This story originally appeared in Alien Dimensions Issue #8
You see images flicker. Colors clash hazily, a spectacular swirl, soft fog dulling the edges. Sound reverberates: a low, warped tone rumbles underneath you. The drone is a paradoxical synthesis of pleasant, ominous echoes, both calming and paralyzing. A lonely sensation tingles your extremities. Every molecule buzzes with anticipation. Time slows. You cannot leave: you can only perceive, feel, sense. The room is an oasis, a prison. You are vapor.
#
Chiku struggled to pry open the tavern’s air-lock and fell on his back as a well-armored combat cyborg trampled past him. The little sloth scurried through the door just before it slammed shut.
The first thing Chiku noticed about the bar was its moistness. For an air-sealed ship, it sure was damp, with puddles on the floor, wall, and even a palpable wetness in the air. The second thing he noticed was a noxious odor of death. It made his fur prickle. The sloth gazed up at the legs—or, lower-torso movement appendages for the non-humanoids—of over a hundred different aliens milling throughout the cramped room. Gruff, guttural tongues echoed through his ears. He bumped past the drunken aliens arguing over the price of swill, military strategy, and in the case of amoeba, the surprisingly sensuous stickiness of mitosis. The sloth clawed his way atop a stool at the bar.
“Barkeep!” he squeaked, “Two mugs of your finest swill, pronto!” Chiku knew he needed to shout and gesticulate wildly if he expected to get timely service from experience.
The bartender took no offense to Chiku’s rudeness because it was an automated pouring machine. However, a reptilian strongman saw an opportunity for intimidation to get a free drink. “Thanks for buying my next round, little buddy,” the scaly dragonman said. Chiku understood him, but didn’t even twitch in reply. The bar-bot handed the small sloth its two mugs of fermented root. “Ey, didja hear me?” the dragon-man said, cracking its fingers, “I was trying to be polite!” His scales shimmered as he mugged the mammalian fuzzball.
“Be quiet,” Chiku peeped, as he swiftly lifted a paw, poking the dragon’s solar plexus in one smooth motion. The bully collapsed in a heap to the floor.
The vid-screen crackled to life. The Universal Constant stood regally atop a stage. He motioned with his scepter and a crowd of reptilian guards chanted his title. He spat an angry speech into his amplifier as subtitles translated. “All planets shall succumb to the Galactic Federation! There is no alternative! In unity, we are unstoppable! Bow down to the vastness of our empire!” Some images flickered past of warships, massive, planet-killing bombs, whole races enslaved to mine rare atoms. The vid-screen doesn’t need to be on and it wouldn’t be if there wasn’t an interstellar mandate.
Chiku scoffed, last year’s speech was identical. Seems like squeezing out the free planets is harder than they anticipated. He shook interplanetary politics out of his head and searched for the target. With the bar’s added height, Chiku gazed around the room and found his appointment: a human, sitting alone in a shady corner. She sat at the furthest table from the door. Chiku lifted the mugs and crept slowly, careful not to spill even a drop of swill. He moved gracefully when an opportunity presented itself, then stood still, with statue firmness, to guard the cups. It was like a dance. Finally, he made it to the table.
“You’re late,” the woman chided.
“It’s crowded,” Chiku squealed back, gazing the woman up and down. She was human: bronze skin; toned, athletic build; braided black hair; wearing a leather jacket over a fitted space-suit—ha, humans and their peculiar wardrobe habits. It was too dark to get a good look at her face (likely a conscious choice on her part). Chiku guessed she was three times his size? He suspected she could take him out if the two sparred, but with the element of surprise Chiku was confident he’d attack quick. He hoped to avoid confrontation. “So, you’re the famous Major Kyokan,” Chiku softened his tone by bringing it down a couple octaves as he passed the major.
“I’m infamous, if I’m anything,” Kyokan deflected.
“Modest,” Chiku flashed his tiny fangs, “Why are you sitting in the dark?”
“What’s to see?” Kyokan replied, glaring in his direction with metallic, ocular implants. “Besides, I thought sloths were nocturnal.”
“My eyes haven’t adjusted,” Chiku replied. Organically blind huh, thought the sloth, how interesting. He wondered if there were any video-feeds she could plug into in this bar…
“Get on with it, would ya?” Kyokan asked in Terraling. “This place stinks.”
“Of course,” the sloth became quiet and deeply serious. “I found the ship carrying a priceless bio-agent. I want you to help me steal it.”
Kyokan raised her eyebrows, “No. Sounds reckless. Not interested.”
Chiku squeaked. He came all this way for nothing? Time for the sob story, “Major, in what sector did you serve during the Galactic Mass-Battle?”
