Chronicles of the Flying Dolphin

In his naivete it seemed as though the cubical craft were attempting to render a primitive sort of assistance. To be sure, his control over the new ship was not yet masterful, but the emphatic amphigory on all frequencies and the explosions of what were surely guidance beams did nothing to improve Fractal's navigation.

As unexpectedly as they had converged on him, the cubes veered off. It was as though they had encountered some invisible barrier. Alone in totally unfamiliar space, Fractal reached for his pipe, knowing that the herbs of Home would undo the high anxiety brought on by the well meaning strangers' attempted assistance. Before he had loaded the bowl, though, the scanners snapped alert once more. Just what I need! he thought, more help from the helpless...

But, no. The craft that approached him now were far less frantic in their maneuvers. And they were non-cubic, more natural in their design. They matched his trajectory, they fired no exploding beams, and their speech was at least lucid - if not coherent.

"Way cool pig-slipping, Ace!"

"Fuckin Feds almost followed you right into the Sector, Dude! Y'must've really pissed 'em off!"

Or something like that. Whoever these beings were, they had a congratulatory but entirely mellow attitude towards him. And there appeared to be some sort of base ahead. Without being invited to - or told not to, for that matter - Fractal docked the mirrored sphere to the battered starbase, which was as large as some of the planets he had passed since leaving Home.

Upon entering, he thought he was going to be hanged. These people thought he was a pirate! They even addressed him as such,

"Hey, Space Pirate, who R.U.?"

"How bad you fuck up that Fed convoy?"

"Pretty good I bet!"

"I'm not a pirate! I didn't mean to fuck anyone up!"

"Y'd you run from the pigs?"

He had hunted wild boar at Home in his youth, but had always stood his ground when they attacked, slaying them deftly with the short sword as Xero had taught him.

"I never ran from any pigs!" he insisted, and the gathering of beings before him cheered. This was getting too weird.

"That was great, dude, the way you helixed into the Eff-Zone! You had the pigs zapping each other into the next dimension, and when they hit the sector they backed off quicker than whiplash!"

"But I'm really not a pirate..."

"Is that silver ball your ship?"

"Yes, the Flying Dolphin, I call it that because the only way I ever got it to operate was with the help of..." but he never finished the sentence, his newfound friends were explaining new realities to him.

"... Then you're a pirate. After what just happened - intentional or not - every information officer in star fleet has that ship's specs set for termination."

"Besides, you are a life form. Any life form that enters the Forbidden Sector is automatically a pirate as far as the feds are concerned; just being here is the same to them as hijacking an hinite tanker!"

"Welcome to the brother and sisterhood of the Forbidden Sector, Monsieur le Privateer. We are your brothers and sisters now, and we'll fight for you like one of our own."

"He is one of our own, now!"

And cheers rang out anew. Wines were poured and by and by his new family introduced themselves. The feeling of kinship was real, a strange warmth to one raised with no knowledge of his own true origin. Oversized goblets found their way into his hands and were all too quickly drained. A pouch of his Home grown herbs were passed around to the delight of all.

Fractal had never seen clothed females before, and was uncertain as to the gender of some of the beings gathered around him, as almost all of them wore varying amounts of raiment - at Home men wore kilts to protect, not conceal, external genitalia, while femmes suffered no such awkward susceptibility to injury and wore their nakedness with an according pride of superiority.

There could be no doubt about the gender - or of the intentions - of one space pirate in particular, however, for Fractal found himself being led to a private chamber by a tall, voluptuous new sister with strange translucent flesh and an athletic air about her. What happened next may not have been entirely real...

It seemed as though she would only have left the room, when she would re-enter and rejoin him in the oversized waterbed. He wasn't sure anymore what her name was. He thought she had said Lilith - but when he called her Lilith, she said something like,

"My name isn't Lilith, its Lilitu..."

And later, when he called her Lilitu, she said that wasn't her name either... She might be a multiple personality, but she had the stamina of ten temple girls from Home, and Fractal had never seen an albino before; the alien eyes seemed to look right through him. It was not until the following day that he discovered that there were two such women, and that he had been correct about both their names.

