Star Thief

by T. Jackson King

  Laserta felt intense excitement. The presence of a gravity beamer at this Harl city had never before been recorded at any other Harl ruin. Perhaps she could dismount the beamer and take it home for an auction the likes of which no Mogelian had ever seen. Or perhaps she would offer it for bidding on the Dark Services Listing. Better, the presence of seven star-like power sources in this city meant the chances for finding a Harl vessel or a Harl in some kind of stasis had vastly increased. She felt frustration at Vitades’ slow response to the presence of this city. The Human would carry personal arms with him just as she always did on any world she visited. And this Tessene vessel had weapons stronger than were present on most Mogelian vessels. Though she had heard of several corporate vessels as well weaponed as this vessel. She looked aside to the male she had hired.

  “Well? How soon do we land?”

  “As soon as this gravity beam allows us.”

  Jake looked away from the armor-plated walking worm and up to the front vidscreen. The circular plaza filled the center of the screen. It grew larger. Tubular towers alongside the plaza reached toward them. The distance counter in one corner passed through ten kilometers. Nine and eight came and went. A slight slowing in the kilometer count showing them slowing to 50 kilometers an hour. The black stone tiles of the plaza came up fairly quickly. It seemed they would still hit hard. But at 100 meters height the Akantha slowed sharply.

  “Deploying our landing legs,” chirped Flow. “Contact!”

  I looked around the Control Chamber at the other vidscreens. One showed the stair-stepped tower that had scanned them and which mounted a gravity projector somewhere. Another screen showed an overhead view of the city as Flow released a floater spybot that rose upward, aiming for its programmed watcher height of one klick.

  “The gravity beam came from a dome on the 34th level of the scanning tower,” sang Akantha. “It is no longer holding us. We are still being scanned by the tower.”

  “Captain!” chittered Meander. “Look at the plaza tile 40 degrees right! Something is coming out.”

  I looked. The praying mantis was right. A tube as thick as my upper leg was now moving across the plaza tiles. There were no wheels or tracks under the tube. It just floated above the plaza surface as it approached.

  “Weapons! Scan the tube. Do not fire on it.”

  “As you wish,” Sharp Claw hissed.

  A new image took form on the right side vidscreen. Multiple images in UV, infrared, microwave, millimeter radar and other spectrums showed in the image. “Weapons?”

  “The tube is moving by way of maglev support,” the reptile hissed. “Which means there must be some kind of metal under the stone tiles. Either there is a maglev projector under the tiles, or more likely the tube itself is encased in a maglev field that reacts to metal below the tiles. Captain.”

  The tube was now twelve meters long. More of it came out of the hole in the plaza as its open end neared the Akantha. The open end was aimed at the rear globe of the ship.

  “Akantha!”

  Remarkable. “The tube just emitted a complex code. The code registered on a part of me that controls hull openings. The hull segment that gives access to my deuterium fuel chamber is opening. Do you wish me to close it?”

  “Sharp Claw, do you detect any weapon on that tube?”

  “No weapon detected.”

  The reptile sounded frustrated. I could understand her feeling. I’d felt the same during our controlled descent.

  “Akantha, monitor the tube. Advise me what it is doing. And provide an image of the hull entry point.”

  “Image going up on left side vidscreen,” she sang. “Monitoring. Tube has entered the hull opening. It has mag-locked to this vessel’s fuel feed pipe.”

  My racing heart slowed. Could this whole gravity capture and arrival be nothing more than an automated refueling by preprogrammed machinery?

  “Deuterium water is entering the fuel feed pipe. Flow is moderate,” the AI sang.

  “When do we exit!” barked Laserta.

  Irritation filled me. “When I say so! I wish to see if this energized plaza and tower do more than refuel my vessel.”

  The fox-like female contorted her flat face. It was her look of impatience. A look I was familiar with.

  “Why is this plaza refueling this vessel?” she barked. “When I hired you, you said this vessel had fuel for multiple planetary landings.”

