PART 3

Bath's eyes peered into the gate as he contemplated what he knew about the universe at large from Lepo and Ritus. He frowned at the thought of risk involved with dashing off to a completely new planet. Though Bath knew he would certainly venture out into this vast beyond...after speaking for a time with Lepo, he had allowed his thoughts to calm down.

Bath thought about what he knew about himself, and what he had heard from others. He also thought about whether or not he could trust Lepochim.

Bath knew that perhaps the most dangerous thing for him was his gluttonous nature. Just walking into the mansion, with a few hundred alien beasts, had nearly driven him insane with ravenous need. From what Lepo and Jessup had remarked about Devourers, Bath recognized that they were considered mindless eating machines.

Bath wondered what would happen if he stepped onto a completely new planet. Would he, too, be driven insane by his own hunger? And Earth: the hunger he felt on Earth was almost nonexistent. Had it been that way in the beginning, when he initially came to Earth? Or had he first destroyed Earth, didn't recall doing so, and after millions of years Earth slowly grew up around him?

Bath's head swam as he thought about his past. He put his age at half a billion years old, the time of his first real memories...but, perhaps, he was far older than that. After all, how would he know how long he drifted from wherever his species originated from to arrive on Earth?

Bath wondered what would happen...if he sent a piece of himself to the other side, while keeping his Center on Earth. Would his Center's power of control effectively work across the gate? Could his essence be recalled through the gate, or would it remain trapped on the other side of the gate until it naturally dispersed?

Bath thought intently about all of these questions, then tsked dismissively. Bath was uncharacteristically impatient as he considered the situation at hand with the gate and his own self. Lepo watched on with a stoic, emotionally-devoid expression as Bath sent a small, swirling tendril of essence toward the gate. It hovered just outside the gate, then, as thought Bath were jabbing out with a sword...the tendril pierced the gate and landed on the other side, on a foreign, alien world.

Bath's eyes shined as he planted eyes on his essence extension. He looked around at the world on the other side of the gate. He saw...a vast, blue field of circular leaves, like a giant field of clovers, carpeting a stretch of lightly-hilled earth expanding out as far as his enhanced, bird-like eyes could see. The sky was a yellow-green color that was oddly beautiful, reminding Bath of leaves changing color in the fall on contemporary Earth.

He could currently see a few absolutely alien creatures grazing on the clover and nibbling on sparse shrub and tall, bright-blue trees whose boughs extended out like arms embracing the sky. The creatures before him were all either blue or tawny yellow, with a very small minority appearing emerald.

Bath felt a desire stir in him from looking alone...the next sense he opened was his sense of hearing. The world around him suddenly felt twice as real, as though before it had been a strange, voiceless indie film. He heard whistling clacks, like some kind of strange, windy rocks brushing together, and a few sounds that reminded him of snorting elephant seals.

So far, Bath felt confident that he could send part of himself to this world. As he continued to communicate the with aliens of the gate stop, he next activated his sense of smell.

Bath's eyes suddenly went wide as his Center's mind interpreted the signals coming from his sensory receptors on the other side of the gate. Bath's eyes were soon bloodshot, though Bath was too distracted to do anything about their troubling appearance. He started to breathe, slowly, in and out, while at once he felt as though something was dragging his body through the room and into the gate. He focused on calming his mind even as it screamed out with need that increased with every second Bath's nose picked up on a new scent.

After a few seconds of time, Bath was already at the end of his endurance. He tried to withdraw the sliver of essence from the gate world, but found that travel backwards through the gate was, as originally pointed out, impossible. It felt like a thin, flat barrier lay between his essence on each side of the gate. He could continue to send more essence over, of course, but the second he pulled back, the barrier snapped into place.

Feeling increasingly ravenous, Bath eliminated the smell receptors. Bath stared coldly at the gate, then breathed slowly out.

He had sensed nearly one-thousand different species in the world beyond the gate. That had been his limit in a few seconds...clearly, just perceiving life by sight or smell wasn't enough to trigger his hunger. Curious to test his own nature further, Bath snaked a few essence tendrils over the ground until they finally lay in front of an entity that looked like a large dog covered in metal screws. The second his tendrils made contact, his hunger increased, though only by a very small amount.

So: apparently, touch and smell were two main senses that could arouse his gluttony. If he merely used sight and sound to observe the worlds beyond the gate, Bath was confident that he would be able to function without too much danger of losing control.

