There is no night when you're on the moon

Some paths simply lead nowhere, it turns out. You can follow them for a long time, and put in a lot of effort into getting far down them, but if they're a dead-end then they're simply a dead-end, and that's all there is to it. The scientist experiences this every day in his line of work, as does the artist and the writer and the explorer and just about everyone else. It's the inevitable result of the lives of thinking beings, and so there's always much celebration when one of those paths ends up leading to the truth. Stories are written about those that find meaning at the end of their path, and perhaps it is these stories that keep the rest of us following our paths as well, even though we may never find anything at all.

Pasuu and Voloi had made camp in the belly of an inoperational furnace. It was one of many such structures to be found on the ground level, where they presumed they had ended up after sliding down a series of shafts. It had been a long trip so far, though as far as they could tell only one day had passed. They'd brought enough food for four.

As Pasuu lay on his back, hands behind his head, he felt that he could read it in the coyote's snores that he had no clear idea where they were supposed to be heading. The more they explored, the more the mouse came to realize that much of the construction on this level, much like this furnace, was no longer of any purpose to the moon's denizens, long since retired from duty and left to idle away. It was just like any old abandoned factory; just a bit harder to recognize, as in the dry sterile air, things took much longer here to decay. But the very fact that they were in an abandoned complex meant that they were lost, for what kind of psychic overlord would choose to live out of communication of its machines?

He sat upright and went to rub his eyes, but ended up accidentally jabbing himself in the face with the claw on his thumb. Just one more irritant to add to the things keeping him from falling asleep. He should have been comfortable; weighing one-tenth as much as usual had a big effect on how hard things felt to lay on. But it wasn't lack of comfort. Strange environment, the events of the day, Voloi's snoring. No... it was mostly his presence. The snoring didn't help, but the fact that he was there meant that Pasuu couldn't stop thinking about him and what he intended to do in this place.

It made sense to trust the old coyote. He was far wiser and more experienced than Pasuu, this lowly mouse who only just successfully defended his dissertation and passed his practical exam. And the fact was, just about everything the dog did seemed like it was done completely on impulse, and yet it always seemed to turn out that he had a grander scheme in mind. He was like a master chess player, always thinking ten moves ahead, never taking the obvious route to victory so his opponent wouldn't guess his strategy.

And he supposed that was what bothered him so much about this turn of events. The scheme here seemed to be all laid out, plain as day, black and white. Voloi wanted to free the citizens of the lunar colonies from whatever entity he presumed was keeping them a hive mind. And how would he go about doing this? Locating the entity and killing it.

Yes, that was it. All of it. And it was just too simple, like using a hammer to open a door because you're not clever enough to use a knob.

The mouse stared over at his companion. From this angle, in the dark, all he could see sticking out from under the coyote's covers was the back of his head, a fluffy pillow with two little triangles poking out from it. His glasses were laying off to the side, neatly folded. Pasuu's nose twitched upon looking at them; he recalled a rumor going around back when he was a student that Voloi didn't actually have poor eyesight, that he simply wore the glasses because it made him look more sophisticated, more stately. It was exactly the kind of peculiar thing that could be expected of him, this man full of energy soaking in a bath of quirks. An old-fashioned magician more than a wizard, bent on the science of misdirection.

Pasuu stood, grabbed his blanket, and headed to the center of the room, where there was an access ladder leading to a smaller chamber up top. It was a bit darker in there, and definitely more claustrophobic, so he thought maybe he could sleep better inside. He crammed himself into the narrow passageway and huddled into the blanket, then squeezed his eyes shut. His heart was pounding in his ears. The rate was fast, definitely not a sleeping rate. He thought maybe it was simply because he'd gotten up and moved around, but after a long while, it didn't seem to want to slow, and his eyes popped back open to stare at the metal ceiling.

The people in the city didn't really seem brainwashed. The fellow who led them all the way there had been energetic, curious, chatty, whereas the scientist woman they'd spoken with at length was much more subdued, more academic. And the police officers had been very direct, don't-take-no-guff types. He could imagine them after work sitting down in a pub and playing cards with friends. Point was, they all seemed like they had distinct personalities. He couldn't help but feel that, if it really were a hive-mind state (and the woman had told them as much herself), it had to be a rather loose one. Separate entities, just in constant communication with each other. And who knew? Maybe they could even shut each other out if privacy demanded it. Pasuu and Voloi didn't know; they didn't stay long enough to find any of this out.

