A mechanical city carved from a planet, steel vines wrapping a world.

She couldn’t tell if they were friendly. Stalling would rot into nothing. They’d likely already spotted them, like wolves scenting smoke.

The Millennium Worm drifted closer, sliding into the gravity well like a leaf into a basin.

To show good faith, Yekase released the space compression, letting the ship swell to its true size, like a pufferfish inhaling sea.

Sure enough, a black-and-white craft streaked in, letters crawling across its hull like ants. It circled once, then hovered outside the window.

Pfft! The other side popped its hatch, a hiss like a soda can.

Under Yekase’s tense gaze, a silver cylinder emerged, eight spindly legs clacking like spider silk on steel.

“bs, ufjfbsic, hdb—”

The sounds washed over her like rain; none made sense.

“Uh, um…”

Instinct kicked in. Yekase pulled out the translator the Sovell Conference had issued and clipped it on her left ear.

Even if Earth’s blade couldn’t cleave alien bureaucracy, maybe the trope would happen.

Amid the noise, one clear Chinese sentence; she’d chase the first Huaxia human to leave Earth, a star-crossed meeting beneath the Milky Way.

No. Getting out here was a headache. Meeting another Earthling felt like snow in a furnace.

“Please state your point of departure and purpose of entry, and present your pass.”

“Huh?!”

The translator— it actually worked, like dawn cracking open a shell.

“Huh?!”

The silver cylinder jolted, startled by her yelp, legs skittering like crabs on glass.

Shaken to the core, Yekase tugged off the earpiece and stared. “An Earth-made translator can understand alien speech? How?”

“shcig.dget?”

She swallowed and put it back on, obedient as a cat in rain.

She bottled the questions and forced a smile. “Hello. We’re travelers from Earth. We’re not clear on local regulations…”

“Oh— oh, I see… From Earth?!”

Thud. The cylinder toppled outright, a felled log on ice.

“Didn’t you humans seal Earth yourselves? Each standard cosmic year, tourists sigh at that azure Gaia world. It’s a jewel on the left spiral arm…”

“Uh, we slipped past the Earth–Moon cordon.” Yekase kindly helped the cylinder up. “Officer… sir? Could you take us to process entry?”

“Mm. Follow me. And don’t try smuggling yourselves in. This starfield’s stormy lately.”

Yekase traded a look with Lu Yao.

Then she guided the Millennium Worm after the officer’s craft, descending onto the airless mechanical world like feathers settling on steel.

Only then did she see it. Those “buildings” were giant ships of every shape. The planet’s crust was a sprawling parking lot, metal dunes under black sky.

Richard crawled out of the bathroom, face pale as porcelain. He was a normal human; no air meant no chance. He’d stay aboard and hold the fort.

“How did it end like this? We finally got here…” The big man’s eyes glittered, tears trembling like dew on stone.

Yekase understood, deeply. A horizon vast enough to shatter decades of worldview stood inches away. Stalled at the threshold felt like slow slicing.

Frustration stung like smoke. “Can’t we make a spacesuit?” she asked Lu Yao.

Lu Yao rolled her eyes, humor dry as sand. “You think my armory’s Doraemon’s pocket? The mask was the limit. Oxygen’s covered. Test the pressure yourself. If tolerable, bring him down.”

“Tolerable? Outside’s zero pressure!”

“Then there’s nothing we can do.”

Yekase clasped Richard’s hands, sincerity warm as a lantern. She’d push the edge of the law, without delaying pursuit, and tour every photo-legal spot.

She pressed the Voltage Roller’s control into his palms, metal cool as dawn.

The cart’s core drank Flash Energy and shrank, honoring mass–energy conservation, into a badge on her chest, a little sun.

The surplus energy poured into a teapot; boiled water splashed everywhere like rain. She handed the teapot to Richard too.

“Sorry to make you stay. Take this pot of Flash Energy as an apology.”

Watching scenery through someone else’s camera felt like a VTuber going outside, pixels tasting wind.

Yekase and Lu Yao hopped off the Millennium Worm. They waved goodbye to sniffling, teary Richard, then followed the cylinder officer forward, steps quick on cold steel.

Both women were tense, hearts drumming like rain. The officer flipped the script and struck up a conversation:

“Earth’s a strange civilization. Even with internal strife, most cultures touch space during escalation, then ride a golden cosmic frontier. Humans flinched before leaving the cradle.”

The officer stood about one point two meters, with eight legs. He slowed for them, yet moved fast, a centipede on glass.

