Crystalsong

by Amal Rodriquez

It wasn’t completely her fault, Mara reflected, strapping into her seat frantically. She punched in the coordinates to her guild base with one hand, the other clutching the softly padded pouch containing her prize. The tip from her guild leader Ryne had been right on the money. Siarnaqian moon gems, the largest she’d ever seen in her years as a trader, clarity unmatched, rank X1! They had sung to her, so sweetly. Yes, it was definitely not her fault. The shopkeeper had died—the haggard, greedy Plutorian—but then, hadn’t he been planning to take her money and sell her out to the trade port guard anyway? Defending herself was a natural outcome to such a threat.

Destination set, the control console blipped once in confirmation, and she braced as her borrowed ship maneuvered out of the rocky orbit of Tethys, the outer-solar trade port. Sensors in the rear of the ship blared frenetically at the chaos occurring below. The Siarnaq in their phantasmal dimensional ships, an incredible sight, were firing on the port, and she felt a pang of . . . something near her chest cavity. Rubbing it absently, she traced the path of incoming Enforcers from Titan converging quickly to counter fire, but they were mere pixels on the screen compared to the massive dark blots that comprised the Siarnaq. It appeared the port was definitely doomed. She turned off those sensors with a grimace. 

 “We will arrive at Phobos-Satara in four point two cycles,” her analyst said in a pleasant monotone inside her mind.  

She blinked once, and the flight path appeared neon in her right eye, a tightly elliptical course skimming the rim of Saturn’s largest ring. She would take advantage of the massive planet’s gravity to give her a boost toward Jupiter. From there, Mara could skip a few of the Galaxy Standard jump gates, which would make her trail harder to track. Her merchant guild had their own jump gates, carefully hidden in the Jovian planet’s massive shadow. When she got home, she’d properly examine the energy levels in the moon gems and find a seller. 

She’d be rich enough to buy a moon of her own. She’d make her guild proud.

Mara patted the little pouch again with a sigh and heard the harmonious clinking of crystal, felt her adrenaline coming down. All this trouble for such small things, she thought. Well, that was just the way of things, wasn’t it? Moon gems of the Siarnaq were exceedingly rare—now that the Siarnaq had declared outright war against them—and were hosts of tremendous conductive potential. The merchant guilds had mined them to exhaustion all around Saturn, all to pave the way for survival in the harsh vacuum of space. The lattices of the crystals could contain and warp cosmic radiation into forms that were safe to handle, and powerful enough to fuel whole colonies for a full solar cycle. Even as a small child repairing consoles for rations, she had known that to possess anything of the Siarnaq meant freedom.

Freedom was wealth, wealth was power, and power was safety.

She’d joined a guild with her sibling, Gray, for this very reason, achieving a ranking that finally went beyond “slave”; they had agency, could live. 

“Call Gray, use an infrared channel,” she said, shifting in the pilot chair. All the standard channels were bound to be heavily monitored now.

“One moment, Mara,” the analyst said. The screen in front of her re-formed into a dim red square with the word “Connecting . . .” and a low hum that sounded faintly like the beginning of a song. Her sibling’s tired face appeared blurry before her.

“Mara? Where are you?” Their voice was tinny and robotic from the distance of the call, but she picked up the note of alarm.

“That tip I received about Tethys from Ryne was hot. Really hot. I found something, Gray. Something really rare.” 

“But where are you? Are you safe? An alert went up in the network. That whole quadrant around Saturn is a hot mess,” said Gray.

“I’m fine,” said Mara. “I got out of there just before the fighting started. Halfway to Callisto now. I think someone pissed off the Siarnaq.” Saying that word aloud felt illicit and made the hairs at the back of her neck stand up. “One of their ships showed up, I’ve never seen one of their ships before. It was huge.” 

“What do you mean you saw one of their ships? No one just sees them, not without consequence. What are your radiation levels at?”

“It looked like an aurora from the sun, actually, like a ghost—” 

“What are your radiation levels at?”

Mara sighed and checked a dial on the flap her of jacket. “Normal. Fifteen rads. This ship has pretty good gamma protection, and like I said, I didn’t stick around. Ryne worked on this ship personally. Didn’t she tell you?”

