Dark space earns its name. It looks like an expanse of translucent storm clouds with terrible thunder. You could almost mistake it for atmospheric weather. Except those clouds are not water vapor and those flashes of light are not lightning. They are exotic matter from another layer of the universe. Ships can travel through this sub-dimension and shorten journeys that would take centuries to mere months.

  However, every use of the Ibis Engine shreds spacetime, opening breaches for the storm to pour through into real space. And so starships are required to travel the edges of the star system before entering and exiting FTL. On approach, it looks like a great maelstrom of dark energy slowly enclosing in on civilization.

  While that sounds frightening, the dark space that has leaked into galaxy still constitutes a fraction of a fraction of a percent of the total vacuum. I’m told it will take billions of years before the overuse of Ibis FTL will begin threatening star systems. If we’re not out of the galaxy by then, we’re probably already extinct. And in the meantime, dark space has a useful role in scrambling sensors. It’s the travel you choose if you prefer to keep quiet and out of sight.

  Space travelers are often warned not to look too long into these storms. They say it drives you mad after a while. You start seeing things that can’t be there, strange planets rolling in the dark, ghost ships that appear in and out of reality, and most feared of all, the baleful monoliths of the Aberrants.

  I have never put much stock in the stories. Even when I was young, I had no trouble staring out into that howling void. And now, I have spent so many centuries in spacecraft that it is now a second home to me, a rare place of rest and solace in a very indifferent galaxy. Besides, I also know now that the Aberrants do not originate from dark space. Their realm is further off.

  Yet, I would still be lying if I claimed I had not seen things in those clouds I couldn’t explain.

  …

  Ingrish had difficulty persuading me to go to the medical bay again. After seeing Tut and the surgery suite, the last thing I wanted was to enter that room again. Even when she said the Belazzar wouldn’t be there, I had my reservations. In the days following my entrance onto the ship, it was still a new thing learning to trust.

  The Mantza were simple to understand, and they never lied—at least not to the lowly Xeno Urtaph. These new aliens had not lied yet, but my understanding of deceit had radically awakened with their arrival. I did not understand them, and so there opened a whole new range of miscommunication that I had long theorized but never seen in practice.

  For a long time, I was envious of Ingrish and her telepathy. It seemed she had access to the simplicity that I had lost when Amon Russ took me from the Mantza. I was then surprised when she told me that she loathed her telepathy and only uses her abilities when necessary.

  “My species isn’t well liked in the galaxy. We’re barred from stepping on many worlds. Even among our own people, we seldom form friendships or lasting bonds,” she said.

  “Why?”

  “Because we see others completely. And that means we see them often at their worst. If we choose to care for another, we have to do so knowing who they really are. And that’s a harder thing than people care to admit.”

  “Just don’t do anything wrong,” I said.

  Ingrish chuckled. “That’s one way. But for the rest of the galaxy, I like to imagine people as what they could be instead of what they are. I think that’s how we’d all like to be seen.”

  I still think of that conversation, and I have always tried to live out that noble idea, even though few will ever give me that same courtesy. And I believe even in those terrible circumstances, when justice does not ask but demands you take a life, that you ought to do so mercifully. So when the zero-sword is thrust through the heart, it is done not with wrath but pity.

  But returning to the medical bay, Ingrish finally persuaded me inside. She ran me through a scanner that told her everything that you might’ve guessed from my haggard appearance. I had lived my life eating Mantza food, drinking Mantza water, breathing Mantza air.

  To say I had developmental deficiencies would’ve been an understatement. I had sores in my mouth, and I had to have many teeth repaired or regrown. I learned my lungs had been scarred from a childhood of breathing poison. My body was little more than skin draped over bones. Ingrish gave me a dozen shots that day, ranging from vito-fluid to immune system boosters to bone marrow stims.

  I was quickly put on a regimen of heavy maturation cocktails to reverse the decade long damage to my body. It was painful at times, and often I would go to the medical bay dragging my feet, but it is quite the thing to learn what health feels like after a lifetime of sickness. It is not merely freedom. It is a whole new world, a new way of experience. To just take in a full breath of air is a delight most take for granted. I am convinced existence itself is a joy that people forget through repetition. But every breath is a miracle, and I have vowed never to be ungrateful.

