Trouble in the Stars

by Sarah Prineas

  The Knowledge’s asteroid is like that, but it’s bristling with antennae spires and dishes and a gleaming ansible port—all of this for receiving information, and for sending it out, too, to appear on screens all over the galaxy. My guess is that we have to come here ourselves instead of sending a message because the StarLeague is monitoring all communications to The Knowledge, and a question about shapeshifters will bring them here as fast as the Peacemaker can travel.

  Electra brings the Dart around to the shadowed side of the asteroid, and maneuvers it into a narrow docking area. A hatch closes behind us. Everything is dark except for the blue lights on the control panel.

  My human heart goes ka-thump-thump-thump. We’re here.

  27

  Following the captain, we climb out of the Dart. The darkness is a heavy black blanket.

  For some reason, it makes me want to whisper. “I can shift into a shape that can see in the dark,” I offer.

  “No need,” the captain says loudly. “Look.”

  After a moment my human eyes adjust, and I catch sight of a glow in the distance.

  Without speaking, the three of us head in that direction.

  We walk for what seems like a long time through a dark tunnel as the glow gets brighter and brighter.

  At last it gets so bright that my eyes are dazzled as we step into an open space. I blink at the brightness until I can see that we’re standing on a small flat place; the rest of the room is spherical, as if it’s been hollowed out of the middle of the asteroid, and the curved walls are made of light. The walls pulse with a deep, rhythmic thrum.

  There’s a whirring sound, and a little door opens in the light. A small shiny orb darts out. It flits past the captain, past Electra, and then buzzes around me.

  “What is it?” I ask.

  “An eye,” the captain answers. “It belongs to The Knowledge—it has trillions of them, all over the galaxy. It’s using the eye to look at us up close. Just stay still.”

  The Knowledge examining me with its eye makes me feel prickly all over.

  Then another door opens in the light, and a long, thin metal appendage extends. At its end is a sharp needle—before I can dodge, it pokes me in the arm, drawing a bit of blood out of me. At the same time, another metal appendage with scissors at its end shoots out and takes a snip of my hair.

  “Stop that!” the captain snaps.

  Both appendages retreat into their doors in the light-walls.

  The thrum-thrum-thrum in the room gets louder.

  When The Knowledge speaks, its voice comes from all around us, and it is so deep, it rumbles in my bones. My human body has a strange reaction to it—all of my hair stands up on end, and tiny bumps break out on the surface of my skin.

  A glance to the side shows me that Electra and Captain Astra are having similar reactions: their eyes are wide, and I see Electra give a shiver.

  Greetings, The Knowledge says.

  “Hello,” I answer.

  Electra gives me a wild look. “Shhhhh,” she hisses. Her tintacles are quivering and have turned yellow.

  The shiny orb-eye bobs over to the captain.

  Captain Astra of the Hindsight, The Knowledge says. Long-haul space trader, human, known to frequent the IoY4456z region of the galaxy.

  “Sounds about right,” the captain says.

  The eye circles Electra. Senior StarLeague Cadet Electra Zox. Tintaclodian. Top Dart pilot in your class, destined for greatness within the StarLeague military complex.

  Electra’s only response to this is a curt nod.

  The eye moves on, floating before me. In its curved surface, I can see a roundy, stretched-out reflection of me. “That wasn’t very polite,” I tell it, “poking and snipping at me like that.”

  The eye comes closer, then retreats again, as if it’s fascinated by me.

  They call you Trouble, The Knowledge says.

  “That’s my name,” I tell it.

  The samples taken—blood from your arm, hair from your head—indicate that you are human.

  “I am human when I’m in this shape,” I tell it.

  I hear a surprised gasp from the captain.

  Shift, The Knowledge orders. Information must be gathered. More samples must be taken.

  “No,” the captain snaps. “Leave him alone.”

  The Knowledge’s thrum takes on a threatening edge.

  “Wait,” I tell it. I consider the request. There is only one Knowledge. It has a purpose, and that’s to collect information. It probably can’t help but ask for every scrap that it can get. “I will shift,” I tell it, “if you’re polite about it.”

  There is a deep thrum, thrum from the walls. Then it says, Please.

  I haven’t told you yet what it feels like to shift from one shape to another, or what it looks like.

  When I shift, it’s like I give a signal, and it goes into every cell of me—or whatever it is that I’m made up of. Goo, maybe. And down at that microscopic level there’s a change that ripples through me. It happens fast, in an instant. To somebody watching, it looks like I blur from one shape into the next, in an eyeblink.

  I can’t shift into a selkie or a nāga or a kitsune. But I can shift into a lizardian or an insectoid, and into animals like the dog and the rat, and a lot of others. And the Hunter. I don’t know why I can shift into the things that I can, and can’t shift into the things that I can’t. It’s like . . . I don’t remember the shapes, but somehow, my body remembers.

  When I shift into them, I become them.

  Even though I am also still me.

