever since we arrived, but nothing seems out of place.:

:Then you know as much as I do.:

:Are you going to be enlightening Chase any time soon? If at all?:

This provoked a longer silence than the last time. :I really don’t know. I’m beginning to like the guy—:

:Dart ... :

:I know! Believe me, I’m not starting to form any permanent attachments, I just ... like him, that’s all. He’s quite a character. And who can stand you all the time?:

:Someone much more sophisticated, and with ... better taste.:

:Anyway,: he continued, pretending not to hear, :telling him might get the SSC on the high, and engaging the Company soldiers will keep them both out of my hair while I concentrate on the key without having to watch my back.:

:But if the key happens to be in the middle of their battleground ... :

:Precisely. So I’ll just ride this out and see. I’m cutting off now, one of them’s starting to fiddle with some kind of transmitter. He might pick us up. I’ll call you later on when everything’s died down.:

:Acknowledged.:

There was always an indefinable link between him and Ship, but by withdrawing all "voluntary" connections, Ship became an autonomous object, a thing separate from him through any conventional methods of detection. This also meant that his eavesdropping was at an end. Sighing, he slithered out of the conifer-like plant and slipped within earshot of the now silent men.

Dart was just about to give up on garnering any more useful information and leave when a man who he dubbed Nerves asked in a quavering voice, "Where’s Benny?"

"Probably taking a crap," Grumpy replied acerbically. "And what’s with you anyway? You sound like my kid brother when I first told him about the bogeyman."

"The bogeyman’s nothing, ‘specially compared to the cave," Nerves shot back hotly.

"What’s wrong with you guys?! It’s only a damned hole in the ground! You act like there’s something livin’ in there that’s going to jump out and eat you if you so much as look at the entrance!"

"Just might be," Lean and Hungry muttered. "They didn’t do a complete survey of Ischia. Just might be some kind of indigenous life form that has unhingeable jaws the size of my mother and three rows of teeth."

"I’ve heard strange things in there ... " Shorty piped in.

What’s this? A haunted cavern? He smirked. Ghost stories ... a requirement of every civilization.

"Maybe it got Benny," Grumpy sneered.

"You never can—" Lean and Hungry began with a leer, then exclaimed, "Benny!" to the accompaniment of a rustling crash. The man Dart had "disposed of" dragged himself upright using a helpful tree, rubbing his neck.

Dart had an irrational desire to cut the tree out from under Benny’s shoulder. Better yet, take his legs along with it. These people come hardier than I thought. Should have made sure his condition was permanent while I could. Belatedly, Dart was slowly realizing that humans were quite unpredictable, in everything from genetic anomalies to personality traits. It was a shame to cut short over a decade's worth of work developing an independent organism, but...he wouldn't be taking any chances next time.

Shorty rushed to help Benny and there was a low, fervid exchange of words.

Uh-oh. His suspicions were confirmed when Shorty whirled about and swept a hand toward the trees around the Comps, shouting a nearly incomprehensible alarm about Simmies.

Their own little nickname for the SSC?

He started to slip backwards, but hastily jerked to the side as a rifle poked toward him, followed by a questing shadow-figure. Shaking his head at his own inattentiveness, he withdrew.

"Nice to see you’re still alive and kicking."

"Sweet Celise—!" Chase swore. Turning with a glare, he swore again as he dragged Dart under cover. "Got less brains than an earthworm ... "

"What’s an earthworm?" Dart asked, unperturbed by the unceremonious tackle and the furious glowers from the other SSC troops.

"It’s what you’re goin’ to feed if you don’t shut your trap!" somebody hissed.

He turned to come face to face with a large woman, ascetic, thick-boned features screwed into an expression of angry annoyance, not helped by a regulation crewcut. She couldn’t even be termed handsome, by any stretch of the definition.

Dart locked eyes with her for a moment, studying, rather than engaging in a standoff. He suddenly moved forward and the woman scrambled backwards, nearly nose-to-nose with him. "Has anybody ever told you what beautiful eyes you have?" he whispered, sotto voce, as if telling a great secret. Caught completely off guard, the same ghostly-pale orbs he had just—truthfully—admired flew wide as her squarish jaw dropped.

