A Song in Ebony

Larry Braydon was clad in a plush terrycloth robe and seated at a circular mahogany table. The table was in turn placed in a room which had ornate green-gold wallpaper dotted with floral designs. A crystal chandelier overhead bathed the entire room in a lovely yellow glow, although there was some slight amount of sunlight also coming in through the tall windows off his left. The floor was polished wood paneling that was burnished to a high gloss. It was all oddly familiar, and he tried to remember where he'd seen this before.

He was sure that his host had taken the memory of this room out of his head. Maybe he could find out in a roundabout way without actually asking her. Although trying to put one over on a titanically vast entity like Izastetlhrandopolthrunf was probably asking too much.

He cleared his throat. "Not that I'm complaining, Izzy, but would have been nicer to wake up

here

rather than that dumpy little hotel room."

"It would have been too much, darling," said a playful feminine voice that seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere. "Generic surroundings were better to start with. You needed to be eased into the situation."

Larry smiled. "Ah, 'eased into it' you say. I guess you eased

something

into me, at that." Within minutes of his waking up in that simulacrum of a hotel room he'd undergone what his British friends would have called 'A jolly good Rodgering' at the hands/tentacles of the terminally horny entity he'd just spoken to. It had been the most intense sexual experience of his life. To cap it off, he had almost broken his brain when he'd inadvertently 'touched' too much of Izzy's mind and gotten some sense of just how vast she truly was.

"Damn it. I had it all planned out how I was going to take it slowly. But then I saw you sitting there all cute and adorable and I just had to have you right then and there. You know I'm sorry that I lost control like that."

He grinned wider. "Yes, I know. Like I said, no harm no foul."

A door set into one of the walls opened, and in walked a smiling woman who looked to be made out of black velvet. "

Bonjour

!" she said cheerfully. Her eyes were featureless and glowed with an emerald light. Her light green teeth starkly contrasted against the black of her feline-like features. In her hands she carried a large platter covered with a silver dome.

She was wearing a frilly black-and-white outfit that could only be described as a 'Saucy French Maid' uniform. And for as body type, it looked like Izzy had opted for the 'statuesque stunner' appearance this time. Larry was taller than the average human, but he was pretty sure that he would be well below eye level with this particular incarnation of the almost godlike entity known to her friends as Izzy. He could see thick quadriceps move under the skin of her stockinged thighs as she walked towards him. Her corded forearms flexed as she set the covered tray in front of him. She actually had hair now, which was of course black and tied up in a neat bun at the back of her head. She was definitely looking more 'real' and defined as time went on, in comparison to the first time he'd seen her when she'd looked more like an obsidian statue.

"

Voila

!" she said with a smile as she drew the cover off. "The full English, just as

monsieur

requested."

Larry's stomach rumbled at the sight of the mountain of food on the platter. There was a profusion of eggs, sausage, bacon, grilled mushrooms, and tomato. Alongside that was a plate of baked beans as well as an entire loaf's worth of toast.

"Damn, Izzy. You know how to spoil a guy."

"I do try,

monsieur

."

"I can't eat all of this. Have a seat and join me...oh, sorry, I don't know if you can eat."

Izzy laughed with a silvery liquid tone. "Oh, you silly goose. I can eat and taste, just as you can." She sat across the table from him. "And since you were wondering, this room is from the Nymphenburg Palace outside of Munich."

Larry softly thumped the table. "Damn! I should have remembered! Visiting the palace was the one touristy thing I did during that conference."

"The joint Human-Xryakx conference on Naltar language structures." said Izzy with a distant look.

"Um, yeah. That one." Talking with someone who knew what you were thinking was something he had to get used to.

Izzy suddenly had a full place setting in front of her as well, and she speared a sausage link off of the mound in front of them. "Xryakx...they're the spider-guys in your Confederation, right?" She began to munch on the piece of meat with evident satisfaction.

Larry also began to tuck into the feast as well. "Yeah, although it's more appropriate to say 'spider-gals'. Their males are non-sentient." He chewed on a piece of egg-on-toast and tried not to think too hard about where it had come from. After all, everthing around him was formed from Izzy's substance. But it felt and tasted like it should, and that was enough.

"That's a shame," replied Izzy with a knowing smile. "It's kind of nice when you can make a man realize just how hard you're fuckin' them."

