Xeno Xoo Lost Chapter 4: The Crew Catches Up

“Anyway,” Geddy finished, “that’s how we found you.”

Denk had led them on a slow walking tour of the city while Geddy brought everyone up to speed on Verdithea, Verveik, the new Alliance, and Oz’s and Krezek’s abduction.

He shook his head in disbelief. “Man, that’s wild. I don’t think I would’ve liked those skysnakes.”

“Yeah, but that was no excuse to cut you guys out of the mission. I’m sorry.”

“I’m sorry, too,” Oz said heavily. “Although you would’ve been killed instantly.”

“Instantly,” Geddy agreed.

“Naw, I get it,” Denk replied. “Besides, I wouldn’t have known Durandia was in trouble.”

“How much trouble, exactly?” Jel asked.

Denk heaved a sigh. “It’s not looking too good. The ‘sids have pretty much surrounded the city and the myre tunnel’s full of ‘em. Once they find a way in, that’ll be it for Randhra.”

“What’s the plan if that happens?” Oz asked.

“They’ll evacuate everyone to the other cities.”

The dwellings they passed, which were carved out of the rock, were small and spare. Their crops were only designed to sustain a specific number of people. Geddy couldn’t imagine what they’d do with another ten thousand refugees.

Durandia, Denk explained, was always sparsely populated and desert-like. It was natural processes and not industrialization that ate away at its atmosphere to the point where plants could no longer grow and liquid water could no longer exist. At that point, about a thousand years ago, their people faced a difficult decision — abandon the planet or figure out how to live below the surface with the crypsids, which to that point were non-factors in Durandian life. They had always lived deep underground and cultivated fungi for food, and they stayed out of each other’s way.

Massive underground demolitions took place to form the chambers in which they would have to live. Each city was located near an aquifer but not so close to a crypsid myre as to disturb it. Even then, it was clear that Durandians and crypsids would be the dominant species, but that didn’t mean one had to dominate the other.

Excavating millions of metric tons of material from deep underground took more than a century. Old, long-sealed tunnels led from each of the eleven cities to the canyon, where the rubble was dumped. Each was designed to hold a hundred thousand people in fairly close quarters. Systems of light pipes were built to conduct enough sunlight from the surface to grow crops hundreds of meters below. They had to figure out transportation, communication, housing, logistics, and a million other challenges.

Little by little, as surface conditions deteriorated around them, Durandians moved into their new homes and adapted to life underground. Soon, however, it became clear that they couldn’t get all the nutrients they needed from just what they grew. They discovered that the honey-like gamat supplied most of these missing nutrients, and that the crypsids didn’t seem to mind them harvesting some as long as the Durandian wardens helped them cultivate the fungi they needed to survive. Thus, a delicate symbiosis was established.

At first, the cities were only accessed via elevator shafts that led to the surface. Eventually, those became silos that housed small emergency transports that could only hold about eight thousand people. It wasn’t until about eighty years ago that the Spine was constructed, ostensibly to help rejuvenate the planet’s economy and help pay off the considerable debts it incurred building the cities.

For quite some time, it worked. What they’d done was an engineering marvel, and people from all over the galaxy came to experience the famous Underground. Gamat came to be known as a delicacy that could only be experienced on Durandia.

Krezek said it was this fact that led to the infamous incursion in Suragga. A small group of wardens, whose job it was to tend to the crypsids’ crops of fungi and harvest gamat from the myre, started smuggling it out to satisfy a growing black market for the stuff. That upset the crypsids, who killed eight wardens as they were making off with their loot. Soon after, a few dozen soldiers parked themselves in the normally empty myre tunnel as though to ensure it didn’t happen again. Krezek’s plan to lure them back to the myre worked, and with the bad actors gone, Suragga’s equilibrium was re-established.

“They’re quite intelligent, the crypsids,” said Krezek. “It was as though they knew they were being taken advantage of. And now the Zelnads are driving them out of the myre using a pheromone I made for them.” He lowered his gaze to the ground.

“You did what you had to,” Doc said.

“So I keep telling myself.”

“Nobody blames you,” Geddy asserted. “Let’s talk solutions.”

A gaggle of little kids, wide-eyed and whispering, approached them from the opposite direction.

— More Ponley Point fans?

— Something tells me otherwise.

The group slowed for them. From a distance, he couldn’t tell who they were looking at, but as they got closer, it was clear they were focused on Denk. The kid in front came apprehensively up to him.

“Mr. Junt, sir?”

Geddy exchanged a surprised look with Oz. Mr. Junt? Only Geddy called him that because it sounded captain-y.

