As the day begins and sunlight bleeds profusely through the reinforced wall of glass, Simora calls for robotic assistance. Whistling as he does, he then clicks his tongue three times. “What’d you find?”


    Wallace slips a hand over his thin-cut hair as he examines the length of tables and workstations within the side lab of Simora’s sanctum. The devices, chemistry, and computer systems are similar to his own. Similar, he thinks, as a pigeon to epols.


    The systems for the ruling of this planet laid bare and bisected. As if machinery were gutted carefully by the curious surgeon, technology came to die and be reborn. Rising from the ashes of the obsolete. Mechanized futures. The possibilities of all that could and will be. Here, as if constructed upon an altar to the mind, Wallace stares in renewed disbelief.


    “Every time.”


    “It’s no more incredible than your own.”


    Wallace feels his muscles tensing with the natural desire to be superior. “Lies don’t make me work better. Pretty words and hurt pride.” The man, tamed by his own drives, stares in wonder at his leader. “But, I appreciate your attempts, I guess.” Clearing his throat, he reconsiders the reason for his presence. “The defumigator? Well, it’s not an easy fix. That metal?”


    “Makam?”


    “Yeah. Makam.” Wallace steps forward into the lab. Bright lights of yellowish-white pour down over him. The stored light is natural. He knows this, yet it feels different from the light of the window. That light, even indirect, is felt in the bones. “It’s quite the oddity.”


    “How so?” Simora, peeked by the tone and volume, leans around the corner into his lab.


    Wallace’s hands drag over the devices and systems in a lab somewhat alien to him. “Odd. Freaking tough stuff. I tried other metals against it, and it doesn’t even budge. Tough, tough stuff.” He stares over a collection of leaves and flowers which are prepared before a number of robotic arms. “Had to crank the dials for the laser cutters.”


    “How high?”


    “Eight.”


    “That high? The focus?” Simora’s tone continues to rise.


    Wallace’s head tilts as he recalls the events that burned surprise into his memory. “Focus at twelve times ray.” Wallace turns from the plants, all behind protective glass, toward his Dominax. “Rather low from what I considered it would take, but a hell of a lot tougher than your Zurikan Steel or their competitors.”


    “My cousin’s steel can’t withstand it?” Simora walks into the lab and joins his Deep Root at the table of various plant species. The Dominax leans over the table as the new data begins to slip into his calculations. “And they used it for a defumigator? Why?”


    “Well,” Wallace shrugs as he steps to the side. Simora notes the need for distance. “The metal itself seems to be impervious to most of the chemical reactions in the air.”


    “You’d already surmised that.” Simora clicks his tongue but stares at the plants. “What of this resistance to chemicals? There must be more of interest.”


    “It’s that it doesn’t break down.” Wallace tries not to shout it. His voice is filled with a level excitement only reserved for those terrified of what hides behind the closed door. “What sort of metal does that? The worst chemical storms, dark storms, and atmospheric changes of Solos. Even a tank of nearly pure oxygen! Not a damn change. That’s,” his eyes widen; his contacts unable to cover the expansive darkness beneath the colored lenses, “it should be impossible.”


    “All manner of deadly and corrosive gasses. A region where only a handful of foolhardy Ravagers remain. Just what secrets are they hiding?”


    Wallace’s eyes, the black disappearing behind the lenses, narrow as he recalls the experiments. “We haven’t had a clear census of the region, but it does seem unlikely they’ve survived or even thrived in that region. And now…”


    “Makam.” Simora taps at the glass case where a bluish flower begins to curl it’s petals—even disconnected from the plant. “A curious material.”


    “Unbelievably so.” Wallace watches his Dominax moving about and studying the plants he’s likely studied a thousand times. “It doesn’t really break down. No accounting for time yet, but I can’t imagine the ticking clock can do what lasers can’t.”


    “Incredible.”


    “I’d say so.” Wallace looks toward the sanctum and the doors that remain shut. “But,” his voice trails off as he watches the petals of the trapped and lobbed-off planet react to fresh meat, “electricity?”


    “Oh?” Simora taps the glass causing the petals to form a layer of mucus and extend a line of small, jagged teeth.


    “It absorbs it. Really,” Wallace scratches at the back of his head; fingers sliding under the heavy wrapping around his neck. “almost all energy. I’m thinking that’s why pulser batteries don’t mingle well with it.”


    “Absorbs it?” Simora’s eyes are peeled from the plant. “To what end?”