For the twins were both famous and infamous among the brother and sisterhood of the forbidden sector. Some thought them to have been genetically engineered, so peculiar, yet identical to one another were they. Others though them freaks of nature, naturally unnatural. Lilith and Lilitu neither denied nor confirmed any speculation about themselves, which lent to the mystery more than dispelling it.

They had an unquieting way of conversing, too. Fractal thought his neck would surely be sore from turning this way and that to follow the conversation as the twins (or clones) completed one another's sentences.

"... and where are you from?" one would querie. But before he could say,

"I'm not certain..." the other would inquire,

"Where were you before you came here?"

That was easy, "Home," he replied - grateful not to appear a total fool, at least.

"Everyone," said Lilith.

"... is from home," Lilitu finished, more to Fractal's confusion than not.

"...But I'm not from Home - I don't know where I'm from..."

The confused hero tried as best he could to explain the predicament and mystery of the wooden ship, the newborn babe and his assigned Quest - going to great pains so that his new friends would understand more clearly than he himself did. He told them of Xero and the Governor, of the making and naming of Trauma, and of his love of Kristal - adding at the last that in eight summers she would be a Goddess.

"Where I come from, I'm a Goddess!" declared one of the twins. It was impossible to determine which. For no apparent reason her sister - the more identical of the two - added,

"... and I am known by many names!"

"Yeah," Fractal had never heard of anyone with more than one name and his curiosity, which had seemed overtaxed a moment ago, was piqued anew, "like what?"

"Nancy!" Both twins laughed the name as if it held some hidden humor.

"Mc Gill," says one albino.

"Catherwood," smirks her mirror image.

"Mrs. Dan Catherwood." adds the first, in a tone which implies even further hidden meaning and which earns a pair of optical daggers from the other albino amazon, who continues,

"Audrey Faber," only to be countered with,

"Bottles Bilowski!" by the smirking twin.

"...many names, indeed!" young Fractal interrupts in what he hopes is a tactful fashion.

During the time it had taken to explore the phenomena of multiple titles he had rolled a fistful of Home grown buds into a thin sheet of paper, making what the space pirates called a "spliff." Handing it to the nearer of the two stopped their dialogue for only as long as it took each of them to toke deeply.

He had promised each of them a tour of the Flying Dolphin, and time was at hand to make good on the promises. But immediately upon entering the craft, Fractal realized that something was amiss. Where there had been the single comfortlounger from which he piloted the craft, there were now three such furnishings. The only other device in sight was the bundle of wires, gears and servos that the Dolphins had instructed him in the construction of.

"Cool," said Lilitu (as best he could determine,)

"... a Quantum-Gravitational Entropy Stabilizer!" the twin he assumed to be Lilith continued, "also known as..."

"... a Chaos inhibitor." Lilitu explained.

"Or a Chaos generator,"

"... if that's what you need." they seemed to be communicating telepathically and aloud at once. Hoping to appear to know more than he knew, and not wanting to be left out of a conversation regarding a subject he had great interest in, Fractal added,

"Dolphin design." in what he hoped sounded like an intelligent tone. He must have fallen short on that account, for the twins looked at one another, rolling their eyes, then back at Fractal, and said,

"No shit!" in snotty harmony.

"What's it do?" asked the would be hero, unperturbed.

"Everything," said one twin in counterpoint to her sister, who said, "Nothing."

"... it's like an icon,"

"... something to focus on,"

"... put your faith in,"

"...Believe in!" they harmonized like tubular bells.

"Like a pocket singularity,"

"... a portable,"

"... two-way,

"... event horizon."

"The Dolphin name for it is,"

"... Thought Drive!" again the eerie harmony.

"Thought Drive?" echoed Fractal, obviously more question than confirmation.

"Yeah!" both twins replied.

"... you might as well use,"

"... a philosopher's stone,"

"... or a feather,"

"... up your ass!"

And this time when the laughter peaked, the harmony was in three parts. For Fractal finally understood that it was not the device that propelled the Flying Dolphin, but his own thought processes. Hence the three comortloungers.

It seemed as though he was in synch with the twins' telepathy, too. For without a word they all three settled into the comfortloungers and the ship left the Forbidden Sector in the breathtaking silence that only intergalactic space affords.