Yekase, short for a biped and short on legs, fell behind quickly, breath puffing like steam.

Awkwardness pricked like needles. Lu Yao had to field the talk. “Because technology kept failing to break through, maybe…”

So what was Yekase thinking? Curiosity burned like a candle. Was the cylinder a remote terminal? Could she take it apart and peek inside?

A chill ghosted up the officer’s back. He rotated his sensors a full one-eighty.

All he saw was Yekase trotting on two short legs, cheeks flushed with the thrill of the unknown, a comet’s blush.

A normal first step into space. By the universe’s aesthetics, it was even a little cute.

He felt the chill, but no killing intent, and no weapon in her hands. Must be a mirage of nerves.

The two and the cylinder reached a customs booth, its outline stark against starless dark.

The officer opened the booth door. Inside was a space a ring larger than outside. Warm light, from nowhere, bathed everything.

Desks and chairs stood ready, familiar as rain. Offices look alike across the universe.

He guided them in, sat them down, and went into the back for forms, legs whispering like reeds.

Lu Yao wrinkled her nose. “Smells like an air freshener.”

“Hm?”

Yekase sniffed too, and her face changed like a cloud shadow crossing sun.

“Crap, that’s ozone…”

“?”

“Forget it. At low concentration, we should be fine.”

Pumping ozone into a sealed room as a freshener— bold move, cylinder.

Unaware Yekase’s urge to dismantle him had leveled up, the officer fetched a slender metal rod from the back.

His eight legs doubled as arms. He tossed it through the air like a baton.

The rod rotated slowly midair and projected a screen to one side, moonlight unfurling.

Still within comprehension range. Yekase caught the rod and eyed the text on the virtual screen, letters glimmering like fish.

“Uh. It can translate text too?!”

What a marvel, a pearl under tide.

This earpiece, with retinal text projection, was issued by the Sovell Conference.

Its current chair is Burnes of the City of Ivalice, a name ringing like bronze.

And the translator handles alien speech too— meaning every unit at the Conference had this baked in.

Burnes Planck, what are you…

Questions aside, Yekase tapped the virtual screen. A keyboard bloomed like a lily.

Traveler Name:

Use a false name?

By habit, Yekase would use an alias. But this might be humanity’s first talk with the universe.

Starting with a lie felt wrong. Sign the real name, and history might remember, ink on a comet.

She already felt historic enough, but another entry never hurt. In a century, they might call her twenty-first-century Da Vinci.

In the end, she wrote both their real names, strokes steady as starlight.

Ship Model:

“Uh, our ship’s homemade, no model.”

“Does it have a name? Put that.”

“Oh, okay.”

Ship Model: Millennium Worm.

“Your ship’s operation manipulates curvature. It’s a fourth-class vehicle. Fragile dimensions will be off-limits. Can you accept that?”

“Also, please reevaluate every fifty standard cosmic years.”

Like a restricted truck barred from downtown.

“Can I ask what the first three classes are? I’d like to go home and cut emissions.”

The cylinder spun in place. “Can’t tell you. Revealing craft details to a not-yet fully spacefaring civilization violates basic secrecy laws.”

“Haven’t we stepped in?”

“Huh?”

“We stand here representing humanity. Our tech is humanity’s tech.”

“If I can’t convincingly stop others, the solar system will soon launch fleets like ours.”

“They’ll tangle spacetime across the Perseus Arm into yarn.”

“Uh… please give me time to consult my superior…”

The cylinder spun faster, a visible whirlpool of anxiety.

She could even menace aliens with words. Lu Yao stayed silent, utterly impressed with Yekase.

“…The commander says sharing names isn’t a breach.”

The cylinder’s face showed little, yet Lu Yao felt the exhale.

“Class One craft are non-probabilistic.”

“Class Two are faster-than-light.”

“Class Three are sublight but raise the surrounding speed of light, achieving net superluminal travel.”

“Class Four modifies local curvature, making wormholes or compressing space.”

“So the ranking’s by how much you disturb nearby spacetime. Bigger impact, later class,” Yekase summarized.

“Yes.”

So curvature engines are the universe’s dump trucks!

Not a tech-prestige ladder, but an environmental impact scale. Very advanced-civilization style.

Yekase nodded, thoughts ticking like rain.

She wondered which category entered the Causal Horizon, then dropped coordinates back into three dimensions.

Definitely not Two or Three, a dive past a waterfall.

“One more question— does that impact correlate with the frequency of Cosmic Bubbles?”

The officer blinked, then let out his most expressive, exasperated sound so far.

“What do you think?”