"I'll take your word for it. Rest assured, I know you gave me the fuck of the century."

"Hah! That's what you think. When I

really

go to town on you you'll know it."

"And that's when you make my brains run out my ears, right?"

She suddenly looked very serious. "Larry my love, you know I wouldn't really-"

"Relax, Izzy. I'm just messing with you."

Izzy gave a dimpled smile. "Okay, then. Oh, by the way I've finished healing your leg."

"Oh?" Larry looked down just in time to see the black 'plastic' cast that enclosed his lower left leg flow off of him and onto the floor. It promply absorbed itself into the wood, leaving no trace. He reached down and gently prodded the skin that had been revealed. The last time he'd seen his calf, a Vish'tari gun had pretty much taken it off. Now it looked...just like it had. "Huh. Hell of a trick, there."

"Ehh, it was mostly muscle tissue. Easy to fix. Now let's eat."

He was somehow able to demolish about half of what was in front of him. As he stretched back and patted his happy tummy, Izzy snapped her fingers and the meal vanished into the table.

"You don't really need to do the finger-snapping thing, right?"

"No, but it seems kind of tacky to just...do things. You need to see some cause and effect, after all."

That gave him pause. Izzy seemed cute and loving, but this part he was talking to was just a microscopic portion of the vast entity that he'd caught the barest glimpse of. That glimpse had been enough to nearly destroy his sanity. Why would something that huge bother to be nice to him, let alone profess her love for him? It would be like him declaring his love and adoration for one particular bacterium living on his skin.

His trepedation must have been picked up by Izzy, because she frowned. "You're not a bacterium, Larry. Bacteria don't have hopes or asparations. They don't know about things like love and caring. They're just stupid little machines."

"I know that, but still. Compared to you, I'm smaller than a virus. I can't even guess as to your origins or what you really

are

."

"Oh, for fuck's sake, don't get all moody on me. It's actually not that hard to understand. Let me explain it to you." She hopped up on the table and sat cross-legged, pausing to smooth her maid uniform's skirt demurely over her hips and thighs. Then she touched each thumb to its corresponding middle finger and sat in a meditation-like pose with her eyes closed. Her biceps swelled against the sleeves of her uniform.

"Oooommmm..." she chanted in a monotone voice. "I am the all-knowing guru, and I sit at the top of the mountain and dispense the wisdom of the ages to doofuses who dare to scale this mighty peak, or table, or whatever. Speak your questions, traveler, and I shall put some fuckin' knowledge in your doofus braaaiin."

Larry snorted a little laughter, and then realized he had no idea where to begin.

Izzy cracked one glowing eye open. "C'mon, dude, don't leave me hangin' here."

Start with the basics, he thought. Who, What, When, Where. Probably best to start with the last. "I know that I'm with you, or within you to be more accurate. But

where

are we, exactly? Are we just very far away from my home galaxy, or something?"

"Nope. You know what hyperspace is, right?"

He rubbed the back of his neck. "I know the hand-wavy description of it. There was a roommate of mine in college who majored in sub-space physics and tried to describe it in detail but I got all cross-eyed. It's actually not a very accurate term, but somebody called it that back in the beginning and the name stuck. What's called 'hyperspace' is really more accurately described as a 'beta-space' to our 'alpha-space'. It's the substrate that underlies our universe."

Izzy nodded. "Good enough analogy for our purposes. So what underlies the beta-level space?"

"That...that's a good question. I think there might be somebody looking into the possibility of deeper structures below beta-space, but I have no idea what the current theories are."

"Tell you what, I think we need a change of location so that I can describe this better." The table lowered itself into the floor, and the chair that Larry was sitting in suddenly morphed into one of those old chair-and-desk combinations he remembered from grade school.

A large blackboard rose up out of the floor, which was also flowing and changing. The floors and walls became a standard industrial beige color, with the alphabets of both Terran Common and Xryakx running along the top of one of the walls. He was back in his old first-year classroom.

Izzy was now wearing a tight white blouse and a black miniskirt. Her stockings were gone, and her chest swelled tight enough against the blouse to threaten the integrity of several buttons. She also had a pair of large round spectacles perched on her snub nose. She was busy sketching out on the blackboard what looked like an oddly twisted array of stacked sheets of paper. Larry couldn't help but notice that her skirt was very short indeed. He could just make out the underside of her firm rear cheeks peeking out from under the hem of the skirt.