They were silent a moment. “No, Ryne didn’t tell me. Didn’t tell me she sent you out on this mission either.”

“It’s not a mission. She gave me a tip that there were some potentially good finds on Tethys and I just decided to go. We need the clout and the credits, don’t we? And there was something here. Look at this!” 

She held up the pouch made of a soft tactile material that conducted the warmth from her hand well. The low hum that began with the call picked up in pitch, a persistent sonorous drone that made her feel kind of giddy. It was coming from the crystals.

Their face was blank. “What am I looking at?”

“Siarnaqian moon gems! The magnitude on these, Gray . . .” She began to undo the tie to the pouch, and they held up a blurred hand to the screen, sputtering in disbelief.

“Wait, seriously? Are you crazy? Do you know how much danger you’re in? You need to get rid of those as soon as possible!” 

“Get rid of them? You’re seriously out of your mind. You know how valuable these are!” 

“Yeah, and the Siarnaq are going after anyone who has anything of theirs. Those gems are sacred to them. They’re attacking whole colonies and making any sort of recovery irretrievable. We picked up the radiation from here.”

She scoffed. “Well, they won’t be able to catch me. I’m already far outside of range for the Enforcers, much less that big ship that appeared. Guilds have been using their crystals as fuel for ages all over the galaxy anyhow; they can’t all be sacred.” 

Even as she spoke, something about that rang like a strange hollow note in her breast. She thought about the obliterated trade port she had escaped. There had been children there. 

The faint hum she’d been hearing, the natural resonation of the gems grew louder and rhythmic, taking on a quality that reminded her of . . . someone laughing. She looked down and found that the crystals had come into her palm. Now, how had they . . . ? Oh, but their weight was pleasing and sensual in her hand, like something familiar she’d held before. She nearly hummed in pleasure. All other sounds were fading; even Gray’s voice, the sound she most often associated with home, could not distract her from her intense focus. In response to her thoughts, the crystals glowed.

* * *

Mara first noticed the glimmer like a beacon in a sea of drab color and ragged, coarse linens. It disappeared into a derelict shop—more a stall—draped in muted dark banners representing the merchant’s home world, and she followed immediately, compelled by a feeling she did not quite understand. She thought she heard a delicate crystalline sound, a two-tone chime that sounded like wel-come or, perhaps, Ma-ra. Two luminescent chunks of crystal glinted in a sea of offerings, pulling her into the shop. The other items at the stall—shining baubles made of precious metals—seemed hazy and indistinct like shadows in comparison. She tilted her head to the side and glanced covertly at other patrons of the market passing by the front of the shop. Oddly, no one else seemed to have noticed the glimmer, which shimmered in her periphery. No one seemed to notice the shop at all. 

“Siarnaqian gemstones,” the analyst said smoothly, pulling her attention back. “Rank X1. Minus two point nine magnitude.” 

Her fingers twitched forward. Incredible! Few materials on any planet or colony made that designated rank, and those that did were jealously guarded by the richest of the rich. The lattice was incredibly clear, and she could see latent energy swirling by an unseen current within the depths. She inched closer. 

“Breathtaking geometry,” she murmured.

“Ahh, you have an eye for quality, stranger.” A raspy, eager voice greeted her. 

The shopkeeper looming over her was a haggard looking Plutorian in a long, tattered robe that only barely hid the terrifying visage.  

“What are they?” she asked, despite knowing the answer. Would he try to take advantage?

“Two rare moon gems. Of the highest quality. Extremely rare this side of the solar system; normally very tricky to tell with the . . . average eye. Indeed, most customers would only think them common geodes and overlook their splendor.” His eyes, the reptilian pupils narrowed in either extreme interest or malice, flicked to her own.

“But not you. Yes . . . I suspect you know the true value of these.” A test. Was this horrid merchant connected to the guild perhaps? Maybe Ryne had said she’d be coming.

