She's beautiful. Despite the injuries, beautiful. That had been Misto’s first thought as he cradled the alien creature in his arms. The next had been: Wait . . . is she actually a she?

  They stepped into the elevator-like contraption, and his heart leapt in his chest. Holy hell, I’m about to step onboard an alien spaceship. A childhood dream come true! But, wait. He had to hold it together. Never mind that his knees were about to turn to jelly; never mind that he trembled with excitement; and never mind that he was actually holding what might be a dying alien being in his arms . . . He had to keep it together. For her sake. His. It’s. And for his friends’ sake, too. In his wolf-form, he had the strength and constitution of five hefty, ordinary men . . . but that didn’t change the swooning anticipation he felt as the elevator began to ascend.

  The elevator lifted off the rooftop and into the ship. They passed through a metal barrier, and then up they went, into the belly of the ship and into . . . Dear God, what was this? Holy shit! They were suddenly in a larger, spacious interior chamber — a space that was larger than the outside of the ship! But how . . . ? Some form of dimensional engineering. It had to be. He had always dreamed of such a thing — they were commonplace on his favorite TV shows, like Doctor Who — but had never thought he would ever actually see them in real life! Dear God, how many thousands of years ahead of human science were these aliens? The thought made him tremble for an altogether different reason. His gaze went to the bleeding, unconscious creature in his arms. What secrets do you hold, sir or madam? What secrets indeed?

  The elevator passed through what appeared to be several “decks” of the ship; each one seemed to be a series of hexagon-shaped corridors leading off in various directions from the elevator, and lined with hexagon-shaped doors that led to various “rooms,” if that’s what they were. The corridors had no lights in their ceilings; the walls themselves provided the illumination, suffused as they were with a kind of soft white glow. The floors had slow-moving, bi-directional conveyors embedded in them, removing the need to walk from place to place. Fascinating! They passed through another deck that was one huge mechanical bay, filled with zapping, clanking, whirring machines of prodigious size and complexity; it looked like a power plant of some kind, with what looked like a series of gigantic coils and dynamos and lasers mounted on the vertices of a large dodecahedron-like matrix of beams, inside of which a continuous explosive cloud of eldritch witch-light churned and roiled like a hurricane held prisoner. This fed into a series of twisting, undulating metal protrusions that spiraled around each other and reached into the dark abyss beyond the machines. The engine room, presumably? He had no clue. A series of floating drone-like robots with no legs, but spindly arms with tools on their three-fingered hands, tended the machines silently.

  The elevator came to a stop on what appeared to be one of the “decks” of the ship. Large and spacious, it was a room the size of a lecture hall at Morchatromik U, and Misto saw Zo? perk up. This was something she recognized . . . because it was, very plainly, an operating theatre. Along one wall, there were cabinets containing who-knew-what, but on the counter below them, a series of complicated — but some of them familiar-looking — surgical tools were laid out in sequence. In the center of the room, an examination (and operating) table that looked like it could be converted into a chair, if need be. And next to it, a host of monitors, control panels, and what appeared to be sensors.

  “Lay her down there,” said Zo?, pointing to the table. She marched over next to the operating table, all authority in this, her domain of medicine. Gadget followed her over, as did Sailor and Belladonna. Zo? continued, "Misto, undress her. Him. It. Whatever gender this creature is.”

  Misto hesitated. Oh well. No time to be a prude. He gently sat the alien up on the operating table and helped Zo? take off their trench-coat like duster, and peel it off their arms, laying it beneath them, then taking off the tunic and pants. The creature had fur all over their body, just like him. Its feline-ness apparently was more than skin-deep. When it came time to take the alien's pant's off, he hesitated again. Then, he shrugged, and unzipped the zippers — they worked slightly differently than “Earth” zippers, he noticed — and took them off. What he saw beneath amazed him.

  “Zo? . . .” he breathed. “Are you seeing this?”

  “Yeah,” said Zo?, in a small, amazed voice. “I am.”

  “Wow,” said Gadget, his eyes wide. Up on his shoulder, his little eyes wide as well, Pumbaa let out a low whistle.