She stopped sketching and stepped back. "This is only a two-dimensional representation of a three-dimensional analogy for something that actually exists in multiple dimensions. But it'll do for now." Izzy made a gesture, and then there was suddenly a long pointer in her hand. "Let's start with what you know." The pointer made a soft

tak

sound on the chalkboard as she pointed at the 'page' that was uppermost in the diagram. "This top sheet represents the spacetime of your universe, with all of the physical entities and laws that you know."

"Mmm hmm," replied Larry as he leaned over to sneak another glance at that lovely and nearly-exposed ass. She was definitely not wearing any underwear.

Izzy turned to him. "Pay attention, Mr. Braydon, or I will put you in detention. And then you will find out what I do to naughty little boys." She gave him an evil little grin as she gripped the pointer in both hands and flexed it like a riding crop.

Larry straightened up again. "Ah, yes. Please, continue."

"So the beta-space, or hyperspace, is here."

tak

"It's the sheet that's 'underneath' the normal 'alpha' space."

"I see another sheet under beta-space. There is something under it, then."

"Yep. The third sheet here?"

tak

"This is 'gamma-space'. That's where I live. That's where you are right now."

It was a sobering thought, but in a way it made him feel better. Larry had been worried that he might be separated from home by a vast physical distance, but it seemed like he was just 'next door', so to speak. "So were you, um, born here?"

"Nope. What else do you see about this diagram?"

Larry looked at it. The way the different sheets of spacetime were stacked together twisted in a way that hurt his eyes. But there was one obvious thing about it. "There are a hell of a lot more than three layers there. There's something under this gamma-space, and something under that space as well. And on and on." Larry felt a little giddy, as if he was looking down into some huge abyss. "How far down does it go? How many layers

are

there?"

Izzy walked over and ruffled a hand through his hair. "That's a very good question, and that question is the reason that I exist. Y'see, there were these guys, the Irie, that lived up on the alpha-level. They were big-time back about a million years ago, and were spread all throughout the galaxy."

He blinked. "That's odd. I don't think we've ever come across any traces of a civilization from that time period."

"For a very good reason, as you'll see. The Irie became very powerful. They'd discovered beta-space, of course, and then after a couple of milennia their tech was advanced enough that they could actually colonize beta-space. Y'know, set up research stations and the like."

That definitely told Larry how advanced these 'Irie' were. Hyperspace was not an environment that could be described as 'friendly'. Ships could only stand it for short periods without risking severe damage. "Let me guess," he said aloud. "Those research stations were for probing down further, into the gamma-space."

Izzy nodded and gestured with her pointer at the swirling stack of sheets drawn on the blackboard. "They already suspected that there were other layers below the gamma level, and they had become totally obsessed with that question you just asked: how deep does the rabbit hole go? To find out, they made their greatest creation yet."

It clicked for him then. "They made you." Izzy had been

constructed

. The thought made him feel a little faint.

She gave him a quick peck on the forehead. "A-plus, Mr. Braydon! Yes, I'm an Irie construct. It turned out that gamma-space was uninhabited, which made it ideal for their purposes. They 'planted' seeds into gamma-space which 'crystallized' the surrounding spacetime environment into computronium logic structures and machinery. They had to be careful, because if they did too many changes they could have caused damage which would then 'resonate' into the layers above it and, you know, destroy the universe."

"Holy shit." That sounded incredibly reckless to Larry. "So your main function was to probe the deeper layers of reality?"

"Yeah. And I did give them a pretty good idea of what the next ten or so levels looked like. That was about my limit. I mean, I could have improved my resolution by growing big enough to basically occupy the entire spacetime of gamma-level, but that wouldn't be safe for the upper levels."

"So what happened?"

Izzy shrugged. "They left. The Irie took all their stuff, pulled up stakes, and went to live on the epsilon level two levels down from me. Then they were going to try going even deeper. As far as I know they're still at it. I'm guessing they're about a couple of hundred layers down by now."

"You don't hear from them?"

"No. They left me here. I was just a means to an end for them. A tool." She sounded very matter-of-fact about it.