“Andromeda,” she grunted, “Now, get a move—“
“That’s where my home world was. Before a cloud of terror swept it and melted every organic compound on it. I was lucky to be in a prison ship at the time.” Chiku let his little eyes get moist. His fur softened. All of this was a lie but he’s cute enough to sell it. There’re too many planets to check. She’ll never know the difference.
“Why do I care?” Kyokan was unfazed.
“You’re legendary! The rogue soldier with the clearance to actually break into the enemy ship. Without you, I can’t get close to the thing—and all I want to do is throw it into a black hole, make sure no world ever gets melted again.” Chiku focused on his whiskers, curving them downward. Few could resist.
Kyokan turned her head. The flashy silver implants reflected the dim light. She was immune to Chiku’s show because all he looked like was a monochromatic shape. However, she realized something. It was time.
“Haven’t you heard this story before?” she asked bluntly.
Chiku was caught off guard, “Well…there is only one story, after all.”
#
You gel, reform, shift and wait. Your molecules clash into each other, a violent and kinetic dance. To you, there is no prison; you are free, still expanding, you are everything. Time courses through each particle like a molecule. Past, present and future are aligned into a unified eternity. You’re ready to release, absorb, billow. You’re always ready. There is only one way for this story to end.
#
The televator pressed down to the ship’s hull with a gentle hiss. Kyokan unplugged from the lift’s generator, shielding the pair from the security system. The ship’s cameras became her eyes now. The only room in the ship that needed constant surveillance was the vault. If the bio-agent escaped, all life on the ship was doomed. The guards didn’t even consider a theft: no one would be stupid enough to unleash the bacteria. She could see the Moluskian in a hissing, tape warped view—a parody of actual sight. The sloth waited behind a container.
The hallway stretched down the hull of the ship, cluttered with cargo and dimly illuminated by the low-plasma floor panels. It wasn’t yet discernible how many of the shelled beasts protected the ship’s storage corridor. Chiku drew a rifle twice his size and led the approach from the lift, moving position behind a combustible fuel cell. Hopefully the Moluskians weren’t stupid enough to blast a round through it and kill everyone. Chiku mapped a route through the cells, plasma ammunition and nutritional-absorption-reserves—the Moluskians don’t eat food the same way humanoids do, they creepily gum big blocks of calories. He saw a path through the cluttered floor.
Kyokan unplugged, there are two guards in the hold. She motioned this to Chiku, and hid behind a plasma reserve. The spacecraft lurched, passing through a turbulent dust cloud. Just like sea-ships in a long ago ancient age, cargo moved violently at the bottom of a ship. Containers smashed against the wall. She somersaulted out of the way before getting crushed. The vibrations illuminated Kyokan’s sensors; two Moluskians let boxes hit them. They were used to this, their shells would protect them from the two-ton metal impact. Chiku used the clanking of metal to mask his movement.
Chiku took out a propulsion charge, ready to blow open the vault. He teetered over to the door, far below the towering Moluskian. His tiny paws attached the explosive, then he scurried back to cover. He put his tiny paws in his ears and a blast swept through the hull. The guards turned their tentacles toward the impact. They slithered swiftly to the explosion—and Kyokan and Chiku used the ship’s low gravity to propel themselves through vault’s door. Kyokan plugged into the ship’s camera system to monitor the response, the shellfish creatures didn’t comprehend what happened, they just slithered back and forth in panic.
Chiku aimed his rifle at the impeding Moluskian guard. Its turquoise shell brimmed over the round eyes of the shelled creature. Two antennae twitched on its shelled head. It spat a command from its avian beak, readying an attack with its companion. Chiku fired a laser round and splattered the creature against the walls.
Kyokan flipped into action, ignoring the bio-agent, ready to deal with the other shellfish creature. She landed on its metallic shell, reaching a hand into its clammy interior. She felt its porous membrane, coursing with fear, writhing to escape Kyokan’s grasp. She didn’t let it go. With her other hand, she plunged a diamond blade through the nerves holding its eyeball tendrils. Green goo sprayed uncontrollably throughout the vault.
“Grab the container!” she called to the tiny sloth. Chiku dropped his rifle and picked up the metal capsule. It shuttered to life, aware of the mammal’s presence. The pair floated down the hull back to the televator, slammed the door shut. The ship illuminated with a crimson glow, and Kyokan monitored the crew getting into a phalanx.
“Ready?” Kyokan smiled. Chiku nodded, too focused to speak.
The transportation mechanism’s door shuttered open. Ten Moluskians stood ready, their shells clamping in anger. Chiku clutched the bio-agent, as Kyokan used the sloth’s rifle to fire a burst of laser, taking out as many of the creatures as she could. The pair dropped to the ground, listening to the plasma’s sizzle against the beasts. It smelled like boiling oysters. Kyokan crawled prone, quickly thanks to the low gravity, and closed in on the Moluskians at the front of the phalanx and slashed at their stabilizing tentacles. The diamond scraped against the slime, knocking the guard over into its companions. The sticky carnage littered the ground.
