LotS/The Story/Aphrodisian Anabasis/Xeno-Xanadu
Xeno-Xanadu
"That makes five," Talia says.
"Sure they're not the same as the first ones?" Ragnar asks. "It's hard to tell with aliens."
"The first group was led by a male Rylattu. This one's being led by a female."
"Oh. They all look the same to me."
From your vantage point in the alleyway, nestled on the edge of Cyberia, you look out at the blazing lights and outlandish architecture of Xeno-Xanadu. Hedon's alien district, which caters largely to people who want to gain carnal knowledge of members of different species, is certainly designed to convey the exotic. Each of its buildings looks as if it might have been modeled on the structures of a different alien race. Some are great pyramids, others curved, sprawling edifices without a straight line in sight. One seems to consist largely of gas, inside an amorphous transparent shell.
You wonder how much of what you're seeing is based on genuine alien designs, and how much has merely been cobbled together to excite the awe of tourists.
But the place's level of cultural authenticity isn't your prime concern. You've been waiting and watching, marking the patrols that you've seen passing through the streets -- marching past the crowds of amorous couples and gawking singles still waiting to select their flesh of choice.
"The streets aren't normally this heavily guarded," Claudia says. "They must really want to stop us."
"I don't remember any aliens in the meeting room," says Princess Illaria. "Unless that red-skinned woman..."
"Her skin was dyed," you reply. "I got a close look."
"The Xenophiles didn't send a delegate," Claudia says. "But they were among Syra's strongest supporters."
"You know a lot about what goes on here in Hedon," you say, "for a slave-girl from Lupanar."
"People talk in this town," she says, after a pause. "Besides, no one ever notices a slave-girl. Makes it easy to eavesdrop."
"We could try sneaking through the crowds," Talia says.
"Tel's mech isn't built for blending in," you reply.
"Hey, if it wasn't for my mech we wouldn't have made it this far. Anyway, I asked you to get me a battlesuit."
"I thought you asked for an interplanetary missile?"
"That was before. Now I want a battlesuit -- you know, for times when I can't take my mech places."
"Could we backtrack?" the Princess asks. "And find another way through to Thalatta?"
"Maybe." Claudia shrugs. "But by now the other factions may have brought out all their people as well. We've not exactly been subtle, shooting up half the city."
"What's wrong with just fighting our way through?" Ragnar asks. "It's worked pretty good for us so far."
"These ones are better equipped," Lu Bu replies. "Look."
He points ahead, at hulking forms that have appeared round a distant corner -- from behind a rhombus-shaped building.
"Robots?" Telemachus asks.
"Kweeglons."
The big metal warriors stomp their way closer, the crowd parting before them, their every footfall creating a clunking metal thud that you're sure is artificially added to make them seem more impressive. Lu Bu's statement is proven true soon enough, as they draw near enough for you to see the Rylattu heads sticking up from the middle of the rotund metal carapaces.
"Damn it!" Claudia hisses. "I knew they kept alien tech here, but..."
"If we picked our moment," Lu Bu says, "and kept moving, I estimate a high probability of success. But the risk of casualties would be high as well."
You nod. The robot's assessment matches your own. If you made a break for Thalatta, you might not all make it. The Princess isn't even in her battle gear, and the light protective weaves sewn into her dress are all that shield her vital organs from a potentially fatal shot. There has to be a better way...
"We don't have to take the streets," Claudia says. "We could cut through Fruits of the Galaxy."
She points to an immense, sprawling structure comprised of strange domes and towers -- the largest building in sight.
"It reaches almost all the way to Thalatta."
You gaze at the building, following its twists and turns, then look back at Claudia.
"What do you know about the place?"
"It's the most popular brothel in Xeno-Xanadu. The clients won't want the place crawling with security. And the whores usually take care of trouble themselves."
"You reckon you can find us a way through, and get us out the other side before anything heavy shows up?"
"Caligula took me there once, when she was meeting with Mermara -- the leader of the Xenophiles. I had a chance to wander round."
You hold her gaze for a long moment. Then you nod.
Once the latest patrol has passed by, and the way is clear, you make your move.
Plenty of Fish
"Welcome to Fruits of the Galaxy! What may... Hey! You're-"
The Princess takes a quick step as the receptionist falls, catches the woman in her arms, and lowers her to the ground. Then she stands back up, looks you in the eyes, and shrugs.
