Murphy slipped the rainbow ring onto her left hand like she was getting married and held it up to the light.
"It's very beautiful, thank you."
"It will protect you from elements. Keep it on your finger and you'll never drown, burn, freeze or suffocate. I wish you both the best of luck. I'll be here if you need anything," said Sid with a wink.
"Until we meet again," said Melock.
"Travel far," said Sid.
They went downstairs, the two wizards performed a series of complicated gestures and manipulated various runes in the room as Murphy looked on. Melock gestured for her to join him back on the symbol they arrived on.
"Are you ready to go to the moon?" he asked.
She stood straight and tall. "Yes, are we going directly?"
"We'll use my portable tower. Think of it as an old-timey rocket ship."
"A what?" she said as they vanished from the room and arrived on the second floor of Melock's tower.
"Here we are. Now, do you need anything before we go over to the observatory?"
"Is the tower on the moon?" asked Murphy.
Melock pulled his mobile device out of his bag, looked at it, and saved their location.
"Let's go find out," he said and headed down the stairs.
Murphy followed him down and out the heavy wooden door. She stepped out onto a vast gray barren landscape. The sky was black, cloudless, and full of stars. Her boots sank ever so slightly into the fine powder that made up the ground. She held her breath.
Melock's hair floated about his head like a halo. He gathered it up into a messy bun and smoothed down his long mustache with his hand. His body appeared to have a soft blue glow all around it, just beyond his skin. He led her around to the other side of the tower and pointed to a dull domed structure on the next ridge. Floating above them, massive in the clear sky was the blue marble of a living world she called home.
She stared in awe at the globe of blue and green with massive clouds drifting across its surface. The continental landform she knew from the few maps she had read was there, as well as others in shapes and sizes she could have never dreamed of. The perfect sphere hung there frozen but as she watched, the planet swirled with life; a hurricane out over the great ocean, snowcapped mountain ranges, and giant whispy green neon snakes wiggled in the high atmosphere over the poles.
She opened her mouth to say she had a thousand questions but no sound came out.
Melock smiled at her, placed a hand over his heart, gestured at their world, and beckoned for her to follow. They made good time across the vast valley, which revealed itself to be an impact crater as they climbed with relative ease up the ridge to the observatory. Walking was easy and each step felt like taking two. They hopped and bounced and jumped like children playing in the low gravity all the way to the top.
Sunlight beamed over the ridge, peeking out from behind their world in the distance. The rays felt warm and made Murphy realize that it was freezing on the moon. She looked at her rainbow ring and reached for it with her other hand. She wanted to feel what it really felt like.
Melock grabbed her hand, shook his index finger at her, and turned his head left and right with a serious face that said NO.
She heard in her mind as if a whisper in her ear, "I'd hate to lose you in our first moments. Please keep your ring on always."
She curled her hand into a fist, holding the ring on with her thumb, and nodded in compliance.
Melock led them over to the large steel door of the observatory. After some examination, he pulled a lever, turned a wheel, and the door opened silently. They entered an antechamber with another door opposite the first. The outer door closed and the sound of air filling the room rushed into Murphy's ears.
They both filled their lungs with fresh highly oxygenated air. Murphy came to suspect that there was not very much air outside on the moon's surface. She spun the rainbow ring around on her finger. The inner door opened and they walked into a short hallway.
"Hoo, hoot," said a very still owl perched in an alcove next to the door.
"Melock, that's who," said the wizard as he walked past heading to the stairs.
"Hoot, hoo," repeated the bird.
Murphy stopped and looked into the motionless eyes of the animal.
"I don't think this owl is alive?" she said.
"Hoot," said the owl without moving a feather.
"It's a guardian, just tell him your name," said Melock as he disappeared up the staircase.
Murphy leaned in close to the owl, touched its soft down, and whispered, "Melody Cherrycoke Murphy, but you may call me Sister Murphy."
The bird fluttered ever so gently and Murphy smiled at the elegant white and brown horned specimen.
"You're a lovely owl aren't you?" said Murphy.
The bird turned its head halfway around and back again hooting to her delight. She soaked in the beautiful creature, gently pet its wings, and touched the tip of its beak with her knuckle. The hall that led to the stairs was empty and still. She nodded goodbye to the owl and headed up.
