Sal and G9 sat, legs swinging above an empty space. The area was enveloped with persistent darkness, so dark that Sal couldn’t see his hands in front of him. Only the pinpricks of blue light in the distance gave any indication that Sal was not in an infinite expanse of nothingness.

  “So, what do you think?” G9 said.

  Sal wanted to say he had never felt anything like this, the pure blindness, the feeling of being able to stretch an arm out and never know if a surface would block him, or if he would gasp nothing but empty air.

  “It feels… a bit like I’m trapped. Suffocated. But not by a tight space or bindings. Like… by the fact there’s nothing there at all.”

  G9 must have noticed his tense breathing and reached over and tapped him on the shoulder. “I’m still here. You’re fine.”

  Sal defensively scoffed, rolling his shoulder, forcing his breathing under control and banishing some nagging memories. “Pfft, yeah, I know that. It’s just… never mind. I got to admit, it’s pretty.” Wiggling his legs some more above the void, he still felt the lighter than normal gravity pulling on him, but the direction was off. “Still have no idea how physics apparently choses to ignore this room.”

  G9 had led Sal from the anarchy of the restaurant into the bowels of Fifth Spoke. They had passed through the relatively human-styled hallways, warm light bleeding around them, and beyond the workshops where Onusian worked tirelessly. Eventually, they came to this cylindrical chamber in the centre of the ship, perhaps a couple hundred meters long and half as wide. Much like the bizarre interiors of the ship when Sal first crash landed, the walls were lumpy to the touch, and movement could be felt from below the surface.

  The strangest part of the room was that, unlike the rest of Fifth Spoke which was organized into horizontal decks, each with an inlaid membrane for inducing gravity not dissimilar to a baryplate, this room was rounded. That was to say, that the gravity didn’t focus ‘downwards’ but inwards, towards the centre of the empty cylinder. G9 had explained that it was not an artificial gravity field pulling them in, but that the small dots of light were pushing them away. The idea of an artificial anti-gravity field would certainly give some scientists back home either an orgasm or a stroke, depending on how reality breaking the mechanics were.

  Said spots were a form of microbe that became visible in colonies as splotches of cyan and azure, found naturally on the Cambiar homeworld of Prime Nexus. The theming of the room was meant to represent some of the subterranean habitats the Cambiar’s ancestors used to shield themselves from the extreme high and low temperatures of their home planet. Unlike many other areas on the ship, it had been designed for relaxation and was a common feature for many ships before the Out-Han even developed from the split Cambiar empire. A cultural ‘hive point’ of sorts, something that Sal had seen few of across Fifth Spoke.

  Thankfully, the Cambiar had placed webbing below in the void, as apparently even the rare Cambiar had accidently fallen in sometime prior to the arrival of humanity. It seems that even aliens were at risk of slipping, a though that helped Sal’s increasing concern over the sheer potential of the extraterrestrial race. However, such safety features were not visible from Sal’s position, and his palms were still slick with sweat at the thought of toppling down to his doom.

  “Hey, you humans are ones to talk about breaking physics. Your fancy S-Engines are crazy. Half of my juvenile-kin want to know how they work.”

  “Juvenile-kin?” Sal cocked an eyebrow. “What does that mean?”

  “Oh, those are other Cambiar who came from the same originator. I suppose, in human terms, that would make them my siblings?”

  Sal hadn’t seen many signs of the idea of ‘family’ amongst the aliens so far. Some of the Cambiar interacted more closely with others, and over his relatively short stay he had seen more and more grow friendlier with both their own species and humans. Perhaps a little too close in the case of Cesare or Stannock. Fighting a shudder at remembering the egomaniac’s freakish relationship with a body double, Sal thought more G9’s question. Sal hardly felt that he was the expert on family but strove to help out his friend.

  “I mean… that’s a difficult question. In a way, I think it’s more than blood, or whatever pumps through you guys. How close are you with them?”