"I had to knock her out, but I didn't want her to crack her head open."
Given the number of people you've been forced to kill or at least severely injure tonight, you figure the receptionist will consider herself the luckiest woman on Cythera when she wakes up.
You glance around the room. The walls to your left and right, and the one directly opposite the entrance, each contain a set of ornate double doors. One looks to be made from silver, another from gold. The third is a blue metal that you don't recognize, but you assume it must be a precious alien substance of some kind.
"We'll have to go through a few of the chambers," Claudia says, moving towards the gold door at the far end. "There isn't a corridor that goes through the whole building. They built it that way, so clients would walk through a load of rooms in turn -- and see what's on offer."
She beckons, and you all follow.
The golden doors open, revealing a short corridor that ends in an identical set of doors. As you approach them, and pull them open in turn, their noise-proof seal parts to reveal the sounds of laughter and splashing water.
A swimming pool dominates the floor space of the chamber beyond, beneath walls and ceiling that glow with a soft blue light. Dozens of faces stare from its waters, their eyes fastened on you and your companions. Some are human. Others are scaly.
Piscarians.
"I think that's how mermaids get made," Talia says, gesturing at a pair of coupling swimmers who gaze at you from their unbroken embrace.
"That's the way we want to go," says Claudia.
You look in the direction of her pointing finger, to the doors at the opposite side of the pool.
"Perhaps we can just-" the Princess begins.
"That's the Sian Princess!" one of the Piscarians yells, in the warbling accents of his race.
"Or perhaps not," you reply.
The chamber is filled with shouts and hisses. Then the aliens dive under the water -- as though trying to hide. The humans scramble for the sides of the pool, and begin to clamber out amidst screams and frenzied splashing. Some are making for the doors you're heading towards, others for those you came through or the set in the left-hand wall.
"Let's move!" says Princess Illaria.
You start making your way around the pool, trying not to slip on the wet tiles in your haste. But your gaze remains fixed on the water, and your vigilance is rewarded with an ominous sight.
Most of the Piscarians are removing panels from the bottom of the pool, and grabbing tridents hidden beneath them. A few ignore the weapons, however. Instead they're reaching for the ornaments -- golden fish heads, you realize -- set in the exact center of each of the pool's sides, just below the water level.
The human screams redouble in volume as all three sets of doors thud shut with insistent force -- powerful enough to scatter the men and women who were trying to press through into the corridors beyond, flinging some of them back into the pool. There's a series of loud hissing noises as the portals seal themselves.
Then the panels in the walls slide open, revealing more golden fish heads. These ones have their mouths agape, and you know what's going to happen even before the torrents of water gush forth.
At the same moment, the Piscarians rise from the pool -- the points of their tridents glowing with the promise of death.
Watery Grave
"Climb on!" Telemachus yells.
His mech lurches forwards, bending low, water splashing over the cockpit. Ragnar hurls a Piscarian corpse aside, and helps the Princess and Claudia as they scramble onto it. The mech stands upright once they're secure in their footing and handholds, lifting them above the rising water. The women look like shipwrecked mariners clinging to flotsam, their clothing plastered to their bodies. But at least this will buy them a little more time.
"Talia!"
"Here, captain!"
She fires a shot with each of her pistols before turning to you, and two Piscarians are left floating behind her with holes in their brows.
"The fish heads!"
She follows your pointing finger, and her eyes gleam with understanding. She holsters her pistols, and dives under the water -- swimming towards the one nearest her.
You look to the others, but no one else is free to assist you. Ragnar and Lu Bu are close to Telemachus, fighting the last of the aliens and keeping them away from the Princess. Axe, gunfire, sword, and claw tear through the scaly bodies that approach under the water, or else rise up above it to fire their tridents.
The Piscarians' clients are busy screaming, wailing, banging on the sealed doors, or treading water with desperate splashes.
You and Talia will have to take care of this on your own...
You take a gulp of air, and dive under -- your murky gaze fixed on a golden fish head glimmering in the water.
Rendezvous with Rylattu
Water streams from every orifice of Lu Bu's robotic body, each movement seeming to yield another rivulet from a previously undiscovered source. Telemachus' mech has fared little better, but since his cockpit cover appears to have kept him dry he can afford to bear this with cheerful equanimity.