The shopkeeper smiled, revealing a mouth full of blackened pointed teeth. A halo of light bleached her vision then, and he became almost beautiful. The sounds of the market faded, the chiming from earlier increasing to a dull roaring in her ears. Or was that her blood rushing? 

She smiled back and it was ugly.

“Sell them to me,” she said. Her voice sounded different. 

“Name a price,” he invited. 

* * *

“Mara? Ma . . . ra? You are . . . being . . . tamp . . . ered with.” The system analyst’s voice came garbled from far away, nearly drowned out entirely by crystalsong. 

Tampered with?  She attempted to blink to pull up her system diagnostic. Her eyelids were heavy, ignoring the command. “Mara!” Gray’s voice was even fainter. “What . . . is that? What’s go . . . ing on, Ma—” The console screen went black with a flash and a pop; the screen had shattered.

The luminosity of the crystals threatened to bleach the rhodopsin in her eyes and yet she thought she could see something in the glow. Clouds swirling like the plasma of a star, growing bigger and bigger. They eclipsed her hand and grew beyond her body in the chair until a shimmering form stood next to her, vaguely humanoid. A burning face stared down at her. 

“⨽⨰⨁⨒ Ma-ra.” A voice like discordant bells in her ears. The ship’s sensors were blaring again, in warning of an object fast approaching her location. 

“Who . . .” she tried to ask. Something white-hot touched her brow.

Found you at last, a voice crooned.  You thought you would outrun us, but you hold our resonance well. We heard you.

“What are you?” asked Mara. It felt like her head was going to burst.

Do you not already know? You have something of ours. 

The gems vibrated with every resounding syllable. She tried to drop them, but her body felt disconnected, her hands numb to anything except the points where she touched the objects in her hand. 

A pressure in her head compelled her to look at the being of near-blinding light before her, down to a wavy dissonance that made her vision hazy. It solidified after a moment into an angry-looking wound like split-open fruit, bright plasma dripping to the floor of the ship and sizzling. The shape of the wound roughly resembled the cut of the crystals she held.

We had no reason to entangle with your kind, it said after a moment, no reason to even learn your primitive languages. We have existed for eons. No reason, except perhaps pity. In our naïveté, we enabled your survival, permitted you knowledge to harness the energies of Saturna, our guardian planet, our god. In return, you worshiped Him, and so us. Whether you thrived did not overly matter. But, as you flourished, you became greedy, and you took more than what was offered. You forgot what we are. You stole. Do you see?

The Plutorian shopkeeper’s face flashed in her mind, frozen as she’d last seen, covered in dark, viscous blood. Her heart clenched; her mind sought to deny.

“I did not steal from you,” she managed to gasp. “I just wanted . . .” To survive. To live. It touched the place that so resembled a wound.

You are all the same, it hissed, in your wish to survive. Your desperation makes you stupid and careless. Your ancestors thought to subsist entirely through us. Our physical manifestations power your ships, your colonies, and use us up until we dissipate! 

Its fury caused it to flare brightly, and the heat scalded her skin. 

There are some of you that still remember. And some of you still serve, if you can hear our song.

Her eyes snapped back up to lock eyes with the burning ones above her.

We will pay back what was done more than one thousand-fold. And you, Ma-ra, hold an affinity for us, like others before you. You can hear the song our kind sings because of your very greed to survive . . . your desperation, and you can manipulate these machines of metal with that flesh casing of yours . . . yes, you will be made to serve. 

Mara recoiled sharply against her chair. “Never again. Never again! I have earned my freedom!”

Something like a hand touched her face, and she screamed. Crystalsong vibrated into something deafening, and around her the panels and screens of the display console whined, crackled, and shattered. The song grew rhythmic and jumping, and she realized that it was the very being before her. It was laughing. 

Serve willingly or not, it is of no consequence to us. 

The voice of the analyst returned to her faintly, just loud enough to confirm the new flight path that was visualized in her eyes, and then the being before her, so full of rage and bright luminous hate, grew so blinding she could see nothing at all.

“Course redirected. New flight plan to Jump Gate ⧋⨀⦔ accepted to Titan. T minus zero point thirteen cycles.” 

Its voice was smooth as ever. The crystals were in her hand.