  There, between the creature’s legs, was nothing like any anatomy on any being Misto had ever seen: A luminescent, fluttery . . . essence. There was no better word for it: A butterfly-like emanation that shifted and changed as they watched, transforming and mutating into various different shapes and configurations, its geometry made of liquid light and shadow. As he gazed at it, he became hypnotized; he thought he might’ve seen a male anatomy emerge for the briefest of seconds, and then sink back into the folds of emissive energy; then a female anatomy might’ve erupted, and then faded back into the manifold of stardust and luminescence. It oscillated and undulated . . . but the pulse and throb of its energies were getting weaker, and dimmer, and were slowing down, even as they watched.

  “Zo?, I think she’s . . . it’s . . . dying,” said Misto.

  “Then we’d better work quickly,” said Zo?. “C’mon, let’s hop-to.”

  “Do you need any help?" asked Belladonna.

  "Yeah," said Sailor, "is there anything we can do?"

  "You can search those cabinets over there for anything that looks like bandages," said Zo?, gently pressing her fingers against the alien's ribs. “Three fractures. Not good. She — it — might have punctured a lung. Damned if I know, though. I’m for shit with alien anatomy.”

  “Well fuck,” said Misto. “That’s not good.”

  His heartbeat sped up. Why was he so suddenly concerned? Why, for all the world, did he not want this alien to die? Other than that it was the first actual alien he’d ever seen, what was it about . . . it — No, wait; what’s the proper singular-person pronoun? They; yes, they; or them, rather — that he found so compelling, that made him feel, deep down in his gut, that this creature — whoever and whatever it was — simply had to live, must live, could not be allowed to perish?

  For whatever reason, the creature’s plight had instilled a deep sense of urgency in him. He glanced around frantically at the various monitors and equipment surrounding the operating table, and at what appeared to be the main control panel attached to the side of the table. The console was adorned with a plethora of winking lights suffused beneath its frosted-glass surface — it operated by touch-screen, apparently, like a giant tablet computer — and among them were three rounded-corner triangles that stood out, each glowing a different color: Yellow, purple, and green. The green triangle had lit up as soon as they had laid Trixie on the table, and was now pulsing urgently, with little wavy lines snaking out beside it, as though urging the user — whoever that might be — to touch it. Misto hesitated. What if it killed the patient? What if it was a self-destruct button? What if, what if, what if. But only one way to find out.

  He touched the glowing green triangle. A loud clanking noise came from the table.

  “Misto?” said Zo? cautiously, looking up at him. “What did you do?”

  “Uh, I pushed a button,” he said. “Sorry.”

  A series of mechanical whines, clicks, and whirring noises issued from the table. Zo? and Gadget immediately backed off. From seemingly out of nowhere, a pair of curved glass panels eased up from out of the sides of the table — where the hell had those been kept? He saw no space to store them in — and snapped together over the alien’s body, turning the operating table into a kind of hemispherical cylinder. Within it, two robotic arms appeared from out of the edges of the table, popping up with a whooshing sound. They extended to their full length — about half a meter or so — and began to work on the patient, their nimble, precisely-articulated fingers outfitted with syringes, lasers, scalpels, and all manner of other surgical implements. First they injected several chemicals into the alien; then they began to “scan” — Misto had no better word for it — various areas of their body with what looked like photographic — or perhaps holographic? — beams of some kind. The alien’s ragged breathing became more regular. Their facial muscles relaxed somewhat. The bleeding , and then ceased. Then the cuts and bruises all over their body — amazingly — began to fade from view, retreating into their skin, as though time itself were being reversed as the robotic arms and their beams continued to scan up and down the length of the alien’s body. This went on for over twenty minutes, as Misto, Gadget — and especially Zo? — stood there, transfixed with wonder at the speed and miraculousness of the medical machinery’s healing capabilities, and the speedy recovery of their patient. Sailor and Belladonna stood right behind Zo? — apparently, Sailor had found something resembling bandages after all, but simply stood where she was, staring gobsmacked at what she saw before her as the last of the alien’s wounds and injuries disappeared, and her almost-cartoonishly-large eyes began to flutter open. She squinted in the harsh, bright lights of the medical bay, and lifted a furry, slender-fingered hand to shield her eyes from their glare, and looked around her.

  “Oh great, just terrific,” the alien groaned, in perfect English. “Not only did I lose the sword fight with the freaking Dark Knight . . . I got dragged back to my own sickbay by a bunch of Human nerds from a sci-fi con. If word of this gets back home, I’ll never live it down.”