    “None that I can discern thus far.” Wallace pulls back. It isn’t a fear of what is to come but of that prickly little devil that dances in all men’s skulls. Tucked in darkened corners, draped in our anxieties, the beast plucks the spinal cord to a monstrous melody. “It’s a mystery.”


    Hearing Wallace’s tone gives Simora a grin. The rising volume approaching that thin line between controlled emotion and excited squeak. The way his voice hurries along like a rodent fleeing the predator.


    “There’s no need to be so concerned, Wallace.” Simora assures him with a gentle tone. He needs something to draw him back. “Stop fidgeting with your scarf and take a breath. There’s time to figure this out, Wallace. Plenty of time.”


    “I’m just,” Wallace waves his thick fingers about. “I don’t know. It’s not right.”


    “Well,” Simora taps at the glass to his left, “what of this damned planet is?”


    Wallace’s head slumps to the side. Simora’s fingers tap a steady rhythm across the glass; different plants awaken, react, or droop in defeat of their disembodied imprisonment. Still, he tabs across each with a steady hand.


    “Sir?”


    “This planet, Wallace.” Eyes far away from the conversation dazzle in the bright lab. “One more nonsensical seed of this planet. Makam. No different than the leaves that bleed the brain, animals that burst your ears or convince you to walk off cliffs, or even the storms that melt a man where he stands.


    “The planet has been Hell, Wallace.” Simora’s lips purse together as he returns to the moment. Suddenly frozen while surrounded by the shards of possibility, he can’t decide between looking toward them or looking into Wallace’s eyes. So, he simply stares at nothing. “Always has been.”


    “Hell?” The Deep Root grunts. “You never believed in anything like that. Patire said so.”


    “Nothing as trivial as the unproven afterlife, Wallace.” Simora waves it off as he lets the tormented flora rest. “Hell is what mankind either makes or suffers in life. This,” he points to the walls and to all the horrors that exist in the light of day beyond, “this has been Hell. And I have reached down into the pits of green wilds, raging fires, deepest trenches of blue, the vast deserts, and tallest peaks.


    “I have touched it all!” The Dominax steps through his lab with arms out. His collection of achievements and new projects spread about him like the settled seeds of a tree confident the lands belong to none but its kin. “I’ve taken every monster’s fangs. Every plant’s venom. I’ve taken Hell’s flame. Soon, the ember of Rakar will be a lantern by which I lead the way.


    “So what, my dear Wallace, could be of concern for this Makam?”


    Wallace, caught off-guard by sudden explosion of emotional truth, takes a step back. His hands are clammy as he tries to resist the urge to shiver. His eyes, in an attempt to find something calming, settle on a dazzling section of a shrimp’s massive claw hung on the wall. “Si—Dominax. W-why all this?”


    Laughing, Simora turns from the honoring of his many tools, trinkets, studies, and projects to look at the man. “Wallace, I tell you all I have done, and you are concerned over metal.”


    “B-because of what—”


    “It might do? What it is capable of? Because of the secrets that might tip this world into bloody wars that the Ravagers might win?” Simora nods as he closes the gap. Though considerably smaller, he looks up to Wallace with all the might of a giant peering down upon the adolescent man. “You worry too much.”


    “Perhaps you don’t worry enough.”


    Simora laughs as he clicks his tongue calmly; the cheeks flinching between the two expressions. “A fair point. In my calculations,” he taps to his head before placing one finger before his lips, “we needn’t worry. I have carried the burden. We can Trim if you’d like. I’d not have you weighed so heavily.”


    Knowing the concoction of good humor and mockery, Wallace’s muscles tense. Had any other man prodded him so, they might meet the large fists with which he so delicately works his trade. “I’m not so weak.”


    “Exactly.” Simora pokes his chest. “My point. I’ve not the proficiency in Trim as I do other skills, anyhow. Were it also not so widely frowned upon.” The eyes widen in playful jest as he witnesses Wallace’s scowl. “You’ve done incredible work for me, Deep Root. Why not continue to do so. Why fear what is unknown but not currently posing a threat? We are scientists, my boy.”


    “This metal, sir. They could be using it for all manner of—”


    “Indeed, they are. A few savages running about the wilderness with an incredible material which we someday will understand and utilize.”


    Wallace nods through his uncertainty. A pain in his throat, scratched by that devil in the shadows of the mind, forces the words to rise. As if verbalizing the thought will cure the pain, he blurts, “It doesn’t feel right, sir.”


