It wasn't just goblins and Ifrit aboard Myriad. Midnighters had insisted on coming as well. Cla'thn had come, along with her nameless elite guard. We had one of the modules blocked off for them with few electric lights and windows that could be easily covered to prevent the sunlight from hurting the priestess caste's sensitive skin. I made my way through the station to their quadrant where an elite let me through.

The way the Midnighters treated the goblins, you'd think we hadn't just fought a deadly battle where I'd threatened the life of their queen. Although, since both the Midnight Queen and the First Daughter still had invisible levels to me, I wondered if even the railgun would have been enough. Still, the bugs didn't seem to harbor grudges. They cared about one thing, right now, and that was waking up their Queen of Queens.

Priestess Cla'thn had taken to microgravity like a fish to water. When she'd wanted to come up and establish an orbital observatory, I'd worried the goblin-sized modules would be too cramped for her. But she spent most of the day on Rava either stuffed into the dark hollow of the pyramid or sequestered in a palanquin that was one-third her own height. She essentially unfolded to fit whatever space she was in, and when I entered the observatory, she was braced with 3 points of contact on the bulkhead as she adjusted the focus ring on her telescope.

"Raphina should be out of sight for another hour," I said.

The priestess looked up from her scope and began to draw her forearms across one another to produce her voice.

"Ah, King Apollo, it is good to see you. Yes, the moon is out of sight. But this scope can be pointed down, as well. No one has ever seen our homeland from a height such as this. I spied the mound 'neath which I was hatched."

Heh. Some things never change. When Google Earth came out, the first thing every one did was look to see if they could find their own house. I suppose spaceborne observatories were little different.

"I'm guessing you've been doing more than spying on your neighbors," I said, pushing off the bulkhead and floating to a chart clamped to the table. It had dozens of detailed sketches of terrain features rendered in high detail—plains, canyons, forests, river tracks, and more. "These are all Raphina?"

"Yes. I am attempting to narrow down the precise location of the Queen of Queens. It is my suspicion that she is in the center of the hemisphere of Raphina which faces Rava."

"Makes sense if she wants to push down as much influence as possible. But just because it makes sense doesn't mean it's accurate. What's the evidence to support your hypothesis?"

Cla'thn joined me at the table. The claws on her legs anchored her to the bulkhead where her narrow, carapace toes wrapped around cables or piping. "The drift of the moon, when viewed from the surface of Rava, draws a circle in the sky. You have seen this, yes?"

"I have, though it didn't seem to be correlated with the time of day."

"The moon itself also rotates slightly as it does so. These canyons are the feature on Raphina which is always the shortest distance to Lanclova."

I studied the canyons. "Almost like it's a balloon drifting on a tether, but that tether's anchor never changes, and neither does the contact point on Raphina." I peered closer at the drawings and then set one aside. "There was more water here when I first arrived from my world. Not an ocean's worth, but an inland sea with a few islands. Now it's canyons with water in the cracks."

"As though something pushed up from below, cracking the ground and creating cavities through which the water flowed."

I crossed my arms and considered. "Could be. If this creature is growing large enough to destabilize the entire planet, it's not just in the crust. Its body would probably have to extend down into the mantle. If it's shifting and growing, there should be accompanying volcanic activity, as well. Have you seen any steam eruptions or lava flow on the surface?"

Cla'thn looked through her sketches and notes for a map drawn from a higher angle that showed a good deal of the surface facing Rava. With a small charcoal stick she marked three spots with a symbol I didn't recognize.

"Here I have seen molten stone, while here and here I have witnessed great vents of steam at odd intervals."

I peered at her chart. "Where's the canyon area we just looked at in relation to these?"

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

Cla'thn reached down again and drew a rough outline of the canyon's footprint. It covered one of the volcanic marks, but not the two that were closest to each other. I scratched at my chin.

"Hmm… It doesn't help that we don't know the creature's shape, size, or form. We call it a dragon, but that's just in lieu of actually knowing. Heck, even on Earth, dragons come in all shapes and sizes."

"You have dragons on your otherworld?" asked Cla'thn.

I paused. "Er… no, actually. We have stories and artwork of dragons. I think it's specifically because they don't actually exist that we have so many different interpretations of the concept. But that's not important." I tapped the map. "Well, we don't want to land in an active volcano, and of these other two spots, the one in the canyon will be completely submerged in water. Let's split the difference between the two closer points and go for this valley. That'll put us on dry land, and close to the canyons."