  “I see them working around the ship relatively often. We made up a decent proportion of Outer Rim Four before I transferred here. I hoped I would get a better chance of being part of a first contact mission if I crewed a larger ship.

  “Huh, smart move.” Sal pondered a moment. “Wait a minute, a ‘decent proportion’? How many siblings do you have?”

  G9 sat for a moment, thinking. “Last I checked across the Out-Han statistics database, I was one of 43,826 semi-clones of my gene parent, Operating Unit G9.”

  “Whoa, what the hell? That’s a big family! Over forty thousand! That must make your parent pretty old. Say, G9, how old do Cambiar live for, anyways?”

  “Sal, haven’t you been doing your reading?” G9 leaned close and did their best to scowl at Sal without any eyebrows. “We Cambiar don’t really age after we progress past our larval stage. I mean, we could, but we usually just automatically repair any damage to our genetic code. Hence the, well, couple thousand siblings.”

  “You can say that again. Must make Christmas an absolute hell!”

  “You should see last year’s Secret Santa! Four pairs of feet – you won’t believe how many socks there were!” G9 giggled alongside Sal as they pictured the idea. Trailing off, G9 looked down. “Sal, I’m sure this is a touchy topic but… when do you think you will die?”

  The question caught Sal off-guard. A hundred images from his past filled his mind where he considered the same question and was usually days away from such an outcome. Tartarus Nine had sunk its teeth in deep. He uncontrollably flinched and turned away slightly.

  G9 startled, trying to make amends, “W-wait Sal, sorry. Don’t worry about it… it’s not important. If you don’t-“

  “No, it’s fine. Just caught me off-guard.” Sal forced a smile to his face. “I suppose you guys are less familiar with the idea, living forever and all that. For me, knowing my luck, it will probably be as part of one of Abel or Xin’s shenanigans. That, or Doc Michaels loses it after I call his knick-knacks ugly for the last time.”

  G9 tried to take the joke lightly, but their posture still hung low. “Is there nothing we can do, the Cambiar that is, to make you live longer? Not including knick-knack related homicide – do you need to die of old age? From what I’ve read, average human expectancy is only around one hundred of your Earth years, at best.”

  Sal rubbed his chin. There was actually a solution, but it wasn’t particularly viable for most of the galaxy. “There’s one way out, but don’t get your hopes up. There’s a drug called Evergreen. It rewinds the aging of the user very slightly. Use it enough over a long period of time and you can actually get a bit younger. Problem is that it costs more than I would make in my entire life. Only the very top dogs in the CCH can get it. Hell, I’m pretty sure only the Jade Emperor can use it in the Doctrine since he’s so important and all. That would explain how he’s still alive.”

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  “I mean, could how else could he still lead his nation?” G9 seemed serious, tilting their head in wonder.

  “Well, I’ve always thought he might be a literal puppet and they’ve just done a really good job at parading his corpse in his room all day long. That, or maybe his sons are just running the show.”

  Thinking about the idea of descendants, Sal circled back to G9’s heritage.

  “Wait… you said your parent’s name was G9? I’ve been calling you your mom… or parent’s name, I guess, this whole time? Jeez, that’s awkward.”

  “No, Sal, it’s fine!” G9 snickered a bit. “To me, the number or designation doesn’t really matter, it’s the value it holds that’s important. That being said…” G9 trailed off.

  “What?”

  “It’s just that… well… this is a bit of a weird topic, but I think I need to talk about it.”

  “Ok?” Sal listened carefully.

  “I was wondering how much of it you had seen around, but there’s no way you could have ignored it at the dinner earlier. Sal, how much do you know about Cambiar history and, well, our… self-ness?”

  “Um, not really a lot?” Sal was cautious, trying to predict which way this conversation was going. “I was told that it’s been about a century, human time, since the Out-Han split from a larger, untied Cambiar empire, and since then you’ve been looking for signs of other sentient life. Oh, and there’s the Ten-Tri. Michaels pointed them out during our little spacewalk. Seems they’ve got a different thing going on, but I’m not certain.”