He flipped onto his side, so that his shoulder was just barely touching the passageway's cold ceiling. Voloi's whole thesis was based on the premise that humanoids needed to be free and independent. He'd stated that it was their duty as wizards to ensure that kind of freedom for all intelligent beings. And Pasuu supposed it made sense, to a degree... but it was still something of a lazy concept. What, after all, constituted intelligence? Ants communicated with chemical signals; they built huge colonies; they operated in complex societies; fought wars amongst themselves and against other insects. Were they not intelligent, at least to some degree? But no one would ever think to try to change the lives of the ants. The ants were the ants, and they contributed what they could to world in their own way.

He flipped to the other side. There was something missing from this whole equation. Something he simply didn't follow.

Once more on his back. He had to get some sleep, but he was now at that stage wherein the thought of each additional minute of sleep lost increased his level of stress regarding how much sleep he was losing, which in turn kept him awake. He put his hand flat on the ceiling of the tunnel, then let it drop. His tail swatted back and forth between his legs. He stroked his whiskers and fur to clean them. At some point he ended up on his stomach, eyes forward, peering into the deep darkness of the tunnel and seeing nothing.

Pasuu let out a breath. Perhaps it was hopeless. Perhaps he should simply lie there and listen to the soft dronings of distant machinery until he could hear Voloi arise and start shuffling about. If he stopped worrying about things, eventually he would drift off, theoretically.

His eyes shut once again. The whole world down here vibrated, softly, at low frequency. If he let it, it could be soothing. Something like a whole-body massage. Deep sounds coming in from all around them.

Yes... very soothing.

His eyes popped open again, with an idea. Those sounds weren't coming from all around, were they? They were louder in some directions than in others. Which of those machines served as the life-support system to the entity they sought? Assuming it was biological, of course, but for now that was a reasonable assumption to make. If they could pinpoint that particular sound, they could follow it all the way to their destination.

His ears began shooting back and forth, focusing on one thing at a time. The lowest rumble... that was probably from the generators, or possibly air flow from the deep vents. The whine there, that one sounded like something electrical. Was it just the wiring, thrumming with current? A rhythmic pounding, far off; possibly an elevator mechanism? And a periodic beep that he hadn't noticed before. Now what could that be? One of the machines that patrolled the place?

It wasn't a bad idea. Maybe when they got closer to the source of the sounds they would be able to differentiate them better, and if they put their heads together about what was generating what....

Yes, he would bring it up in the morning to Voloi. It was a plan. It wasn't complicated. It kept things moving the way they had been, and would occupy the mind until the decisions had to be made. It was in thinking of this plan that Pasuu finally drifted off into a troubled dream, the details of which he would not remember upon waking.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"I hope you're not wanting to sleep up there all day!"

Pasuu blinked open his eyes. They felt a big crusty, and he had a headache. He tried being more careful of his claws this time when he went to rub them. "I... I'm sorry," he shouted back down the passage. "I had a hard time falling asleep last night."

"I know. I could hear you rolling around and making noise."

Pasuu scootched himself backwards, toward the ladder he'd used to climb up this way. When he emerged from the tunnel, he saw that Voloi had lit a lantern for them, maybe to simulate morning. The lack of day or night in this world was something Pasuu felt he could never quite get used to. From how tired he still felt, he supposed his body had the same inclination.

"Here," the coyote said, extending forth a can of pickled carrots. "I found this in your bag. I guess it's breakfast?" He was eating a strip of what smelled like venison jerky.

Pasuu took the can with a very slight smile. Truth was, he'd brought some bread for breakfast, and the pickled vegetables he'd brought along for lunch, but the coyote had already opened the can (apparently quite violently). He knew he was a mouse now, but something about vegetables for breakfast still struck him as peculiar to the palate.