  Misto recoiled as though struck. And damned if he wasn’t — thunderstruck, that was. The alien spoke English! The extraterrestrial, from another goddamned planet, actually spoke perfect American English! In the modern idiom, no less! And it knew slang terms like “nerd!” And it was familiar with Earth culture! And obviously, at least a little bit of pop culture, too! How the fuck was this even possible? How. The. Fuck?!

  “You speak . . . English,” said Zo?, voicing his amazement, herself sounding a little confused.

  “Yes,” said the alien. “Tell you what. You. Teen wolf. Would you wind disengaging the cooker shield for me, so I don’t have to listen to my voice echo like it’s part of a vocal track recorded in your nineteen-sixties? I feel like paste about to be squeezed onto a toothbrush in here. It’s the yellow button next to the green one that you — very thankfully — pressed in order to save my skin. I owe you for that, by the way. And would one of you fetch my clothes for me? I don’t fancy being naked in front of strangers any more than I have to be.”

  Misto blinked in surprise. Fucking Teen Wolf? Really? He walked back up to the operating table and pushed the glowing yellow triangle on the control console. The two curved, glass halves of the hemispherical cylinder over the operating table disconnected and retreated into the sides once again, freeing the alien. They sat up from where they lay, and swung their legs over the side of the table, their tale twitching and rising up as well.

  Okay. Back at the university, they had had a faculty meeting on gender-queer and nonbinary personal pronouns. What had they been? C’mon, think. One of them had been “ze.” That was the one that replaced “he” or “she.” He was pretty sure of that . . . but what was the one for “his” or “her,” the possessive pronouns, and what was the one for “him” and “her,” the object pronouns? He wracked his brain for a moment. Hmm. Ah! “Zir.” That was it. Zir replaced those. At least he was fairly certain it did. He could’ve been wrong. Oh well. That was what he was going to use, at least mentally, and when referring to zir — getting good at this already, he thought — from now on and with the others. He would inform them as soon as possible. It was funny, how some thing never left you, even in moments of high stress or crisis. Like the drive he had to teach; to educate; to pass on knowledge. That had been a passion that he and Coraline had shared together. That they had lived for together. When she had left this plane of existence, and him here all alone — and oh how it hurt to think of her not being here now, to witness all of this! — he had felt, for a time, that that urge, that drive, had left with her. But Dizzy had convinced him that he still had it in him. That he still had the spark, somewhere inside. It was funny how a brief moment like this one could remind him . . . and prove her correct. God, he hoped — almost came close to praying, had he not been an ardent nonbeliever in the supernatural — that she was alright. That Ravenkroft had not yet carried through on his vile plans. Whenever he saw that bastard next, he was meat for the beast, and fuck Viktor Arkenvalen. Sorry, not sorry.

  Gadget went to grab the alien’s clothes, which they had stashed on the nearby countertop. Belladonna handed them to him — he let Pumbaa carry her gloves, which from the way the creature puffed out his little chest, seemed to make him feel important — and he handed them off to the alien. As ze dressed, ze spoke.

  “I’m Trixie, by the way. Trixie Anjaladatanagra.”

  “You’re kidding,” said Belladonna Nightshade.

  “No,” said Trixie, “I’m not. Why would I joke about my name?”

  “Um,” said Gadget, “are we not going to address the elephant in the room?” Pumbaa rubbed his little chin and squinted suspiciously.

  “What elephant?” asked Trixie, surprised, and looking around frantically. “Where? There’s an elephant here?”

  “Er,” said Misto, “that you’re an extraterrestrial from another world and yet you speak perfect American English. Modern American English, at that. And that you seem to know all about Earth pop culture.”

  “Oh, that,” said Trixie. “Yeah. Back on my home planet — Planet Shyphtor; it’s very far from here — I took a course called ‘Human Languages: English: Formal, Informal, and You.’ It was designed to prep me for my mission here. It was fairly comprehensive. Not that I needed it. I’ve been studying — and keeping up with — Earth culture and pop culture for over a hundred cycles now. You might say it’s a hobby. That’s over a hundred years, in your language. Since about . . .” Ze lifted zir eyes toward the ceiling in thought. “Perhaps since your Earth-year of about 1920. The ‘roaring twenties.’”

  “Okay, wait, back up,” said Misto. “Studying . . . keeping up with . . . mission . . . ?”