  “Ok, well, there’s a bit more too it, and it’s to do with why the Cambiar empire fell. This is… a bit awkward to say so openly but here goes. Cambiar, as you know them, weren’t always like this – how we are right now. Actually doing things, talking to each other. I get that we were pretty stiff when you first arrived, and we’ve changed quickly to match you, but… Sal, before the split between the factions of Cambiar… we weren’t truly sentient.”

  “Wait, what?”

  “We didn’t think. Not really. We followed instinctual genetic orders, did what was needed for the species as a whole, and didn’t think for a second. We made it to space on sheer instinct and luck. I’ve spoken to some from before that time, before The Great Awakening. They said it was like the worst nightmare you could imagine. Not because you want to wake up, but because you’ve never even been awake. When it happened, when the species as a whole woke up all across the galaxy at once, it was chaos. More than half the species perished just from perceiving and understanding reality after years of simply existing in it.”

  “Jesus, G9.” Sal felt a bit awkward using that name now, rubbing the back of his neck. “That’s terrible. I can’t even imagine it. I guess that afterwards each faction went after some different sort of meaning?”

  “Yes, that’s right. Some focused on specific ideas, like some form of spiritual enlightenment. They hoped that a greater will would give a direction to their lives, give them the answers to all of their issues, though they are probably the most extreme of the schism. That one is called Yuristia, which I believe would translate to something like ‘The Palm or Hand of God or Greater Mind’. The Out-Han is a bit looser. The main focus is trying to find life other than the Cambiar to connect with, but other individualistic aims are supported.”

  “Well, I believe everyone should try to have something personal they want to achieve, but that doesn’t mean they can’t aid some larger cause at the same time. Unless they conflict, I suppose.”

  “I like that idea. However, as you probably saw during your unexpected arrival, we Cambiar did not have great progress with developing our ideas and values as humanity naturally did. Though we have retained our sense of self unlike many groups during The Great Awakening, we still relied far too much on duty and mindless resource collection and expansion. For many, it was all they knew. The idea of ‘art’ or ‘entertainment’ was as unthinkable to us as a new colour or the taste of a sound to you; it simply did not compute in many of our minds. And then… you arrived. So new, so vibrant. So different. So very… un-Cambiar.”

  Sal felt the urge to shuffle a little further away from the ledge. He hoped that this wasn’t some long awaited speech before a heel-turn. Didn’t antagonists in proto-wave action films often explain their actions before they attacked the hero?

  “Sal… I think you are the best thing that could have ever happened to us, to me.” Oh phew. “To you, our adjustment, our adaption may seem beyond rapid. It seems like we are simply copying or stealing our view of reality from your kind, but please remember that we have never seen such concepts before. Our only exposure has been through your usage of them, and your interaction of them with us.”

  “Well, that seems fine by me. I am a bit worried that human culture is spreading like a virus around here though, for better or worse. I mean, maybe it would have been better if humanity had left the Cambiar until you guys developed your own values?”

  “No!” G9 faced Sal directly, rear head tendrils waving rapidly. “Sorry, what I mean is… I don’t know if the Cambiar would ever have developed such ideas alone, ever. And, well, personally I am very happy to see your… human-ness wearing off on us. Sal… I’ve got a question for you.”

  “Um… shoot.” Sal had turned to face G9, moving from the ledge and crossing his legs.

  “Sal, how do you feel about the Cambiar who have… taken up human characteristics. Like Fae, or ‘Big S’.” G9 tried laughing lightly at the last part, but their nerves were obvious. Sal took a moment to recall ‘Fae’, and how quickly she had taken on human features. Were all the Cambiar thinking about this stuff, but not acting on it yet?

  “Well, Fae seemed happy. As for Stannock’s new, uh, ‘friend’, I think it could work. As long as the grey bastard can keep his ego in check, if that’s possible. Why?”