They both listened to each other chew for a while. Pasuu glanced up at the coyote occasionally, waiting for a chance to start a conversation, but he couldn't bring himself to do it. Finally, Voloi gave him impetus. "I was thinking about what our plan should be for today."

Pasuu nodded. "I had a thought--"

"I was thinking we ought to split up for the time being, to increase our search radius. You know. Right now it feels like we're just wandering, so maybe if we wander in separate directions we could get lucky."

"Ah, well, I suppose we could. But I had--"

"Okay, good. Which way do you want to go? We've got two obvious choices." He pointed at the ladder and toward a hatchway leading to a more open area outside. "I was thinking maybe I'd head back into the tight spot and make my way further down that passage. But you're the mouse; maybe you want the tight spot."

"Doctor..."

Voloi tilted his head to the side. His glasses glinted in the light. "Hm? What is it?"

But when Pasuu met his eyes, he found that he couldn't bring himself to combat the coyote's idea, and he looked away. That beeping sound he heard during the night... it was coming more from the direction of the hatchway, so Voloi's choice of paths was somewhat fortuitous given his idea. The thought of splitting up, though....

"I... I'll take the hatchway," he croaked out. "Will there...." His voice stuck for a minute, and he wrung his hands. "Will there be some way for us to communicate if we find anything?"

The coyote shrugged. "I was thinking a simple clairaudience spell."

"Ah... yes. That will... that will work."

That vicious smile returned to the canine's face. "Well splendid, then! I'll take the top path. We'll head out right after you finish eating."

Pasuu stared at the opened can of carrots. "I... I may finish this later. I don't have much of an appetite yet."

This earned him a shrug. "So it is. Then I'm going to head off. Do let me know if you find anything, won't you?"

"Yes... yes of course."

Voloi waved goodbye and slipped up into the passageway where Pasuu had spent the night. His tail was the last thing to disappear, and then Pasuu was alone.

He sighed. Well... nothing for it but to head onward.

Pasuu eventually stepped out once more into the open air, surrounded by the field of red lights and boxes, blank walls, panels with dozens of flickering diodes, the endless darkness above and the soft lights of the towers over the horizon. The first sight he'd seen in this place, now familiar, old hat, comfortable. He recalled the danger from the cleaning machines, and it was only yesterday that they'd encountered them, but it was already like a distant memory. Something to bear in mind but not to be concerned about.

He strolled down the corridors once more, quickly, to make a semblance of wind blow through his whiskers. Serenity, was the word for this place. But serenity was only good for a short time. Getting too hot in the sun, a leaf blowing into one's face, swarms of insects passing through; these things were all necessary from time to time, to remind a being that he wasn't alone in what he was. This place really had none of that. It was where the humans from down below had come to separate themselves as much as possible from the rest of the lifeforms they'd grown up with.

A mile, perhaps more, he walked, before he saw another passage. One of the towers was straight ahead, rising up and disappearing. If he positioned himself in just the right way, it could look like this door on this box would lead straight inside it, so he decided to try taking it.

Newer construction here. A few lights flickered, but they were all shining and looked clean. The walls were unmarred by discoloration or rust (though surely it took a long time for anything to rust in this place), the floors polished and smelling like chemical cleaner. It was probably just an accessway of some kind, to something more important; only pipes served as an obstacle, sprouting here and there from the walls and ceiling only to disappear into other walls or elsewhere on the ceiling. But there was a thin passage behind a bundle of them, and so Pasuu squeezed himself inside and continued on.

To grow up in a place like this, with only other humans for company (and maybe a few birds in the parks), would have been a lonely life. An unchanging environment, few cycles to live by but those you make for yourself, no perception of the passage of time but for indicators you build. The sense of community would have to be strong in a colony of ancient humans who chose to build their lives here.

A deep hum filled this room. Current passing through thousands (million?) of wires being fed into and out of an array of complex rectangular devices. It was hot, too; whatever these were, they worked hard. Cool air flowed out of some nearby vents, but it helped little for anything inside that was alive.

