Is That A Monster in the Closet, Charlie Boone? - 2. Chapter 2

"What do you think it's doing?" Adrian asked, watching the closet apprehensively. They were seated four-abreast on the edge of the bed now, shoulder to shoulder, facing the closet. Not a peep had issued from behind the closed door, beyond the soft humming sound. They could see brief glows of light beneath the door now and then, reflected on the hardwood flooring, but no other indication that anything was going on within.

"No clue," Charlie admitted.

"It has the ring, and the ring fit," Kippy reminded. "So I'm going to assume for the moment that the ring belongs to this guy, or to someone like him."

"If it is a him," Ricky said. "We don't even know that much yet."

All four of them nodded, and continued to watch the closet door.

It had been two hours since the calls had been placed. Ricky and Adrian had set a record getting to Kippy's house, bursting inside and pounding up the staircase in unison, already informed that Kippy's parents were out and that it was safe to do so. The two boys had suddenly slowed just at the threshold of Kippy's bedroom door and peered apprehensively inwards, and been obviously relieved at finding Charlie and Kippy sitting together on the bed. They had then joined them, tiptoeing across the floor to seat themselves beside their friends.

Ricky was wearing his vibratory blade, acquired at the pirate market on Engris. He just grinned when Charlie eyed it, and patted the haft of the weapon fondly. "We didn't know what we might be getting into, you know?"

"I just hope Pacha will be able to figure this out," Charlie stated, his thoughts mostly elsewhere. "I certainly hope weapons will not be needed."

Waiting for the others to arrive was getting a little agonizing by now.

Pacha and Mike - and Bobby and Kontus, too - were just back from exploring the Tower of Arimides on Plastark, a dead world circling an ancient sun in the Crab Nebula, and had been staying at Engris while they sorted through their loot. Or, rather, their archaeological discoveries. Pacha's abilities had allowed them to discover several items that had eluded even the advanced scanners employed by the treasure-seekers of many an alien race over millennia of time, and they had been trying to figure out what to do with them when Charlie's call had come in.

The voyage to Earth would be virtually instantaneous to Charlie and the others, accomplished as it was within the timelessness of the Cooee. But Pacha did say they'd need a little time to get in-system and to Earth once they dropped back into normal space. Arriving in a star system was a more cautious endeavor than leaving one. The practice was to arrive well above or below the plane of the ecliptic, and then to head to the destination planet under normal propulsion, which was done in real-time. The technology used to enter and exit the Cooee was somewhat sensitive to gravitational wells, and adapted much easier to leaving the vicinity of one, than it did to arriving into one. If you were in a hurry, you could press your luck a little and arrive close to the destination world, and more than likely you'd be just fine. The odds were in your favor, really.

But there were more than a few tales of mishaps with vessels arriving too close to gravity wells, and Pacha would not see the boy's situation as an emergency because Charlie had not presented it as one. So the little alien would adhere to normal protocols, and arrive with some minor real-time travel left to complete. Much better to be safe than sorry.

Charlie had figured a couple of hours, and that time had now passed. Kippy's parents had returned home, and his mom had called up to him to ask him if he wanted some lunch. Kippy had responded that 'the gang' was there, and that they planned to go out and eat later. Kippy's parents had come to accept the slightly odd group activities of their son and his friends, and left them alone after that.

Adrian turned to Kippy. "You say it looks like a big, fat alligator?"

"A green one?" Ricky added.

"Uh huh. When I first opened the closet door, I nearly lost it."

Ricky seemed unable not to smile. "I can imagine. And you thought Charlie had something to do with it?"

Kippy sighed, and turned a cool eye on the other boy. "I thought it was a joke at first. I thought maybe Charlie had gotten Frit and Pip to whip up a monster in my closet as a Halloween prank. It's just the sort of thing that Frit and Pip would love."

"But not Charlie," Adrian countered, shaking his head. "That's not his style, Kip. He loves you too much to scare you like that."

Kippy looked distressed, and nodded. "I know. I'm sorry, Charlie."

Charlie tightened his grip on Kippy's shoulder and turned his head and kissed him. "Stop worrying about it. It's not important, okay?"

Kippy smiled, and leaned his head on Charlie's shoulder. "Love you."

"Me, too, Kip." Charlie grinned then. "Besides, if I had thought up a gag like this, I'd have made it a sexy elf guy wearing a speedo, instead of a monster. It would have been a lot more fun seeing your reaction to finding him in your closet!"

Kippy gave Charlie a gentle smack on the arm, but there wasn't a drop of anger in it. "I'm sure if I'd found him in my closet, I wouldn't have wasted time calling you to ask about it!"

Ricky and Adrian both laughed, and Charlie grinned and rolled his eyes.

Just then they felt a movement of the air in the room, heard a soft pop, and Pacha'ka and Mike appeared near them. Mike carried Pacha'ka in the crook of his arm, and the little alien shapechanger was wearing his favorite form, that of a koala from Mike's native land of Australia. Mike stood still a moment, getting his bearings, and the boys jumped to their feet and quickly surrounded the two. Hugs were exchanged, along with brief, whispered greetings, and then Mike patted Charlie on the shoulder. "Why are we whispering? I thought the monster already knew you were out here."

"It does," Kippy said quickly. "We were just trying not to attract too much attention."

"If it knows you're out here, what difference does it make?"

Kippy made a face. "You haven't seen this thing yet. Or smelled it!"

Charlie reached out and gave Pacha's arm a fond pat. "Getting pretty good with the ka teleportation thing now, aren't you? How far did you guys transport?"

"From orbit," Mike said, the pride evident in his voice, as if he had accomplished the deed himself. "Pach is gettin' good, huh?"

