Starborn Odyssey: Voyage of the Lost (The Starborn Odyssey Trilogy Book 3)

by Haines Sigurdsson

  “Correct again, though Cap thinks that both our duplicates and ourselves may need to be in non-space at the same time. I am not sure I agree, but he is the genius,” said Gemma with a smile. She hesitated before continuing. “We also need to map sources of crystal as we go. We have no idea how much vibration a crystal can take before it shatters. We have two spare crystals with us and that supply may need to be replaced eventually, and would have to be changed mechanically if one were to shatter in non-space since so far none of you seem to remain conscious when in that state. We should find out if there are any crystal sources in this system; it may be important. Not only that, but we need to talk about Prometheus’s future . . .”

  Shana was about to respond when Gemma suddenly cried, “Look out!” Shana gasped and ducked, but Gemma was talking over the communicator to the team. Shana turned instantly to the view screen, where her crew was talking to the native tribesmen, and where Pixie had apparently just saved them from a lion attack.

  “They’re alright,” Gemma said calmly. “I’m sorry I wasn’t able to mediate between both locations—usually I can carry out two conversations, but at that moment I thought speed was more important.”

  Shana was shaken up. “Agreed; perhaps I’d better pay more attention anyway.”

  Shana monitored the rest of the encounter with interest.

  It was beginning to seem like if a planet met certain criteria—in this case, all that was necessary for carbon based life— the life that developed was almost identical. Thus; humanoids and mammals on this alien world, being so similar to those on Reesh, Olympus and Earth. The Starborn had witnessed many worlds, and on the whole they seemed to follow certain rules. No matter how human these people seemed, however, in the event relations didn’t go well, it wouldn’t do to be stranded here with them, so Gemma’s plan to find more crystal was a sound one, and something they would have to address soon.

  Shana watched as Kelsan caught Krenek, and then eventually joined her friends in the grassy field, to meet the hunter for herself. Gemma remained watching until the crew was back on the ship.

  Once Kelsan’s defensive perimeter was set up, Gemma and Shana outlined for the rest of the crew the basics of their discussion. It was agreed that in addition to locating more crystal, it would be a good idea to have Captain Duncan and Gemma build suitable physical bodies for each of them to use, for both building and constructing the smaller ship for the non-space navigation project, as well as to be able to service that ship and mine mass for energy.

  It would be a massive endeavor to build a defensible camp around the Wanderer, in which they could safely build the duplicate ship. Their plans would keep the mining robots busy supplying raw material for synthesis of materials for building both the bodies and the mini-saucer. According to Gemma, the miners could build the bodies for her and The Captain to move in and out of, which would make the two of them much more useful working and even defending the camp.

  “That’s really practical; how come it never came up before?” Tanya asked.

  Gemma shrugged. “Everything with us is new; we’re figuring it out as we go. Having a physical body to use wasn’t necessary until now.”

  Zak mused, “How many bodies do you think you could control at once?”

  Gemma paused for a long moment. “Just one,” she said. Shana gave her a hard look, suspecting that this was, not a lie exactly, but perhaps not the whole truth. She wondered if Gemma worried about the thought of any individual having control of a potential robot army.

  “I could use a robot version of myself,” Kelsan said thoughtfully, “to do my chores and dirty work!”

  Everyone laughed. Shana watched for Gemma’s reaction, but the red-haired hologram simply smiled mildly.

  Thus, it was agreed that creating robot bodies for Cap and Gemma should be the first priority. Elton suggested, and everyone agreed, that they should in fact make two versions of each, one to stay with the Wanderer, and a smaller version to travel in the small research ship, which could be used for repairs and any other actions that require a physical manifestation.

  It was late into the night when the crew finally went to their bunks. Although the nights on Untra were slightly longer than Earth norm, they had no more than five hours until dawn. Shana lay awake, her mind whirring too fast to allow sleep. She finally stood up and wandered back into the control room. Elton was there, scanning through screen after screen of images they had collected over the past weeks of travel, on the small view screen at his station. Here was a bright star, too close; next, a wide-mouthed flying bat creature, diving to eat; next Pixie’s jewel planet; then a great expanse of darkness, only faintly pricked with stars; then Bard; then another star.

