The final task on the docket before Lia and Alicia were to shoot off into the void, an event Alicia couldn’t help but thinking of as “liftoff,” was to eat a solid meal together with the denizens of Camp. There was something ritualistic about it, and Alicia couldn’t help but think of it as part of a funeral, or perhaps some kind of Last Meal arrangement. It was entirely possible, though, that she was projecting. She certainly was nervous about the whole thing. It wasn’t just the journey into the largely uncharted void in a vehicle, if it could be called that, that neither of its passenger-drivers would have any experience with driving, nor was it the uneasy truce between herself and Lia, although it certainly did not help. There was a lot of stuff kind of building up, and while even the considerable buildup of emotional gunk couldn’t stop the Campfolk meals from being utterly delectable, there was similarly no denying that it tried its level best.
Lia, similarly, seemed tense. Her broad shoulders were set, and while she did eat with comparable enthusiasm to last time, Alicia couldn’t help but notice that she had decided to squat rather than sit all the way down. Alicia’s Lia, and as much as that term still chafed at her she did find herself using it, would do the same when she was uneasy or nervous. Uneasy or Nervous, Alicia thought grimly, or expecting violence to break out.

Alicia cleared her throat, to hell with it she found herself thinking. If this weird silence was a cultural thing, she’d just have to be a devil-may-care iconoclast yet again. It was a role that suited her. Not as well as it suited, say Lex, but Alicia low-key suspected that she could go multiple lifetimes without meeting someone as uniquely counter-cultural as Lex.
“I want to thank you all,” Alicia said. “Even though this visit wasn’t planned, or expected, or even thought to be possible, by either party, you have been exemplary hosts. You have fed us with food that I already feel myself missing, even though I’m currently eating it,” light laughter spread through the Camp crowd, letting Alicia know that if nothing else, she wasn’t breaking any unspoken taboos. “You have offered us hospitality within your means, and if you ever find yourselves in Thereafter, we will endeavor to provide you with the same, or better if our means should allow it.” Oohs and aaahs in the crowd. Alicia wasn’t sure if Ik had gotten busy with the translation bracelets, had come up with a different solution, or if the denizens of Camp had set up some kind of simultaneous translation service. Either way she was glad she could follow the enthusiasm of the crowd. “I hope the bond between Thereafter and Camp grow strong and benefits us all greatly, but even if it should fail to materialize, I will forever cherish the kindness that you have shown us in the short time we have been here. Thank you!”
A sound emerged from the crowd. Alicia didn’t quite parse it right away, but she eventually grokked that the campfolk slapped their thighs with semi-closed fists, a sort of applause-like action by the look of it. After the not-applause died down, a brief awkward silence ensued, as the elders exchanged glances. It was clear, at least to Alicia that they felt someone should say something, but that there was no established procedure as to who would be “it” or how one even would go about determining such a thing. Eventually, an elderly woman rose. If Alicia had been told her name, she certainly hadn’t retained it.
“Thank you, travelers from the Shining Star, from the city of Thereafter,” she spoke, her voice was creaky, but had a natural melody that told Alicia this wasn’t her first public speaking gig. “We thank you for your understanding and the wealth of stories you have brought to camp. Just knowing there is other life out there does much to assuage our worries as it pertains to the question of Survival. We certainly hope for a fruitful cooperation between Camp and Thereafter, and that our two settlements grow big and prosperous, bolstered by each other.”