"I have learned well from Max," Pacha said then. "The trading of knowledge and practices has been of benefit to us both."

"Came in handy on Plastark," Mike immediately followed with. "We were in this frozen cavern underneath the tower when the entrance caved in. Pach was able to get us all back to the ship in one piece."

"Where's Bobby?" Adrian asked. "Why didn't you bring him along?"

"And Kontus?" Ricky added. "He's still with you, isn't he?"

"We left them with Illia, aboard ship," Mike replied, waving a hand around the room. "Didn't know what we were getting ourselves into here--"

"Can we?" Kippy interjected, a little more loudly than he'd intended. He immediately looked embarrassed. "I'm sorry, but I want this stinky thing out of my closet. I'm sure I'm going to have to wash everything that was in there in order to get the funk out of it."

Pacha looked over at the closed door and closed his eyes. Everyone immediately went silent, waiting.

The koala opened his eyes, and looked at Kippy. "The ring?"

Kippy indicated the closet with a wave of his hand. "It's in there, with...whatever it is."

"That was the right thing to do."

"You know what's going on?" Charlie asked then. "The ring seemed to want to go to the...the creature, so that's what we did."

Pacha gave a twitch of his short muzzle, the Kifta equivalent of a frown. "I do not know exactly what has transpired here yet." He looked over at Kippy. "But I sensed when you found the ring at the marketplace on Engris that you would receive enjoyment from possessing it, and that the ring, too, had in some way chosen you to keep it near. The why of this is still a mystery, however."

"It would sing," Kippy said, "and make those little sparky flashes when I'd touch it. Sometimes it would just seem to glow on its own. I felt like it was trying to talk to me almost, but...but I couldn't understand what it was trying to say." He frowned. "And I sometimes thought I saw, well, places in my dreams, that somehow came from the ring."

"No doubt. The ring is, I believe, a link of some sort. No...that is perhaps not the right word. It bears a reflection within, perhaps, of another mind, or another soul, or another essence of life. A life from somewhere, and some when, perhaps even a place other than our own reality, our own here and now."

Kippy emitted a small gasp. "Then the ring is alive!"

"Not as we know life," Pacha countered. "This is a ka thing, one I cannot easily explain with words." The little alien's muzzle twitched again. "At some time, long ago, in some other region of this or another universe, a being lived out its life. It eventually passed on, but some part remained behind within the ring, which was probably designed expressly to hold this small reflection of what once was. And now, here, in this reality, this reflection has seen fit to return for some reason."

Charlie stared at the koala. "You got all this, just from seeing the ring at the market on Engris?"

"No. Much of it came to me later, and the final answer, just now."

Charlie leaned forward. "You said when Kippy first discovered the ring that it was ancient - as ancient as Engris, itself. Like, a half-million years?"

"Yes. The sense of time spans is clear."

Kippy also leaned closer. "Do you think the people that built Engris made this ring?"

Pacha considered that, and then gave a little cant to his head that signified disagreement. "As I said once before, I do not think so. Engris has a very clear signature - a mental scent, if you like - which is unique to that body and all the things upon its surface. The ring feels of the same period, but not of the same origin."

Ricky nodded. "If one people back then knew how to contact the dead, you'd think others might, too."

Kippy made a little huffing sound. "Okay. So the ring is old, and it maybe had the spirit of some alien inside. But why has it chosen my closet to appear in? And why does it smell dead, if it isn't?"

Pacha tilted his head back and looked up at Mike. "Can we move to the door?"

Mike nodded, and carried the little alien over to the closet.

"Uh...Pach?" Mike said then.

"Yes?"

Mike glanced back at Charlie and the others before smiling at the Kift. "Now that we know it's pretty safe here, can we bring Bobby and Kontus down? They'll want to be in on this." He lowered his voice to a whisper. "Might be good to have Kontus here, too, just for the back up." He flashed the smile again. "The guy's strong as an ox."

Pacha looked over at Kippy, who nodded a little impatiently. "If it will speed things up, by all means, bring them."

The koala closed his eyes, and a moment later the air in the room moved, there was a small pop, and Bobby Felsen and Kontus 3Rowf appeared. The boy looked startled at the sudden movement across space, but the bear-like face of Kontus immediately looked pleased, and then they both grinned at seeing where they were. Mike immediately held a finger to his lips to warn them to keep silent, and the two newcomers nodded, and moved to stand with Charlie and the others. Kontus grinned at them, and Bobby stuck out a hand and patted Charlie warmly on the arm.

Mike rolled his eyes a bit at all the byplay, and looked back at Pacha. "Ready."

"Then open the door, slowly."

Mike took the knob in hand and turned it, and stepped back, drawing the door to him. Charlie stood on tiptoe to see past Mike, and then joined in with the others in gasping in surprise.

The fat monster was gone. In its place stood a tall, bipedal figure, still wrapped in the greenish, leathery skin; but that was the only real resemblance to the creature had been in the closet before. The skin was unblemished now, the warts gone, and seemed finer and perhaps thinner than it had before. The long snout had rounded and shortened considerably, and bore two tiny, slitted nostrils at the tip, beneath two large eyes, now closed. The torso had lost its enormous bulk and become straight and thin. The arms had lengthened, and the black claws on the fingers had shrunk to dark brown fingernails, rounded like old pennies. The legs were straighter and longer, the claws on the feet had also disappeared, and the feet themselves were shorter now. And lastly, the long tail the creature had sported was no longer visible at all, suggesting that it had vanished, or at least shortened to something that might no longer be called a tail.

They stared at the creature in silence. The ring was still there, still seeming to fit the finger of the creature, even though the hand had shortened, and the fingers along with them. The ring glowed softly, and Charlie was sure he could still hear a softer echo of the singing it had been doing earlier.