  As I was sitting on one of the beds, Ingrish put a small device over my finger, and I felt the prick of a needle. I was in a sour mood, and it made me all the more irritated. I had already been subjected to the syringes, and while their pain was annoying, at least I knew what to expect. The surprise of the small gadget was nearly enough for me storm out of the room.

  Ingrish took the little clasp away and typed on one of the computers. I crossed my arms.

  “Why?”

  “That’s the last one,” Ingrish promised, her attention solely on the screen. “Needed a blood sample.”

  “Why?” I repeated, angrier than before.

  “To find out where you are from,” Ingrish told me.

  The answer caught me off guard. I was from Ghiza VI. There was nowhere else. It wasn’t so much that it was my home—it was more than that. It was my center. It was what I knew. Growing up, you believe that the whole of reality revolves around you. And slowly, that extends to what is around you as well.

  This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

  I thought Ghiza VI was the center of the galaxy, and the history of Ghiza VI was the history of the galaxy. And I believed the world of Ghiza VI was my own. To learn there was more to the story was unsettling. I felt something had been kept from me, something I ought to have known. For the first time, I felt a sense of violation. It would be far from the last time.

  “There are markers in your blood. It won’t tell us a lot, but it’ll give us an idea of the planet you were from.” Ingrish ran the final calibrations, inserting the small box into a computer port.

  I was suddenly struck with a sense of fear. Ingrish was giving me answers, but what if I didn’t like them? What if I didn’t want to know? That’s the terrible thing about knowledge. You can never take it back. You can only learn to live with it, and live with it I did.

  Before I could say another word, Ingrish suddenly clapped with delight and turned the computer screen towards me.

  “Kaal!” She announced cheerfully. “You’re from Kaal—Kaal Prime that is. Amon told me about it once or twice. It’s a lovely little planet, right on the edge of Vivan Sector.”

  The computer showed a verdant green and blue planet with two silver moons. It orbited a soft yellow star, and I saw a rich lushness that took my breath away. I did not know the word for garden then, but that is how I would’ve described Kaal. Pictures popped up on the side that showed splendorous white buildings rising out of thick jungles. I saw many open lakes with crystal clear water. There were so many colorful plants and animals that I could’ve spent all day asking Ingrish for their names.

  I wondered immediately what my life would’ve been like if I had grown up there instead of Ghiza VI. My heart pounded with excitement of the prospect of going there one day.

  “Is that where…” I fumbled for the correct language. I still had difficulty pronouncing the word for human. “The rest of… me are?”

  The excited smile flickered darkly for a moment on Ingrish’s face, and she hesitated with an answer. “Well, maybe a— I guess you could say— it’s…”

  “No. They’re not.” Amon appeared in the door frame outside. I nearly jumped up from the bed in surprise. I had no idea if he had been eavesdropping, or if he had happened down the hall. It was always impossible to tell with the man. He had a gift for not announcing his presence unless he wanted it known.

  Ingrish stood up and thumbed her webbed hands nervously.

  “You ran him through the scanner, correct? Been putting this off, but he’s not simple, is he?” Amon asked boredly.

  I had no idea why Amon was asking how mechanically complex I was, but I supposed there was a meaning I was not picking up.

  “There’s nothing wrong with his brain. Just an insect’s upbringing.” Ingrish answered.

  “That’s good.” Amon walked over to the computer screen depicting Kaal. “I would’ve had to take him to Sanctuary otherwise. Still might. I haven’t decided. There’s just not a good place for kids anymore. I don’t know if they would even take him.”

  “You should keep him. He’s bright. You’ll see,” she told Amos.

  “Well, he’s not going anywhere for the time being.” Amon put a finger on the computer screen, right where the planet was being shown. “That’s not Kaal. You’re showing him what it was nearly a thousand years ago.”

  Ingrish nodded her head, abashed at Amon for calling out her deception. “Do we need to tell him so soon? It’s only been a few days…”

  “You don’t need to coddle him. You see him as a child, but this kid survived a Mantza childhood. That means he’s a fighter. He can take the hard knocks.” Amon turned to me, his eyes quickly sizing me up. He crossed his arms. “I’m sure you’ve got a lot of questions about us humans, why we’re the only two aboard and why you’re not going to see any wherever we go. Well, now’s the time to ask while I’m still in a good mood.”

