The monolith hovered high above the plains, and the seas of grass rippled beneath its great, gravitic repulsors. All that cold, dry life blasted into flatness beneath the weight of the thing. Though it did not touch the ground, fires yet erupted beneath the monolith, fanned by the wind to run rampant across the arid prairies.

The monolith was unlike any human creation Poire had ever seen - real, or virtual. The outer hull was twisted and tall and towered over the land like some ancient statue that broke free of gravity itself. Long streaks of rust and patinas of decay dampened the sheen of its hull. Machines poured out of gills along the sides, and beneath its bowels. They streamed out in long, parallel lines, like translucent wings unfurling across the sky. Tiny specks, against that huge, floating mountain of metal.

Yet, the monolith did not fly unchallenged.

Hundreds of turrets - which were certainly human-made - emerged from the prairie fields, shoving aside dirt and grass to extend their cannons to the sky. They radiated out from the gate in long columns, and each one fired at the rivers of long-tailed drones pouring down from the monolith.

But the rivers were unending. And the monolith approached. And though the turrets brought down the drones by the thousands, the drones were fighting back. Smashing their bodies down to the ground, and exploding in shockwaves of pure energy. Ripping metal and earth apart, silencing the turrets one by one.

The turrets boomed in waves, their power rushing out to meet the monolith. The drones rattled in swarms, still far in the distance. Screaming and twisting through the air, black clouds drifting closer to the gate. And all the while, the lines of turrets hammered at the Monolith, energy shells scratching like dust against bulletproof glass.

What could they do? If they moved, the automated voice from the gate would bark commands at them: STAY WHERE YOU ARE!

The three closest turrets were trained on them, twelve cannons staring down at them. Grass had wrapped itself around one of the cannons, so that huge clumps of dirt hung down from its barrel.

“This is a stupid place to die,” Agraneia said.

“Exactly. Which is why we’re not going to die here. We need ideas.”

Agraneia growled, but had nothing else to add.

“Poire?”

But Poire shook his head. The last ten minutes, he’d been rifling through menus on his wrist implant. Nothing. The gate refused to connect with him. Refused to speak with him, refused to let him even ask questions. If there was an artificial guide on this planet, it wasn’t doing its job.

The lines of turrets chugged round after round into the sky, those energy shells exploding in the distance. Black specks dropped from the sky in droves, some of them dead, some of them collapsing on the farthest turrets, and tearing into them, making explosions of their own.

It had the feeling of an old dance. A war, fought for centuries. The rust on the Monolith. The groaning creek of the turrets as they turned and aimed and fired, and reloaded with a scraping clunk-clunk sound.

Had the Emperor known what awaited them on this side of the gate? Is that why he sent Poire, instead of going through himself?

“I don’t know,” Poire said. “I don’t know if my armor will protect you from the turrets. We could just run.”

“And if your armor doesn’t hold up?”

“Stand and die,” Agraneia said. “Or run, and hope we live.”

“Not good.”

“Nope.”

Poire agreed, but he didn’t say it. Even if they did somehow get off this gate, what about that Monolith? Would it follow them across the prairies? There was no chance they’d be able to run from those machines.

Swish...

Despite the booming from the turrets, and the crashing metal in the distance, all three of them heard it. Agra froze, her knives in both hands. Eolh nodded with his beak at an unremarkable patch of grass.

There was a hiss from the other side of the gate. In the corner of his eye, Poire saw Agraneia whip around, looking behind them. Eolh pressed a feathered finger to the end of his beak, urging them both to stay quiet.

The three of them stood, listening. Waiting. Exposed on the flat metal disc of the gate, a few feet above the waving sea of grass.

It took Poire a few moments to see it: a long, scaly tail, almost as thin as the grass itself, waving in the wind. Eolh cupped a hand to the side of his head, and Poire did the same.

Harsh, muffled, whispering voices. Barely audible above the wind and waving grass.

“They are not returners,” someone hissed with an accent, thicker than the grass that hid her. Poire could tell the direction, but not exactly where the speaker stood. “Father, they’re xenos!”

“What kind of xenos?” another voice said, only a little older than the first.

“Do we kill them?” Yet another voice spoke, much quieter. “Or take them? I see no meat.”

“Talk,” an old voice said.

“And the apostle?”

“Talk, then maybe take. Ipelti, you go talk. Be quick.”

A head popped up from the grass, not in the direction Poire was looking. It was gone before he caught a glimpse, but Agraneia whispered. “Lassertane.”

“The lizard people?” Eolh answered, “The ones from Thrass? Why would they be here?”

For some reason, both Eolh and Agraneia looked at Poire, as if he would magically know the answer. How should he know? He didn’t know anything about this planet, or the Lassertane, or any of this.

Three more heads popped out of the grass. This time, he saw one in earnest. The scales were mottled tan and green, tinged with an earthy brown. Perfect for blending into the grass. The head was covered in hard, armored plates that fit together perfectly. A face, more reptilian than human, with large, golden eyes, and bumpy ridges running over its features. The eyes were both viciously clever, and desperately hungry.