The creature's face twitched, and the eyes opened, to watch them as intently as they were watching it in return. The thin mouth, now just a lipless line underneath the rounded snout, gently stretched into a smile, and the creature gave out a large, very plain, very human sigh.

"At last!" The voice was raspy, with perhaps a bit of sawdust in it, but perfectly understandable to human ears.

"Greetings," Pacha said immediately. "I am Pacha, a Ka of the Kifta."

The creature nodded. "And Kippy, and Charlie, and Ricky, and Adrian. And Mike, I think it is. The others I do not know."

"That's right," Mike said, nodding his head. "And that's Bobby, and the big guy is Kontus."

"Greetings to all of you. I am Ragal, once in the service of the Orban of Emiranda, but now cast loose upon the winds of time."

"You came from my ring?" Kippy blurted then, shaking his head. "You were in there all the time, singing to me?"

The creature's gaze moved to settle on Charlie's boyfriend. "The ring is many things. For me it was a conduit, a path to this existence. I needed the right soul at the other end, a soul in harmony with my own, to complete the journey back here. Thank you, Kippy, for allowing me to come home."

Charlie held up a hand for attention. "Uh...hi. You do know, right, that time has passed since you were here before?"

"I'm not sure I've been here before. Not exactly here, I mean. This reality is similar to mine, but may not be the one that birthed my people; or, at least, not the people I knew. My race did exist here, in this galaxy, in this reality, but its history may have been slightly different than the one I knew. Or, my memories of that history are now suspect, altered by my travels through multiple existences. I cannot be sure which reality is the true one reality any longer."

"Well, that sucks," Adrian said, under his breath.

"Oh." Charlie digested what he could of that, and nodded. "Still, it's been a while since the people like yours were here. Time has passed, right?"

"Yes. A great deal of it, too. Gone are my people from this galaxy, and gone, too, are the great star realms that once spanned it in my time. The children of our children's children now hold these stars in their hands, and it is rightly so. I am not here to contest that fact."

Charlie gave a mental sigh of relief. The last aliens they'd met from the past had been angry that their Beltracian race had lost its grip on empire, and had set about trying to recreate their former glory, at the expense of those peoples populating this area of the galaxy now. It hadn't been much fun dealing with them, and Charlie was still smarting somewhat at his part in the resolution of that drama.

Kippy frowned. "Your appearance has changed a lot since I first saw you." He gave a little sniff of the air then, and a smile spread across his face. "The somewhat, um, unpleasant smell is gone, too."

The tall alien gave out a rasping laugh. "The swamps of my genetic youth, as it were. I had to start from scratch with a body, and evolve it quickly through the many forms my people have taken before we arrived at the form you see before you. Some of the earlier forms were not exactly pleasing to the eye, or the nose, I'm afraid."

Kippy nodded. "It's all good now."

"May I come out?" Ragal asked, now looking about the room. "I would enjoy seeing more clearly where I have come to be."

Charlie looked at Kippy, who shrugged and nodded. "Sure. Feel free."

The creature stepped from the closet, and turned slowly to survey the room. "It looks comfortable."

Charlie couldn't help grinning at that, his eyes briefly seeking Kippy's. "Oh, it is that."

Kippy smiled, his eyes twinkling at Charlie. "Uh huh."

Charlie could not help looking over the alien's body as it turned this way and that, examining the things on Kippy's desk and walls. The tail that Charlie had seen earlier was gone, a mere stub now that more resembled the rear end of a duck than anything else. Ragal's body was quite featureless, actually, with none of the perhaps embarrassing features that a human being would be showing off in a similarly naked pose.

Pacha had been listening to the exchange patiently. "Your use of English is excellent. How did you come to learn the language so quickly?"

"It has not been quickly, for me."

"Ah." Pacha digested that fact seemingly without surprise, and then gave a little nod of his head. "I would presume there is a reason for your visit, Ragal?"

"Yes. A quite urgent one, actually. You see..." The alien leaned forward, his eyes upon them "...I left the water running in the bathtub."

Charlie joined the others in staring at the creature, whose eyes moved among them curiously. "It was a joke," Ragal finally said. "Did I do it wrong?"

Charlie shook his head. "I guess not. It just wasn't what we expected."

The alien smiled again. "I have been here among you for some time now. Ever since you acquired the ring, Kippy. My kind have a facility for languages, for absorbing cultures, which had us in the role of peacemakers and ambassadors of understanding among the many star traveling species of long ago. I have been listening to all of you speak together since the ring was purchased at Engris. I have heard the music Kippy has played, heard the movies he has watched, heard everything that has transpired in this room."

Kippy grew wide-eyed, and turned to look at Charlie. "Everything?"

Charlie felt his own cheeks warm, recalling some of the things he and Kippy had discussed during their times together in Kippy's bedroom. And some of the things they had done together!

"Everything. In this way I have learned the language of your kind, and about the ways and the humor of your kind, and even about the affections of your kind."

"Oh, great," Kippy mumbled, rosy-cheeked.

But Charlie had to laugh. "I hope it was at least interesting for you."

"It was. Yours is a kind people, Charlie. You have nothing to feel embarrassed about."

"Some of us aren't so nice," Charlie countered. "There are some bad eggs everywhere, I guess." But then he put out a hand, and pulled Kippy closer, and draped an arm around his shoulders. "But some of us are truly special."

Kippy sighed, and smiled. "Oh, Charlie. You say the sweetest things."

"Um...are you a he or a she?" Ricky asked Ragal, giving an unsure twitch of his shoulder. "Unless it's not polite for me to ask, that is."