  Ingrish translated his words and intent, but I had only one question.

  “Where?”

  “Nowhere,” he answered, “at least nowhere in big enough numbers to matter. There might be about a hundred thousand of us or so, scattered across the length and breadth of the galaxy. But there’s no cities or planets—not really. The galaxy is home to trillions, so it’s hard to find each other.”

  He tapped a few keys on the computer screen, and I saw a new Kaal—the real one. The white spires were either overgrown with plants or crumbling. The hollow ruins didn’t just look empty. They looked starkly abandoned. The beautiful jungle became something altogether sinister, like it was hiding a grave. No, it was worse. It was erasing the fact that we had been there at all.

  This was my home. I didn’t know the word back then, but for the first time, I felt homesick for a place and people I never knew. If I had been on that planet, in those ruins, I would’ve run from building to building, shouting for anyone, anyone to answer back. I felt my heart ache from the loneliness of those image pics. There was much I didn’t know, more still untold, but my throat clenched in somber realization. I knew I wasn’t going back to Ghiza VI, but now I knew there would not be another world to call home.

  I looked back at Amon. “Why?”

  The look on Amon’s face told a thousand regrets and more. “It isn’t too complicated. Just the slow march of time. Time, and a war we shouldn’t have fought.”

  …

  Amon Russ was a man of stories. He never once liked to tell them, but you could see that they were there, etched in every wrinkle and scar on his weathered face. His pale blue eyes never seemed to be looking at you, his mind constantly distracted by what must’ve been countless memories. He was the kind of man who had a thousand friends and twice as many enemies, forlorn loves borne across the galaxy and one heartbreak that he always carried with him. He was the kind of man whose anger was as wrathful as a star, and whose sorrow was as bitter as the loneliest of tomb worlds.

  He was a man who knew too much but had lived too late. If you knew him, you probably only knew the indifferent and insensitive warrior. If you knew him like I did, you would know he was a man who cared too much, and every night, he was counting all his mistakes. His rough features spoke clearly of the battlefield, and not the glorious sort, but also not the kind a good man ought to walk away from. His silver goatee and hair was just losing the last of its brown color, yet he was remarkably lean, and he looked strong enough to wrestle with a Grugk.

  He told me that day about the Fifth Aberrant War, about the things that couldn’t die, the things still shrieking as EM ghosts in the void. But even before that, mankind was dying. We had been the masters of the galaxy, the first to conquer the stars, and it was that victory which defeated us. As far as humanity was concerned, we had created utopia. And we died in the fires of that utopia.

  By the billion, we bled over the long centuries, and we thought nothing of it. Our long lifespans were frittered away for the sake of blind pleasures, and it was often so ugly that even now I shudder to think of how low a species can fall. But I will spare you the more awful details—they should be easy to find for the curious anyway. For this account, you only need to know humanity fell into the most awful depravity.

  Many actually sterilized themselves, made themselves into willing eunuchs for the sake of the ecstasy plugs. They dedicated their efforts to building great ships and even whole planets for nothing more than base indulgence. Some were as extreme as to opt for euthanasia, trying to ascend into a digital consciousness, which was in fact no true consciousness.

  Over thousands of years, our numbers dwindled until we held nothing more than a few planets populated by the few who remembered our past glories. We had the most powerful ships and weapons, but they didn’t matter without the numbers to use or maintain them. Whole battle fleets fell into disrepair or were sold off to the highest bidder. And whenever we fought, every loss whittled away the fewer and fewer people we had.

  The galaxy was more than happy to accommodate our decline. For every species that was for us, twice were against, wanting to be their own masters. Where we once walked with our heads held high, we hid in the shadows, fearful of attracting unwanted attention. Yet still we won every war we fought—except the last one.

  Then we were blown away like dust in the wind.

  Amon had been born on the cusp of the end, centuries ago now. He was there for all of it, and he was there for everything that came after. The galaxy knew him as the Hero of the Battle of Perses, a young, daring pilot who single handedly took down an Aberrant cruiser with nothing more than a fighter and a singularity bomb. From pictures of his younger days, he looked as though he could take on the whole universe, but I never knew that man. I only knew the man he became to me.

  He was my father.