All of this was automated. Still a very human thing to do. Make life easier by having other things do things for you. You intend to use the extra time you gain to live a little better, but you end up spending it doing more work. Then you automate that extra work with the same intention, with the same result. It builds up a chain, until your society becomes incredibly productive but incredibly unhappy under the pressure of the need to be productive. They did that on the planet above, and it seemed that did that here, too. Still just people, after all. Millenia wouldn't change that much.

He followed a long corridor. At the end of it were bunkbeds, empty, with no sheets or blankets to be seen. He thought of the hard metal they slept on the night before, and snorted a brief chuckle at the opportunity for real comfort they had apparently just missed. What the beds were doing here was perhaps an unanswerable question, though. There was a real door in this room, but jiggling the handle told Pasuu that it was locked from the other side.

Maybe, back in the old days, people would come down to these lower levels to get away from it all. The wilderness of the moon, but not wild at all. The surface was another option; did the towers go all the way up, opening onto the airless gray landscape above? How often did these people sneak up there to gaze at their old home, the blue planet up there in the sky all the time? Maybe they used to, but do so no longer? Those memories stored in the bones, in the heart; how long do they last?

Another door, not locked. A button on a panel beside it opened it up, revealing only a small room with a lever inside. Pasuu examined this object, sniffed it. It was well-worn, grasped in many hands over the years. He shrugged, though there was no one around to watch, and added his own hand to that list. The door closed behind him, and the room began to move. Brief thoughts of terror flitted through his brain until he realized that he was going down. He rubbed his face a few times. An elevator. Yes. Leading to a lower level somewhere.

The door opened again when he reached the bottom of the shaft. Cleaner here still, sparkling, almost, like it had just recently been given a once-over. More light as well, perhaps even brighter than the interiors of the buildings in the cities. It was backwards again; more light below, in the depths of the place, than there was above. It might have been on purpose.

Into another long corridor, with a double-set of metal doors at the end. Handles on the doors; it meant that this was a place for people, like the room with the bunk beds. He hoped he hadn't accidentally walked into a residence. He realized it might also have been an outpost for some kind of scientific enterprise, perhaps studying seismic activity, geology, or some other thing. But the doors ahead opened into a room full of benches. They may have had some other purpose, but they looked a lot like benches, and so it threw both of his theories thus far into more confusion. More doors lay ahead of all of those benches. If his sense of direction was correct, he was still walking closer to the tower he'd sighted.

A temple? Thoughts of religion entered his mind. The room with the benches really did resemble a temple, in some ways, though with no altar to anything at the front of it. Since everything else about these people was human, did they have something like religion as well? Or maybe the collective consciousness made such a thing difficult to maintain; religious texts were notoriously difficult to interpret, and led to many lines of thinking that were contradictory. Just as in a single human mind, the existence of contradictory thoughts in a collective would probably be extremely uncomfortable, and actions would be taken to remedy it. So if they did have religion, it would surely be a simple one, one that everyone could precisely agree on. A perfect religion, in that sense.

A corridor with a staircase, now, leading still farther down, well below the base of the tower, surely. There were no signs here, or anywhere else on the lower level, it seemed. Why signs existed up above, he wasn't sure; at this stage, presumably everyone already knew what everything was and where to find it. Well, perhaps they were for newcomers only, who lived under a different collective consciousness (why else would they speak another language?). For the first time in some while, his thoughts wandered back to Voloi, wondering why he immediately chose destruction for this style of living, rather than choosing to study it as a unique example of divergent human evolution. Some people, some wizards surely, would love to know why this race of men became of one mind by living on the moon, how they coped, thought, built and refined concepts. Why destroy diversity when you can learn from it? Wasn't that what they were all taught, right from wizarding class day one?

The stairs descended for a grand distance. It would have been exhausting if the gravity were not so low. As it was, he could gracefully bounce most of the way down, skipping several steps at a time, like he once did in an old dream. A new light shone at regular intervals. None of these flickered.

He was questioning Voloi's wisdom again, he knew. The coyote, despite how often he wanted to reiterate that they were colleagues now, was still almost sixty years his senior, so he really felt that he should trust him. But even so....

Finally, the end of the stairs. But still only the beginning of another hallway. There was most likely a long way to go yet before he reached the end of this particular path.