    “That’s it?” Simora’s right eyebrow rises; though, his eyes remain on the man’s throat. “Is it something primal? Instinct? Superstition?”Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.


    Wallace shakes his head. “You mock me?”


    “I question.” Simora’s humor vanishes as quickly as it arrived. “You come to me with concerns over a metal, and when I remind you of your importance and logic you turn to a feeling. I am intrigued by this, Wallace. If you consider this to be such a threat or, at the very least, important to the future, I will prioritize the investigation.”


    “T-thank you, Dominax.”


    “It will have to occur after the departure of the Dark Stars. You understand.”


    “Of course.” Wallace speaks the words, but he doesn’t truly desire them. He wants it done sooner. That much is evident. In the race of his thoughts, dancing to the beat of the musical devil in his head, he loses his sense of assurance with each passing second. “Whenever possible.”


    “I have many ears to reach and plans to continue. Makam, while a valuable secret, must take a step back.” Simora turns toward the lab. “I’ve not spent nearly enough time here this last week. Entertaining my guests has taken priority; as I’d expected.


    “The two here are in need of further pampering.” Simora’s head slides side to side. “Obin has been quite understanding. I believe he’s come around sooner than I’d expected.” His eyes scan and confirm their privacy—even how the machines do not record within his lab. “My skill in Born has provided me quite the advantage. Your silence in the matter another advantage in the greater scheme.”


    “I’d not whisper a single word.”


    “Of course you wouldn’t.” Simora claps the man on his meaty shoulder. The pain only vibrating through the Dominax’s palm. “Only you know, brother of Blue. And still, we must continue to secret away all we have.”


    “For even the self has rights to privacy.” Wallace nods before lifting his chin. Recalling the trust in this secret, he finds himself able to step away from the devil’s dance—if but for a moment. “A Black proverb. One I can understand and respect.”


    “Good.” Simora’s smile returns; as he permits. “Black proverbs paint a very different picture of this, and every other, world than the other pigments of the spectrum. Whites, Greens, Reds, Blues, and all the minor houses, everyone has their mechanisms and teachings.


    “Your feelings about Makam… unfounded, perhaps, but relevant all the same. Investing in your creativity and senses was one of my strongest moves toward my own future, Wallace. A young prodigy creating the Woad Warrior bracer tech. Astounding. Know that I mean this.” Simora’s hand tugs at the man’s scarf. “Your receptors bothering you? You’ve been playing with this in public.”


    “Maybe they’re just sensitive.”


    “Big man like you?” Simora’s eyes dance around the lab. “Of course, that’s possible. They’ve done you well. Just be sure to restrain them when in public. I’d not have the Ravagers all rowdy because of Sign.” His lips part with a gentle chuckle. “Incredible, isn’t it?”


    “Sir?”


    Simora retreats back, farther into his lab, and motions for Wallace to follow. “Fear of Sign, my boy. Fear of the unknown. Some superstitious horror of what they neither understand nor appreciate. The receptors, the eyes, or any of the other major color’s Signs… they condemn.” Simora, stepping up to a decorated wall of pure white, places his hand on a massive tile, “Nor-Noctlin. Prodigal son.”


    A door, one that Wallace (nor any other Deep Root or servant) has never seen, begins to slide open. The sounds of massive locks, mechanisms, and various computer-managed limbs shift within the layers of Prints-a-Ment and Zurikan steel. Wallace, dumbfounded in this revelation, watches with familiar delight of surprises. A white utopia of knowledge and testing evolves into something grander.


    As the larva transforms through time and work, the lab extends from the prodigal child’s playroom into the enthralling cathedral of science meant for a true practitioner. Simora turns and nods toward the exit. The Deep Root spins and finds that the entry to the first lab has become nothing but a white wall.


    “Secrecy, Wallace.” Simora motions for the Deep Root to enter. “Welcome to the greatest lab in the Far-Reach. I’m confident even Marithia Anmutdenken would green with envy.”


    “W-what? Why?” Stepping quickly into the inner lab, Wallace Horral’s almond eyes open wider than ever. Black reaches extend past the colored contacts. Blue-white ice begins to drift into a black hole as the man’s expression drops in awe.


    Tables for all manner of purposes extend the walls or open walls. Screen projections all about the extensive lab leave the Dominax free roam throughout the facility. Even floater tech is utilized to carry projectors, connections, comm systems, and equipment. No matter where Simora goes, the lab will move to provide him the greatest convenience.


    Wallace strides into the well-lit room. “Are these Phasaline Protocutters?”


