Sporin Capwell's Arc

Chapter 2 of 3

Dawn came, but the launch did not. Sporin stood on the launch table with the pale pod in one hand and the beetle's clay dish in the other. The moon hung in the sky, gray and far. Sporin had a strain that would live there. They had a beetle to wake the dead soil. But they had no way to cross the void between the planet and the barren moon. Nothing here could fly that far. The pod and beetle stayed grounded, and the arc goal stayed a dream. Sporin searched the launch table's storage racks. They found old scout gear, empty jars, a broken probe. No ship. No pod-carrier. Their kin had sent scouts back with soil, but no scout had left a vessel behind. Sporin's chest went tight. A whole plan, ready, and no boat to carry it. The cave moth landed on Sporin's shoulder and pulsed blue, but a moth could not cross space. Then the gray dirt in the sample jar moved. Sporin froze. A small hand pushed up through the dead soil inside the glass. The hand was clear and hard, cut into tiny flat faces like a gem. A head followed, then a whole little body, no taller than the jar. Light bent through it in soft colors. Two large dark eyes opened, each holding a bright yellow spark. The creature had ridden back in the scout's soil, asleep in the dirt of its own moon. Sporin lifted the jar with both hands. "You're from the moon," they whispered. "You lived in that dead ground." The crystal being climbed onto the jar's rim and looked at the pod in Sporin's hand. It pointed one sharp finger at the pale spores, then at the sky. Sporin understood. It knew the barren moon. It knew the way home. "I'm Sporin," they said, kneeling low. "I want to grow these on your moon. But I have no ship." The little alien tapped its own chest. "Lumis Stellara." Its voice chimed, thin and clear. Then it hopped down and crossed the table, straight to a dusty crate Sporin had passed over twice. Lumis pressed both hands against the crate and pushed. Sporin helped pry the lid. Inside sat a sleek shell of metal and glass, small enough to carry, shaped to cradle a pod. Blue light ran along its seams. A clear chamber waited at its center, sized for spores. The scouts had brought it back and never opened it. Lumis had known it was here. Sporin set the pale pod into the glass chamber. The lights woke and glowed green around it. The beetle's dish fit in a slot below. The chamber sealed with a soft hiss. Sporin now had a vessel. They had a guide who knew the moon. The dead dirt in the jar had hidden a friend, not just poison. Sporin looked up at the gray moon and no longer felt it was out of reach.