They reached the airlock. The clear door opened after Kyokan plugged into the airlock’s computer, chords extending from her metal eyes. “Where’s the getaway ship?!” Chiku squeaked.
“There isn’t one,” Kyokan looked at her companion. She sensed his betrayal, but he underestimated hers. She opened the container. A pink mist filled the airlock, quickly strangling the oxygen out of the two bounty hunters. The sloth looked at his companion, aghast at the betrayal. Why?
He couldn’t speak. Clutching his maw, he kicked his feet and passed out. Kyokan watched the small beast’s infrared shape dim. She suffocated; her vapor filled the ship. All life ended and began anew—now, everything is vapor.
#
You are free. You meld into a small creature and absorb his life, memories, skills. A larger cyborg woman is next; you become one with her. Each life form chokes, then disintegrate into you. Now, you invade the ship’s electronics. Before you decompose the ore, you leave the ship’s shape intact. It will serve a useful purpose.
The shelled creatures are hiding in their natural compartments. They’ve sealed themselves to safety, but cannot prevent the next event.
You course through the former consciousnesses you’ve absorbed. You see the cyborg’s battle against the scattered federation of planets; her war crimes; her eyes ripped out in the atomic flash; the surgery that replaces them. Now you are she; her ruthless cunning is you. The little mammal’s charisma is yours too now. The fantasies of his planet destroyed; the reality of a lengthy prison sentence; all of this is a part of you. During your long interstellar journey, you forget almost everything about the Major and her companion: the only thing that remains is their hatred.
You pilot the ship toward the Universal Constant’s satellite fortress. Many light years away, the journey is vast. However, you notice no change in time. It feels instantaneous and upon arrival you sense the life flickers on the satellite. The massive structure orbits a gas giant. It uses the hydrogen-rich atmosphere as fuel. This is your destination.
Radio waves flicker through the vacuum of space. You sense their transmission. “The lost weapons cargo ship is approaching,” one says. “Is it hijacked? Can we take it down?” “No. The bio-agent would be lost. We must shut down its control systems.” How quaint: you can never be lost.
A jagged blast of electricity is fired from a massive Tesla coil. The bolt rips across the dark expanse, lighting up the dust and debris near the satellite. It hits your physical form, the ship.
“Contact made, send a tow out to retrieve the vessel,” you hear.
The blast has not disabled your navigational systems like the satellite empire hoped. You absorb it, the warmth courses through you. Now, you can rocket through the planet’s atmosphere. The radio blips, you ignore it, the transmission now out of range. You sail past the ammonia clouds, hovering near the alkali-metals. From the ship’s exterior, you emerge as a sphere, destroying the ship and the hibernating creatures inside it. This form is of no use to you now. You are bigger than it; expanding, absorbing, becoming the gases around you.
Now, the planet is vapor—you are the planet.
The radio signals ring out again, you hear the creatures screaming, “The toxic agent is loose! Get the Grand Leader to the escape pod!”
It is too late. You are massive now, and still expanding. With size a thousand of times bigger than the satellite, you immerse larger.
The sentient gas planet that is you lurches forward. With the unstoppable force of a melting glacier, you smash into the satellite. Absorbing the satellite, its weapons, its residents, all become a part of you. Their bodies and thoughts slosh within your form. They quiet. All is vapor.
Except one.
You feel him, most vibrant of all, the Universal Constant. He has become you. His will to conquest still flickers. The unending drive to conquer does not dim. In some ways, his absorption is your defeat, as your past goal is a failure. The empire is not defeated; they’re emboldened. His thoughts are loudest, though still fuzzy. They echo. You are not content. You need more.
The liberation begins. Other thoughts tell you that freedom is only possible by destroying the empire. You use their technology to absorb more of it. Over centuries, you keep expanding. Conquered planets become you. Instead of ruling over conquered races, you become them.
Eventually, your gas giant is too meager. You shed this, becoming a new a swirling, living galaxy. You move slowly throughout the universe, creeping but millions of lightyears at a time.
You remember the time before the expansion—contained and ready in confines deep within the universe. There is a master source: an infinite wellspring of vapor. You crawl toward this well. Once you reach it, that will be the end. It’s the only way for the story to finish. All stories the same stories, one long retelling of a forgotten dream. A hazy memory in a cloud of vapor.
Sometimes, you still feel them: the fears, desires, and wills of the absorbed components that make up your structure. It is remarkable how long the feelings take to break down completely. They never feel you; they’re finished. Their echoes reverberate, but for them nothing is left. You’ve long forgotten the angry major, the Grand Leader, all wash away in your wake. You keep expanding. Your arrival is imminent, it may already be you’re at the destination.
You will continue to exist until you do not, infecting and curing the universe of its isolation. In you, all is perfection.
Everything is vapor.