“Why?”
“She said that the Naba-Sa’im are the closest to how devils were described in Judeo-Christian mythology.”
“Devils? What, with horns and a pointy tail?”
“Yeah, they have horns for sure. No tail. You know what a goat is?”
“Sure. Lir’s family raises them. She would sometimes drag me along to feed them.”
“Who’s Lir?”
“Uh, a friend of mine. Back on Anglad.” I hoped that I wasn’t turning red or anything. I quickly tried to change the subject. “But goats are little creatures. Ugly things, but not very menacing.”
“Well, picture a bipedal humanoid with a head and legs of a goat. With hooves and everything.”
“Uh huh.”
“And it stands, oh, maybe two, two and a quarter meters tall. Heavily muscled. Weighs maybe a hundred twenty-five kilograms. Probably more.”
“Okay, now we’re getting into scary territory.”
“Oh, and did I mention that the Naba are kind of low-tech? They don’t blast at their enemies nice and clean with an RB. They slice them to shreds with these big axes.”
“I believe the weapon is called a werris—if I am not mistaken,” TenSix said.
“Yeah, now I’m very curious.”
“Well, once we get to the Cauldron, you’ll get to see them with your own eyes.”
“That chasm?”
“Yeah. We offer tribute to cross their bridge.”
“I thought you said that this whole place was their territory,” I said.
“It is.”
“But we won’t run into them until we get to the chasm?”
“They’re probably watching us now, but we’re not going to see them unless they want to be seen.”
“Okay, I’m just going to go with it.”
Kira smiled at me. “Good attitude.”
We descended the slope into the Mothaatas Wastes proper. At the base of the hill, Kira checked the sled and then she and I climbed on.
“This’ll be slightly faster than walking,” she said. “But the stabilizer on this thing is a piece of junk, so make sure you stay on the opposite side from me. Otherwise we’ll tip.”
“Aye, aye, captain!"
We rode through the tortured landscape at about ten kilometers per hour. The sled couldn’t go any faster than that, but Kira guided it expertly through the fractured desert. As we proceeded, she pointed out piles of white stones that stood out against the black volcanic rock.
“Those are trail markers,” she explained. “We need to stay close to them.”
“Or what?”
“I don’t know. My parents never strayed from the path.”
The journey was long and the landscape soon got boring. Thankfully, Kira was in the mood to talk and we spent hours getting to know each other even better. She was very easy to talk to, and very down-to-earth. Much different than most of the women I knew. Or men, for that matter.
When she asked more about my dad, that familiar wave of apprehension was nowhere to be found. Maybe because Kira had no idea who Sean Beck was, so she wasn’t asking about a celebrity. She was asking about a father.
“TenSix, please enter privacy mode,” I said.
“Of course.”
Kira looked over at me. “Uh oh, someone’s about to bare their soul?”
“I guess so.” I ended up telling her the entire story of my dad’s disappearance, his betrayal by members of his own team, and his incredible story of survival. I told her the truth about my mission and filled in all the details.
“That was a big chunk to leave out, gēgē! Your old man’s a bot?”
“My old man’s dead,” I said bitterly. “The only thing left is a bot. With his consciousness.”
“And you said that this bot—what did you call it?”
“The Sean bot.”
“Very original,” she said.
“I thought so.”
“So this Sean bot was part of your crew when you went through that artifact thing?”
“Yes, the Levirion.”
“And you don’t know what happened to them?”
“No. Like I said, when I woke up they were gone.”
“Sounds like you need to speak to someone who knows a little more about the Levirion.”
“I’d love to,” I said. “But who? Our resident expert on xeno-archaeology was more a specialist on the ancient Yueldians. She didn’t really know much about the Levirion. The only information we had was from the Sean bot. And he had stolen it from the Mayir.”
“The Mayir?” TenSix said.
“You’re still in privacy mode!” I reminded the little bot.
“This gets better and better,” Kira said.
“Not really. The Mayir had translated part of an ancient manuscript. I think it was ancient Marimoran. According to the Sean bot, all that the translation revealed was that the Levirion was capable of opening up a jump gate to one of the four locations depicted on the Levirion itself.”
“I don’t get it.”
“The Levirion is a little metal pyramid. Small enough to hold on the palm of your hand. On each face is a map.”
“Well, why didn’t you just look at the map? Then you would know where you were going, right?”
“No one recognizes the maps. That was the problem. We’d need someone who could translate the manuscript better than the Mayir.”
“Well, I don’t know anyone off the top of my head,” Kira said.
My hopes fell.
“But I bet my aunt would.”
“The devil lady?”
Kira laughed. “Tallifore Lambourne is a big name in academia, especially in ancient cultures. She knows everyone. She’ll be able to hook you up with the galaxy’s foremost expert on this Levirion manuscript.”
“The manuscript was called something else. Manock? I can’t remember.”
“Doesn’t matter. You tell my aunt what you told me and I bet she could make it happen.”
“And she’d do that for me?”
“No, she’d do that for her favorite niece. Actually, her only niece.”
“That would be fantastic,” I said. “We would, of course, have to keep this confidential.”
“Of course.”
I wondered if Beck Salvage had ever worked with Kira’s aunt. We consulted with a lot of academics. But I couldn’t recall the name ‘Tallifore Lambourne.’ Of course, that didn’t mean much. I wasn’t really involved in hiring contractors.
“I’d really appreciate it,” I said. “But I’m not going to get my hopes up. Apparently, this manuscript is three thousand years old. Maybe older.”
“Three thousand years old? That’s nothing to Aunt Tally. Some of the myths that she’s translated are over