"Very well, King Apollo," said Cla'thn. She pulled out another identical map with three symbols marked, and a middle point that was probably only a couple hundred kilochooms off of the one I'd made. "I am relieved we came to the same conclusion independently."

Any chance you want to confirm, System?

<Cannot return query>

Didn't think so.

"There is still the other matter, King Apollo," said Cla'thn.

I glanced up. "Hmm? Oh, yes, our friends. Have you spotted any of them now that we're out of Rava's atmosphere?"

The thick, cloying atmosphere of Rava had always made the surface of Raphina appear as though through a thick haze. Rava was a humid world, and there was a lot of vapor in the atmosphere, even when the sky wasn't overcast for daily rainstorms. Getting a few hundred kilochooms above the visual distortion should let the Midnighter scopes function much better than they ever had on the surface, seeing details that might have been invisible before.

"Indeed, I have," said Cla'thn. She surprised me by shuddering. "They are… not pleasant to look upon. I have rendered several of them.

Considering that opinion came from a three-meter bipedal insect, I figured that must have lent some weight to it. I looked through the papers pinned to a board until I found the sketches. "These are surprisingly varied," I said, flipping through. "The null devil in the desert was like a scorpion or centipede. But some of these have wings or tails, or talons instead of pincers." I held up one of the drawings. "This one really does look like a dragon." I grabbed another pair. "These look like a dartwing and a whistler. Are they somehow getting altered or shaped by feeding off the System?"

"I can offer naught but conjecture that the dreams which they devour affect their physical forms. But there is more I wish to show you."

"By all means," I said.

Cla'thn reached below the table and pulled out a gossamer cloth, which she wrapped about her face and neck. I was confused for a moment before she reoriented herself and pulled back the covering on the porthole facing down towards Rava. Night was tracking across the planet as we flew overhead, cutting a dark crescent across its surface. It was somewhat strange seeing a planet from orbit without any trace of cultural lighting on the night side. I knew they were down there, millions and millions of people, orcs, intelligent insects, and dozens of other cultures I had never met, seen, or heard tale of. Rava might not be as big a world as Earth, but it was still a world. I pressed my face to the glass and took it in. This was the opposite hemisphere to Lanclova, a side of the planet that I'd never seen. Two continents stretched below, separated by a slim channel of water. I could just make out the right angles and lines that made up several cities across its surface, each surrounded by a patchwork of farmland.

"Amazing," I said. And I meant it, too. "What am I looking at?"

"'Tis the Hornbough, ancestral home of the Hell-kin and the Defiant Ones"

I glanced up at the priestess. "Hell-kin?"

"Demon spawned. No Midnighter dares walk those lands, and yet…" she leaned down. "From up here, it looks not unlike anywhere else on the surface. I have watched at this portal, seeing all the lands of Rava as none has ever before. The troubles, the wars, the brooding resentment. It all seems so petty, now. If only they could glimpse what we have glimpsed."

"Wait, are we talking, like, literal demons? Is that a thing here?"

Cla'thn ignored me, caught in fascination for her world as seen from 130 kilochooms of altitude. I couldn't blame her. All I could think about was Sagan's Pale Blue Dot, the fragility of the world below us, and how the singular question of so many who stared up at the sky in wonder had been answered. Are we alone in the universe? No. A resounding, emphatic no. And our neighbors were so wild and crazy and different, and yet somehow still as close to us as a twin in the womb. They had reached out to touch us. Not out of malice, or conquest, but in a desperate plea of brotherhood to preserve that wondrous reflection of life that perhaps our two worlds alone shared. A single thread, stretched taut across the cosmos and woven by the unconscious hands of a being as close as indiscernible to godhood, yet every bit as fragile as those it watched over.

<Not a god.> System reminded me.

It wasn't just the planet itself I wanted to help. If we were to succeed, and if this trip to the surface was a one-way ticket as I expected it to be for anyone not capable of hitching a ride on a radio wave, I wanted to leave Rava in a better state than I'd found it. With Rufus I'd left texts containing my knowledge of advanced technologies. Of food preservation, crop rotation, germ theory, medical practices, construction materials, metallurgy, electrical generation, internal combustion, and even the foundational principles of binary computers. I'd left calculus, trigonometry, physics, and math principles. I'd left a how-to guide on the scientific method. Not just the way the technology would work for goblins, but the true paths of science, experiment, and exploration. The people of Rava didn't need to be fast or cut corners, like I did.

They could take their time. I just had to make sure they had enough of it.

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