Even so... he couldn't imagine exactly why, but it felt as though he were making progress.

Toward whatever it was he was heading for. That part, he still hadn't completely figured out.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A communication from his partner interrupted his line of deep thought. He tried to slow his breathing, and rolled over onto his back. When he blinked open his eyes, there floated a fuzzy image of the coyote's head.

"Hey, mousey buddy. You find anything yet?"

Pasuu blinked hard a few times, then shook his head. He swallowed deeply before responding, and tried to keep his voice calm. "Not... not yet... no. I've been... following something, is all."

"Something?"

His nose twitched. His heart was going to break out of his chest at this rate. "A... path, underground. I think it might be going underneath the base of the tower we visited."
"That sounds more promising than what I've got. Everything this way seems abandoned. Looks like this place had a lot of restarts; I think I might even have stumbled across a first attempt at one of those towers, but it doesn't go up very high, and it's all dark."

"That sounds... interesting."

"Maybe for later, but we've got a more important goal right now." The coyote sighed. "Well, maybe I'll keep looking around here for a while, but if I don't find anything in the next few hours I'm rejoining you. Ciao, as they say in... whichever country."

The image vanished.

Pasuu sat up, fighting to keep from blacking out. He had lied to Voloi. He could scarcely believe it, but he really had. His eyes wandered over to that sign above the door again. He didn't know what it said... not precisely, but the letters were large and red, threatening, noble, a warning and a welcome at the same time. He knew he'd found something important; it was so important, he'd nearly passed out while he was debating with himself whether or not to go in, to contact Voloi first, or to just run away and pretend he hadn't seen it. There was something big behind that door. He could feel it, and he could hear it, a colossal shape moving in the unknown, perhaps trying to probe into his mind, to reach out to this newcomer and see if he was friend or foe. But he didn't enter, because he wasn't entirely sure himself which of those he was.

Those letters stood in his vision to the exclusion of everything else. Brain wispy, light-headed. If he didn't slow down his breathing, he might hyperventilate. It was worse now; now that he'd lied to Voloi, he knew which course of action he'd chosen, and he had to follow through with it.

Pasuu got to his feet with the pace of an old arthritic man who had been shoved over. Each step forward seemed to take five minutes as he approached the door and placed his hand upon it. He couldn't do it with his eyes open, so he squeezed them shut. A hard push. The door didn't creak at all.

It was very dark inside. When the door slid closed behind him, it grew even darker, dark enough that even his black eyes could only make out a few distant points of light, unfocused stars behind a black cloud. The feeling, the presence in this place, grew stronger. It was such a light touch, just on the surface of his mind, but he could glean a kind of frantic anxiety, a fear of the unknown. Or... no, that should have been his. But was it? Pasuu pushed forward, stepping very carefully so as not to trip on a hidden object.

Who are you?

It was a probing question, carrying with it much more weight than the words themselves implied. The surface question in it was unimportant; what the being wanted to know was what Pasuu was still trying to decide himself, as he walked farther into that dark room.

Please...

He could almost see something there, some shape. Breathing.

You are not... one of mine...

He stopped. One of... mine?

Yes. You do have a mind. Why can I not see it clearly?

Pasuu didn't know what to do. Just think thoughts?

Thoughts. Yes. Think thoughts. I do not understand this.

He began walking forward again. The being's messages were becoming clearer to him the closer he came. The anxiety wasn't his. The creature's feelings did not seem monstrous... they were confused, afraid. Pasuu felt himself begin to relax. The creature was afraid of him. Something was afraid of him.... It said it had a hard time perceiving him and his thoughts? Was this the being that maintained the symbiosis amongst the people in the towers?

People. My people, who live in the light?

Yes, the people who lived in the light. They said they were all interconnected somehow.

Yes... my people. I live inside of them, help to make them see each other.

Then this... this being was his... target. Voloi...

Voloi? Is this another like you?

Voloi wanted to... destroy...

But...

But. Yes... but. But he, Pasuu, he had reservations, didn't he? He didn't fully believe Voloi's philosophy regarding this place. Not now, not from the start.