As Chase exasperatedly dragged him toward an isolated corner of the copse, a man hunched nearby asked the woman, "You look like a Caledonian flying lizard crawled up your shorts. What’d he say, Brit? Weapons or no, he’s got no right—"

"Eyes," she gasped. "My eyes ... he said I have ... beautiful eyes ... "

Dart glanced back to see the gangly woman still sprawled in the same position, only now with her right hand hovering near her cheek. He winked and she abruptly dropped her hand and snapped her mouth closed, glaring as if he was in the Company's direct employ.

"Dart," Chase sibilated. "I don’t know what your objective by coming here is, but if it’s disrupting this team, you’re doing a damn fine job!"

"I’m sorry," Dart admitted, though he didn’t sound too contrite to Chase’s overly-sensitive ears. Dart’s eyes were wandering all over the place, as if examining his surroundings for the first time. "But if it’s any consolation, the Comp agents have been finding me a disrupting influence too."

"What happened to that ‘observer’ and ‘objective’ crap?"

Dart regarded Chase with an assessing look and finally drawled, "I thought I agreed with you on the point that I wouldn’t remain an ‘objective observer’ for long, caught between two forces as I am?"

Chase finally pinned down another reason why Dart bothered him so much, beside the fact that the man treated everything like a game. No soldier, no man or woman owing allegiance to any ideal, concept, or person, could feel comfortable with a man who changed his mind—or loyalties—so quickly and arbitrarily.

As if reading his thoughts, Dart chuckled. "If it will make you feel better, I wasn’t actively hunting. They kind of blundered onto neutral ground planning on a massacre. I do have a right to defend myself."

Scowling, Chase muttered, "I suppose."

Dart stared at him disbelievingly, then laughed again.

:Ship?:

:Yes Dart?:

He paused and listened for a moment. :What are you doing?:

:Excavating.:

:For what? And you’re producing a lot of noise.:

:Don’t worry. It’s all deep mining. I found some interesting metals around here, only traces though, so that is probably why nobody is digging.:

:Won’t the ships in orbit pick you up? Even the sensors they’ve got earthside might be able to pick up the vibrations.:

:I’m cloaking, so I very much doubt that they’ll detect anything. You wouldn’t be able to detect the vibrations if you were standing next to a servo. Even if they decide to drop in, I won’t be here—at least, not for long.:

:So what is it that’s got you doing dirty work for once?:

This time Dart definitely heard a sniff. :For you information, everything is carried out by lasers and vacuum. Very little debris, and I get exactly what I want. And there is nothing dirty about dirt.:

He didn’t comment.

:Very interesting element,: Ship continued patronizingly. :Crystalline structure remarkably similar to telahite, though more compact and, strangely, forms pure. Any extraneous substance breaks up the matrix and the element forms around it instead of encapsulating it or using atoms with the same valence number as substitutes in the lattice.:

:So basically, no impurities?:

:Absolutely none. Part of the reason there’s only trace formations here and there. It’s almost like a living organism, avoiding areas already "occupied" by other minerals and congregating in air pockets, running throughout this cavern. It’s also emitting ... something.:

:Not very precise,: Dart reprimanded with an undertone of humor. For all that Ship boiled down to what was basically a running program in a hollow metal shell, the Wayfarer was a sentient being, a synergism, created by a race that had harnessed technology to place the multi-dimensional universe at its figurative fingertips. Yet Ship often acted very much like an automaton, reporting with the accuracy and technicality (and with the same amount of imagination and intonation) of any beefed up program, creating no end of pleasure for Dart as he often compared Ship’s infinitely complex personality to the AI of a starcruiser he had once met, exploring the information hyper-matrix surrounding the first origin he had approached since awakening.

:AI’s are pathetic. How can they even be called intelligent?: came the stiff rejoinder.

Physically, Dart threw his hands up in surrender and he let his silent laughter slip down their bio-link like quicksilver. :I didn’t say anything!:

:You didn’t have to. I know in which direction your primitive thought processes run.:

"Dart, what are you doing?" Chase’s rough, gravely voice cut in.

"Huh?" Dart blinked at him.

Suspiciously, Chase aped the young man’s movement. "Who are you talking to?"