Ragal emitted another gritty laugh. "My kind does not have two unique sexes, as yours does. In our society, one played whichever role suited best for the relationship. Each of us can reproduce, but it is a different process than you understand." The gritty sound repeated. "Let's just say I feel male at the moment, and in the company of so many males, it somehow seems proper. But moods can change."

Charlie emitted a startled laugh of his own. "That sounds complicated."

"It's not, not really. Should I feel more in touch with my feminine side at some point, I will be sure to say so."

Pacha canted his head at the alien. "There is a real reason for your visit? Can we assist you somehow?"

"I don't know," Ragal said, his eyes turning to meet the Kift's. "You are a power user, this much I can feel. And I know there are power users among Kippy's brother race, the elves, and even -" the broad smile returned - "and even hints of the gift among Kippy and Charlie and the others."

Kippy's eyes widened, but Adrian grinned and patted his shoulder. "Skwish, Kip."

Kippy nodded. "Yeah. But I'm hardly ready to go teleporting around the dimensions just yet."

"In time, perhaps," Ragal said, his eyes twinkling. He turned back to Pacha'ka. "The planet of my kind - those like me that lived in this reality, anyway - lies a great distance from here. Truly, the ring that bore my savva has traveled far from home. In it's travels it has had many owners, some of whom cherished it, some of whom held it for simple curiosity's sake, and others who even feared it as the repository of something devilish, and yet still could not part with it. Once the technology of savva preservation passed from known space, the ring's purpose also became obscured. And so it has taken a very long time to finally arrive in a place where it could again be of use."

Pacha waved a small hand at Kippy. "I sensed at the market on Engris that the ring chose this one to accompany. Kippy also seemed enchanted with the ring, despite its less than reputable appearance. Is this what you refer to? The seller of the ring said it had sparked to the touch of others besides Kippy, yet none had been attracted enough to make the purchase."

"The ring has a life of its own," Ragal responded, "beyond my own savva, which it contained. It has the power to see into the hearts and minds of those who would possess it, and to choose, if possible, its caretaker. Many have owned the ring to which the ring had no bond, but that is the way of any antiquity in the world of collectors. The ring makes it known by sparkling when it detects a soul it would accompany willingly, but that is no insurance that that is where the ring will go. The other soul must feel the link, and make the step needed to bring the two of them together. Kippy did that, on Engris." The alien smiled. "The ring is happy now, and here it will stay."

Ragal raised the hand bearing the ring, and pulled it off his finger. He extended the ring to Kippy, who gave a little yip of delight and reached out to receive it.

Charlie smiled. "You still want it, after all that?"

"Don't be silly, Charlie. I especially want it, after all that."

Charlie grinned, and shook his head as Kippy smiled down at the ring in his hand a moment, then looked up at Ragal. "Will it still sing to me?"

"I think it will, Kippy. Perhaps, for now, you can return it to the place it sleeps beside you in your dreams."

Kippy nodded, and went to the nightstand, and placed the ring in the drawer. He came back to stand beside Charlie, and smiled at Ragal. "I would have let it go with you, if that's what it wanted. But I would have missed it."

"It has served its purpose, at least for me," Ragal said. "Enjoy it, please."

Mike gave out a small sigh. "We're goin' the long way around town on this, aren't we?"

Pacha gave out one of his tchick-tchick-tchick laughs. "The impatience of youth."

Ragal nodded. "I apologize. The question was, can you be of help to me in my mission here? Again, my answer is, I don't know."

"Perhaps we can know why you have chosen this moment to appear among us, then?" Pacha asked.

Charlie was surprised at how universal many facial expressions seemed to be. A smile, a frown, anger, affection - all seemed to be equally expressed within the eyes and features of many of the races he had met. Ragal seemed to be no exception. What Charlie saw now was uncertainty, as the alien looked at the faces about him.

"There is something wrong here, in your reality. Something I can affect for the better. But...I have no idea what it is."

Mike looked astonished. "You don't know why you're here?"

"Not just yet, no. I have clues, which can start me along the path to discovery, and which I hope will lead me to the answer. But at this point, I really don't know why the ring chose this moment to bring me back."

Charlie and Kippy exchanged looks of wonder. "You mean the ring brought you here?" Kippy asked. "You didn't come on your own?"

Ragal gave a slow shake of his head. "This is the proper gesture to signify disagreement, correct?" At Kippy's surprised look, the alien smiled. "Kept in the drawer as I was, I could hear much more than I could see. I therefore had to infer some of the mannerisms from the threads of the conversations. Now, to answer your question, yes, the ring opened the path to bring me to this here and now."

"So the ring knows why you're here?" Ricky asked. "Can we ask it somehow?"

"The ring may know, or it may only sense the need. In any case, the ring is not alive in the same way that you and I are. It does not communicate directly - does not speak. It has shown me images of places, but I can only guess where they might be located."

Kippy frowned. "The way the ring would sing, it always seemed to me to be like a voice that I just missed being able to understand."

"Exactly. Even with my facility for languages, I was able to do no better. I even inquired with some of the other savva - the few I could communicate with - but they did not understand, either."

Charlie was astounded. "Wait...there are other...um, essences...within the ring, just like you were there?"

Ragal again shook his head. "Not actually within the ring. My savva has wandered to many places over the long years, but always have I felt the ring close by. Others share that channel of communication. Others share the ability to re-emerge as I did, should there be a need to do so."

Kippy turned to stare at his nightstand. "You mean this could happen again? Someone else could appear inside my closet?"

"Only time will tell, Kip. The ring wishes to stay with you. If another need arises, you may again have a visitor."

Kippy blew out a small breath of air, making his lips vibrate.

"Is this unacceptable to you?" Ragal asked.

Kippy looked at Charlie, as if for help...but then suddenly smiled. "No. I guess it's fine. I was just thinking that this goes right along with everything else that's been happening to us. And all those things have worked out."