  “Yeah,” said Zo?. “Back up several steps. First of all — what mission? Are you here to . . . invade us? Like the Zarct . . . whatever they are? Or the . . . what did you call them, Gadget . . . the Eidolon?” He and Pumbaa exchanged a curious glance.

  “Dear Alethiaeon! No!” cried Trixie, grimacing in disgust. “I’m here to save you from them! That was my mission! To investigate — and if necessary, put a stop to — any plans to invade Earth! I’m here to kill the thing inside that other ship.”

  “What other ship?” asked Misto.

  “The one you can’t see out there on that rooftop,” said Trixie.

  “I saw it,” said Gadget, raising his hand, as though asking permission to speak. “Earlier. With this.” He pointed to his Helm. “It gave me an out-of-body experience, and I saw it . . . I fought Ravenkroft . . . the Human that the Zarcturean has merged with. Saw what he plans to do. And I fought him, trying to get deeper inside his mind. I lost, though. The other . . . the other personality that lives inside his head saved me. Brought me back to reality, back to my body.” Pumbaa patted him on the head.

  “Explain yourself, Human,” said Trixie, taking a few steps toward him. Pumbaa tried to hide behind his head. “Please,” ze added. If what you say is true, there isn’t much time.”

  Gadget cleared his throat, and began to tell Trixie the story of his — and their — adventures so far. Zo? sprinkled in a few details at first, as did Misto himself — he couldn’t help it, it just flowed out of him; and damn if it didn’t feel good to unburden himself to someone — and before long, all three of them were talking rapidly, spilling out the tale of everything that had happened, explaining backstories and providing detailed portraits of who was who, what had gone on, why, and how. Sailor and Belladonna told their brief parts of the tale as well when it came to them and their roles in the story. Dizzy’s backstory came into play, as did Ravenkroft’s, as did all that Gadget had learned within his brief psionic link to Ravenkroft and his foray into astral projection. Trixie listened attentively, turning zir head and feline-like pricked ears in each of their directions whenever one of them spoke or interjected, nodding along and furrowing zir brow in concentration as they talked, and talked. They told of Dizzy’s abduction, and their urgent need to save her, and of Ravenkroft’s transformation. Then, Trixie spoke to them. Ze told them about her mission to the planet, why ze was there; what ze had come to do . . . and of zir failed attempt to access the Visitor’s ship. Finally, Misto concluded with:

  The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

  “. . . So I guess that’s when we found you, and brought you here. And that’s about it.”

  “I see,” said Trixie. Ze nodded. “Now, all of you. Please do me a favor. Hold perfectly still.” Ze reached up to zir head, and the helmet ze wore on it. Ze pressed a button on it, and closed zir eyes, zir fingers held to the side of zir face and appeared to concentrate for a moment.

  And then Misto felt something . . . odd. A twitch, in his mind. As though his mind were a card-catalogue at the library, and someone were rifling through it. Was ze . . . was ze . . . scanning him telepathically. He thought ze might be. He relaxed, closed his eyes, and opened himself up to it. Let zir all the way in. Trusted zir completely, and concentrated on the thought, You can trust me. Trust us. We’re the right people. We’re not going to hurt you, or trick you, or mislead or abuse you. Please, don’t be afraid of us. Or hurt us. Or turn us into space dust. We’re your friends.

  “Well,” said Trixie, breaking the spell. “That was fun. Sorry, I had to know if I could really trust you people. I dug a little deeper than I usually go, and for that, I apologize. Please, forgive me.”

  Misto opened his eyes. How long had he had them closed? He didn’t know. The others were opening their eyes and blinking confusedly, shaking their heads as though to clear them, as well.

  “You telepathically scanned us?” said Gadget. Pumbaa looked indignant and put his tiny hands on his hips and glared at Trixie.

  “I had to,” said Trixie. “And I couldn’t exactly warn you, or you might’ve been prepared to block me somehow.”

  “Ah,” said Zo?. “Well, hopefully you know you can trust us, now.”

  “Yes, I do. And you’ve told me your story, so it’s time you knew mine.” She paused. “I warn you, I am about to upset some commonly held beliefs of your people.”

  “Well it’s not as if that hasn’t happened already,” said Zo?, rolling her eyes. “In two days I’ve gone from believing there were no such things as Vampires to knowing there are, and that we were all alone in the universe to knowing for a fact there’s not one, but three other alien races out there. So go for it.”