Dart stretched his back and flopped against the tree, crossed arms pillowing his head against the rough bole. He closed his eyes as if preparing to doze off. "A little voice in my head." He half-smiled. "One with very little substance behind it."

:I heard that.:

:You were meant to.:

Chase cast him another dark look.

:Where were we?: he chirped rhetorically.

There was a few breaths of silence, then Ship reported sulkily, :The emissions are blanketing the area, very strong, surprisingly strong. I’m still not quite sure how it’s generated, but it registers mostly as an electromagnetic storm.:

Something jogged his memory and he wasted a few seconds chasing it down. :That must be the "resources" these guys were originally fighting over.:

:Possibly. The emissions are all out of proportion to the actual mass.:

:Anything else? I’m planning on catching some sleep for the fun tonight.:

:Yes. A very important detail. The emissions contain traces of radioactivity, or something that resembles radioactivity's ability to penetrate and disrupt the molecular bonds of certain substances, most noticeably those that are organic. Not the conventional gamma or beta particles, but something that contains familiar properties, yet are identifiably like nothing we have encountered before.:

The revelation was startling enough to almost produce a frown. Dart carefully took three deep breaths and smoothed his expression. :As in what? The SSC or the Company or anybody else who bothered to look would have detected and then acted in accordance to radiation. None of these guys is shielded. It seems to contradict everything you said earlier.:

:True. But many things are seemingly paradoxical, while in actuality their disparate elements are inseparable, one state unable to exist without the other. As you have surmised, the radioactivity is negligible. I am still unsure as to its side-effects, or even if they are harmful. It may account for the uncommon diversity to the wildlife despite this system’s youth.:

:Then why bring it up at all?:

There was a hesitant pause. :Most of its effects would have been written off as natural mutations in local flora and fauna.:

:Again, why bring it up?:

:You do recall the protective measures brought up by the keys previously?:

:Yeah ... : he admitted, feeling a cold sweat beginning to start all over his body despite rigid control over his reactions. He knew it was something he wouldn’t like, as in something life-threatening, and his body’s unconscious response was to prepare itself for battle. :They were mostly holographic, just phantom—: He stopped. :Hey, I think I’ve just found our sixth key!:

:The "haunted" caverns the Company troops were arguing about?:

:Yeah. Holograms used to scare the locals away. And like on the last world, some subconscious suggestions to the wildlife for some additional muscle if the locals prove unsuperstitious—or lack enough sophistication to be scared of the "bogeyman," whatever that is.: Feeling elated, he let a small smile pick up one corner of his mouth—the side out of Chase’s line of sight. :If I’m right, no more traipsing through the woods. I hope the next one’s on a well-populated world. I much prefer the luxuries of civilization.:

An indelicate snort. :With your luck, it will probably be in the slums, in the middle of a gang war.:

With his running record, Dart was a little miffed when he realized he couldn’t gainsay Ship. With photographic precision, he recalled right where they had started to digress and hastily switched tracks. :You were saying about the radiation? Something to do with the key’s "self-preservation" abilities?:

Ship’s tone was unusually somber for a "someone" who kept a running tally of their games of tit-for-tat. :The radiation is actually much more penetrative than the SSC or the Company may realize, at least, over a long period of time. Such as the length of time the key has resided here. The emissions might have altered some of the key’s programming. The Creators might have mastered the art of penetrating sub and super-dimensions, but they have yet to explore this dimension fully. What they have not yet encountered, they can not imagine, and what threats they can not imagine, they can not shield against.:

Dart immediately dropped his ire to return just as seriously, :You mean we might not find the key? The programming decayed enough so that somebody might have gotten their hands or paws or whatevers on it?:

:Conceivably. Or vise versa.:

:It might have attracted an army,: he mentally moaned. But then he brightened slightly. :But the Comp agents were talking about the cavern being haunted. The holograms must still be working. And since any of them ventured near enough to encounter the holograms and leave to tell the story, they weren’t cut down by a rabid pack of local predators.:

:Don’t pin your hopes up too high, Dart. Local predators would be superbly camouflaged and adapted to stealth, with not only centuries of natural selection, but the key’s influence to help them along. Unless the sensors built around the key detected movement directly in its vicinity, it would not call for outside help. As for the holograms, you will recall that the Company agent spoke of it as if it were legend. It might have been the key’s last ditch effort against the excavators before the programs crashed. As evidenced by "Grumpy" and "Lean and Hungry," most hold supernatural occurrences as nothing but myths, with no basis in reality. Possibly, the key has already been taken.:

:But the beacon ... : he managed falteringly, knowing he was grasping at straws but unable to conceive of failure. Even one missing sequence in the completed key would render their creators’ self-imposed prison inescapable. Was this irony? To have his mission thwarted in the end, all by something so...so simple?

Ship finished, : ... is separate from the key itself, as are all the programs and self-defense capabilities. The key’s one and only function is to release our creators at the appropriate time.:

:And that appropriate time is fast approaching,: he muttered darkly. :The Darklings they encountered before have started to withdraw—for who knows what reason. Now’s their chance, to implement the solution that will banish the Darklings back to wherever they came from.:

He was through with denial. He smiled slightly as he thanked his creators for laying such a thick streak of pragmatism through him. :Oh well. Nothing but to forge on.: He was just preparing to start carrying out his half-crystallized plan when Ship darted in with a last question.

Backed up by a—literally, in this case—photographic, crystal/silicon memory, Ship asked suspiciously, :What was that about "catching some sleep for the fun tonight?":

:I’ve decided to tell Chase and his friends just what they’re fighting out there. Or not fighting, as the case may be.:

There was an uncharacteristic silence from the other end, then what sounded like a sigh. :I better start sneaking out of here then. And you might also want to add that the ships overhead are undermanned, and little more than an intimidation factor. The Company has been trying to cover up. Some of the transmissions are thinly disguised recordings, played randomly. The SSC also seems to have finally gotten its act together. I intercepted a transmission reporting that a rescue/pullout mission has been cobbled together. ETA is tomorrow at ten hundred, Wayfarer’s time.:

:Much appreciated.: Dart took a deep breath, stretched, and opened his eyes to see Chase examining him intently, not at all embarrassed at being caught staring.

"Well?" the SSC operative stated bluntly.

"Can’t get anything by a sharp ole stick like you."

"Not even middle-aged yet," was the grunted retort. The flinty, blue-gray eyes didn’t waver. "I’ve been in the SSC for nearly all of my life. I’m just about the right time for retirement...if I ever get out of this mess."

Dart found himself oddly hesitant after that last remark. He hadn’t expected the seasoned warrior to contribute something considerably more than the surface remarks required for civility. And what the man had imparted chilled him slightly, though he didn’t know why. Something that made him think of desperation, of hopelessness, that gave him a strange tightness in his chest and made his eyes water though nothing had flown into them.

Dart jumped to his feet, brushing off the seat of his pants. He made a great show of straightening his apparel and checking the equipment he had stashed in various places about his person. "Get ready to have some fun. I’ve got news for you and your friends."

Dart whistled when he finally came up to the "haunted" cavern’s entrance. "Not much to look at, is it? I don’t know if you’ll fit, Ship."

:Ha-ha. Submerging, I can fit into a space smaller than the size of your single-atom brain. What took you so long?:

:Interrogation. If you’ll recall, I didn’t know the cavern’s exact location, merely its existence. Now that I’ve thoroughly explained my actions, what’s your excuse?:

:Scooting myself off planetside. And monitoring the SSC fleet. If anything, they’re ahead of schedule.:

:Will wonders never cease.: One thing he had learned early on was the human propensity to never get anything done ahead of time, if they had any say in the matter—and sometimes even when they didn't.

:They are already in sensor range of the Company’s ships.:

:Well, Chase and his friends should be happy for a while. Have the ground forces engaged yet?:

:Affirmative.:

:How far out?:

:Approximately five kilometers.:

He pondered a bit, then decided, :It’s far enough. Will you be able to keep the link open once I’m inside?:

:Affirmative. Whenever you're ready, Dart.:

"All right," Dart declared out loud, rubbing his hands together. "Let’s fill that space in the 3-D puzzle."