  “Couldn’t sleep?” she asked quietly, and he grinned up at her.

  “You noticed.”

  She smiled. “Yeah, me either.”

  She sat in her chair and leaned back, watching Elton. He turned off the view screen. “We really should sleep or we’ll be useless tomorrow,” he suggested.

  “I know,” Shana said. “That’s part of the problem, I think. What do we do tomorrow? Should we really interfere with this culture? I know we’re in a different situation than the Earthers who created our laws, but what if they’re right?”

  “Well, if our parents hadn’t broken those laws, you wouldn’t be here,” he said, “half-human, half-Reeshian girl.” He reached out and ran the back of his hand down a length of her long pink hair. “So, in my mind it’s a very good thing that the laws were ignored.”

  Shana blushed at this unexpected compliment.

  “Perhaps, but it could go all wrong if we aren’t very careful. These people may not be like the Reeshians. Remember that our Reeshian culture had been more technologically advance a long time ago.”

  Elton stood, took her hands and pulled her up. “It doesn’t do any good to worry. We need to get some sleep.” He smiled, dropped her hands, but stood there for a moment, watching her face. Shana felt as if a magnet were drawing her towards him. She abruptly backed up and said, “Good night!”

  Elton laughed softly. “Good night.” He smiled and headed to his bunk. Shana sighed, stretched, shook herself, and headed back to her own bed. She managed to get to sleep, finally, but her sleep was fitful, and she was plagued by bad dreams.

  Gemma woke the crew shortly after the sun broke the horizon to inform them that a camp of twenty or more of the Untran natives, including half a dozen women, had been setting up about a quarter mile away. The women seemed to be largely relegated to doing fire tending and cooking, which suggested that they meant to stay there for a while. With a few exceptions, the group was dressed plainly, in utilitarian leather tunics and leggings (they had the appearance of buckskin), most of them with their hair loose and ragged looking. Apparently the fur skirts and loincloths they had encountered in the hunting party the day before were a sort of hunting uniform.

  One elderly-looking woman, who perfectly fit the description of a crone, appeared to be some sort of leader, directing work of a small group of Untrans, and periodically scolding or smiling when something displeased or pleased her. The crew on the Wanderer ate their breakfast in the control room, observing their neighbors for an hour or more to get some idea what their social structure was. The crone seemed to be attended by three men and two women. Her shenk escorts carried spears and wore decorative fur epaulettes, with feathers sprouting from the shoulders and hanging from the back of their hair; the skank escorts were unadorned, and carried short sticks rather like quarter staves. The crone herself carried a staff, but hers had leather thongs and feathers on one end, and she had feathers sticking straight out of her hair, which was piled elaborately on her head and held there by some miraculous force. “Mud?” Zak asked after leaning close to try to determine what styling product she had used. The crone pointed it in the direction of the Wanderer, chanting something. With Gemma’s limited Untran vocabulary, she couldn’t make much out of it, though they all agreed that the tone
sounded like a curse or warding, perhaps meant to show the others she didn’t fear the strange visitors.

  Bard was there as well, dressed more extravagantly than he had been on the hunt the previous day, with a long leather coat, decorated with fur and feathers (all in blacks, beiges and browns, like the other shanks wore). He had more fur on his person than the crone’s escorts wore, as well as the addition of a large necklace of what was assumed to be the long fangs of beasts like the lion-creature Pixie had dispatched. It was evidently a badge of his prowess and valor; no doubt about it.

  Pixie expressed surprise at how similar the culture seemed to early Earth cultures, down to a “medicine woman” with a totem and warriors adorning themselves with the body parts of fallen beasts.

  “Perhaps a strong sign that nurture takes the better part over nature,” Tanya suggested. “The culture adapts in response to the environment; when conditions are similar, societies become similar as well.”