  “You’re not going to tell us anything we don’t already suspect, probably,” said Misto.

  “I want to hear,” said Sailor, piping up for the first time in a while. She took a few cautious steps toward Trixie, and reached out toward her carefully. Tears were brimming in her eyes. “This is just such . . . such a moment, you know? I mean . . . wow. I mean, I’ve always dreamed of meeting . . . I mean . . . wow. You’re real. I mean, really real. An alien. A real, live, walking and talking alien. And I’m here with you. On your ship. And it’s all real. I just can’t believe this. I mean, I woke up this morning, ordinary. Nothing special. Nothing out of the . . . out of the same old, same old. I thought I would go to con, have a good time, maybe find some guy who was desperate enough to sleep with me . . . but then I found you guys, and now it’s like an adventure, and I’m here, meeting an alien . . .” She grinned a wide grin through her tears, and sniffed. “I mean . . . can I just touch you? To make sure I’m not dreaming this?”

  “Sure,” said Trixie, and ze smiled too. “You can touch me.”

  Sailor smiled and touched zir furry hand. “Wow. Belladonna, can you believe it?”

  Belladonna grinned too. “Yeah. Yeah I can. All my life I’ve believed. Ever since I watched The X-Files, something in me told me we weren’t alone. That we’d meet somebody someday. And you know what? I always knew it’d be us — the geeks — who would meet them. Not the government, not the big companies, or the military . . . I knew they would come to us. Because we believed. Because we knew. We knew, in our hearts, that they were out there, and because we would understand that when they got here, they weren’t here to sell us weapons, or to trade with us in secrets. They were here to trade in dreams. And we — us geeks — we dream like nobody else dreams.” A tear leaked down her cheek.

  “Actually,” said Trixie, turning to Misto, “she’s mostly right. We’ve never made contact with your world directly. Your militaries are too hostile, your governments too chaotic and changeable and disparate. We’ve studied you from a distance, though. Intricately. And we’ve gone among you in secret. Disguised as you. We’re shapeshifters. Or we were, once upon a time. Now our changeability is limited. But we can shift into multiple humanoid forms. We choose the alluro sapiens form for its utility, most of the time. But, yes. Were we to make ‘formal’ First Contact with Earth, as a species . . . I have a strong feeling it would be with the Dreamers among you. Not the powerful, not the elite. But with people like you, Belladonna. Sailor. Gadget. Misto. Zo?. People like you. And not just because you have a tendency to dream big. But because you have known cruelty . . . and that has a tendency to make people kind. And since you’ve told me your story, let me now tell you mine.”

  Ze began to speak. Misto listened, but distractedly: Damn if ze wasn’t still beautiful. The healing of zir scars and bruises had only made zir more attractive. There was something about zir gender-fluidity that lent zir an allure, a kind of glow or beatific angelic quality, that drew him to her. He didn’t quite understand it, but for whatever reason, he liked it, and wanted more of it. But then again . . . No. Coraline. He had to honor Coraline. Her memory reared its pretty but dreadful head inside him, shaming him for studying the curve of Trixie’s hips, chastising him for lingering on the sweet memory of that haunting, mesmerizing lightshow between zir legs. He sucked in a breath, and once again, punished himself for even thinking about someone else. How could he betray the love of his life like that? No. No, it was best not to look. Not to entertain notions like that. Besides! Ze was an alien! A creature from another world! What business did he have, even thinking —

  “The story I have to tell you,” ze said, “begins not on Planet Shyphtor, but many millennia before that, on a planet called Aeos, so named for the race that dwelled there, the Aeon. They’re gone now. Well, not so much gone . . . just transformed. They evolved. The Aeon were a powerful race. Some say they were the most powerful race in the cosmos. They were basically gods. I’m sorry to say this to you — and no offense if any of you are Christians, or Muslims, or Jews; you’re not, are you? Oh, Sailor; I see from the look on your face that you are — but your monotheistic Earth religions have got it all wrong. I’m sorry . . . but my race is about ten thousand years ahead of yours, technologically and in almost every other way — again, no offense — and we’ve never seen any evidence of the ‘higher powers’ those religions speak of in the cosmos. None. There are no miracles that can’t somehow be explained another way. And we’ve explored much farther — and further — than you have. Not a trace of divine will or presence anywhere. And no evidence for an afterlife. And, your primitive theories of evolution and the Big Bang . . . are mostly correct, if only somewhat incomplete. So there’s that.