    “Seven throughout the lab.” Simora motions across the facility where it curves around corners and continues into several different rooms. “Top of the line and, well, improved. I found them rather lacking when faced with the evolutionary prowess of this planet. Only a day or two of tinkering. I quite say I could revolutionize the market.” Simora waves it off; not looking at any one thing.


    Examining one of the seven devices, hanging like a massive cannon from the ceiling, Wallace glances down to where the nozzle points. A purple stain across a shiny surface. A drain, coiled and outlined in the discolored ichor, leaves the faucet an exit for the water. “A-autopsies?” Wallace turns back to Simora who’s already begun walking into the deeper extensions of his secretive lab.


    “Several. Daily.” Simora motions down a tunnel, darker than the white room they stand in now, toward something unseen. Like a ghost leading Wallace through levels of the afterlife, his stiff finger aims the way.


    Walking through the rows of tables, desks, and even a few bookshelves (filled with actual paper), Wallace approaches his Dominax. At an intersection into more labs, he finds a length of white hallway with archways. Nozzles dip down from the tubes of the metallic arches. Down to Simora, the muscular man is called to continue. The finger, a silent needle aimed at destiny, offers no explanation.


    Receptors, clasped shut beneath a tightened scarf, peel back slightly with all their might. In the air… chemicals. Neutralizers. Sprayed recently. An acrid stench on the floor, near the drains and intake valves, tells of active and dangerous agents beyond this point. Spraying for those that enter and those that leave. Something, like intoxicating perfume, floats beyond the archways—kept at bay by the threat of the spraying walls and various bracer technologies.


    “What’s back there?” But the finger only points. The golden eyes of the Dominax remain fixated on the end of the hallway as a soft clicking vibrates through the Deep Root’s neck; his receptors flinching with each snap. Instead of asking more questions, he steps forward.


    After a length of white hallways and four sprays of the neutralizing agents, Wallace stands at the mouth of a lab to his right. Three tables under several arms of equipment. Twisting, jointed machines meant to prod, poke, dissect, amplify, reduce, sample, rejuvenate, disintegrate, document, weld, graft, electrify, magnetize, and all other manner of interactions with a subject.


    On the central table lies the remains of something alien to Icarus Alpha.


    “Evolution, as privacy, is part of every creature’s story and desire. A puzzle of time and prejudice which gradually builds something capable of withstanding time and prejudice. Fascinating by all accounts.” Simora’s footsteps are only picked up by the receptors of Wallace’s neck; his ears unable to discern the individual clicks of the heel. Yet, the three clicks, two feet and a tongue, keep tempo for the Dominax. “These specimens are all unique, yet they have many aspects, attributes, in common.”


    “Evolution is the warfare of all branches sprouting from the same trunk.”


    “And what of the introduction of another tree?”


    “Then the two trees will war each other.”


    “Will they?” Simora’s eyes, never meeting with Wallace’s, scan the sections of the beasts. A smile playfully tugging at the edges of his lips.


    The devil’s dance still plays. That demonic tune to pry open a man’s mind so all the nightmares drip into the waking world. Staring down at the sections, a broken puzzle of mismatched pieces, Wallace inquires, “W-won’t they?”


    “Timid as always, Wallace. Have I ever given you reason to fear?”


    “Not you, Dominax.”


    “So formal.” Simora’s hands slide through the furs, over the scales, and across the toughened flesh. “What if we broke a branch from one tree and grafted it to another? How would this change the warfare of the single tree atop a single trunk?”


    “Grafted?” The question is caught up in the devil’s dance. Swaying in that darkness between truth and lies… the unknown. “I’m not sure.”


    “Most wouldn’t be so honest.”


    “Most won’t know the answer.”


    “None know the answer.” Simora drily giggles. “Father didn’t. Moth—well, no one knows. It’s never been done. Greens are the closest to the concept. Their Branching is quite incredible isn’t it? DNA will change to adapt almost immediately. Merely interacting with a planet’s native species will provide their genome the proper components to surviving.


    “Offspring are even possible. Dangerous and amazing.?” Simora’s eyes find his subordinate standing as a statue at the end of the table. False colors sparkle in the beams of light as he peers over the beasts; drawing Simora to certainty. He’s interested. Born shows the way, yet he’ll rely on me to guide him. Born beyond his capabilities… too timid as always. “All natural and expedited adaptation to a new environment. A powerful Green offers a grafting to the very trunk of the tree, but it must still rise from there. Branches struggling for the same nutrition as their newly introduced invaders.