Alicia had, if she was honest, never thought of Thereafter as a settlement, but then again she had no idea if it was populous enough to be a city per se. The Thereafter Census was surely something that would happen at some point, but Alicia couldn’t exactly blame anyone for not prioritizing it given… just everything at this point. Either way, the distinctions were perhaps not as important as the sentiment. The people of Camp believed in prosperous cooperation, and that was surely a good sign. Now there was only hoping that this attitude would be matched in Thereafter. Alicia was decently sure she had Lia’s support in this, and Leowyn wasn’t exactly the most confrontational person in the world, so securing a majority in the Council seemed well within reach. There was, however, Eltern. Alicia would readily admit her impression of Grand Magus Eltern was rather dominated by his involvement in the Sword Of Lakes Heist, or Sword of Lakes Fiasco, as she had come to think of it. It wasn’t even the politics of it, as much as knowing that Eltern was no stranger to pulling off the occasional Scheme, or in other ways act outside of his authority as a councilor. Granted, there was no law against doing what he did, but there weren’t laws against much of anything in Thereafter. It was perhaps not correct to make it a question of law, Alicia thought, it certainly was a sizable personal betrayal though. Alicia only considered herself somewhat betrayed, but she was pretty far from forgiving Eltern for what his scheme had cost Michael.
There were some parts of the whole aftermath of the Sword of Lakes thing that still wasn’t quite clear to Alicia. Michael had decided to take over Nih-Ka’s organization, or at least that was the way Felipe had told it, and later observation seemed to corroborate this. Felipe hadn’t quite managed to explain to her why though. Was it an ambitious power grab? That did not seem like Michael, although the way he seemed to inhabit the role did speak more to Alicia’s mind as a rising star than as the self-flagellating sinner that Felipe seemed to read him as. Maybe Michael had the potential to be as much of a problem on this whole thing as Eltern, actually.
Alicia wasn’t worried that Michael, or anyone would skim the outgoing wares any, as water was plentiful in the city, but as for the incoming… well that was an entirely different story. Michael had been rather adamant that the organization only dealt in luxury goods, but how long would that hold up to the considerable temptation that hijacking the animal product supply would be. Michael and his organization would be unable to cut the Council out entirely, given that the Council still controlled the Sword of Lakes, but Michael had plenty of purchase within the Scavengers and thus the void infrastructure. Alicia made up her mind then to work tighter with the Scavengers. The boons from trade with Camp would be shared fairly in Thereafter, or it wouldn’t be shared at all. No ledgers of owned favors.

“Hey, Alicia,” Lia’s voice pulled Alicia out of a loop of thought that was spinning out of her control. “You doing ok, girl?”
Alicia shook her head. “Yeah,” she croaked more than said. “I’m just… having a bit of a food coma moment, I guess.”
“If you say so, Exalted,” Lia’s voice held some humor to it. “But if you feel you need it, you have my ear, any time, any place.”
Alicia didn’t know what to say to that, but she did appreciate it.

Once Alicia felt fit to stand and walk again after the crush of heavy food, it was time to travel into the unknown, and hopefully towards the moderately well-known. In apparent contrast to her own sluggish, meat-drunk amble, Lia sprang into action, directing the final resource bundles, and keeping a keen eye out for stowaways or other possible sources of trouble.
The expedition sphere, as Alicia had come to think of the pasture-sized stone sphere that had been loaded with resources, as well as modified in several small ways to further facilitate long-distance travel. Per Ik’s explanation, the only real effective way of steering the sphere is by standing on its external shell, and while she had not tried long-distance travel herself, she heartily recommended spending as much time as possible inside the sphere, as it would provide shelter from the less than pleasant elements of the void, such as rocks of various sizes and, maybe more importantly, at various speeds. In order to make it as easy to enter and exit the sphere, a network of ropes had been drawn across the spheres, secured by knots that Alicia couldn’t claim to know, but that looked rather secure. There also was a rope ladder of sorts from the entrance to the point that Alicia had to assume was considered the optimal steering point, for the occasion marked with some bright yellow pigment Alicia didn’t recognize the source of. It seemed to Alicia that effort had been made to make the sphere as “beginner friendly” as possible, and although Alicia felt a need to scoff at this on a matter of principle, she did find it hard to argue against it. Neither she nor Lia had ever “driven” one of these spheres, and they’d only seen it in operation once. It only stood to reason that certain allowances were made to make it easier for them to make the thing work fine.