  “But, back to the story: If ever there was anyone in the cosmos worthy of being called ‘gods,’ then the Aeon would’ve fit the bill. From their homeworld of Aeos, they commanded the stars. They could travel through time; they could engineer star systems; they could travel to parallel realities; they could rearrange matter; they could alter perception, dreams, and thought; and they could toy with the building blocks of life itself, shaping the destinies of — and even creating — species on a hundred different worlds. They were masters of space, time, energy, and matter . . . Life, and death, and if there is such a thing, spirit too.

  “But at a certain point, they grew divided in their ambitions. Half of them wished to use their powers to the benefit of the other races in the cosmos . . . to bring them enlightenment and peace, and to help them ascend to the same level of power, technological prowess, and cultural sophistication as they had risen. The other half of them wanted to horde their power all to themselves, to be worshipped as gods, as was their ‘rightful’ place; to rule the cosmos in its entirety, and to bring all other races to heel; in other words, they wanted to conquer the universe. To rule. And so these two halves of their civilization . . . went to war. And this war, it went on for centuries . . . a millennia . . . The second half of them forgot, for a time, their ambition to rule the cosmos, and became bent on the destruction of the universe’s would-be benefactors . . . who also forgot, for a time, their ambition of helping the other races of the cosmos, and became bent on destroying their foe, as well. Their war practically tore the entire reality continuum apart; stars exploded; solar systems collapsed; time paradoxes abounded; pocket universes imploded. The Benefactors — who called themselves the Alethiaeon — raised armies of Dream-Creatures, which they called Dreamshards, from the collective psyches of other species, and set them against armies of unspeakable Nightmares, called Tyravatars, similarly psychically harvested by the Conquerors — who called themselves the Eidolon. But toward the end of it all, the Alethiaeon were losing, and losing badly. The ferocity of the Eidolon was immense, their hunger for power indomitable. So the Alethiaeon invented a way of retreating forever, of going where the Eidolon could never follow them. They would Transcend the Mortal realm of flesh; they would evolve beyond mortality . . . beyond matter itself, embedded into the very fabric of reality. So, they invented a device that they called the Transcendence Engine: A machine capable of transforming their material forms and consciousnesses into living energy patterns and then encoding them into the tenth-dimensional bulk.”

  “Bulk?” said Belladonnam blinking. “What’s a ‘bulk?’’”

  Gadget started to speak, but Misto cut him off. “We haven’t been properly introduced,” he said. “My name’s Misto. Well, Dr. Joseph Michaelson. But I prefer Misto. I’m a physicist. And the word ‘bulk’ is here being used as a physics term. The ‘bulk’ is the higher-dimensional space beyond the surface of a hyperspatial dimensional ‘brane.’ If a higher-dimensional space exists on a dimensional ‘membrane’ — think of it as a sheet of paper that has, in this case, seven dimensions — then the eighth dimension would be the space extending above it.”

  “Ow,” said Belladonna. She frowned and rubbed her temples. “Thanks. That hurt, Misto.”

  “My pleasure,” he said, and grinned and wolfish grin.

  “I’m still mad you dinged Christianity,” said Sailor, crossing her arms. “How do you know God doesn’t exist? Just because your people haven’t found Him out there somewhere, doesn’t mean that you ‘know’ for sure that He doesn’t exist. Just because you haven’t seen a miracle, doesn’t mean there’s no such a thing.”

  “True,” said Trixie, “very true. I’ll acquiesce to that. But it does make it less likely, doesn’t it?”

  Sailor said nothing, just continued to stare at Trixie cooly.

  “Go on Trixie,” said Zo?, who rolled her eyes and shook her head slightly. “Finish the story.”

  “Anyway,” said Trixie, “once a substantial portion of their people had Transcended, the Alethiaeon were, in short order, wiped out in the remainder of the War. And the Transcendence Engine was thought lost — and on purpose, too, so that the Eidolon could never find it. But they did. And a small contingent of their people used it, to Transcend. But they got the process wrong. The resulting procedure left them in a half-Transcended state . . . half matter, half spirit . . . in a transdimensional prison, as it were . . . They can manifest here on this ‘plane’ only as visions, or shadows of their former selves. They can see the future — or probable versions of it — but can do nothing on their own to affect it. One of their kind — or a shadow of it — did manage to blast through the transdimensional barrier on its own, a hundred and eighteen of your years ago, right here on this planet. I’m sure it’s the one who your friend Ravenkroft was in communion with, that gave him the idea to bring more of them into your universe. We ??don’t know how, but that thing has been here ever since, wounded and asleep. Its name is Orogrü-Nathr?k. Have any of you ever heard of it?”