Ragnar is just as nonplused by his own soaking. As he walks around bare-chested, his trousers are waterproof, and his enhanced body is immune to such considerations as cold, there's little to trouble him. And though Talia's hair is plastered to her, it takes more than being half-drowned to dampen her spirits.
It's Claudia and the Princess who've suffered most. The slave-girl's tunic and the Princess' dress weren't designed to be worn while soaking wet. Filmy white material clings to Illaria's limbs, and her outfit is bordering on transparency. Yet somehow her hair is immaculate -- its peaks as perfect and unyielding as if they were sculpted from marble.
Many of the chamber's clientele are sobbing in its corners, either wracked with terror or overwhelmed by their relief. A few lie motionless upon the tiles, or else float face-down in the pool -- drowned by the callous actions of their Piscarian paramours. But some made it out either before the doors were sealed or after they were reopened. And they could bring more enemies upon you at any moment.
So you press on -- all of you ignoring any discomfort your aquatic odyssey has left you with -- through the doors Claudia pointed out to you earlier.
The winding corridor beyond the doorway twists and turns in a seemingly unnecessary and nonsensical fashion. It curves sharply in places, and in others rises or descends in a slope. The walls are multifaceted rather than flat, as though you're trapped inside some kind of irregular polygon. Unless the builders were being paid per plane, you can't imagine why it would have been designed this way. Then it occurs to you that it might be a dubious attempt at making clients feel as if they're in an alien environment.
The doors at the end of the passage are conventional enough -- similar to those you passed through earlier, though made of dark wood instead of metal.
You push them open, revealing the chamber beyond and puncturing the little bubble of soundproofing which shielded it.
"You're such a wonderful stink-beast!"
"What a delightful joke, puny human!"
You find yourself gazing upon a chamber which wouldn’t be out of place in a nightclub. Much of the room is filled with spacious booths, luxurious couches, and varnished tables. A long bar stretches along one of the walls, its shelves filled with strangely shaped bottles and decanters. Artfully placed and tempered lighting scatters pools of illumination and shadow across the room, creating levels of darkness for every taste and accentuating the outlandish glow of some of the strips of florescent color which adorn the walls.
But the room's occupants are curious enough, regardless of their surroundings.
Human men and women sit at the tables, dressed in elegant eveningwear. Among them, laughing, smiling, caressing them, and plying them with drinks, are Rylattu clad in sleek, stylish jumpsuits.
"It's..." the Princess trails off, as though the utterance tumbled from the tip of her tongue in surprise.
"A Rylattu hostess bar?" Talia says.
You continue to stare, drinking in the strange scene of Rylattu -- aliens who generally seem to divide their time between insulting humans and selling them absurd gadgets -- in this most unusual role.
"Your inferior human brain says the most romantic things, my wretched little worm baby!" a female Rylattu coos, batting her eyelids at the man in whose lap she's ensconced.
"More intoxicating beverages will make your hideous human countenance tolerable," a male alien tells the giggling woman sitting beside him, as he gestures to the waiter for a round of drinks.
The tittering girl's bright eyes drift to you. Then they widen, and she thrusts an accusing finger in your direction.
"Your pleasant stench is-"
"It's them!" she blurts out, interrupting her lover's rather unique flattery. "The people who killed Syra!"
Every eye in the room, human and alien, fastens its gaze on you.
"Get them!" the woman screams. "Disintegrate them with your weapons of unimaginable destructive power!"
"Yes, wretched meat-pig!" her Rylattu replies.
He leaps to his feet, and brandishes a laser rifle. Now where did that even come from?
The shooting starts.
Gas Chamber
"What am I?" you ask.
"A puny human!" the Rylattu gasps.
You slam his absurdly large head into the table. It makes a satisfying thud.
"What am I?"
"A... puny... human!"
Thud.
"What am I?"
"A... mighty human stink-beast!"
"Good enough."
You toss him aside, and leave him sprawling amongst the wreckage.
"Shame we had to trash the place," Talia says, as you make your way to the doors at the far end. "It seemed sort of fun. Where else can a host or hostess tell a customer how worthless they are?"
"Maybe you could start your own one," you reply. "After we free Sian."
Her eyes sparkle, and you wonder whether she appreciates that you were joking.
