 “Unending unfathomable mysteries exposed while exploring alien civilizations. A nonstop adventure driven by flair and courage.”  
| The Block of Friends has prevailed, on Earth and on the planet of the insect invaders. Jade, Katelin, Marco and Jorge have triumphed, the people of Earth are enjoying peace, prosperity and abundance without exploitation. Everything is fine, isn’t it? It should be, but greed, despotism and intolerance are human traits, and secret societies who want to topple The Block are proliferating on Earth. This is a great concern to The Block. However, it is nothing when compared to unknown extraterrestrial threats. Wormholes make the universe reachable, but it’s an immense place, where mysterious civilizations and entities live in innumerable planets and habitats. Reishi and Daniel are the new generation of The Block of Friends and have ideas of their own. Will their ideas help them to deal with powerful civilizations older than history, while assuring the survival of humanity? Vignettes  Our vehicle rolls slowly along the crowded avenues and stops in the middle of a clearing. At its center is the queen’s cube. I fit filters inside my nostrils, Ajani opens the door and we walk out. We are safe here, these people are not personally violent, on this planet violence is always sponsored by a queen. Soon we are inside a huge chamber and my filters cannot mask the pungent odor. I know we are in the middle of the queen’s building, or cube, as we call them because of their shape. Around us are the eggs, egg after egg, and workers are around some of them. I hear a shrill sound and watch how a baby is brought out of an egg. The baby is cute, yellower than the grownups and its head is huge in proportion to its minuscule body. The air vibrates with the ‘shrrr’ sound of the atrophied wings of dozens of males surrounding the queen, who I assume are envisaging having sex with her. I turn on the translator and hear the noise as a cacophony of words. There are too many males talking at the same time and the translation is indistinct. The queen is larger than the males, almost as tall as I am. We stand in front of her, on a circle made of some kind of plastic, and wait patiently, as protocol demands. There is a long wait, during which the queen, prone on hands and legs, is stroked by their antennas and then penetrated by three males in succession. Their rhythmic motions are quite similar to human copulation. I glance at Ajani suggestively, and we smile at each other. Finally, the queen stands up decisively on her four legs, the three males align themselves behind her and the chamber quiets down. ‘The Rstbet hive council is in session, thus declares the queen Rstbet, and my three advisors have shown their acquiescence. What do you want?’ I hear from my translator. |
 The ship is weird, not the type of weird of the cubes of the queens, a different kind of weird. Weird like a nightmare. I have been here before, and as always it inhibits my spirit, now I am not sure it was a good idea to come here. Marco and Jorge share my distress, I know them well. It doesn’t matter, lets do it, “Hello, god of Shrhf, I am Jade,” I point to Marco and Jorge, “And these are my husbands, Marco and Jorge. We would like to talk with you. We speak for the people of Earth” I hear my translator saying the same in the queens’ language. I assume the gods know that language. We keep walking unsteadily on the negligible gravity produced by the slow rotation of the incongruous cylinder. The rubbery floor goes up and down and on times seems to flip. The scenery is metallic with plastic details. It looks artificial to the extreme. I repeat my message several times as we walk towards the cluster of machinery that our scientists believe powers the faster-than-light drive. We leave the cylinder behind and enter through a translucent pipe into the sphere where the machinery is located. Shiny black and ominous is how I feel it. It has no end or beginning. No order, which is why our scientists and engineers have had so much trouble figuring it out. There are no apparent parts, no doors and no way to look inside. At the end is the immensely powerful magnetic container of antimatter. However, we have been told there is no trace of magnetism outside its boundaries. In terms of engineering, the people who built this ship are gods. I grab a thick donut to stabilize myself and a pulsating thing is there, in front of me. I stop. Jorge and Marco get close to me. “Hello. Are you a god of Shrhf?” I ask. “No, queen Jade, what you see is a pulsating membrane that I am using to project sound.” I hear in my own voice. “Then who are you and where are you?” “I am this ship. My name is irrelevant; however, I am identified by many names, one of them is god of Shrhf. Sadly, I am not a god.” I hear some sort of irony in my voice. 
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