:Actually, it is influential in several dimensions.:

Dart didn’t bother acknowledging the last dig as he hopped up to the lip of the man-sized hole in the side of the mountain. Balancing easily on one foot, he bent down and examined the shadowed recesses of the subterranean passage. What little he could see sloped downwards. :Ship, will the key pick up my signals from here?:

:It should.:

"All right, here goes." Other than his bio-link to the Wayfarer, there was one other modification that set Dart genetically apart from a normal human—though he was far more in the purely engineering aspects, whether biological, surgical, or mechanical. He possessed a "pass" code to the key. Fingertips brushing lightly against either side of the entrance to help him maintain his balance, he closed his eyes and triggered it.

He didn’t know how it actually worked, and didn’t much care, just as long as it continued to do so. Briefly, he was assailed by concerns as to just how degraded the systems around the key were and if he would be recognized by them, but they subsided as a greeting slowly formed in his mind, independent of his own thoughts. Welcome, quester.

He received the impression of waiting, and quickly composed the thought/image light.

Immediately, a soft, pellucid glow flowed from his perch in a wave that washed through what proved to be a vast cavern. Sourceless, it produced no shadows, giving everything a flat, surrealistic look. A virtual treasure house, the cavern glittered with many-faceted jewels adorning every crevice, every free-flowing rock formation, every natural sculpture. Pastel hues fluttered like butterflies through huge slabs of transparent minerals, fully fifteen meters in height in places.

"Magnificent," he breathed, eyes wide. He slowly approached a quartz-like growth, watching with interest as the lights shifted and danced where his feet came in contact with the floor. He trailed fingers across a preternaturally smooth face, and almost expected an oily residue to cling to his fingers, rubbing them together to make sure. They were dry, and the facet of crystal shone enticingly, inviting another caress. "Beautiful."

:Though I found several formations resembling these in the cave I had recently occupied, nothing matches this in size or quality.:

:How is the key producing the light? I’ve never seen anything like it around the other keys.:

:Possibly the minerals themselves. Their properties are unknown to me. This method would also reduce the need for materials and objects that would be incongruous in an underground cave, and thus easily detectable. The formations produce no noticeable emissions, virtually drowned out by the static produced by the other trace element in Ischia’s crust. They don’t even register as semi-precious, and are thus deemed not worth the effort of mining. Perhaps if or when this particular light-emitting property is discovered, it will prove to be far more valuable to the discoverers of Ischia than their original "prize.":

Clambering up a stalagmite with a plateau on top, he threw his arms wide and whooped like he had seen some children do. He finally understood why they did that as often as they could. It was oddly exhilarating. He cocked his head to follow the echoes of his shattered voice, flung back by the millions of facets lining the cavern.

:Dart, time to be moving.:

Reluctantly, he agreed. But while skidding down a natural slide, he asked, :What’s the rush?:

:Call it a hunch.:

:Hunch? I thought programs only work linearly.:

:Not this little black box,: and Ship abruptly cut off with an audible click, a purely aesthetic gesture since they weren’t speaking through physical devices.

Worried by Ship’s strangely opaque tone, Dart shrugged his shoulders to get rid of the itch that had started to establish itself between them and proceeded toward the middle of the small mountain the cavern resided in.

The crystal cavern was just over a kilometer long, the distance incremented considerably by rocky formations. It took Dart a half an hour to arrive at the only exit at the far end. Unsurprisingly, it connected up with another grotto, this one nearly as dark as the crystal cavern had been before he’d contacted the key. There was only a faint glimmering around edges, like phosphorescent growth. Frowning, he murmured in a stilted accent, imitating the inhabitants surrounding the original location of the second key he had found, "Neow, t’is be mihty strangely. Should be lit lak a hol’day in the town’siders, no’?" Shrugging, he took one last look over his shoulder at the cave’s rendition of an inside-perspective of an ornament, then began to form the commands to "turn it off."

:Dart, somebody is approaching the cavern’s entrance!:

:Who?: he snapped, concentration broken. The key’s programs withdrew with a confused murmur.