"Are we going to smash our way through every race in the galaxy?" Ragnar asks. "Not complaining if we are."
"We're not far from the exit," Claudia says. "Just a couple more rooms."
Yet another set of double doors opens before you, revealing the next corridor. This one has long, clear tubes of varying thickness mounted along its walls. Some are little broader than a hair, others the girth of your upper arm. Each contains a brightly colored gas, and between them they seem to cover every conceivable hue in the visible spectrum. These colorful tubes curve and twist, turn and entangle -- writhing over and among each other, creating elaborate patterns one moment and inscrutable jumbles the next.
"The identity of the next aliens we'll encounter should come as no surprise," Lu Bu remarks.
"No," you reply. "Ragnar, you want to borrow a laser? Machinegun bullets aren't much good against gas."
"I've killed Sussurrae before," he says. He raises his axe, presses a switch on its shaft, and grunts in satisfaction as orange-red energy blazes like flame along its edge.
You continue down the long corridor, casting wary glances at the colorful tubes running along its walls. They might be purely decorative, and contain nothing more than inert gas. But it never hurts to be cautious...
"You think Contella will be mad at us?" Telemachus asks, after a few moments of silence. "They asked us to help make peace here, and we've..."
"Cythera is a valuable world to the Consortium," the Princess replies. "What happened wasn't our fault, but it may cost them dearly all the same. I don't think they'll be best pleased."
"I have a feeling they'll be considerate," you say.
Claudia coughs, a loud, inelegant barking noise.
"Sorry," she says. "I think I'm catching a cold or something from being in these wet clothes."
A smile crosses your lips. Then you reach the end of the corridor, and stop in front of the closed doors.
You look to your companions, and they raise their weapons. Then you shove the doors open, and thudding music washes over you.
If the gas in the tubes along the corridor walls was sentient, comprised of Sussurrae, they mustn't have had a way to reach the chamber and warn their brethren. Because the scene before you isn't that of people preparing to meet an attack.
The first thing you notice is that everything in the room is transparent but for the purple floor, and the black walls and ceiling. Columns of see-through material adorn the chamber, extending up its entire height. Clouds of colorful gas swirl within them, moving -- dancing? -- in time with the music. Similarly diaphanous couches, chairs, and tables make up its furniture -- and again each has a Sussurra trapped within it.
Some of the ambulatory inhabitants of the room are solid, men and women come to sample the mysterious delights of gaseous love. The rest are more Sussurra, in a number of remarkable shapes and states. Some drift around the chamber, loose clouds of orange, blue, green, purple, or red -- swirling around the humans, creeping beneath their clothing. Others are wearing pellucid human-shaped suits, of the kind the gas-aliens normally wear when interacting with other species. Remarkably, many of them are locked in passionate entanglements with their human clients.
But... It must feel like plastic...
One rather remarkable specimen catches your eye -- a Sussurrae in a big, fat transparent suit that makes him resemble the most obese sumo wrestler imaginable. A naked woman gyrates inside its confines, the alien's purple gas enveloping her body, crawling across her flesh like a swarm of insects. She's moaning in rapture. You just hope she can breathe in there...
"Tel, goggles..."
"I hadn't even taken them off!"
"Just making sure."
"And here's me thinking nothing could be crazier than a Rylattu host bar," Talia says.
"Welcome to Cythera," Claudia replies.
At that point the Sussurrae begin to look round, and the shouting starts. You sigh in gratitude. Combat suddenly seems like ever so wholesome an activity...
Mermara
"Get it off me! Get it off me!"
You turn from the ionized remains of a Sussurra -- now just a lifeless blue mist drifting through the air -- and see Telemachus thrashing inside the cockpit of his mech.
There's a collapsed suit on the ground, either opened by the Sussurra from within or else ripped apart by one of the young prince's attacks. Red gas billows up from it, surging around the mech's body. A few tendrils have managed to work their way inside the cockpit, and Telemachus is flailing at them with his boyish hands -- trying to bat them away. His cry for help given, he's clamping his mouth shut, as though to avoid inhaling the gas.
You fire a blast from your weapon, and send a laser beam straight into the gas. It writhes as though in pain, and red mist drifts away from the greater denseness of its body. But the tendrils within the cockpit are still reaching out for the boy, and more of the gas is seeping inside.
