I’d never been on this kind of a brane puncturing space station. Well, that’s not precisely true, but I hadn’t been in a station that took what I’d experienced and twisted it into a pretzel. As I wandered around in what appeared to be semi-organic tube-like structures, I wondered exactly how twisted this region of space really was, where a facility like this would need a mostly organically constructed station to operate. After wandering around for what seemed like a good fraction of a cycle, I finally encountered one of the crew, and, true to what I’d been told; these weren’t carbon life forms, but silicon. And the first look was a shocker. They were certainly alien. Not, say, drive you insane with the indescribability of their alienness, but alien enough for my antennae to quiver (the left one rather violently.)

  The huge bulk, rippled It rounded structure, then turned what I assumed were its visual interfaces at me, I felt a momentary terror, but quickly calmed myself down. You’ve seen weirder than this, I told myself. Not much weirder, but at least a little.

  “Where’s the filtering chamber,” I asked the thing.

  It seemed to regard me for a moment then a hot glassy appendage forced its way out of the bulk, pointing back towards the way I came. As it pushed out towards me I could feel the heat it needed to keep it soft and malleable radiating like a mini sun. The thing must have an internal temperature of 1500 degrees I reasoned, to keep its glassy body flexible. Hot, by most measures.

  “Go straight,” It rumbled. “Then the left tube, down three levels, right and then up one level.”

  I wondered if I wasn’t going to get more lost.

  This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

  “Take it easy little fella, you can’t miss it,” it rumbled, then turned back to what looked to be a complicated piece of machinery it was working on with at least a dozen more appendages. Which were dripping some sort of white goo. Which seemed familiar enough for me to want to stay away from.

  I decided I didn’t need to ask further. I followed the instructions, eventually finding myself in the center of the structure, a large vault where another of the silicon residences, seemingly grafted into a large mobile mover was working on rearranging numerous cargo containers.

  “Where’s the filtering chamber?” I asked it. This thing stopped and regarded me with an actual giant crystal blue-green eye.

  “You just passed it,” the thing’s voice vibrated through me. Was that a chuckle? I wondered. Were the Siliconoids having fun with the new guy? I cursed myself, and followed the line of the pointing appendage, looking for some sign I could actually parse.

  And then there it was, burned into a hatchway in glowing, animated, script, universal enough for my bacterial translator to comprehend and fix the meaning in my mind: ‘Keep out. Supersymetrical emissions. This means you.’

  It was signed Blueneck. I wondered briefly what a Blueneck could be, then looked over the hatchway searching for a way of opening it. Despite having served on at least a hundred such stations, the mottled and seemingly organic flowing nature of the doorway truly confounded me. I tried pushing the hatch, twisting protuberances, even pulling what I could get a grip on.

  I was helpless, and damn near hopeless, until, almost magically, unsealing with an unzipping-like sound, the hatchway flapped opened from the inside. And out of the gap, a blue neck suddenly protruded.

  <>