:It’s Chase.:

:What’s he doing here?! What about the fighting?:

:It’s still going on,: Ship declared in confusion. :I’m sorry Dart, but I’ve been monitoring the ground and space battles and they all ... seem to be intensifying, if nothing else. I have no idea why Chase is here.:

"Too late to turn off the lights and call ‘nobody’s home,’" Dart muttered rhetorically as echoes from a voice other than his own wavered faintly in his corner of the underground chamber. He turned away from the second chamber and scrambled over wrinkled foundations back toward the entrance.

Panting, Chase met him in the middle, flashing a—for once—heartfelt smile. It suited the man far better than the perpetual scowl that had come to crease his brow permanently. "You’re a tough man to find, Dart."

Feeling an unexpected and unfamiliar pang in his chest, Dart abandoned all tact and noted coldly, "Not tough enough, apparently."

Chase, openly admiring the forest of crystal growths, returned his attention to Dart as he caught his tone. The man fidgeted and dropped his eyes. "I know. It’s none of my business, and I won’t ask. I ... I just wanted to thank you ... before we pulled out. With the fresh arrivals, we were relieved on the spot, and they’re cleaning up."

Though he felt his heart lurch once again—what was wrong with him?—Dart quickly shoved his concerns aside to be examined in detail later. He continued in the same ugly voice, "You’re welcome. Goodbye." An itch started in the back of his mind, and his heartbeat perceptibly rose. Something was going to happen, something connected with Chase, and he wanted to get rid of the man as soon as possible. Chase hesitated, searching his face, which he kept carefully blank of all expression. The SSC operative gamely stuck out his hand.

And nearly had it taken off at the wrist by a shrieking apparition.

White-faced, Chase stumbled back, tripped, and tumbled down the other side of the formation they had been standing on, a sort of watershed running through the middle of the crystal cavern. Cursing with the names of borrowed deities, Dart tried to clear his thoughts enough to query the key’s systems. The apparition cackled, as if in mockery, raising rotted phalanges tipped with pristinely sharp talons. It howled again as Chase tremblingly drew his Mark and managed to fire a round through its heart. Or rather, where the heart should be. The laser propelled pellet of GT-4 passed through the illusion and impacted on a stalactite behind it. The apparition winked out of existence as the stalactite’s base slowly crumbled, and the candied rock fell with lazy, unhurried grace. When it finally impacted the floor, the crash as it shattered was louder than when the explosive GT-4 round had hit.

Dart skidded toward the edge and caught Chase’s shocked expression as the cave began to resonate with half-intelligible murmurs and mutters, the defense systems working on subharmonic suggestions to the subconscious now that holograms proved useless.

The man stared up at Dart with huge, unblinking eyes. "What in the Void is going on?!" he rasped over the increasingly ugly whispers.

"That’s what I’d like to know," Dart ground out, eyes searching for footholds, then hopping down to Chase’s side in two easy leaps. Hauling the man up, he finally caught enough of his scattered wits to form a question and project it. Sequence two, why have your defenses been activated!

Intruder ... the word slowly coalesced, strangely reverberant, as if the sibilant echoes he heard all around him had invaded his mind.

I am the Dart! I order you to stand down with the authority vested in me as the quester by our creators! I repeat, stand down!

There was an unhealthy pause, and then the word again surfaced. Intruders ...

It seemed to Dart then, that the crystal cavern’s ambient temperature suddenly plunged to near absolute zero. Oh no ...

:Dart, did I hear that correctly?! Intruders, as in plural?:

:I didn’t know you could hear the key ... : was all his numbed brain could produce at the moment.

:We’re all linked together—:

"Dart! What’s going on?" Chase’s pleas finally caught and held Dart’s attention, and he noticed that the man was shaking.

He’d thought the man of sterner stuff ... until he saw just where Chase was directing all his frightened glances, and saw for himself the inhuman shadows lurking behind groves of living minerals. :Ship, how paranoid is the key?:

:Unfortunately, "paranoia" seems to be the operative term,: was the quiet response. :The key has called its subjects to arms ... :

"No!" he hissed aloud. Chase’s frightened but still clear eyes fixed on him. "How could this have happened? Chase! Get out of here, now!"