"Open the canopy!" you yell, firing again and again at the cloud outside its confines. One of your shots strikes the mech's armor, and there's a flashing spark.
Telemachus thrashes about -- one arm still flailing at the gaseous tentacles, a small hand groping for the controls. His eyes meet yours, their panic-stricken stare somehow perceptible in spite of the goggles that conceal them, and a long, frozen moment oozes by. Then there's a click.
The canopy flips upwards, and you raise your weapon.
"No!" Talia shouts.
She shoulders you aside before you can fire, and takes aim with her pistols.
You bite back your protest, and force yourself to stay your weapon. She's right... You can't match her accuracy.
Another slow second passes, with your gaze locked on the gunslinger's visage. There's no trace of amusement on Talia's face now, none of the cockiness or thrill-seeking elation that normally graces it. Her eyes are cold and steady, glinting like a predator's.
Lasers fly from her weapons, shot after shot after shot. And she keeps firing even as she moves.
You look at Telemachus, and see beams striking the cockpit around him, piercing the soft upholstery of the chair behind, sparking off the mech's armor. Some of the laser fire must be passing him by mere millimeters, so close you hold your breath and expect to see them penetrate his flesh. But every shot is clean. Perfect. And each one passes through the Sussurra's gas.
Talia skips round the mech in an arc, opening up new lines of fire. And with each fresh angle of attack, lasers strike gas and slip past flesh.
Dead gas drifts away from the cockpit, no longer able to resist the thrashing of the boy's arms.
Talia lets out a long breath, holsters her pistols, and moves towards the mech. An agile leap, vault, and twist land her next to Telemachus. He grabs her round the neck with both arms, and suddenly seems younger than you've ever seen him.
The gunslinger laughs, and puts an arm round him in turn.
"Might want to think about turning on the airtight seals next time you're fighting gas creatures," she says.
The Princess, Ragnar, and Lu Bu gather round -- their bodies and clothing colored by sprinklings of dead Sussurrae.
Each of you fought like a devil against your unusual foes -- the Princess with her pistol flashing, Ragnar sweeping his axe through everything that moved. At one point you saw Lu Bu weaving such a rapid web of steel with his sword and claw that he was able to drag a loose Sussurra away from the Princess -- and render the alien vulnerable to one of her shots.
The night's been one great swath of battles. And it's not over yet.
You look to Claudia.
"Which direction's the exit in?"
"Through there," she says, pointing at a set of doors across the chamber.
"I think there might be one more room in our way."
She pauses for a moment.
"Yes," she says. "I believe you're right."
Double doors open. This time the corridor's walls, floor, and ceiling and covered with holographic screens. Psychedelic flashes of brilliance swirl and splash across them all, until it seems as if the entire universe is unraveling into the colors which comprise it.
The door at the end is covered in the same images, whirling and whooshing before your eyes as you reach for the handle.
The portal opens into a chamber that does the corridor full justice.
Holo-screens line the circular wall, displaying whizzing flashes of color and imagery. Huge, monolith-like lava lamps fill the middle of the room, bubbles of viscous liquid oozing and bubbling inside them.
"So, you're the ones who've been causing chaos all over the city..."
A slender, feminine form appears from behind one of the lava lamps. The alien's figure is lithe and curvaceous, like that of a beautiful human woman. But her flesh, adorned only by scanty strips and patches of gold, is bright blue. Fins extend from her forearms, her cheeks, the crown of her head. She's a Piscarian, like those you fought in the swimming pool. And like them, she clutches a trident in her hands.
"I thought about getting out of here, and letting my minions deal with you instead. But what would people think? What would my reputation be if everyone knew that Mermara -- the girl who once took on a dozen men and killed them all -- ran away and screamed for help because she couldn't handle a few troublemakers?"
She lounges towards you, her trident spinning in front of her.
"Reputation is everything on Cythera. And imagine what mine will be like when I do what the Scarlet Harlot, Caligula, Agony and Ecstasy, and Mercury couldn't."
"Your local turf struggles and politics don't interest us," the Princess says. "We just want to reach Thalatta."
"Then you shouldn't have come to Xeno-Xanadu."
Mermara shrieks, a long piercing sound that's like a shockwave inside your skull. Then she lunges.
"I think we're done here," you say.