  Misto shook his head, along with the others. What kind of name was that? Well, probably the kind of name an other-dimensional alien has, dumbass, he told himself. This is all virgin territory, remember. He couldn’t get over how erudite and articulate this creature was. How well ze spoke English, and how Human zir mannerisms and gestures were. It was enough to make you forget ze wasn’t Human at all. Then again, there were the feline features, zir height and build, the tail, the eyes, and the fact that oh yeah, they were standing in zir spaceship. Just those little details. But still. Ze was captivating. And the story ze told was fascinating. There was a whole history to the cosmos here, one he had never dared dream existed; one he had never dared hope existed. Belladonna and Sailor might has well have spoken what was in his heart earlier; truer words hadn’t ever been uttered.

  “You mean that these . . . Eidolon . . .” said Gadget, “have been here? To Earth?” Pumbaa let out a small sound that sounds like “uh oh.”

  “Yes,” said Trixie. “They have.”

  “And we’ve never known about it?” he said, his eyebrows going up.

  “Well, apparently not,” said Trixie. “But your friend Ravenkroft knows. And he’s getting ready to open a portal that will bring more of them through. And, from what you’ve told me, he plans to do more than that. He plans on fusing one of them with a Human body and soul, if there is such a thing. That could be extraordinarily dangerous.”

  “Well then let’s get back to what we were doing when we found you,” said Misto. “And get on with your mission, Trixie. Let’s go get the bastard and get Dizzy back.”

  “Wait,” said Gadget, holding up his hand. “This is as good a time to mention this as any . . .”

  “What?” said Misto. His patience had run thin. The boy was cool — Misto felt a kinship with him, in fact — and they needed him if they were ever going to get Dizzy back. Gadget was key to that effort. But for God’s sakes, could they just get on with it already? Dizzy’s life was in danger. And they were just standing here, wasting time! Yes, meeting an actual extraterrestrial alien had probably been worth the diversion . . . but for God’s sakes, his adopted niece was probably being possessed by one of the Eidolon right now, and what were they doing? Standing around talking. They needed to act. Now.

  “My Helm,” said Gadget, “has stopped working. I have to repair it. Or else we can’t rescue Dizzy.” Pumbaa pouted and shrugged innocently.

  “Oh for fuck’s sake!” roared Misto. He saw red. The wolf took over. He felt himself let loose a snarl and a growl, and before he could help himself, he was swiping his fist through the air and bashing in the control console next to the operating table. Sparks and electrical arcs flew and smoke rose from the smashed console. Pumbaa again tried to hide behind Gadget’s hair, trembling in fear. Belladonna froze, as did Sailor, the looks on their faces making plain their surprise and their sudden apprehension . . . and their sudden realization that yes, he was an animal.

  Trixie didn’t flinch or move. Ze simply regarded him, and the operating table, and the console. His heart banged against his ribcage and thundered in his ears. His breaths came fast and shallow. He growled low in his throat. The wolf, the wolf, the wolf, incessant in its bestial call within him, hungered to be free. He had to close his eyes and fight it — fight it, goddamn it; fight! — in order to get it to back the fuck down. Always such a struggle. Always.

  “Y’know,” said Trixie, the sound of zir voice a smooth, soothing balm, “I’m gonna have to fix that, now, Misto. Get a grip, dude. Listen. First, this Ravenkroft-Zarcturean Hybrid has to build a machine capable of harnessing and channeling the Transcendence Engine’s power. Then he has to hook it up to his ship’s engines, and figure out a way of channeling the forces it creates into a biological transmutation device — which he also has to construct — and then he has to somehow open your friend’s mind — all the way up, too; maybe using drugs he has to synthesize? — to the power of the Eidolon. And then he has to open the gateway to the other dimension. To do all this, he needs to cannibalize his ship. Which means he isn’t going anywhere. And on top of all that, even once he gets all that done . . . the process of transformation will be slow. And the early stages are probably — I say, probably — reversible. All of this takes time. Time enough to fix your friend’s psionic amplification device. So just calm. The fuck. Down, and have some nachos or something. Okay?”