There was, of course the question of why Camp didn’t send someone with an actual record of piloting these things along, but Alicia couldn’t say she blamed them for not doing that. Thereafter wasn’t exactly close, and although she was decently sure the folk of Camp did believe them about Thereafter, it was another thing entirely to send someone to there. Eventually they should invite at least some folks, once the teleport network was set up properly, but this wasn’t the time for such things. Thereafter would remain, or so Alicia suspected, some strange far off land that may or may not be the realm of the dead, or of the gods, or of the dead gods for the good people of Camp. Maybe not literally, but there was a slight charge to the way the campfolk talked about Alicia and Lia’s journey.
Then again, Alicia figured, it was a pretty strange journey they were undertaking, so getting a little bit into the poetic license was perhaps not the sign of some fundamental character as much as it was the sapient mind processing an idea that was until somewhat recently impossible.

A crowd had started forming as Alicia and Lia climbed up on the sphere and found their bright yellow marked spots on the Sphere’s shell.
“It seems,” Lia observed, “that we are acquiring an audience.”
“People love to gawk,” Alicia replied. “Or alternatively, they want to see us off right. Ain’t nothing wrong with that.”
“It does make me ever so slightly nervous,” Lia followed up, not a complaint as much as an observation.
“Same, but I suppose we should take the gesture in the spirit is given. Or at least try.”
Lia grunted at this. It was, Alicia was pretty sure, a grunt of assent.

The spheres that used to be part of the concave wall were gone, moved away to reveal the blackness of the void beyond. They had, Alicia couldn’t help but notice, cleared out a wide open window for them. Part of that, no doubt, was the knowledge that the Deep Song operated on a bit of a wider band than the channeling the campfolk employed to control the spheres. There was also, inescapably, the knowledge that Lia and Alicia were both neophyte sphere riders, and that it could be considered prudent to reduce the minimum area of possible collisions.
“Ready?” Lia asked.
“As ready as I’ll get. Let’s try a light pull on the Song.”
Lia grunted again, and she and Alicia started letting the Deep Song fill them, albeit at a trickle compared to the usual runaway water hose. It was a weird experience, like a reverse bleeding of power, but it did seem to work. Under their feet, the sphere came to life, what started as a faint hum quickly ramped up into actual movement. Not speedy movement, but the brisk walking pace was a decent start. Lia and Alicia’s eyes met, an agreement was made, and they pulled on more of the song, speeding the sphere up.
Behind them the crowd cheered, and a smattering of the thigh-beating applause did its job at ushering them into speed. Alicia turned and waved, the slight shift in her stance causing the sphere to wobble a little, she made note of not moving overmuch when she was supposed to steer the sphere. On the bright side, this had been a fairly intuitive tutorial on how her posture translated to movement, and so she took the opportunity to learn if nothing else. She let go of the song as she turned back which, as expected, led to less problems. It did, however, feel weird, like doing a full exhalation after a half breath, if Alicia had to describe it in terms a regular person might understand.

Once they had cleared the sphere wall and the smattering of spheres outside it, Lia turned towards Alicia, being mindful to only turn at the neck. “Alright, so what’s the plan, Mountain Wind.”
“I guess we do as they suggested,” Lia said with a shrug. “We try to aim for Thereafter as much as we can, accelerate this thing up to as fast as it wants to go and go belowdecks, then keep an eye out for anything large enough to shatter this thing, and otherwise just adjust our aim as we progress towards Thereafter. I don’t know the math, but even I could tell you we’re unlikely to find a perfect course straight away.”
“Seems sensible,” Lia mumbled, seeming slightly distracted, presumably by the new skill set they were both learning on the job. “It doesn’t feel right to cower in our chambers though.”
“It’s not so much cowering,” Alicia said. “I’d say it’s more like laying low while the muskets are firing, or whatever. Anyway, you ready to see how much this thing can accelerate?” Lia grunted in reply.