Claudia gazes at Mermara's bloody form, florescent green splashed across its blue flesh, and nods.
"This way."
On the other side of the room, hidden behind yet another big lava lamp, is a door. It slides open, and a cool breeze plays across your face.
"Her secret escape route," Claudia says. "She should have taken it when she had the chance."
The seven of you file out into the night, with you in the lead -- glancing around for signs of danger. But there's no one around. The door opened on the very edge of Xeno-Xanadu, and across an empty expanse you can see the wall and gates of...
"Thalatta!" Telemachus cries in triumph. "Thalatta!"
With looks of elation on your faces, you head towards the spaceport's glowing lights.
You find her leaning against a stack of crates in the corner of the spaceport, a cigarette in her mouth -- its end a burning red eye in the shadows.
Surprise crosses her face as she sees you, and the cigarette falls from her lips. She catches it with a swift hand, her thumb and forefinger closing around it and stopping the glowing redness an inch above the smooth flesh of her bare thigh.
"I thought you'd taken off," she says.
"Soon," you reply. "The others are already on the ship. But I wanted to see you before we left."
Claudia smiles, and tosses the cigarette aside. It hits the ground, scattering little motes of brightness around its discarded corpse.
"I'm glad things worked out for you," she says. "I hear that the Consortium's going to honor their agreement, and stop trading with the Centurians."
"I had a... productive conversation with Melloni, while the others were resting up. He's a reasonable man. He even told the Princess he'd have you flown anywhere you wanted to go, so you could start over with the credits she gave you."
"She's a generous woman."
Claudia glances down at the black tunic she's wearing. It's ruffled, stained, and torn from the night's exploits.
"First thing I'll do is get myself some new clothes."
"Yeah. Something more suitable. Red with pinstripes, perhaps."
She stands up straight, and her eyes widen.
"I don't know-"
"Yes, you do. Don't insult my intelligence. You're no slave-girl from Lupanar. And nothing that happened to us tonight was by chance."
She takes a slow step backwards, her eyes fixed on yours.
"Contella arranged for Syra to be shot. The little schoolgirl was more trouble than she was worth. As for Perplexi, the cyberpunk... I'm guessing her visor let her see in the dark. She had to die, before she could tell anyone what she saw."
Claudia's gaze darts around, like that of a hunted animal. Then she becomes still, and smiles. You look over your shoulder, following the direction of her stare. A group of Contella soldiers stands a little way behind you -- close enough to hear a scream, able to witness any acts of violence with the slightest turn of their heads.
You look back at the pseudo-slave-girl, and smile in turn.
"They put you there on the edge of Lupanar, where we'd find you. And then you got to lead us on your little dance, bringing us back to Thalatta -- but taking care of a few more of Contella's problems along the way."
Claudia shrugs.
"It worked like a charm," she says. "A small group of misfits managed to wreck half of Hedon, and leave some of its most powerful people lying in their own blood. Now everyone knows they need the Consortium's protection. Who's going to side with a bunch of upstarts who couldn't even protect their own turf?"
She turns her head slightly, and regards you with a quizzical stare.
"But you worked this out before now. Why didn't you say anything?"
"By that time, we were in too deep -- and you were our best chance of getting back here alive, even if you did have your own agenda. I knew you wouldn't put us in any situations you didn't think we could get ourselves out of. You weren't there to risk your own neck."
You gesture behind you with a twitch of your head -- over your shoulder, where the men and women stand in their garish suits.
"And I knew I had to play along, to ensure the Consortium's support against the Centurians. Freeing Sian means everything to her. I wouldn't let anything get in the way of that."
"Then we both got what we wanted," she says.
"Not quite."
You draw your pistol in one single, swift motion. Her face pales, and her pupils widen like tiny vortexes.
"I can't forgive you for putting my friends at risk. For jeopardizing the life of Princess Illaria."
"Don't be stupid. If you kill me, Santino Melloni will send the entire Consortium after you."
"No, he won't."
The fear hardens on her face as she hears the certainty in your voice.
"But-"
"I've already spoken to Melloni. Sorry, Claudia. But you're expendable."
A moment later you're walking across the spaceport, towards the distant shape of your ship. A woman in a slave-girl's tunic lies on the ground behind you -- gazing at the stars through sightless eyes.