The shape began to become clearer. It was huge, amorphous. It had a strange scent to it, not like a living being precisely. Perhaps more similar to the rocks around them, to the metal. Like it was born of the rock. Yes.

I see it. Your mission... from the other. But... information... it is conflicting...

Was it information that was conflicting? His emotions were certainly conflicting. They had been since Voloi first proposed the idea to come here, but he'd ridden along out of a sense of duty, a sense that he needed to overcome his reluctance to move out into the world at large. He'd followed Voloi and all of his crazy ideas since then out of that same sense of duty, keeping his questions to himself out of fear. He couldn't speak his mind in front of the old dog.

Information. Something, there, on the edge of your thoughts.

Something... on the edge. Something Voloi had said? Or something else...

There, yes. You have it.

Pasuu found himself whispering the words. "We help people. We solve problems they cannot resolve themselves, we quell disputes, keep the peace, bring a quality life to as many people as will allow it." Something Voloi had said before they left for this place, about their role as wizards. He remembered it perfectly now.

As many people as will allow it.

Pasuu was close enough to the thing now to touch it, but the level of light here was so low there was simply nothing to make out. He reached out a hand, placed it on the creature's hulking mass. It was rough, warm. Like shark skin, maybe, or the bark of a pine tree.

Would these people allow it? Allow them to give what form of help they were contemplating giving? What would happen to them, to their society, to this whole fascinating world they'd created, if he were to stand here now and vaporize this creature? The principle of the thing, was Voloi's reason. But the reason... that reason was...

Shallow.

Yes, it was shallow. Ill thought. Voloi was....

Wrong.

Something rose in Pasuu's chest, painful, tight. He tried to swallow it back, but it wouldn't move. Voloi was wrong about this. This was wrong. He couldn't do it.

Pasuu took his hand away from the thing's side and let it drop. It was the reason they all chose different forms; to get away from the commonest human tendencies, to see disputes and other things from an outside perspective, to take an impartial view so that they could maximize the amount of good they could achieve. This society here was built with the aid of this creature, uniting these people in mind. And what was the evidence? These grand structures, these open roads, these people building devices to communicate easily with their neighbors. Their city was clean, the people looked happy. The guards were few and far between, and they only carried sticks as weapons; nothing lethal. No desire to kill one's brothers, those people who shared your mind. All indications were that it was a peaceful and advanced society.

The thought of wrecking all of that, on principle... it simply made no sense. It was an unwise decision.

Though he knew the creature could not see it, he smiled up at it. He was sorry to have bothered it so. That wasn't their purpose here... they didn't need to be so intrusive, to try to reform this place into what they thought it should look like. There was nothing here to fix.

And so he turned and walked out, his thoughts now only on what he was going to say to Doctor Voloi when he saw him again.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Pasuu was seated on a thick pipe when the coyote materialized in front of him. They were outside again, in amongst the red lights. The door leading down to the creature's chamber was nearby, off to his left, shut tight once more. Voloi waved a hand and walked close to the mouse, another wry smile gracing his muzzle.

"Gave up already?"

Pasuu's ears twitched. He swallowed. "Not... not exactly."

Voloi jumped up onto the pipe beside him. "I don't follow." He reached into his pack and brought out another strip of some dried meat to chew on. Was it lunchtime already? Or maybe it was dinner. Pasuu couldn't tell; his appetite has apparently left him the day before and wasn't planning on coming back any time soon.

He turned to the coyote. "Well... I found...."

There was a long pause. He was having a hard time bringing himself to say anything else. But Voloi pressed him. "Found...? What did you find, my dear sweet little colleague?"

He cleared his throat. "I..." This wasn't working.

Just get it all out, now.

"I found the entity we were looking for, but I didn't call you and I didn't destroy it." His voice was a whisper by the end.

Voloi stared at him for a time. Pasuu struggled valiantly to keep his breathing rate under control, to keep himself from shaking.

Voloi took another bite of jerky, chewed it. Swallowed it. He adjusted his glasses. "Hm."

Pasuu gazed into his eyes, silently pleading. He wanted him to say something, because he physically could say nothing more himself.