  “I was thinking… of taking some up myself.”

  Sal had to fight the instinct to look down at G9’s chest to check before his more dignified part of himself slapped that instinct down like a bad pet. “Oh, cool. What are you… thinking?”

  Carefully, with long, delicate fingers G9 removed the translation box from their neck and pulled the attached wires from the slits on the rear of their head. With a flick of a wrist, the box sailed down into the void below. Taking a deep inhale, a soft, whispery but unmistakable feminine voice slipped out.

  “Sal, what do you think about the name Xeena?” she hissed, voice distinctly female and gentle. The harshness from her musical performance not long before had softened into a light huskiness, smooth and rich. It was high-end whiskey on the surface of Sal’s eardrums.

  Salvador was stunned for a second. “Um,” He eloquently said.

  “Does it fit? Do you like it? Do you think I seem… womanly?” Xeena scuttled slightly closer. From this near, Sal could see the faint outlines of hips along her sides below the dress, and the slight bulge of orbs in the middle of her chest. Of course, the dress had been a give away from the start, but Sal had been rejecting the idea that the alien he had grown closer to, the alien he enjoyed spending time with was really a woman. If G9, no, Xeena, had just been a funny alien playing pretend at being human, he could push down any bias, any unexpected feelings away. But now? That layer of defence had been stripped away in mere seconds. Part of him felt rather afraid at that weakness.

  “What do you think, Salvador?”

  “Well, it’s better than calling you by your mom’s name, that’s for sure.”

  “Sal!”

  “What can I say? Nah, Xeena’s cute. I like it. No matter what, you can’t go much worse than copying someone and adding ‘Big’ to the start of it.” Gods, two Stannocks. The universe could barely handle one. The horror hadn’t set in for Sal quite yet.

  Xeena giggled. “Thank you, Sal. It makes me feel… I’m glad to hear you like it.”

  “You don’t need me to like it. You just need yourself to like it.”

  “True, but getting to hear you say my name isn’t bad either, right?” She shuffled back from the ledge, but gave him a smile, a smile that every day was getting more and more accurate.

  “I guess not. So… Xeena… you mentioned you had a lot of siblings?”

  “Hmm? Yeah, why? Are you going to corrupt them with horror movies as well?”

  “I’ll have you know I would do no such thing! I am a man of integrity!” Sal chuckled. “But no, I was wondering – you said you know a fair amount of them, right? Well, have you met your parent? Like, sat down and talked to the original G9?”

  Xeena sighed. “I did. Once. The original G9 was born before the Great Awakening. They joined up with a faction that helps maintain the old systems and structures from before, like the ships and orbital stations. However, they occasionally go around to the other factions to help them, hence the couple thousand siblings I now have. Or brothers and sisters now, maybe. I hope a lot of them decide to take up some human… parts. Anyways, I found them a few years ago. I wanted to ask them, to see what they thought of the Out-Han, and how far we’d explored. Do you know what they said? They said ‘Why are you talking to me? You are wasting time and resources.’”

  Shit. That must hurt. However, some part of Sal weighed heavily with guilt. Sal’s true first thought after hearing her story was that he wished he had been in Xeena’s position of parental apathy, instead of his own reality of poor maternal relations. Still, he felt inclined to help. Reaching over, he patted her on the shoulder.

  “Well, Xeena, you know what I think? I think it’s better to either forget that bitch or show her that you don’t need her. Hell, the Torchers would be more than happy to call you family.” With some slight hesitation, Sal gave leeway to his feelings. “I would as well.”

  Xeena looked back up at Sal. She wasn’t crying, but her thin line of a mouth was creased in discomfort at the memories. They stayed a while, calmly taking in dark room, lights pinpricked all around the wall. Soon, it would be time for the crew of H&H to make a move towards Starheart. Until that time, however, Sal would make the most of the time he had.