  As The Knowledge requested, I shift into another form. The change ripples through me, and a blink later I’m my dog puppy self. I feel the cold floor under my paws; looking up, I see the captain and Electra staring down at me. They are shades of gray-blue to my dog eyes, and my keen dog nose smells that they’re both on the edge of frightened. Of me or The Knowledge, I’m not sure which. Maybe both.

  My dog puppy self starts panting, but I keep still as the appendages extend from their little doors again and poke me for a bit of blood and for a snip of puppy fur.

  As they retreat into the glowing walls, I shift back into my human boy form and put on my clothes again.

  The silvery round eye watches me the whole time.

  Canine species, The Knowledge says. Breed: mongrel.

  “Yep,” I say.

  You give off a unique energy when you shift, The Knowledge notes. Now shift into the other, it says. It means the Hunter.

  “No,” I tell it.

  Please it adds.

  “No,” I repeat.

  The thrum-thrum deepens again. It must be the sound of The Knowledge thinking.

  Finally it says, You have a question.

  The captain releases a relieved breath. “Yes, we have a question,” she says. And then, instead of asking it, she waits.

  You wish to know where the other shapeshifters can be found, The Knowledge says.

  My heart gives a ka-thump, because The Knowledge knows. There truly are shapeshifters out there somewhere.

  “Yes,” the captain answers. “We want to find them for Trouble.”

  There is an answer to that question, The Knowledge says in its deep, thrumming voice. To hear the answer, you must complete a task.

  “What!?” Electra interrupts, her voice outraged. “You’re not going to just tell us?”

  I cast her a surprised glance. Electra with the us again.

  The Knowledge ignores her. Agreed? it asks.

  “All right,” the captain says warily. “What’s the task?”

  Instead of us getting an answer, a silvery web erupts from the wall, flies across the room, and wraps around the captain, and as she lets out a yell of surprise, it drags her away, out of reach.

  28

  Th
e captain is pinned high against the curve of the wall of light, struggling against the silvery webs that hold her fast.

  Beside me, Electra is crouched, reaching for a weapon that she isn’t actually carrying.

  And me—I see my captain, in danger. Down deep, I feel the Hunter stirring.

  Do not move, booms out the voice of The Knowledge.

  I freeze, still in my human shape, and so does Electra.

  The captain rips out a series of words that I suspect are profanity, until a metal appendage emerges from the wall and slaps a bandage over her mouth.

  “Let her go!” I shout.

  When you have completed the task, The Knowledge says.

  “No,” I say. “Just let her go, and we’ll leave.”

  Captain Astra agreed, says The Knowledge.

  “It’s true,” Electra puts in, her voice tense. “She did.”

  I glance aside, and see that she has her grim, determined face on, and her tintacles are gray. I look up at the captain, who is furious behind the bandage that prevents her from speaking. “You think we don’t have a choice?” I ask.

  Electra shakes her head, no.

  “So,” I say, “we complete the task, and we get an answer and the captain back?”

  Yes, thrums The Knowledge. Do not fail, or else.

  “What does that mean?” I whisper to Electra. “Else?”

  She shrugs. “Something bad.”

  “All right,” I tell The Knowledge. “What do you want us to do?”

  Then The Knowledge tells us about the task it wants us to complete. It’s something that sounds . . . doable. A metal appendage telescopes out from the wall of light and drops an information chip into Electra’s hand.

  “Fine,” she says. A door opens in the wall, our way out.

  Electra casts what seems like a worried glance at the captain and then goes out the door, but I stand there for a moment in the middle of The Knowledge’s room of glowing, pulsing light, looking up at the captain, where she’s wrapped in a silver web, pinned against the brilliantly bright curved wall.

  She gazes down at me for a long moment, then points with her chin at the door. Yes, I should go.

  First I lower my voice almost to a whisper, and I know that The Knowledge can sense what I am saying. “Listen,” I tell it. “We will complete your task. If you hurt my captain even the tiniest bit, I will shift into the Hunter form, and it will destroy every antenna and dish and ansible on this asteroid. Every eye and every ear, every question and every answer, until you’re just a chunk of rock floating through space. Do you understand?”

  The light pulses and thrums. Then:

  Yes, The Knowledge says.

  * * *

  The task we’ve been given by The Knowledge is a strange one.

  In the same system as its asteroid, orbiting the same weak sun, is a planet. The Knowledge gave Electra a map of a place on this planet called the Vault, where valuable items are stored. In one secure room at the center of the Vault, The Knowledge said, is an object that was stolen from it. It wants the object back.

  When I asked The Knowledge what the object is, exactly, it said that I will know it when I see it.

  When I asked The Knowledge who stole the object, it said that it didn’t know.

  The reason it needs me to complete this task is that only a shapeshifter can get past the Vault’s defenses to reach the secure center area at its core.

  So the plan is that I will go in, collect the object, and then we bring it to the asteroid, we get the captain back, and we get the answer to my question. Then we find the other shapeshifters and . . .

  Well, I don’t know what happens after that.

  It should be easy.

  I have this feeling that it won’t actually be easy.

  It’s clear why The Knowledge wanted Electra along. I can’t fly the Dart; she can. What this tells me is that The Knowledge knew, even before we arrived on its asteroid, that it was going to kidnap the captain and send me and Electra on a mission to the planet.