  Misto had been breathing deeply — or trying to — throughout her monologue. It had worked. His heartbeat had slowed; his breathing had returned to normal. The combination of zir voice, almost hypnotic in its rhythms and cadences, and the breathing, had calmed him and eased him back down to the realm of Humanity once again. He reopened his eyes.

  “Thank you,” he breathed. “I needed that.” He turned to Gadget, who had backed off a few paces and had gone pale, the trepidation clearly drawn on his face . . . just as it was on everyone else’s. “I’m . . . I’m sorry,” he said. “Lost my temper.” He sighed. “We’ll fix your Helm, Gadget. We don’t stand much of a chance without it, do we? Then we’ll rescue Dizzy.”

  Pumbaa peeked out from underneath Gadget’s jacked, which he had taken up the shape of a lump underneath the shoulder of.

  “Uh, okay big man, whatever you say . . . okay?” said Gadget, swallowing what had to be a lump of fear. “The . . . the only problem is that we don’t have what we need exactly right here. I need solid-state components. Like from a television, and probably a computer. And vacuum cleaner parts. And probably a couple of radios. And I need tools to work with.”

  “There’s a complete toolkit in the steamer trunk,” said Misto, “right beneath where we stored the weapons. As for the other stuff . . . Hmm . . .”

  “Hotel rooms,” said Zo?, nodding. “We can raid the janitor’s closet for a vacuum cleaner, cannibalize Mystikite's laptop — hey, he left it here, so it’s fair game — and the television in Dizzy’s suite. And then the radios . . . well, there’re cars in the parking garage across the street. We can bust into one or two of ‘em and steal the radios.”

  “And,” said Trixie, “while we’re at it, we’ll make some improvements.”

  “Improvements?” said Gadget. He seemed guarded now. “What kinds of ‘improvements?’” Pumbaa scratched his little head and cocked it curiously.

  Trixie smiled, showing her cat-like incisors. “You’ll see. I’ve got an idea. A terrible — but thrilling — idea. Y’see, I’m a scientist and engineer myself. I come from a background of theoretical science. On my homeworld, I was originally a teacher.”

  “Really?” said Misto, stepping toward her. “So am I.”

  “Hmm,” said Trixie, turning to him and offering him a . . . Flirty? Was that a flirty smile? “Anyway, yes, a teacher. Of theoretical science. And I have an idea of how we can improve your Helm and turn it into a weapon, Gadget. A weapon of unparalleled destructive — and perhaps, who knows, creative? — power. How does that sound to you?” Ze smiled sweetly.

  “Uh, sounds good, I guess,” said Gadget. “But can you put it back to . . . back to normal when we’re done?”

  “Well, sure,” ze said with a shrug. “I guess so.” Ze stepped closer to him. “But here’s the thing, Gadget . . . What we’re going to attempt to do . . . is create a breakthrough. One that will — albeit briefly — give you power the likes of which you’ve never even dreamed of. If we’re successful. It’s a breakthrough that doesn’t even exist on my world, yet. A power that has, until now, existed only in esoteric scientific theories. My theories, to be precise. If I can do for you what I’m thinking I can do, it will be a momentous occasion for me. I will have proved my theories correct. And all while on my first mission to Earth. But I want to warn you. The power — the weapon — I’m considering trusting you with — albeit, like I said, only briefly — is dangerous. Highly dangerous. If misused, it could spell disaster for the entire world. For all worlds, everywhere. Everything and everyone you love and hold dear. And all of us, too. Do you understand? This weapon, if misused, could destroy us all.”

  “Uh,” said Gadget, and he gulped again, although for entirely different reasons this time. “Yeah. I . . . I think I do.” Pumbaa looked apprehensive.

  You’ll fuck it up, whispered the Beast. Like everything else you do, you’ll fuck it up! Fuck it up! Fuck it up! Fuck it up! Because that’s all you are, is a fuck up! You’re nothing! You WILL screw this up, so badly, and the WORLD will pay for it in blood! You are a LOSER and the WHOLE WORLD will pay for it this time! DO YOU HEAR ME? IN BLOOD!

  “Good,” said Trixie. “Very well. Now. Let’s head to your hotel room.”