Bath silently explored the world within three-thousand meters of the gate while he waited for Lisa to awaken. The changes he had wrought in Lisa weren't going to be fully completed for a few weeks, but as long as Lisa stayed within his long-range manipulation range, she would be protected by microorganisms formed by his essence to filter the air and form a protective layer over Lisa's skin. Bath had already determined that the world outside of the gate was filled with a fairly high atmospheric pressure as well as high gravity, 1.5 times that of Earth. Walking around would be difficult for any normal person. Moreover, the temperature of this place ranged between 90 to 100 degrees Fahrenheit. Most significantly, for entities of Earth, the air wasn't breathable, and natural water was saturated with mineral impurities that would belie any human attempts to hydrate.

Despite all of this, Bath was confident in his ability to head out with Lisa. Bath had never actually encountered a real challenge before, nor had he experienced true adventure, so he wasn't able to internalize a true sense of caution, even as he reasoned through how he would prevent himself from going berserk and how he would keep Lisa alive.

And then there was Lepochim.

"Lepo," Bath stated clearly, "will you be able to function in this kind of place?" He explained the conditions on the planet beyond the gate.

Lepo gave him a cool look. "I told you: I'll be fine wherever we go."

Bath scowled. "Explain." He didn’t like how mysterious Lepo was acting because he didn’t know how this whole escapade was going to end if there were three people coming alone

Lepo had an unsightly look on his face that Bath could only see because he had eyes stationed all over the room. Lepochim had already turned away to walk to a far corner of the chamber. Then, he said, "I don't know how to explain. You'll see soon enough." Bath had the sense that whatever Lepochim wasn't telling him was...something most considered fairly obvious, trivial.

Bath wondered if kursi had certain other abilities granted to them that allowed them to adapt rapidly to alien worlds. If not, then being a technologically advanced society would likely need to preclude that planet engaging in gate travel.

Perhaps, Bath thought to himself, Lepochim has some kind of life-saving technology already on him. Bath figured that Tu-71, and the galaxy Zder, sounded much more technologically advanced than Earth. Some form of inconspicuous, self-powered life-sustaining technology seemed to be the most plausible explanation for Lepochim's confidence.

Bath woke Lisa up with a small infusion of stimulants, his essence curling around her and cradling her in the air. Her eyes blinked open and she gasped, as though she had been holding her breath for several minutes. She panted, breathing air into her lungs rapidly as she was deposited lightly onto her feet by Bath.

Lisa immediately felt different. She felt...stronger, as though with each step she took, she went a little further than usual for much less effort. Additionally, she found that, strange as it felt, she could breathe without actually inhaling. Filtered oxygen was delivered straight to her lungs by Bath's essence.

There were more changes, such as improvements to her sensory perception, and the weird little membrane just barely visible over her skin...But Lisa just shrugged. "Bath, if something goes weird, you can put me back the way you found me, right?"

Bath grinned. "Theoretically. Though by the time we're back from adventuring, I'm confident that you'll be endlessly grateful for my wonderful body-manipulating generosity."

Lisa started to walk over, her hand raised high, a devilish look in her eyes. Bath chuckled and dodged to the side to avoid a slap.

Lisa laughed along, although afterwards her face became downcast.

"Lisa?"

Lisa looked up at him, a nervous expression on her face. "How long do you think this adventure will take?" she asked quietly. In the moment, Lisa had wholeheartedly agreed to go adventuring with Bath, and she fully intended to keep that promise. But if they were gone for even a month, or a year...years...Lisa shuddered. She wasn't sure she wanted to wait for her life to be all nice and worked-out before going adventuring--because who knew when that would happen?--but at the same time, she felt a bit unnerved by Bath's intention to, seemingly, leave right now.

Bath looked at her and rubbed his neck. "Oh, no more than eight days."

Lisa blanched, then quickly beamed at him. "Wait, seriously?" She pulled out her phone and began to text her parents some story about Bath and another friend were going with her on a road trip to experience America. From what Bath could hear from the phone conversation, he personally thought that Lisa's mother is way too strict.

Lepo suddenly snorted. "Eight days?" Lepochim knew that Bath could practically kill him with a thought; however, Lepochim was condescending by nature and found this side of himself difficult to suppress.

Bath narrowed his eyes and declared, "Eight days!"

"Eight days to pass through this gate, then any random number of gates until you reach a gate hub...all while dealing with the fact that we have no intelligence whatsoever about the other planets besides this one here?" Lepo gestured to the gate as he impassioned Bath to recognize his arrogant folly and provide the plan.

However...

"Lepochim, if I can't get us back here in eight days, then I'll be your servant."

Lepo's expression turned from worried to dismayed. To him, Bath's offer represented how thoroughly Bath was self-deluded. He really didn't want to travel the galaxy with Bath if he was going to have such dangerously ambitious expectations. However, he was bound to Bath and had an obligation to follow him into the dark, swirling blue-black of the gate.

Lisa was on Bath's right side, Lepochim on Bath's left. They walked forward and swiftly passed through the gate.