    “But what happens after the introduction? War continues all the same. ‘The whole image is a sum of the pieces. Each piece meaningless unless the end is sought and achieved. The whole meaningless unless the pieces are studied as wholes themselves.’”


    “Blue logic is difficult to argue with.”


    “Especially when so simplified.” Simora tugs at thick fur, golden and speckled with black, as he continues. “I see the piece of it all. Greens and their natural ability to graft themselves into the whole. A self-correcting piece of the greater puzzle.”


    “The other colors?”


    “All in time, Wallace.” Simora lifts the fur for the man to examine. “Pretty stories and explanations will come as time and prejudice allow.” Smirking at the levels which separate them, Simora offers a verbal hand to lift the man higher. “I’ve surpassed grafting, Wallace. I have tamed the branches of the tree by means you will come to understand.


    “Still,” the Dominax looks down to his severed components, “I’m not finished. What if, Wallace, one could not only tame the tree… but reshape the roots, replant the tree, and have it stand exactly as one may specify?”


    There is a silence as the devil’s dance slows to a hushed breakdown for the man to mull over. All the pieces, the shards of possibility, remain invisible to the man. A man of advance thoughts and of receptors, but one lacking the natural affinity for the Blue as his master. Gaps, one would see easily if given a few hours to study all subjects, exist between the average human, Wallace, and Simora.


    Though Wallace understands this, it provides him little advantage in facing the beast. Simply knowing one’s opponent grants no true strength in comparison, but it does allow for inspection of the self. Growth, a branch blooming at the end of a mighty trunk, provided by these connections and interactions.


    “To share such secrecy with me.” Wallace allows himself to fall from the dance of the devil’s tune. A soothing chill comes over him in this lab. Invisible shards of possibility, a quiet inner sanctuary caught in time, passes him by. “You must need more of me.”


    “Precisely, Wallace! Precisely!” The Dominax clicks his tongue as he pats one preserved section five times. “I need to call upon my forces and make my move. Payment will come due, and I will ensure all my men are cared for.” His golden eyes dance across the frame of Wallace. “You, most of all, will carry on beneath my banner in highest regard.”


    “An accomplice in this.” Wallace’s eyes dart back and forth as he allows himself to utilize what strengths he possesses in the Spark. “You’ll move toward higher standing. Dangerous for all involved. You do this in secrecy because,” he drops his eyes to the unmet orbs of the Dominax, “morality or law prohibits it.”


    “Among other issues, yes.”


    “Encroaching upon other powerful person’s assets.”


    “Exactly.”


    “Patire will not like this.”


    “I should expect most will not.” Simora pats the creature another five times. “Does this mean I was wrong? Or does Born yet favor me with your destined answer?”


    “Destined?” Wallace steps forward, just close enough to stare into the eyes of an impressive varabelm. “You speak as a prophet then? Are we to play god?”


    “Play?” Simora laughs and shakes his head. “No pretending. No falsehoods. Nothing so trivial. Against all teachings of the Black, I open myself to you in this moment to buy your loyalty. When I achieve the next rung of my plans, I guarantee you adaughter of General Obin Nephire. He’s yet to agree to two daughters, but I will convince him.


    “You will bear a daughter first. Betrothed to my son, she will unite our families and forever bind Horral to Noctlin.”


    “Noctlin?” His eyes narrow, “Not Nor-Noctlin?”


    Simora only smiles as he pats the beast and reexamines what he’s already studied in depth. “What do you say, Wallace?”


    “You know my fears.”


    “Fear is but one emotion. All emotions are the expression of humanity. To control them is to evolve. To lose them is to lose humanity.”


    “Another Black sermon.”


    “One I often remind myself of.” Simora nods. “The unknown. I know. The unknown scares many. Yet, I stand in the light.” His head simply tilts upward to welcome the brightness. “Are you with me?”


    “What could drive a man to this?” Wallace speaks without emotion because they are safely tucked beneath the sands as he studies from the vantage of Spark. Logic in the moment. Fear may come and go when the deeds are done.


    Simora, matching his emotionless expression, answers truthfully. Allowing for Umbra to mask him in all things but truth, he opens his mouth to allow the reality a glimpse of light. “I’ve already conquered Icarus Alpha. Whether they know it or not… Ravager or Civilized. Namaste or average human. I’ve conquered this planet.” Golden eyes slide up like the gouged ends of a pulser—aimed right into the pupils of Wallace. “But there’s still more to conquer.”