“Hey, kids,” Denk said, not nearly so surprised as the others. “What’re you guys up to?”

“What kind of starship do you fly?”

Denk hitched up his pants. “It’s a salvage trawler called the Fizmo. This here’s Captain Starheart, and First Officer Nargonis, and–”

“Have you seen Gundrun?” asked one, cutting him off. They only had eyes for Denk.

“Or Aku?” asked another.

“Sure have,” Denk said proudly. “And Kigantu, and Temeruria, and a whole bunch of other planets, too.”

Variations on whoa, cool percolated through the gaggle. One of the kids, a little girl, only had eyes for Voprot, though she didn’t even come up to the big lizard’s knees. She could barely crane her neck back far enough to meet his eyes.

“Are you a giant?” she asked.

“Voprot Kigantean.” The lizard licked his eyeball and showed his teeth.

Geddy bit the inside of his lip until he tasted a little blood. “Still working on those articles of speech, big guy?”

He nodded emphatically. “Voprot not measure progress in quantitative terms.”

— He knows ‘quantitative’ but not I? Really?

— I think it is cute.

— You would, Mr. Glass-Half-Full.

“I want to fly a starship someday, too,” said the kid talking to Denk.

Oz brought her fingers to her chest, her eyes turning glassy. Even Geddy’s cold heart melted a little.

“Being a pilot is great,” replied Denk, placing a hand on the kid’s shoulder. “But not as cool as being part of a crew.” His eyes passed over the other kids, smiling warmly. “I’d say you’re well on your way.”

The kids excitedly hurried off, loudly arguing about who should be the captain. The little girl opined she wanted to be a Kigantean, and their voices faded.

“Guess we know who the real celebrity is here,” said Oz, arching her eyebrows.

“Yeah, yeah,” Geddy returned. “So, Dr. Krezek, what’s the plan?”

“Right. Well, to reach the myre, the wardens cover themselves in queen pheromone so they don’t get attacked. Crypsid colonies have a strong hierarchy. Diggers and soldiers who come near the queen are killed. Only elites can get close. QP effectively creates a buffer around the wardens as they move through the tunnels.”

“Sort of like Voprot in a crowd,” Geddy said. He glanced over at the lizard for a reaction, but he’d already slipped into a food coma.

Krezek continued. “Back in Suragga, I developed a pheromone that suggested the queen was in danger. The wardens used it to lure them back to the myre. But that was a few dozen. I don’t know if it will work for so many.”

“That is what I’ll propose to Minister Napthar tonight.”

Geddy chuckled at the thought. “Can you imagine crawling around in the dark in some godforsaken tunnel with those things? Just kill me now.”

A group of four, two older and two younger, came walking up wearing broad smiles. They surveyed Geddy and the crew with wide-eyed wonder. As the group slowed, Denk turned back.

“Guys … I’d like you to meet someone. This is my dad, Mundt …”

— Mundt Junt?

— It should be easy for you to remember.

“… my mom, Trilly, my sister, Aibry, and my … friend, Pyna.”

Back on Earth 3, Denk shared that he and some douche hammer named Ingo were both vying for Pyna’s hand. They were supposed to fight to decide the outcome, which was ridiculous on many levels, but Denk didn’t do it. Instead, he stowed away on a ship bound for Kailoria, and there made the acquaintance of the late Captain Bykite, previous captain of the Fiz. It was plain by how he said her name that he loved her.

It seemed the only thing that distinguished female Durandians from their male counterparts was slightly wispier facial hair and smaller stature, because he wouldn’t have known otherwise. But she was Denk’s heartthrob, and that’s all that mattered.

Geddy and the other introduced themselves in turn.

“A starship captain and Ponley Point champion here in Randhra,” mused Mundt with a disbelieving shake of his head. “I never thought I’d live to–“

A bloodcurdling scream met their ears from somewhere well ahead, distant but terrifying. Geddy gasped, his wide eyes meeting Krezek’s, then a siren began to wail, low and quiet to start but quickly swelling to a deafening crescendo.

“Go,” Denk urged, practically shoving his family back toward the dwellings carved into the rock. “I’ll come for you.”

“Ingo’s on duty,” protested Pyna, who resisted going.

“I’m sure he’s fine. Come on now.”

Denk’s sister finally tugged her away, and they hurried off. Denk’s eyes lingered on her for a long moment.

“What’s going on?” Geddy asked.

Denk’s pudgy, ordinarily red-cheeked face had turned a sickly gray. His voice trembled. “It’s a breach alarm. It means crypsids are inside the city.”