Alicia wasn’t quite sure what she expected the sphere to do once she and Lia started drawing in more and more power. Alicia had imagined a smooth, 1-to-1 increase in speed with intensity of Deep Song, inasmuch such a thing could actually be measured. What happened instead was… less immediately direct. It was like the acceleration worked on some sort of delay, as the speed would increase as they drew on more deep song, but not immediately, like the draw itself triggered a process that ended up increasing the speed. The steering, fortunately, was more direct and responsive, and the sphere turned about as expected when Alicia and Lia leaned and shifted their stances around. Without many landmarks except Camp disappearing further and further into the background, and the glow of Thereafter only marginally increasing due to the great distance, it was hard to be sure, but Alicia had an inkling the sphere was moving about as fast as they could expect it to, at least initially. Alicia wasn’t at capacity for Deep Song, but she had reached the level where she started encountering diminishing returns, where the effort to draw in more grew much faster than the resulting power. She’d have to see how much faster she could make the sphere at a later point. As it were now, she didn’t want to burn out by pulling on too much Deep Song. Granted, she didn’t know if such a thing was possible, but if it was anything like the regular, less magical resources of a human being, going too hard too fast could have less-than-pleasant consequences, and recovery could be mighty slow. So Alicia didn’t feel like doing too much experimenting right now.

It was somewhat awkward to get on the rope ladder and climb into the hole of the sphere, but Alicia was glad for the option being there. She had no doubt an experienced Void Rider could do just fine without the ladders and even the ropes, but being a neophyte herself, she appreciated the training wheels plenty. Inside, the Sphere felt more like a storehouse than a vehicle, being filled with containers of food, water, and sundry other supplies. Camp had provided ample provisions, although not the most generous water budget. Not that Alicia could blame them for that. Water was a scarce thing out here, and so it only stood to reason that Camp would make assumptions about how much water a human really needed that were perhaps optimistic compared to, for example Thereafter, where the only thing they were unlikely to ever run out of was water.

“So,” Alicia said once they were both situated in the sitting nook in what Alicia, despite many attempts to to correct herself, could only think of as the sphere’s roof. “Ik seemed to think the sphere would maintain speed more or less by itself, what with there not being much of anything to cause friction out here. That does make our job easier.”
“Aye,” Lia said. “But if it’s all the same to you, I suggest we scout for potential dangers as often as we can. With the light being as it is, frequently absent, we don’t have too great of a sight radius.”
“Ik did actually give me something for that!” Alicia fumbled through a sack of supplies, looking for the item in question until she found the rod. “This thing is supposed to produce bright light that goes real far out in the void. With a couple of these we could probably see enough that checking every couple of hours would be more than safe enough.”
“We’ll try it,” Lia said, her tone making it clear that she was not quite convinced, “but if it’s all the same to you Exalted, I’d also like to scout it out properly.
“Fine,” Alicia figured there was no point in getting into an argument about it. If Lia wanted to pull extra shifts for some peace of mind, Alicia wasn’t going to get in the way. “I suppose there’s always the risk of something moving too fast for us to catch at just about any level of scouting, but I suppose there isn’t much going on out here that could end up flinging boulders at high speed, or at least I hope so.”
“We can do nothing but hope,” Lia’s smile was bitter, but determined. “Hope and stay vigilant.”
“Yeah,” Alicia agreed, not quite able to shake the feeling that she had sealed their fate by bringing up an unlikely but inevitably disastrous scenario. Alicia didn’t believe in fate per se, but she could not shake the feeling that the universe, in however way it could be said to have such a thing, had a nasty sense of humor.

Author’s Note: No April Fools on this here mailing list. We’re getting dangerously close to the end of the book at this point, and so I want to waste no time in moving us in that direction. I am getting rather excited about getting this book done, if nothing else because I’ve had the ending of this thing in mind long before I came up with any of the plot elements that weave together to form the rest of the story. What can I say, I’m an Endings Guy first and foremost. Tune in next time for another step towards my beloved ending.

VSD