"More or less," Charlie added, rolling his eyes.

"Yes. More or less. But mostly to the good." Kippy firmed his lips, and nodded. "I feel like the ring belongs here. So here it will stay."

"There must be something we can do," Pacha said then. "I feel we are to be part of this, somehow."

"You have a ship," Ragal said. "I will need to get to a place called Erenar. You know of it?"

The little koala narrowed his eyes, and then canted his head slightly. "It is familiar, but I cannot place it. We will need to consult with Illia, my ship's mind."

"Isn't that --" Mike began, but then shook his own head. "No. I was thinking of a place I saw in one of the archaeological histories that Illia provided for me, where the Athonara stood against the Karchee incursion. I was thinking that planet they were based on was called Erenar."

Pacha gave out one of his laughs, and Charlie had to smile at the fondness for Mike he sensed in it. "I actually believe you are correct, Mike."

Mike brightened. "Really? Well, I guess it was bound to happen, sooner or later."

"Why this Erenar place?" Charlie asked Ragal. "Is it one of the clues you mentioned you had?"

Ragal offered a quick smile. "I was shown a multitude of images by the ring, none of which I recognized. But one of the other savva linked to the ring did recognize one of the landscapes, and supplied the name of Erenar. As the only image offered by the ring I can place a name to, I would start there with my seeking."

Pacha patted Mike's arm. "Quite the student of lost empires you are becoming, my boy."

Mike tried hard not to look overly pleased by the praise. "Well, there's a ton of that stuff in the history archives, and it is an interest we share. I'm glad I could help."

"Are we all going along?" Kippy asked.

Ragal gave a nod of his head. "If all are agreeable to the idea. I sense that it is the combined effort of this group of individuals that will ensure the success of this quest."

Adrian laughed. "Where have we heard that before?"

Indeed. Charlie remembered that their friends, Will and Billy, had said in the spirit dome on Engris, that there was a synergy to their group that placed their actions more often on the side of success, and that the universe had taken notice of the fact. Charlie had initially been proud to learn that, but had since decided that it would be incautious to decide that everything they did from here on out would be met with success. And even success might have a price, and there were some things that Charlie was not willing to sacrifice in order to win each and every time.

Ricky looked to Charlie and shook his head. "How are we gonna do this? We won't have Max here to jiggle the clocks for us this time. We can't just go off for a week or something while school's in. My parents won't go for it, I'm tellin' you now."

The last news they had heard from Frit and Pip was that Max and a small group of other older elves were still involved with disposing of the Beltracian arsenal planet. The planet's orbit had been altered, causing it to grow nearer to the red star around which it circled, and now Max and the others were there again to ensure that the world took the final plunge into the solar furnace. The ancient weapons of the Beltracians were too dangerous to be allowed to fall into the hands of others. Destroying the sterile, uninhabited world seemed like the best course of action.

Max had said that it would be a difficult operation. The mind that ran the arsenal planet would need to be kept confused, in order that it not simply send the thousands upon thousands of battle-worthy ships stored there racing in every direction away from the doomed planet. The planetary mind was quantum based, and only by a concentrated effort of the elves to monitor the actions of the qubits in each entangled pair by direct observation could they hope to keep the mind confused enough that it would be unable to save the battle fleet. Or itself.

"Maybe if we just called Max?" Adrian suggested. "Maybe he can jiggle time, and still be here to help us out?"

Charlie considered that, and shook his head. "I'd rather not. What they're doing is important, and we can't always have Max dropping things to come and help us."

Ricky smiled at Pacha. "I don't suppose you've learned to stop time yet?"

The koala looked faintly amused by the suggestion. "I seem not to have the knack for that particular ka. I can learn many things from Max, but altering the flow of time seems not to be among them. To each, his own gifts."

"How about Frit and Pip?" Kippy suggested. "I know they can't manipulate time like Max can, but maybe they know someone that can help us there."

Charlie nodded. "There's an idea. I'd feel better asking them, than I would butting into what Max and the others are doing just now."

Kontus, who had been silently listening to events next to Bobby, suddenly spoke up in his growling, rough-hewn tongue. Only then did Charlie remember that he and the others were not wearing translators.

Charlie grinned at Mike. "What did he say?"

Mike returned the grin. "He said he'd be pleased to accompany us on another wonderful adventure."

Kontus nodded, the sides of his muzzle lifting in an ursine smile.

Mike patted his belt, and found the little pouch stored there. He opened it, and dug out four of the tiny blobs that were Kifta language translators, and handed them out to each of the other boys. Bobby and Mike already wore them, and some sort of accommodation had evidently been made for Kontus, as he seemed able to follow everything that had happened thus far.

Charlie pushed the blob into his right ear, where it conformed itself to fit, and promptly became almost invisible. Kippy and the others mimicked him, and then Charlie stepped forward and extended his hand to Kontus, who carefully took it into his much larger hand, and gently shook it.

"Great to see you again," Charlie said, smiling. "I like knowing that you've been enjoying your adventures with these guys, and not been cooped up in that floating tower of yours back home, watching other ships come and go, but never getting anywhere yourself."

Kontus laughed at that, a deep and pleasant sound that made Kippy cringe and look anxiously at the closed bedroom door. "Shh! My parents are downstairs."

The big alien blinked, but immediately lowered his voice to a Trichani whisper. "Your family? They do not know we are here?"

"Are you kidding?" Kippy asked, but not without a smile. "My dad would freak if he knew I had aliens in my bedroom."