  It makes me wonder what else it knows, and what we don’t know.

  Electra is ahead of me in the long passageway. When I reach the Dart, she’s inside, sitting in the dark, with only the blue lights from the control panel lighting her face. She’s frowning down at her hands, on the controls.

  I climb in and slide into the other seat.

  She doesn’t move.

  I’m about to open my mouth to say Let’s go, when she slams her hand down on the panel and the hatch behind us yawns open. She mutters something under her breath, and with a lurch, the Dart lifts from the dock and emerges from the asteroid.

  She pushes another button, and the lights inside the Dart come on.

  And I realize that we’re not alone.

  29

  The Knowledge’s round silvery eye has followed us onto the Dart.

  It hovers in front of me.

  Watching.

  There’s nothing we can do about it, I decide. Just in case The Knowledge—back on its asteroid—is letting the captain watch too, I give it a little wave.

  Electra is still busy at the controls. Out the front window of the Dart is dark space, and in the distance a brighter star than the rest. That must be the planet on which the Vault is located. It’s going to take us a while to get there, I guess.

  My stomach growls.

  “Is there anything to eat on this ship?” I ask.

  Without looking away from the Dart’s glowing controls, Electra points at a latched compartment.

  Followed by The Knowledge’s eye, I go to it. Except for a few rat droppings, it’s empty, not even a scrap of food. I sit on the deck, which is metal, and cold. The inside of the Dart hasn’t been made cozy and warm the way the Hindsight has been. It’s like a small room made of plain, hard plastic and metal, one that happens to be flying through space at high speed toward a distant planet.

  Electra pushes one more button, then sits back from the controls. Swiveling her chair, she turns to face me. Seeing The Knowledge’s eye hovering near me, she nods, as if she expected it to be there.

  Electra seems different. I’m used to seeing her grim and determined, doing exercises to stay strong, fearlessly arguing with the captain, scowling at me.

  Right now she seems . . . unhappy. I realize that she never, ever smiles.

  “It’ll take an hour for the Dart to reach the planet’s atmosphere,” she tells me.

  “I don’t think I’ve ever been on a planet,” I realize.

  She gives half a shrug.

  “What’s it like?” I ask.

  “I’m not talking to you,” she says.

  “All right,” I say.

  She sighs. Her tintacles droop.

  I sigh too.

  I can ask a question, at least, one that’s been bothering me. She doesn’t have to answer. “Electra, do you still think that I’m an it?”

  She frowns.

  “I don’t know,” I go on, “if the Hunter really is . . . if I am . . . a criminal.” I pause. “I do know that in the Hunter form, I’m very dangerous.”

  In a low voice, she says, “You’re a lot more dangerous in your human shape.”

  “What?” I say. “No I’m not.” I hold up my human hand. “No sharp claws, no armored skin, no spikes.” I bare my blunt human teeth and point to my mouth. “No fangs dripping acid.”

  “Did the Hunter take over the Hindsight and turn everybody on it into an outlaw running from the StarLeague military?” Her voice is bitter. “No. You did.”

  As the captain would say, Huh. Electra is right. I must be more devious than I realized. I even fooled myself!

  We sit there in silence for a while. Outside the front window, the bright spot that is the planet gets bigger as we get closer to it.

  “You’d better
show me the map of the Vault,” I tell her, “so I can figure out how to get in.”

  Without speaking, she puts the information chip that The Knowledge gave us into a slot on the control panel and points to a screen on the wall of the Dart; after a moment a map of the Vault comes up.

  While I examine the Vault schematic, The Knowledge’s eye bobs around the inside of the Dart, looking at everything. My stomach growls again. I turn away from the screen and pick up the conversation where we left off.

  “But, I mean,” I say, because she didn’t really answer me before, “you told the captain that I’m not a person. Do you really believe that?” I don’t know why it’s so important that Electra see me for what I am, but it is.

  “I don’t know what I believe anymore,” she says in a low voice.

  There’s another long silence. A light flashes on the control panel. Electra pushes a button and it stops.

  “What was your cadet training like?” I ask.

  “Don’t try to make me like you,” she says. “Because I don’t. And I won’t.”

  “You don’t have to,” I tell her. “I don’t expect you to.”

  She’s silent for a while. Outside, the planet is getting bigger. The eye has settled in, hovering at my shoulder. I think it’s looking at whatever I look at, and probably watching me at the same time.

  “It was hard,” Electra says at last.

  “What?” I ask.

  “My training,” she explains. “It began when I was a small child. Education, reeducation, physical endurance, combat training, pilot training, tactics, strategy.”

  “Did you like it?” I ask.

  She pauses to think about it. “Sometimes.”

  “What can you do?” I ask. “I mean, because of your training?”

  She blinks. Then: “Before I was captured, I could have taken over the Hindsight. Easily.”

  “Why didn’t you?” I ask.

  “Those were not my orders,” she tells me.

  “Do you always obey orders?” I ask.

  “Yes,” she says, biting the word and spitting it out.