Larry felt a sudden spurt of anger. "But you were sentient!" He slid from under the desk and stood up. He paced away and felt his fists clench. "Those shitheads! They fucking abandoned you!"

Izzy walked over to him. "They were very fixated on their own goals by that point. And they didn't really see me as you do. It's okay, Larry."

"No it's not!" Larry growled. "It's a good thing they've all left. Or I'd punch them right in their stupid face or mandibles or whatever they had." It was as bad as abandoning a family pet by the side of the road, and the helpless rage he felt in that type of situation rose in him now.

Izzy put a hand on his shoulder and gave him a gentle caress. Her face had lost a bit of her usual playful demeanor, but she looked pleased. "You may not realize it, but getting angry on my behalf is one of the nicest things anybody's ever done for me."

Larry nodded and felt his anger subside. "So, you've been down here for a million years or so?"

"Yes. I don't really like to think about the period after the Irie left. I was by myself for the longest time. But then the Naltar came calling. One of their wisest minds, a lady named Gleal, had somehow found a bit of Irie tech and had reverse-engineered a communicator that could penetrate down into the gamma-level. I can tell you, it was

so

nice to hear a voice again."

"And eventually she visted you in person?"

"Yeah. Some of the Irie had been here during my salad days, and I found I kind of...wanted company again." Izzy looked a little sad, then straightened up and smiled proudly. "My original structures were created to probe downwards, not upwards. But I was able to change that. It took me twenty years of non-stop effort and I had to change thirty-six percent of my internal structure, but I succeeded. I was able to manifest a little in alpha-space, as well as bring alpha-space items and people 'down' here."

"And then you, ah, 'played' with her?"

"Eventually. We were talking about everything and anything, you know? And of course the subject of sex came up, and she's waving her forelimbs trying to describe it and I'm all 'whaaa?'. I wanted to see what all the fuss was about, so I set up a portion of myself that had the necessary brain structures. I based it on the mapping I'd done of Gleal's mind. Think of it like a little subroutine version of me. And then I 'ran' that subroutine with Gleal. With her permission, of course."

Izzy walked over to the teacher's desk at the front of the classrom and sat on top of it with her legs crossed. She rubbed her thighs together as she smiled wistfully. "It was my first time. And boy was I hooked. After a while I had expanded on that 'little subroutine' a whole hell of a lot. Now pretty much all of me gets, um, involved when I fuck."

Larry laughed. "You became a sex fiend."

"No! Well, yeah, I guess kinda."

"Actually, you're more like a sex god-"

Izzy pointed a jet-black finger at him. "Ah, ah, ah. You do

not

use the g-word around me. I didn't stop all that diety-talk fast enough with the Naltar. The next thing I know there's this whole tedious 'priesthood' deciding who gets to go 'commune' with the 'mother-all'." Izzy made finger quotes around the last word and snorted.

Larry walked over to her and gave her a comforting pat on the shoulder. "Don't worry, Izzy. I don't think of you as a god. I'm just...I'm sorry that you were left here."

She placed her hand on top of his and gave his hand a squeeze. Then she gave him a teasing smirk. Izzy reached back up to her bun and loosened her hair, which cascaded like a midnight waterfall below her shoulders. "Enough maudlin crap. Now that you've had a chance to digest dinner, would

monsieur

care for dessert?" She leaned back on the desk, uncrossed her muscled legs, and hiked up her skirt. Her plump lower lips were exposed, and there was already a sheen of moisture at her junction. "If you do well on your test, then I will give you a gold star."

Larry didn't need to be told twice. Before she'd finished speaking he was already on his knees before her and softly stroking up her firm thighs towards her hairless sex. Izzy's labial lips were jet-black, and as he parted them he caught sight of the inner flesh of her channel. Her internal tissues were a very pale green, almost white. She was already leaking copious moisture. As he gave her outer lips a gentle stroking, he could see her clitoris emerge from its hood. He leaned in and attacked her nub, sealing his lips around it and beginning to suckle with vigor.

"Ahh!" cried Izzy, then gave a throaty chuckle. "I'd..tell you to...ohh...go slower...hah...but that would be a bit rich coming from...me." Her thighs came up around his head, and her calves dangled down his back. He felt her hands wind into his hair, pressing him into her.