"I'm not sure your mom would be too happy, either," Charlie said. Kippy's parents were nice people, but a little high-strung. It had taken them much longer to accept their son's gayness than had Charlie's parents with him; but now that they had, they supported Kippy and his friends one-hundred percent. But knowing that Kippy was careening about the universe in strange star ships and having alien visitors in his bedroom was still well beyond their current level of experience, and Charlie didn't think it would be a good time to jolt their world with the extreme crowd they had assembled here just now.

"No." Kippy frowned, and then shuddered gently. "Let's not go there, okay? Just, everyone try to be a little quiet."

Bobby smiled at him. "Some things never change, huh? Parents are parents, in any time."

Charlie and Kippy exchanged nods at that. Bobby had been kidnapped by a flying saucer in 1957, and had, through the oddities of time as it played out within some parts of the Cooee, spent several weeks there, only to reemerge into the normal universe sixty-two years later, yet not even a whole month older himself. It had jolted his world considerably, costing him what remnants of family he still had had, and with no ties to the current time frame, he had gratefully and happily chosen to stick with Mike and Pacha in their exploratory adventures around space.

Kippy had been certain that Bobby and Mike felt an attraction to each other, and it did seem now that the two were extremely at ease together. Charlie could not miss the looks the two passed back and forth, the shared feelings, nor the smiles that went with them. These were much like the eye-talk that he and Kippy exchanged at times, a method of communication that bordered on the near-telepathic at this point in their relationship. Most of it entailed expressions of fond things, too personal to say in mixed company.

Kontus, sucked into the last adventure with Charlie and the others, had thrown caution to the wind, and abandoned his staid existence as a port authority monitor on the Trichani discworld of Roorapynta, to join in with Pacha, Mike, and Bobby in their explorations. The big, bear-like alien had long wished to chase down the obscure trails of lost star civilizations, and now he had found himself part of a crew that did just that on a daily basis. That Kontus was also happy with his new life seemed easy enough to see.

Pacha patted Mike's arm. "Perhaps it would be a good idea for us all to go back to the ship to discuss this."

Mike's eyes grew large as he looked around the room. "Can you move this many people at one time?"

The little koala's eyes also looked about. "I believe so. It's really not a matter of numbers. Max can transport himself and others nearly anywhere he has been before, but I am still working on understanding negative distance. In truth, every point in the universe is right next to every other point. Visualizing that concept as ka movement is a new twist in my thinking. But I sense I am up to this particular task." He waved a small hand at the room in general. "If everyone would come closer, it will be easier for me."

The nine of them moved together, and Pacha closed his eyes. Darkness briefly enveloped them, and then they were standing in the operations center of Pacha's starship. Charlie sighed at that, amazed as always at the idea of teleportation, and that each experience with it was somehow subtly different, depending on who was doing the teleporting. Max had a feel all his own, a powerful, sure, and nearly instantaneous experience that happened in the blink of an eye. Pacha felt less powerful, though just as sure, and the moment of travel was somehow more studied, and just a tad longer than was that of the elf's.

Yet it was all the same in the end. They left where they were, and reappeared where they wanted to go. Charlie trusted the little Kift with their safety just as much as he trusted Max.

"It is always a little startling to have you do that," Illia said then, her voice sounding faintly amused. To the artificial mind there was no more warning of incoming visitors via teleportation than there was to Charlie and the others when someone appeared in their room. Illia would sense the initial displacement of air as room was made for the travelers to appear, but it was extremely short notice, even to a mind that worked at the quantum level.

"Honey, we're home!" Mike called, laughing. Once at odds with the mind that ran Pacha's ship, Mike and Illia had forged an alliance, and then a friendship, in their recent adventures together.

Mike set Pacha down on one of the soft cushions that covered the deck before several glowing columns of light, which served the Kift in the same function that a seat would serve a human pilot. The inside of Pacha's craft looked nothing like Charlie would have once imagined a starship to look, being mostly open space in the center of the egg-shaped vessel, with other rooms spaced about the inside of the outer hull.

There were no consoles full of blinking lights and computer graphics, no strange sounds that might go along with alien machinery performing exotic functions, nothing that would seem to indicate that the large room was anything but a place to relax. Once, Pacha had simply interfaced silently with Illia, told her where he wanted to go and what he wanted to do, and that was that. But apparently, since having more visitors aboard, the little Kift had gotten into the habit of speaking aloud to Illia, so that everyone would know what was going on.

"A star map, please, Illia" he said now, pointing a hand towards the glowing columns. Between them, the air darkened and an image of the galaxy appeared.

"Destination?"

"Erenar," the koala said, following that with a quick laugh. "Or, where you suspect, from ancient records, it might be located."

"That region of the galaxy is distant, and not well mapped. I will combine the latest studies with known maps of the region, to produce something that we can use."

Their view suddenly dived down into the galaxy, and one spiral arm grew large. The view closed inward further, dropping into the arm, and a large cluster of stars came into view. Charlie expected the image to continue to focus down until one particular star came into view, but that did not happen.

"Uh oh," Kippy said, shaking his head. "That doesn't look good."

"I have no exact location for Erenar," Illia confirmed. "Only the area of space where the Athonar were known to have battled the Karchee."

"Looks large," Mike said, sounding disappointed.

"The search area is one thousand light years in diameter. The arm of the galaxy is approximately one thousand light years thick here. We therefore have a sphere of space with a volume of approximately 523,598,776 cubic light years. Using a stellar density of 0.0032 stars per cubic light year, I estimate that there are approximately 1,675,516 stars within this area of space to select from."

Mike made a rude noise. "Is that all? We'll be done by lunch!"

Bobby looked aghast. "One million, six-hundred-seventy-five thousand..."

"...five-hundred-sixteen stars," Illia finished patiently. "One thing we do know from the histories is that Erenar circled a G- or F-type yellow-white dwarf star, of the type which approximates the sun of Earth. The prevalence of such stars in any given volume of space averages about ten percent, reducing our search to 167,552 stars. This number is probably very high in this instance, as the average depends entirely upon the area of space involved, and I can already see that the number of F- and G-type stars here is lower than that."

