Just as Suzy promised, Troy was back on his feet the next day. The human spent the craziest night of his life strapped to the medical exam table, making love to his tigress captain, female skunk archaeologist, his doctor-vixen, and his domineering engineer, a rambunctious rabbit. The events of the prior night stuck with the human as he tried to fulfil his duties as first officer, but the other furvoids seemed to be different creatures in the daytime.
"Morning Troy, how's your foot?" Captain Ember Riley asked.
"Uh...fine, thanks," he said, sitting down at the table in the galley. Ember handed him a bowl of cereal, but this time it was meant for humans. The meaty mystery cereal from before was now replaced with frosted oat clusters.
"I don't know how you humans eat this stuff," she said, sampling a flake. "Too damned sweet if you ask me."
"It's an acquired taste, I guess," he shrugged. "Do you need help on the bridge, Captain?"
"No, why don't you see if you can help Audra pour through the texts. I received a communique the disease is getting worse on our home planet. If you could perhaps help her we might find that damned stone sooner," Ember said.
"Yes ma'am," he replied.
"Troy..."
"Yes Captain?"
"Are you okay?"
"Uh, why do you ask?"
"You seem very quiet today. We...didn't freak you out last night, did we?"
"Oh, no. I get turned into a sex slave by four furvoid chicks on a regular basis," he said.
"Last night was...I'll admit, we were a bit out of control. I apologize for that. It won't happen again."
"Right, well, I'll just take this cereal with me and uh, visit Audra," he replied. He left the galley and entered Audra's quarters.
"Oh...hi Troy," she said, blushing immediately.
"Audra," he began, but she interrupted him.
"Troy, I'm so sorry, I would never want to cause you pain, you know that; I was in the moment and..." she said, nearly on the verge of tears.
"It's not your fault, if anything I came to apologize to you."
"We went way too far," she continued.
"Piper," Troy said softly.
"What about her?" Audra asked nervously.
"She dominates you?"
"It gets awful lonely in the void," Audra said quietly.
"I'm not judging you, hey, it's alright. I just...I don't want her to hurt you," he said.
"I like to be hurt, remember?" she said weakly.
"There's a difference between playful punishment and abuse. I'll protect you from her," he offered.
"You're sweet, Troy. I don't need it, really."
"Well, maybe I can at least help you with these ancient texts," he countered.
"Are you hiding the fact you're also an archeologist from us too?" she teased.
"Sorry, history and archeology were things I kind of slept through in class," he said with a laugh.
"Well, you might not find this task to your liking," Audra replied.
"I might find the subjects boring, but I also like a challenge. Maybe my primitive human brain will see things different than you might."
"Alright," she chuckled. "Well, the thing is, the Chelali race were famous for their riddles. The healing stone is of great importance to them, so they went to great lengths to hide it. Only those who are enlightened can hope to find it, so they made the riddles so difficult and vexing, it would take a truly advanced civilization to crack their codes."
"Well, let's see this one here," Troy said, pulling a copy of the text. It was in Furvoid, but he switched the language to English.
"Thrice a stone unturned, twice a stone burned, once a well to drink, never a chain is linked. Well, that makes a bunch of sense," he said.
"This particular riddle makes no sense, because none of the temples have any matching descriptions," Audra said, sipping her tea.
"Well," Troy said, taking another bite of his soggy cereal, "do you have the original text, I mean in their own language?"
"You speak Chelali?" she snickered.
"Not a word, I just want to see them. Sometimes, the idiots see things the geniuses miss," he replied with a playful wink.
"You are not an idiot, Troy, and I wish you'd stop saying that," she reprimanded him lightly. "Nevertheless, here they are," she said, pulling up the digital file of the original sandstone carvings.
The sandstone was in a writing form totally alien to the human. It consisted of angular lines and geometric shapes. Scholars used a sort of Rosetta Stone at the main temple to decipher the language, but the riddles had stumped all those who sought their treasure.
"Huh, that's funny," Troy remarked, looking at the writing.
"What is?" Audra sked, perking her ears up in excitement.
"Oh, it's probably nothing, never mind I said anything," Troy said dismissively.
"Troy," Audra again scolded her lover.
"Well, I don't know anything at all about the Chili Pepper language..."
"Chelali."
"Yeah, them too. Anyway, I do know a thing or two about space travel, and some of these symbols sort of look like the maneuvering flight paths I would take to avoid neutron stars," he said.
"Which ones?" the skunk asked.
He pointed to one.
"This is the word for sand...what else do you see that jumps out at you?"
"That one, and that one, oh and this one here, too," Troy commented, pointing at the symbols.
"Ocean, island, hilltop..." she translated.
"Know of any temples on any planets that match all of those requirements?" he asked.
"Checking," she said, putting the parameters in the computer.
"Valga 2, but we've been there already," she said in a deflated voice.
"Didn't find anything there?"
"Nothing more than a few clay pots and trinkets."
"It was a good idea though, Troy, really. I would have never thought of an idea like that," she said rubbing his hand with hers.
"Hey, what's this one?"
"Which?"
"That one, over there. Looks sort of like a globular cluster," he replied.
"It means flames."
"Flames? Did this Valga 2 have anything to do with flames?"
"Not that I recall. Wait, now that you mention it...there was a sacrificial torch. But I looked inside, it was empty."