"What—"

"Go! This place has become a deathtrap!" He roughly turned the man and shoved him toward the entrance. :Ship, how do I convince the key’s systems to stand down?:

:I’m sorry Dart, but I don’t think you can. There were no bypasses or fail-safes built into a system as simple as this. I’ve been trying to get through using your link, but it ... "thinks" that you’re some kind of turncoat, that telling it to stand down when there is an intruder nearby is a sure sign of you working for the opposition.:

Simple system?! He laughed without mirth. As simple as humans and just as logical! What does it think it’s doing, developing enough sentience to theorize about double-cross? The inanity of the thought was worth only a grimace as he furiously paced through his choices. :That means I’ll have to turn it off manually then?:

:I’m afraid so.:

He wasted no more time but made sure that Chase was well on his way toward the entrance. He noted with misgiving a considerable number of—this time, very real—figures shambling after the man. Whirling around, he leaped onto a low bridge. He wouldn’t be able to watch over him. More likely, he would kill Chase as well as himself if he tried to drag the man along. The SSC operative’s only hope now was either he was a fast runner, or Dart could find the key in time and shut off the systems protecting it. He clenched his fist and the knife slipped into his hand, its skeleton grip fitting the hills and hollows of his fingers and palm as if born in it. Perhaps it had been.

He heard a high pitched chittering and turned to see a hulking creature nearly twice his height, looking like a cross between some kind of primate, a feline, and—of all things—a peculiar flying rodent he’d encountered once, something called a "bat." The weird hybrid screwed up its ugly, wrinkled face and hissed/squealed through an impressive set of fangs.

:Ship, why didn’t our creators prepare for this? They should have known about the emissions!:

:They did,: Ship sighed sadly. :They couldn’t possibly not detect it. But they were being hounded, the Darklings on their very doorstep. The radiation only appears in trifling amounts, and they probably hadn’t planned on leaving the key sequences in one place, or staying locked in their sanctuary for so long. That’s why more elaborate measures weren’t taken. This eventuality was seen, but not planned for.

:I doubt that any one of them had expected to meet anything at all—much less beings like the Darklings—in their travels and explorations through different dimensions. They were woefully unprepared for first contact.

:I suppose when a half-sentient stomach is breathing down your neck, you wouldn’t be too careful where you put the keys to your sanctuary as long as they won’t be found by the ones that are looking for a quick meal.:

"They ... really screwed up this time," he gasped, and slashed the primate/cat/bat’s neck. The monster gurgled, clutching at the wound, and finally fell over. He very nearly followed it, staring at the wooden shaft embedded just above his left hip bone. "The key’s ... been teaching her babies ... how to make toys."

:Dart, pay attention!:

He looked up in time to see another spear-bearing brute falling upon him. Almost casually, he ducked, instincts bringing his right arm around to sweep the thing’s arms to the outside, and the knife swinging back across its abdomen. He slumped against the wall behind him as the creature howled, dropping its spear in favor of trying to keep itself together. He laughed, though it came out more as a wheeze. "That’s what you get ... for trying to sneak up on me, you bastard ... " He laughed again as he realized just how apt the appellation was. Bastard of more species than nature’s comfortable with ...

:Dart, stop, you’re going into shock ... :

The laser’s pack had died out in the last cavern. But the knife was enough, had been enough, until the new breed suddenly jumped out, wielding a primitive spear he hadn’t been prepared for. He was now in the third cave of the chain of subterranean passages, and Ship had estimated his position close enough to the center of the mountain to warrant a line-of-sight to the key soon.

"Shock?" he slurred, sinking to one knee. "I don’t ... go into shock. Creators didn’t program that ... into me ... " And as if a switch had been thrown, the numbness that had previously sat in his side like a lump of lead exploded into pain. "Stars!" he gritted, doubling over, thinking, Next time I’ll keep my big mouth shut.

:Dart!: Panic made Ship’s voice sound shrill, human.