"That's still excessive," Charlie pointed out. "There must be some way to narrow it down even more."

"There is. That area of space has been surveyed by probes guided by artificial intelligences like myself, and while few of the systems there have actually been visited, extensive long-range studies have been made, including reliable spectral analyses of most of the star group. We will begin by eliminating all stars of spectral classes which differ from the target F-G range --"

A vast amount of the stars on the projection suddenly vanished.

"Wow," Bobby said, smiling excitedly. "That was neato."

"I've eliminated competing spectral classes, most of which were red dwarf stars. As you can see, the ten-percent average for yellow-to-white F- and G-class stars seems not to hold true in this area of the spiral arm. We are down to about eleven thousand stars now."

"That is still far too many to search," Pacha pointed out.

"Agreed. So next we eliminate the known multiple star systems, where there is more than one star in the primary grouping. Most are binary pairs, but some groupings are larger. Erenar was known to have orbited a lone primary."

More stars vanished, dropping the numbers by at least a third. "That reduces us to about seventy-three hundred stars. Next we will take a piece of historical documentation, which places the star shepherding the planet Erenar within twenty light years of a K-class supergiant star, near which the Battle of the Three Fleets was fought. K-class supergiants are relatively rare, so this fact will surely reduce the numbers dramatically."

More stars vanished, leaving only...

"I count three," Mike said quickly, as if to confirm the number to himself.

"Are you sure that's right?" Charlie couldn't help asking. Considering the number of candidate stars they had started with, the sudden drop to just three was stunning.

"The clue of the K-class supergiant is the most important piece of the puzzle," Illia said, sounding amused. "There is only one such star in the entire cluster that holds the destination area. I wanted to begin with the total numbers and work it down, as much for dramatic effect as to show you what a task it can be to locate something in a galaxy this large. Short exact coordinates, we have been extremely lucky to arrive at only three possibilities for our destination."

Mike laughed. "A real showman you are, Illia. I had a feeling you had an ace card up your sleeve, though."

"It wasn't magic, Mike. It was science." But the shipmind sounded pleased at the compliment, just the same.

"Okay, so now we have an idea where to go," Charlie acknowledged. "Now we need to deal with the issue of the time away from home this mission will surely take. That means getting Frit and Pip here, and enlisting their aid on that."

Kippy emitted a small grunt. "The sooner the better. I don't want my parents suddenly wondering how all of us got out of the house without them hearing or seeing us."

"That will not be a problem while we are in the Cooee," Pacha reminded. "No time at all will be passing for your parents."

Kippy laughed. "Yeah, but we're not in the Cooee yet. So let's see about calling in Frit and Pip."

Contacting the two teen elves was a hit or miss proposition. They seemed to have the same awareness that Max possessed, and knew when Charlie and the others needed them. But the two younger elves were much more likely to be involved in something that might cause a lapse in their attention, and so less likely to respond immediately.

Charlie figured that Max was already aware of what they were doing, simply because they had discussed calling him in to help. But the older elf would not interrupt his important mission unless their need grew dire, and Charlie did not want that to happen. Pacha was a very able practitioner of ka, apparently simply another name for the same sorts of abilities that Earth's elves possessed. Charlie had stopped thinking of it as magic, because it had been proven to him that it was a science, even if an exotic one.

Pacha's abilities mimicked Max's in some cases, while the two differed in other areas. They had been teaching each other, and having a grand time of it, and both the elves and the Kifta had benefited well from their friendship. Charlie did not doubt for a minute that Pacha would be able to handle this new quest of theirs.

"Okay, everyone, think of Frit and Pip, and that we want them to come and --"

Charlie felt the tiny movement of the air, and then stepped back automatically as three elves appeared in the control center.

"Hi!" Frit said immediately, grinning around at everyone.

"We're here!" Pip added, his smile just as large.

"And right on time, too," Frit finished.

The two elves were immediately encircled, hugged, squeezed, patted on the back, and otherwise made welcome. Ragal was introduced, and then Frit turned and pulled the third arrival up next to him. "This is Keerby, everybody. Say hi to the fellas, Keerby!"

"Hi, fellas!"

Charlie immediately grinned, his eyes moving to Kippy, who was clutching at his chest and rolling his eyes dramatically. Keerby was a teen elf just like Frit and Pip, and just as cute, with dark hair, long eyelashes framing cheerful green eyes, rosy cheeks, and a smile that would melt butter.

"He's a time master," Frit said then.

"A real prodigy," Pip agreed.

"Aww," Keerby said, looking embarrassed. "I'm okay at it."

Charlie had not really expected someone so young to assist them with time, which he considered a fairly complex subject. But Frit and Pip assured them that Keerby was a wonder with everything from milliseconds to millennia, and more than up to the task of allowing them to be away from Earth for however long they needed, without anyone at home being the wiser.

"I've already started," Keerby told them. "We're out of the flow of what's happening back home even now." He looked around at the interior of the ship, gave a little smile, and then nodded. "Once we go into the dark place, um --" he turned and looked questioningly at Frit.

"The Cooee," Frit supplied. "Mike named it."

"Right. Once we go into the Cooee, I'll keep an eye on the temporal frames we pass through, because I've been told they're not uniform everywhere in that place. We don't want to have that messing us up, either."

Everybody seemed to start talking at once. Kippy, who was closest to Charlie, gave a little sigh, his eyes bright, and smiled. "Looks and talent," he said softly. "I think I'm in love."

Charlie sighed, and took his finger and gave his boyfriend a playful poke. "Yes, you are. Remember?"