  “It still seems strange.” Pixie said with a furrowed brow. “Even down to native feathers in their hair? It’s like we’ve landed in a group of people dressed up like an ancient Earth tribe.” She sounded befuddled.

  Shana shrugged. “Maybe all humanoids are destined to be attracted to the adornments of other animals, and adopt them for themselves. You know, the way birds are attracted to shiny objects.”

  “I thought Pixies were attracted to shiny objects,” Zak said, puzzled. Pixie smacked his arm.

  “There’s Krenek!” Elton interrupted the banter, spotting the young shank, who Elton thought of as a friend. Krenek was wearing fashions of similar design to Bard’s, although less elaborate. Still, compared with the other men, he looked quite fancy. The culture obviously hadn’t yet developed (or didn’t yet use) sewing to make pants; the tunics appeared to be one piece, sleeveless, with a roughly hewn neck hole, and a leather sash tied around the middle to complete the ensemble. Some of the sashes had colored beads set into them—so far the only items of color evident in their dress. It was unclear whether the beads were stone or glass, or some animal part, or how they were attached to the sashes, but it was clear that they were very close to working out stitching leather fabric together. And now, with the Wanderer’s help, that process was about to speed up.

  “How fast do we dared advance their culture?” Zak asked, when that topic came up.

  Kelsan added, “And if we introduce the concept of sophisticated weapons, and not just textiles, how long before we need to start worrying about turning our backs on our new friends, not to mention other tribes?”

  “A stone spearhead or a large rock can make you just as dead as a bullet or laze pistol shot,” reminded Gemma, quoting word for word from the training manual. “Best not forget the human ability to do harm to one another.”

  “I don’t think we have a lot to worry about for the immediate future, but as they get more familiar with the wonders we’ve brought, greed, and in some cases, hunger for power will probably set in and that’s more than a likelihood,” said Zak. “In studying history of world civilizations, those were the prime motivators.”

  “We’ll have to stay alert and by no means be naïve enough to drop our guard entirely,” added Elton. “But I strongly suggest that we try not to approach them with too cynical an attitude. I for one am ready to take the risk and go meet with the neighbors.”

  “What about getting bodies started for Gemma and The Captain?” Shana asked. “We should set that in motion before we do anything else. Are the mining robots capable of doing that?”

  “We can handle that,” said Gemma. “It will tie up the matter replicator on occasion but not sufficiently enough to interfere with any other necessities.”

  “That should be comforting to have you in a physical form. Not just for defense, but if you’ve got robot strength you could help with our building structures, so we don’t have to live in the Wanderer forever,” said Tanya. “Just imagine having privacy; not that I don’t love you all but there are times when it would be nice to be alone.” She glanced meaningfully at Kelsan.

  He grinned. “You’re not afraid of a little frolic on the ship, are you?” he laughed. She rolled her eyes at him, grumbling in annoyance at being teased.

  “So,” Shana said, ticking the priorities off on her fingers, “We need: bodies for Gem and Cap; a building so we can all get some privacy; and more information about our neighbors, so we can integrate with them appropriately as we set up our colony.”

  Elton nodded. “Don’t forget we also need to find a source for more crystals, and build the smaller saucer so Gemma can start making some sense of our random jumps. The sooner the mini ship can begin trying to map the non-space, the better. I’d like to see us able to jump intentionally and go back to find the Prometheus, within my lifetime,” he added.

  Gemma nodded with brusque efficiency. “Cap and I can handle all of that while you get settled with the natives here,” she said. “Once we have the mini ship built, we can even go and find the crystals in this system, if there are any.” Shana felt a slight pang of uncertainty. Were they leaving too much to Gemma? When Gemma was still Colin’s friend and teammate, before she died to save his life, she had been timid, uncertain. Now, she was confident and efficient, like a machine. Shana wondered if the more they relied on Gemma, the more Gemma would be pushed toward the electronic, computerized part of her nature, and away from her human roots. Shana glanced at Kelsan, and saw that he was wondering the same thing, eyes slightly narrowed as he surveyed the hologram. Gemma either didn’t notice or chose to ignore it. “Let us worry about that at the moment, and you just try to get established with the humans of this world; I think that is likely to keep you busy enough,” Gemma said.