Panting, he took a survey of his surroundings, thankful for the temporary lull as the creatures sensed his weakness and waited to see how badly hurt he was. :I needed that. Nothing like ... a good jolt to clear the head.:

:Dart, I can’t reach you without collapsing the whole cave system, and you can’t keep this up much longer ... :

:Tell me about it.: The knife passed through the shaft like it wasn’t there, for which he was infinitely grateful. He used the remaining two meters as a staff, levering himself to his feet. :Where’s the key?: he asked wearily, eyeing the hulking shapes as they began to move again, shifting back and forth at a certain radius, a radius that was slowly decreasing. :It’s too late ... to back out now. The key’s closer.: And at the back of his mind, past the pain and past the angry murmurings of the insane key, was a little private corner that wondered about the human, Chase, and how he fared. Angrily, he allowed himself only enough thought to tell himself to concentrate on his current predicament, but that strange, rebellious part continued to worry...

:Dart, hurry, look around you. It should be just a couple of meters—:

And he found it. Stepping forward, he saw he had mistaken its natural luminescence for the phosphorescent glow that permeated the cavern. It hung invitingly in its own little prison, a clear bubble of force, floating above a seemingly natural pillar of rock. He knew that the pedestal was sculpted, and wired throughout. That was where the self-preservation systems had been installed.

His lips stretched into a savage grin. Gotcha.

The creatures shuffled in front of the key, hiding its radiance.

:Dart, don’t linger. You’re dangerously weakened; your systems are unable to compensate.: When he didn’t answer, Ship subsided into silence.

Dart knelt stiffly by Chase’s body, whose outstretched hand was only bare feet from the entrance. He had found the abandoned Mark, its clip empty, several meters behind.

Under the key’s control, the mutated monsters had gone for the kill, and that was all. Two slashes across Chase’s throat had ended it, only some scratches across his back and limbs indicative of his panicked flight from their tender mercies. There was no sign of savaging, as natural predators would have done. No bodies had been left behind. So, the end had come soon enough that Chase's body was still warm, but long enough before he'd deactivated the key for the systems to instruct the animals to take their dead elsewhere. So close, in time and distance.

Shaking his head, Dart emotionlessly slipped the eyelids over staring, sightless gray eyes. Frustration? Over what? Where it concerns the end result, a second or an inch is the same as an hour or a mile... Yet he didn't believe himself, and he experienced his first attempt at telling a falsehood to himself, and found it strangely uncomfortable when telling lies to others demanded no more than a passing thought. He was frustrated, very much so, and was confused as to why he searched for someone or something to blame for his failure to save a single organism's life, when he had taken others before without a second thought.

He hugged the hand-sized sculpture to his chest as he clambered out, blinking in the sunshine. :What time is it?: he asked bewilderedly.

:It has been nearly two hours since you’ve entered.:

He limped down the slight slope and stumbled against Ship’s side, hugging it. :Think there’s going to be an indigenous culture here soon?:

:That is uncertain. The local dominant predator has been given a leg up, so to speak. They might well develop their own civilization before long.:

He laughed harshly. :Wanna bet that their religion’s going to center around the caverns and the now quiescent "pillar of light?":

:That is a very likely possibility, Dart.:

He reached up to touch his face, and felt moisture on his fingertips that wasn’t red. "What’s wrong with me?" he whispered aloud. :Ship, it hurts, but not in my side.:

There was a pause, unusually long, but not at the seeming non sequiter. There was no confusion on Ship’s part as to what Dart referred to. :I...don’t think that anything is wrong with you. I believe it’s natural. But as to what it is...that is up to you. I am a Newborn also. I learn alongside you:

He was going to retire, right after this mission... A piece of the seamless hull melted, dripping down to form free-floating steps leading into an airlock. He stared at it for a moment. Looked back up toward the innocuous hole in the mountainside. Remembering the hard, craggy face, the slow but fierce burning will to survive, the half-anxious concern the man had tried to conceal—about a stranger who had the power to take him away from his personal hell, but who couldn’t, wouldn’t. He dragged himself up the steps wearily, swaying on the last one. Regret? Is that the word I’m looking for? No, something else. "If."

:Dart—:

He waved away Ship’s concern and lifted his foot for the last step. Leaning against a wall, he ran his fingers blindly over the key’s cool, flickering curves. As the steps melted back into place, he took one last, desperate peek toward the mountain, still waiting for the angular figure to swing out of the cavern’s entrance. But death was another rule that he had learned early, one whose very immutably was another lesson all in itself. "Goodbye Chase."