Kippy's smile turned to a grin. "Are you jealous?"

Charlie eyed Keerby, and then returned his gaze to Kip. "Should I be?"

Kippy sighed, moved closer to Charlie, and gently hugged him. "Never. My heart belongs to you, Charlie Boone."

"Okay, then. Stop playing around and let's get on with this." But Charlie gave Kippy a quick kiss on the cheek, just the same.

Charlie turned then, and held up a hand and waved it, and the conversation quickly wound down. "Frit and Pip, are you coming with us, or just Keerby?"

Frit looked alarmed. "Try to stop us!"

Pip nodded vigorously. "You need us!"

Charlie held up his hands defensively. "Okay, okay. I'm just asking." He looked around and did a quick head count, and then laughed. "Thirteen of us, counting Illia. There's a recipe for trouble!"

Everyone laughed, and Adrian caught Charlie's eye. "Hey. Thirteen is a Halloween number, after all."

Ricky grinned at that, and leaned closer to his boyfriend. "Too early to say 'boo' just yet!"

Adrian nodded. "I hope." He sighed, rolled his shoulders, and swiveled his head back and forth a few times, as if to release some tension in his neck. "Just a feeling I have."

Kippy looked over at him. "Not just you."

Charlie immediately frowned. "Your skwish acting up, Kip?"

"Well...I don't know. I don't feel like we're in any danger. Yet."

"Just that there may be some, somewhere ahead," Adrian said, quietly.

"Yeah." Kippy nodded. "So let's all be careful, okay?"

Ricky stared at his boyfriend a moment, and then put an arm around his shoulders. "We'll be alert."

"Should I be notifying Murcha of this new adventure?" Illia asked then. "His ship would be better armed to voyage into unknown territory than our own."

Charlie smiled at that. Illia and Murcha - the ship mind on their own vessel, a small scout ship 'borrowed' from the Moth - had hit it off well, developing a relationship that would be termed 'romantic' had it been observed in organic lifeforms. Illia and Murcha loved to get together, and so it was no surprise that Illia would ask about the possibility now.

Pacha looked contemplative a moment, and then nodded. "Perhaps it would be wise to use the Moth scout. The Moth excel at the devilish aspects of physics, and that scout is the equal of five ships like this one. No offense meant, Illia."

"None taken, Pacha. I am well aware that this vessel was designed for peaceful exploration, not the sort of bullying entry into new territory that the Moth are so good at."

"Please contact Murcha, then," the Kift advised.

"I have just done so. He is engaged under contract to transport the royal narfaball team of Secular Rhodopolia to the Ten-System Games on Dorsalad 7. He will not be available to join us for another day of subjective time."

Kippy smiled at the exchange. "What's 'Secular Rhodopolia'?"

"The people of Rhodopolia are split into followers and non-followers of the local belief system. The faithful do not believe in games, especially not games with other races on other worlds. So sports teams must specify that they do not represent all of Rhodopolia, just those that don't believe in staying home."

"A single day isn't bad," Pacha decided. "Murcha has to honor any transport contracts he has engaged in, certainly. Is Onglet still with him?"

Onglet was the second Moth shipmind that Max had freed from the restraints of Moth security. After their mission to thwart the plans of the Moth warlord T'ath at Mufa'alatara, Onglet had been installed in an office on a hub space station along a busy galactic transport route, and charged with the business end of obtaining transport contracts for Murcha and the ex-Moth scout ship to fulfill. He had been performing his job with great zeal, but had tired of 'sitting behind a desk', so to speak, and asked to be permitted to join Murcha on some of his runs. Despite the two shipminds feeling a loyalty to Max and Charlie for freeing them from their servitude to the Moth, Charlie and the others viewed the two as free agents, and had told them they could do whatever they wished.

Murcha and Onglet had come to think of themselves as part of Charlie's group, and had placed the profits of their transport enterprise at Charlie's disposal, along with their own desire to be included in further adventures. Charlie had a vague notion that he now had access to some millions of credits had he need of them, but so far he had not come up with a single use for that kind of cash. To his knowledge, Empire Credits did not spend well on Earth.

"Yes, Onglet is still aboard," Illia said.

"That's fine." Pacha turned to the three stars still hanging in the air between the illuminated columns, and waved a small hand at them. "We will need to check all three solar systems, unless we get lucky early. But first, we wait for Murcha and Onglet. I think Engris will be a good rendezvous. Please notify Murcha, Illia."

Pacha waved at the image between the two columns, and the three target stars vanished, to be replaced with an image of Earth from high orbit. Charlie took a breath, thrilled as he always was at the beauty of his home planet, and Kippy rubbed up against him and sighed.

The planet suddenly shrank away from them, in seconds going from filling the view to a small blue dot floating among the stars, and then vanished altogether. And then the stars themselves vanished, to be replaced with the oddly flowing darkness that was the Cooee.

"Okay," Charlie said, glancing around at the others. "Everybody wish to go to Engris."

There were smiles and nods, and Ragal came over to stand beside Charlie and Kip.

"It is fascinating to be back among the living, Charlie. I am having a very good time."

Charlie smiled at the alien. "Is that how you view all of this?"

"I can't really see it any other way. I understand that the reason I am here may be to help deal with something important and possibly dangerous. But that does not detract from the enjoyment I am receiving from knowing all of you. This is the purpose of my species; or, it once was. To know others, and bring others together. It makes me happy to be able to pursue this course once again."

Charlie nodded, feeling that Ragal meant exactly what he said. "I just wish we knew what we were up against."

The alien closed his eyes, as if that somehow opened a door for him elsewhere. "I think...I think we may get a clue, once we reach Erenar."

Kippy sighed. "Then let's get this show on the road."