Poire clenched his fists, and the liquid armor rippled across his chest and abdomen. Get ready, he thought. And the armor seemed to respond. Tendrils lifted from his shirt, snaking out and slowly spreading in a wide, thin, floating hoop of metal that enclosed Agraneia and Eolh and Poire together.

Agraneia looked down at the metal. Took an uncertain step back.

“REMAIN WHERE YOU ARE!” The gate shouted.

“She speaks! She speaks!” The voices chittered and hissed in the grass, dozens of tails swishing now. The sound was cut off only by another battery of cannon fire, booming out another earth-shaking symphony.

“We come looking for Sen!”

They hiss angrily. And then there was silence, except for the boom of cannons, and the distant explosions as rivers of drones flooded the furthest turrets.

“We don’t want to hurt anyone,” Poire offered.

The grasses swished and Eolh flashed a hand sign at Agraneia: ten of them. Maybe more.

She nodded.

But compared to the might of that floating mountain, ten lassertane was no threat at all.

The monolith’s drones darkened the sky, casting a treacherous shadow across the plains. The dirt shredded and churned bneeath it, and fires raged across the open expanse, sending curtains of smoke into the air. The lines of turrets were dwindling, and the shadow reached ever further.

Another head popped up. There were white dots on her forehead and cheeks, painted on top of all those greens and browns. She cocked her head to the side, and blinked at Poire.

“Who are you?”

“I’m Poire.”

“And what are you?”

“Uh, human.”

A dozen more heads popped out of the grass, all aligned in a circle around the gate. All of them, staring and cocking their heads at Poire. Dozens of golden eyes, honing in on him.

“Human?” they whispered. “Human?” But it was not said with awe, like the avians on Gaiam. Their voices were wary, and tinged with fear, as if the word human was a curse as old as time.

The old voice cleared his throat to speak. The speaker still had not shown himself. It sounded like he was slinking around the edge of the gate. “Human? No! No human come here. Never. Who are you? Why have you come to my lands?”

The speaker was not only cautious - his voice was filled with disdain. As though he had already judged Poire, and only needed to be proven right.

“I’m here to find Sen.”

Instant hissing. It was the wrong thing to say.

“Kill them,” the old voice said, disinterested. “Kill them and take the bodies.”

All at once, the grass around the gate began to swish and stir. But it stopped when the first voice shouted. The one with the white paint. Her tongue flicked a deep purple as she spoke.

“Wrong! You can’t take!”

“Who is bloodchief here?” the old voice roared with indignant rage. His scaled head popped above the grass, all sense of stealth forgotten. There were white dots on his scales too, though they were hard to see across all the scarred flesh and graying scales.

The first speaker backed away, but did not back down. “Human belongs to She Who Remembers. Not you. Not you!”

“You bring the Dirt Witch into this?” the old one spat.

“He is foretold! Not kill, never kill. He is foretold, father. And his guardian, too.” Her head snapped at Agraneia and Eolh. Unsure of which one must be the guardian.

The smell of dried, burning grass drifted across the plains. Smoke darkened the sky, and made clouds where there had been none before. Even the gate was rumbling now, as the monolith drifted, huge and effortless, across the seas of grass.

“Listen,” Eolh put his hands out, “Why don't we agree to come in peace, and you get us hells out of here. We can figure this out later.”

The old lassertane grabbed the side of the gate. He hauled himself out of the grass in one fluid motion, surprisingly agile for someone so weathered. More heads popped up to watch him.

His tail clutched a long, metal rod, which he passed to his clawed hand as he stood. The tip was made of scaly leather that curled around a simple device, one that had once littered the outer borders of Poire’s conclave. A machine shroud. A simple EMP repeater, whose wavelengths were set to dampen a machine’s sensors.

“I will take them to the Dirt Witch.”

He shook his gray head, making all the ridges of spines that ran down his skull and down his back ripple. The ice-crusted furs and cracked leathers that covered him were belted so tight, they moved not at all. He pointed the rod at Poire - humming with energy, burning the cold air into steam - and barked a command.

“Take!”

Lassertane leaped onto the platform, swarming around their trio. There had to be at least twenty of them, crouching and scuttling across the flat metal disc. Eolh and Agraneia and Poire squeezed into the center, until their backs touched

“Peace!” Eolh shouted. “We don’t want to fight!”

At the same time, Agraneia brandished both knives in an easy, flashing circle. Ready to start chopping.

The lassertane made a tight ring around them, all of them crouched low as if ready to pounce. Their long tails, flicking like blades of grass in the wind. The bloodchief pushed through the ring. Waving his staff in the air, steam wavering at the tip. “This is my gate. You owe Tsunga. You belong to Tsunga.”

“And if we don’t want to belong to Tsunga?” Agraneia said. Her knuckles were pale blue from squeezing her knives.