At the top of the stairs was a room full of computers and monitors. Projections of the movements of stars and their planets covered most of them. Small pinpoints of light trailed the paths of the celestial bodies they orbited. A large panel showed images of great sea creatures, like the ones in stories told by fishermen. The great fish had names next to them like Maximiliano, Persephone, Luxor, and Jonas.
Melock stood next to a lazy-looking man in his 30's with tousled hair, fidgety fingers, and thick-lensed spectacles. The man spun in his swiveling chair and flashed Murphy a nervous smile. He wore a t-shirt with a picture of a man wearing a shirt that stated in large letters, "Who the Fuck is Mick Jagger?"
Music played from some unknown source; distorted guitars, choppy breaks in the playing, and drums like she had never heard struck Muprhy as an unseen singer said, "I hear you talking when I'm on the streeeeeeet."
Murphy hesitated, looking around the room at all of its strange lights, sounds, and images. The music played on and the nervous man tapped his foot to the beat. The man looked from Melock to Murphy and back and forth between them two more times.
"Pl-please come in. Ya-you-you must be Sis-Sister Murphy. I'm-I-I-I'm—"
"This is Davie Richards, Sid's friend. He was just telling me about his in-depth study of the galactic space whale," said Melock.
"Galactic Sperm whales. N-n-not space whales. Well, I mean, they d-d-do live in space, tech-technically," said Davie.
"Hello," said Murphy.
"Y-you-you're-you're v-very p-pr-pretty," stammered Davie.
Murphy dropped the end of her Mace into the palm of her other hand and narrowed her eyes.
"O-oh! For a n-n-nu-nun, I mean. S-s-so-sorry."
He spun around in his chair and tapped his fingers across glowing squares with letters on them. The screen in front of him zoomed in on a particular dot moving in a vast field of nothingness. When Davie began to speak of his work his stutter vanished.
"I've spent my life scanning the stars and the last decade tracking whales specifically. I'm what you might call an astral-marine-biologist. I've come to realize that whales are a huge population scattered across the galaxy. They live extremely long social lifetimes. They are pilots of massive starships that traverse unfathomed distances. They have a culture and language of their own. Not just in the clicks and moaning whistles of their native tongue but in the code they broadcast between vessels."
He gestured to another monitor that was completely filled with symbols, letters, and numbers the likes of which Murphy has never seen. To her, the room was filled with magic.
"The whales are computer geniuses. They've developed an interstellar communication network like no other. I've been listening in and recording it for years now. I downloaded this music from them."
He turned up the volume for a moment of ruckus and let the hectic beats stimulate his guests.
"The rhythms are quite catchy," said Melock tapping his barefoot to the swing of Rip this Joint.
"Sounds like the devil's music to me," said an irritated and overwhelmed Murphy.
"Exile on Main Street is considered to be a timeless classic on at least s-s-six planets I know of," defended Davie.
"The number of the beast," said Murphy.
"N-n-n-now, th-that's just superstition. I'm a man of science a-a-and I—"
"Let's stick to the whales and how we can find our way to the 71EEB8. What do you say?" said Melock stopping a possible quarrel that may have ended poorly.
Murphy folded her arms when the music was turned down again.
"R-r-right, s-so, I've learned that many of the oldest whales, who sense death coming, make a pilgrimage to a planet. I believe I'm very close to discovering the secret location of the legendary whale graveyard."
Davie wrung his hands in excitement and bounced his fidgety legs.
"That's very interesting indeed but what does it have to do with the clones?" asked Melock.
"Th-th-this is the really interesting part. The clone species go there to die too."
"I thought they were immortal? That they were attempting to live forever?"
"Ah! Most of them do. But some small percentage don't. I guess m-maybe they can't h-handle it? Eternal life has a whole set of challenges of its own, I suspect."
Murphy watched the two wildly different men raise eyebrows at each other.
"So we go to the whale graveyard planet then?" asked Murphy.
"No-no-no, I haven't been able to p-pinpoint it, yet," said Davie bringing back the blip on the blank screen and looking pleased with himself. "You go to this ship. I'm certain it is ferrying a dying whale on its pilgrimage of death."