It felt like hours passed in silence. Was the coyote trying to kill him? He wanted to sniff the air, to scent out anything the coyote might be feeling, because his face told him nothing at all.

But then, he spoke once more. His voice was low, soft. "Well, okay then. I suppose that means it's time to head back home." He patted the mouse on the shoulder. "I'll cast the spell. We'll just head back to Jules' place. I imagine he would want to hear about our journey as soon as possible."

Only a soft moan got out of Pasuu's throat in reply, so he just shut his mouth and nodded, slowly. Back to Jules' place... it wasn't the journey Jules was going to hear about, was it? Oh gods, heavens, love and passion, his career was over before it had begun. They would change him back to a human and send him on his way, back down to the surface. Would he be stripped of his knowledge of magic too? Could they do that?

"All right. Here we go."

The two vanished from the surface of the moon.

And reappeared just outside of Jules' apartment.

Voloi knocked. Pasuu felt the weight grow heavier and heavier on his shoulders with each passing second. After half an eternity, the owl came to the door. He looked pleased to see them, and invited them inside.

"I'll make us all some tea," the old bird said.

"One second." Voloi touched his shoulder and whispered something into his ear.

Jules' eyes widened, an impressive and terrifying sight. "Is that so? Oh my, oh my, that's certainly something."

Both predators looked to the mouse. "Pasuu," Voloi said.

Pasuu swallowed. He barely managed to eek out a, "Yes?"

The two glanced at each other, and Voloi smiled. "We'd like to say, congratulations. You performed stunningly."

Pasuu watched them both for a minute. He said nothing. Performed... stunningly. "It was..." he tried. "It was... a... test?" This got a nod. "And I... I passed it?" Another nod.

His heart jerked violently, and he only tangentially felt himself hitting the floor before his brain shut off.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"I... I think I'm alright now, really."

Voloi nodded and let him stand on his own again. "You really do need to work on that anxiety problem of yours, Pasuu," he said. "We were afraid you'd given yourself a concussion back there."

"I... I know. But you both threw me for such a loop, I..."

Voloi just laughed. "We took it too far, I suppose. I knew the suspense was killing you, I just wasn't aware how literal that was at the time. I apologize for that."

It was nighttime now. There was the moon, sitting in its rightful place amongst all the stars, right in the middle of that frothy band of light making up the galaxy's disk. They had wandered back to Pasuu's home; both Jules and Voloi felt that he needed a few days to rest and recover yet before they proclaimed him fit for duty. But he would be proclaimed fit for duty; he had passed the test.

"Voloi," he said. "Did you know all about the moon people already? Or did you have to play the whole thing by ear?"

"The latter, I'm afraid." His eye glinted in the moonlight. "But to be honest, it was an easy task for me. I knew the hardest thing for you would be to contradict me, so all I had to do was come up with some outlandish mission that would force you to choose between your principles and your obedience."

"And... I chose my principles."

"You chose your principles, and you chose the principles of the Wizards' Guild. That means to me that you understand them, on a deep level. And that's all I wanted to see before I recommended your full wizard status to the guildmasters."

"I... I see. Well..." He smiled. "It does make me happy, that I chose correctly." He paused a moment. "What if... what if I hadn't?"

He patted the mouse on the head. "I freely admit that I rather enjoy your company. It would have saddened me greatly to see your career delayed in any way. So I wouldn't have taken such a risk if I didn't have great confidence in you from the start." The coyote glanced up at the moon, and he smiled. "In any case, I suppose this is goodbye for now. But we'll see each other again. With some further planning I would love to continue to explore that old place up there a few more times, wouldn't you?" He stuck out a hand.

Pasuu grasped it, and they shook. "Doctor..."

"Hm?"

"I wanted to say... thank you. For choosing me to mentor."

"Oh, there's no need for thanks. I did it out of purely selfish reasons. I love a good challenge, you see, and cracking your shell was one of the harder ones I could find."

"Regardless, thanks."

The coyote grinned, then pulled the mouse into an embrace. "Any time, friend. Now go get some sleep, for the love of everything holy. You've got the whole rest of your life to prepare for."

FIN