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to have a bit of an after
effect. Shouldn’t last long.”
    “So you’re…” I gulp as images from yesterday
flash by. “What are you?”
    “A Dofinike—a separate species, though not
entirely dissimilar from your own. But, I suppose your term for us
would be… alien.”
    So it’s true, then. Everything that
happened. That’s happening . But if he’s the alien, what were
those creatures yesterday? How many different extraterrestrials are
here?
    “I saw two… things at the gate,” I
round the closest table, keeping it between us. “What were
they?”
    “You must be talking about Yerza and Norpe.
Yes, they shouldn’t have been messing around like that. I can
understand why you ran off,” he walks to a half wall and presses a
tiny button no larger than a fingernail. The outline of a square
appears and suddenly, a glass box emerges to fill it. He dispenses
the vial onto a shelf in the box, presses the button again and the
box disappears back into the wall. He turns to me. “There weren’t
supposed to be any more drops yesterday—Clarence brought you in by
complete surprise. Usually, they take their human form when our
guests arrive. They, shall we say, ‘didn’t get the memo.’”
    “You can change back and forth?”
    “Pardon?”
    “From human to Dofinike?”
    “Human form . Yes, we find it helps
ease the transition, especially in our younger guests. Seeing
familiar faces—so to speak—expedites the trust and that’s why you
ran. You didn’t know it was safe.”
    “They were carrying weapons.”
    “Hardly,” he laughs, walking past me to peer
out the window again. “What Yerza and Norpe carry are staffs. Sure
they can wound and probably in the hands of someone with a bit more intelligence, they might cause significant damage.
But at best, they’re for show.”
    “To show what?”
    “Well,” he sighs, “as you can see, Harrizel
can be a dangerous environment if not well navigated. What’s the
point of saving your race if you escape out there only to be killed
by sheer curiosity? The staffs are intended to keep you rounded up,
keep you where it’s safe. Now come with me,” he hooks his hands
behind his back, walking away from the solid pane of glass.
“There’s much to go over.”
    “You’re taking me downstairs?”
    “Eventually,” he turns with an odd
expression. “There are a few things I need to show you so you can
adjust to this new environment quickly.”
    What kind of things do I need to know before
we’re on the ground? Will I even survive that long? What if those
blue blurs aren’t even people? What if they’re just robots or other
Dofinikes posing as similarly dressed humans so we’d go willingly
with Jeb? I just need to make it to the ground. Then I’ll have a
chance. I’ll find the door to the gate—or some other break in
it—and I’ll flee again.
    Just make it to the ground. Make it there
and you’ll be fine .
    “I can’t wait all day, Fallon.”
    There’s no choice but to follow.
    Just make it to the ground.
    Reluctantly, and fighting every intuition
boiling through me, I join Jeb’s side.
    He leads me out of the endlessness and into
a darkened corridor on the other side, the two spaces separated by
a single pane of glass. Still able to see into the infinite room of
metal tables on my right, this new hall sleeps in the shadows cast
by the dark, plum-black stone to my left, curving up in an arch
above me. The only light draws from tiny golden spheres which float
around what appear to be metal branches glued to the wall.
    I move closer and see it’s not metal at all,
but a silvery tree slithering up the dark stone like a snake. It
branches into several thin wires, looping about but never expanding
more than a foot from the wall. The small spheres hover here,
offering about three feet of whitish-yellow light that glows around
me.
    “Gizella trees,” Jeb indicates, “excellent
natural light source, though not found around here. Terrible
inconvenience to