The Adventures Of Cyruss Skull

As it was written, the portents of his birth were witnessed across The Nine Great Galaxies. The Galpharidon returned to the rim of The Golden Galaxy after millennia in the void, in the farthest reaches of The Red Galaxy, above a planet named Voriancor, The Rangers Of The Star Elan stood against a fleet of United Intergalactic Consortium and decimated them, despite being vastly outnumbered, The Skellerites vanished from Galaxy Fractum and the ancient Mass Relays of The Courzai were discovered scattered throughout The Nine and beyond. Immediately after news of these portents had been disseminated, the believers, and a few nonbelievers, began their search for the being described only as “The Boy”.

It's never easy, being born into a society of telepaths when you’re just naturally noisy and unruly. This is due to the fact that noisy, unruly people have noisy, unruly minds that telepaths have difficulty grasping and navigating. Their remedy to this problem is to either isolate, or impose restraint upon, the offending individuals. The more enlightened telepathic societies, like the Pothorans ( from The Golden Galaxy ) choose restraint, in the form of rigorous mental training, in order to quiet the mind. That is, when the mind in question can be quieted.

Cyruss learned from the moment of his birth, that given his nature, he would spend much of his time under some form of mental restraint. From the age of two he had been taught to “breathe” and “focus his thoughts”, in order to “calm his mind”. By the time he was three, he realized that this was more for the protection of those around him than himself. By four he had found other ways to hide his nature, as his own abilities were well advanced, though he found using them for anything other than keeping other telepaths out of his head painful and distasteful. The notable exception was his mother, they had a connection that made her difficult to block, or misdirect . By the age of six he simply found it easier to pick his battles with her. Besides, she was his mother. If someone was going to keep tabs on him, he preferred her.

So, once again, she was shouting in his head. He accepted that it wasn’t her fault, he was never one to do as he was told. It's not that he didn’t respect his elders, or even that he didn’t want to, he just couldn’t. From the moment he was able, he could feel, hear and see the world around him differently. Something was pulling him towards trouble and, like his father, he was unwilling to resist.

“CYRUSS ANDRONICUS!! YOU GET BACK HERE, THIS INSTANT!!” Her voice actually caused him pain. He hated when she shouted.

He could feel her fear for him, bordering on terror, telepathy is a two way street, and he was always better at empathy, but he couldn’t always explain himself to her, as she found his reasoning “often lacked reason”. He concentrated on lowering her volume as he drifted towards his goal.

The universe had many space-borne species and this particular educational excursion, aboard the research vessel ‘Diogenes’ had provided him the opportunity to approach one of the more ancient.

Galpharidon, recently returned to The Golden Galaxy, massive space faring enervores. The parent species of all Cetaceans, rumored to be as old as the universe itself and this was his chance to investigate their haunting songs. He’d heard them his entire life, but had no idea where the songs were coming from until this field trip. As their cruiser took a position near the pod, it became abundantly clear that the Galpharidon were the source and that only he could hear them. Most children might react with some trepidation to this realization, but Cyruss’ curiosity outstripped any fear he might have felt and he was off.

Using his understanding of technology and expertise at being sneaky, it had been nothing to break away from his group, bypass the ship’s security protocols, reprogram the nano-printer to produce a vacuum suit in his size, disable all communication except his locator beacon, deactivate its magnetic tether and spacewalk towards the pod they were observing. He was actually a little surprised it had taken anyone, let alone his own mother, so long to realize he was missing. He congratulated himself at having become so artful.

When his mother’s terror at realizing where he was flooded his mind, he was already well on his way to the pod. Still, he needed to take a few breaths and steady himself until he could separate her emotions from his own.

“MOM!” he shot back.”STOP IT!! I NEED TO DO THIS!”

Mara Sarai cursed under her breath upon finally getting a response. This was just another in a long line of risks no mother wants to watch a child take. However, other mothers could actually claim a modicum of control. From the moment he was born Cyruss had been impulsive, reckless, insolent and generally out of control and those were his lovable qualities. She couldn’t believe she’d dropped her guard. She should have expected something like this. It occurred to her that the exercises he had been required to use to quiet his mind may have actually allowed him to sharpen his focus and hide his intentions below his surface thoughts.

“We cannot approach them! Galpharidon attack ships that get too close! COME BACK, PLEASE! ...I promise not to punish you!”

He felt her tone and it hurt him to hear her lie to him like that. He knew there would be hell to pay, but he was right on top of the pod. Their song reverberated through him.

“I’m sorry, mom.” he sent her a soft smile. “You can’t hear them, but I can.” It took all of his effort, but he managed to mute her connection to him. As he drifted towards the lead Galpharidon, he realized it was likely more for her protection than his.

Galpharidon are always caked with interstellar dust that causes the younger pod members to resemble asteroids and make the larger, older ones that much more imposing.There were about twenty of them he could readily identify. From their songs he could tell there were more, but the largest, presumably the pod leader was closest. She drifted lazily towards him, emitting a series of low, throaty groans that seemed to vibrate in Cyruss’ chest. Almost immediately, all the other singing stopped as she shifted just enough to bring Cyruss to within his arms’ length on one side, then came to a stop. For a moment, Cyruss regarded her with an awestruck smile then reached out to touch her. Cyruss’ touch caused something beneath millennia of hardened cosmic dust to shift and crack, revealing a warm, ultraviolet glow as the cracks spread. Scales of stone fell away and shattered into the dust of eons as Cyruss found himself regarding his reflection and the stars behind him, at the center of a massive, deep black eye. He felt her shift her gaze to him as it bore the weight of countless billions of years and galaxies of knowledge.

He smiled enthusiastically and waved. “HI! I’m Cyruss!”

He received a series of gentle, jovial clicks in response.

“It’s nice to finally meet you too! I have been listening to your songs for a long time. Were they for me?”.

A more complex series of clicks, barks and groans came to him this time and he was becoming aware of the pod seeming to take specific positions around him in the void.

“So, I was right! You do have something important to tell me!”. He gave his suit’s propulsion units a pop and turned to regard the pod as they moved into fixed positions around, above and below him. “Okay! What is it?”.

The pod began with a low drone. It filled his mind and body with a strange warmth and just then he realized that he probably should have asked if this was going to hurt.