  Elton agreed wholeheartedly, and Shana couldn’t help but grin at his enthusiasm on the subject. “Gemma’s right. It’s going to take some serious work to get the right kind of relationship started with these people. Now let’s go out and socialize."

  The crew exited the ship, and closed the locks behind them. The holographic images of both Captain Duncan and Gemma walked with them, making a group of eight—six corporeal and two non. It still seemed amazing to Shana that the two “ghosts,” as Colin sometimes called them affectionately, could be both with the crew on its ambassadorial mission, and in the Wanderer working on robotic bodies, (with the help of the mining robots and synthesizers), at the same time.

  As they approached the camp the scrawny crone stepped toward them, shaking her stick at their heads and then their feet, chanting. She was tiny, about Pixie’s size, but fierce-looking. Her stick was about forty inches long and had not only the leather thongs, which up close they could see had been stained in different colors, but also a gourd attached that made noise like that of a baby’s rattle. “Intimidating evil spirits into submission?” Zak muttered from the side of his mouth to Elton. Elton waved him to silence.

  The crone approached Shana, who stood frozen, not sure what the appropriate action was. The crone raised the staff, and Shana winced, expecting a hit, but then the crone touched her with it, gently, on the chest, muttering under her breath. She repeated this with Zak. Things seemed to be going well. But when she did the same to Gemma and her stick passed right through the red-haired girl, the crone’s eyes, which were pale with age, and clearly not as good as Bard’s, got as big as saucers. She jumped back and started jabbering rapidly to the others.

  Bard was responding to the crone, soothingly, but she was clearly quite upset, and the crew was obviously going to have to figure out how to communicate that Gemma was not a threat (or whatever the crone thought she might be).

  “Great, how do you explain that kind of technology to a primitive people who haven’t even got an abacus yet?” Tanya said, exasperated.

  “Tell her it’s a ghost,” Kelsan said, a little meanly, Shana thought, but he didn’t push it.

  Gemma, who had a small repertoire of the Untran language, stepped forward, gave a small bow, and spoke. Although the voice actually
came through Zak’s com-link with the ship (he was closest to the hologram at the time), it was thrown in such a way as to seem to come from Gemma herself. She did her best to tell the crone that she was only an image and could do no harm. Though the crone seemed skeptical, and not really capable of understanding exactly what Gemma was, she did seem to accept her as harmless—though she made a point of avoiding getting close to her or Captain Duncan, who Gemma had indicated in her grueling attempt at conversation, was like her.

  After some time, the crew succeeded in establishing the crone’s name as Oosah. Shana advanced and gave her a double-necklace of synthesized pearls, which seemed to be something unlike they’d ever seen. She touched it and even allowed Shana to put it over her head to hang around her neck. Oosah seemed extremely pleased that they had given her the recognition she obviously felt was due her, and a great deal of tension seemed to dissipate with that action.

  “I think that was all about her not having believed the others when they said some of us weren’t solid or real,” Shana assessed. “Bard must certainly have told her about Gemma, and she thought he was lying.”

  Bard grinned, clearly feeling as if “his” Untrans had won that fight.

  There were no children in the make-shift camp, so it was apparent the Untrans were still unsure of the crew’s intentions, and more cautious than their open nature suggested.

  “I think we really need to decide how much information we give them and whether we have the right to have any additional contact with these people,” Pixie said, sincerely concerned, and raising a topic they had already worked over more than once, inconclusively. “We are interfering with an existing culture that continues to prove capable of its own evolution, but nowhere near ready to advance to our cultural level. We’re way outside the boundaries recommended by our original directives.”