The bloodchief lifted his rod, and pointed across the plains. The monolith was a twisted chunk of corroded metal that blotted out the sun. They could feel the vibrations of its repulsors buzzing in their bones.

“You belong to Tsunga, or you die.”

Nothing more needed to be said.

Agraneia reluctantly lowered her knives, and let the lassertane seize her arms. They tied a rope around her wrists, and they did the same with Eolh, but when Poire held out his wrists, the lassertane shied away.

“Why?”

“Can’t hurt human,” the youngest one said. “Bad, bad, very bad.”

And the lassertane pulled and pushed their newfound cargo off the gate. Firm, but careful not to damage them.

But when Poire took a step, the gate screamed again.

“REMAIN WHERE YOU ARE.”

All the Lassertane hissed and spit on the gate. The bloodchief waved his staff, saying, “Don’t listen. Walk.”

So, he did, holding his breath as the turrets turned, and followed them. But did not fire. Because of the bloodchief’s staff? Or because Sen had only wanted to threaten them?

The line of lassertane and pseudo-captives hopped off the edge of the gate, down into the grass. Stalks, taller than him, hid the horizon from view so he had to look up to see the sky at all. The lassertane seemed to need no landmarks to know where they were going. They pointed and clicked and scampered around the captives, urging them to move more quickly.

Not a hundred yards from the gate, a crack opened in the ground.

It started so small, just a reddish-black gap where the dirt had dried out, and the grass could not grow. But the crack only grew wider the longer they walked through it. It sank lower and lower, cleaving deeper into the sediment of the soil. Small mounds of dirt and tiny scrub bushes became dry hills and stunted trees. Rocks and landslides littered their path, threatening to twist their ankles or send them sprawling into the gravel.

They turned around one hill, where the crack dropped away from sight. Poire stopped, and looked out, his mouth open. His eyes drinking in the expanse.

How did we not see this, from the gate?

It was hidden here, by the perfect flatness of the grass above. A canyon, gouged deep in the planet’s surface.

The top layers of earth were striated with white rock and red clay. Natural ramps twisted and turned around immense boulders and stacked stones carved by rain alone. This was not a living place, despite the trees that grew along the hills and landslides and sheer canyon walls. All around them, the surface rose higher and higher as they descended the loose rock-and-gravel trails. Pathetic, trickling creeks wound through the dry landscape, though Poire saw no sign of animals anywhere.

Maybe the wildlife could sense the machines, the monolith that would soon drift over this hidden canyon.

The buzzing drone of the monolith traveled through the stones, making all the gravel and flecks of rock bounce and hop and dance in place. Scattering more rock slides down the sides of the canyon. It filled the air, vibrating through his nose, and in the place behind his eyes. He could only imagine the strength of the repulsor engines needed to carry such a huge vessel.

One of the lassertane scampered up their column, racing to meet with the bloodchief. Black and dark green stripes ran down her spines, all shaking as her elongated toes slapped at the ground, throwing herself across the slippery gravel with reckless haste. She leaped over a boulder-filled crevice, cutting to the front of the line, where she met with the bloodchief. Their heads bowed together, nodding and dipping as they discussed. The whole group of lassertane watched their movements intently, but they never stopped walking.

The bloodchief cast one last glance at the sky. And barked one more command: “Hide!”

Hide where? The canyon was an open wound, and they were far below the grass line now. Even if they could hide behind boulders or under cliff walls, the machines would sense their heat. Especially in this chill.

But the flurry of movement was immediate. Clawed hands grabbed at Eolh and Agraneia. They hovered over Poire, trying to usher him to follow the bloodchief, who held his staff up as high as he could, still shouting, “Hide! Hide!”

In twos and threes, the lassertane disappeared off the ledge of the ramp, scrambling nearly vertical down to the canyon floor. They hid among the boulders and gravel, throwing themselves into the hard, arid dirt and wriggling back and forth to submerge their bodies. Their scales changed color, too, until they blended in perfectly with the stones and ancient regolith.

Maybe they had a way to regulate their body temperature, and blend in against the heat sensors. But Poire? And the others?

The bloodchief waved them forward. He pointed at a split in the canyon wall. It was tall, and ran from cliff top to cliff bottom, but it was barely wide enough for a person to walk through - and even then, only if they turned sideways.

The bloodchief didn’t seem to care. “Go! Get inside!”

His daughter scampered ahead, diving into the split. Her tail flicked in a quick circle before disappearing into the darkness.

Eolh, Agraneia, and Poire stopped at the entrance. Eolh tried to shove himself in.

“Come on,” he said. “It opens up once you get in.”

Next, Agraneia squeezed her shoulders. Poire turned around to see the bloodchief hobbling after them, his rod still held high. Behind him, the sky was dark and full of swirling shadows. Swarming overhead.

“Go,” the bloodchief said. His clawed hands hovering inches over Poire’s flesh. “Go.”

And the edge of that mountain-tall monolith hoved into view over the high, canyon walls.