  “We do.” I looked away from the refueling tube and forward at the image of the scanning tower. “My guess is this tower recognized my vessel as a Tessene built craft. The Tessene were a client species of the Harl. It would be normal for a Tessene starship to seek refueling at a Harl city.”

  “I agree with you,” Akantha sang low, her tone thoughtful. “Review of the records inside an automated component of myself indicate this vessel has received this coded transmission several times in the past.”

  That made sense. “When was the last time your component received such a code?”

  Seconds passed. “The last code reception occurred 400,000 and twelve E-years ago. I am now scanning other automated components of myself. Being touched by a gravity beam last occurred at the same time.”

  I felt relief. Then irritation. If the tower had scanned us and had determined we were a Tessene vessel incoming to refuel, why had the three orbitals fired on us? Or had one of the orbitals emitted a demand for identification that we had not registered? Since Akantha had only just now reviewed her automated components for records of past coded messages, could she have missed the orbital’s code? If so that irritated me. We had visited twelve Harl sites in the four years we had been together. One would think the ship AI would be familiar with its components.

  I am familiar with them. Pale irritation colored her mind talk. However this vessel is composed of several million self-actuating components. Do you ask your arm why it reached out for a glass of wine?

  You have a point. “Weapons, do you detect any targeting emissions from the tower or elsewhere?”

  “No such emissions detected,” she hissed. “However, multiple domes on various levels of the scanning tower and similar towers that surround this plaza indicate various weapons types. Laser, gamma ray and plasma dome mounts are identifiable. Other mounts do not match my records for alien weapons.”

  I could have told you that.

  You could indeed. However I like working with living crew beings, in addition to an AI like you.

  You Humans are very emotional. Not logical and well-reasoned like Lotan and Meander.

  I restrained my impulse to mind debate. “Akantha, deploy the midbody loading ramp.”

  “Deploying ramp,” she sang softly. “Internal air lock entry is unlocked. You and your team may depart when you wish.”

  I bit my lip. Her being abrupt was not a good sign. “Akantha, does that mean the air is fine and there are no airborne spores or bacteria that might harm a living being?”

  “Yes!” she said in a deep bass. “The air is oxy-nitro at a 20-79 percent ratio. My biofilters do not detect any airborne pathogens. There is small particulate dust, some plant pollen and simple bacteria that will not affect any bioform on this vessel.”

  I gave her a mental Thanks! “Good to know. The choice to wear an enviro-suit is up to each team member. Besides me and Laserta, team members will include Sharp Claw, Meander, Draken and Flow. Lotan, stay here and be prepared to dispatch the shuttle if I call for an emergency exit.”

  “I will be ready for any emergency,” the brown-eyed meerkat responded from his front control pedestal.

  A mix of chirps, hisses, chitters and honks came from the four I’d picked to go with me.

  Draken would be fitted with a floater pad on his back for the transport of any salvaged tech too heavy for other crew beings to carry. The others would carry personal plasma pistols and whatever tech devices they liked. I would wear my enviro-suit with helmet. Atop it were my usual backpack with sensor wand and plasma pistol. My Yakuza cloak that
hid me from all EM sensors would be draped over the backpack. Akantha of course would always be with me and us. On prior visits to Harl ruins her mind talk had always penetrated the artificially hardened stone of the ruins. And sensors on her vessel would supplement whatever Draken sensed and my own vidtablet detected. It was time to make use of the half day of daylight that remained. I headed for the stone tower whose blocks resembled the interlocking masonry of Inca ruins.

  Sharp Claw walked ahead of the team. She wore no enviro-suit. But she had weapons aplenty. A magrail rifle crossed her back. Two plasma pistols hung from her waist. Claws arched from her finger tips. Sensors for UV, infrared, radar, hadron and laser emissions were attached to her chest harness. Her feet were bare. The better to feel the slight warmth of the enviro tiles she now walked on, along with the grip sense provided by her toe claws.

  While her arms swung from side to side while walking, like most bipeds, her back was arched forward. She was ready to leap on any mechbot, bioform or active device that presented itself. Glancing ahead she noted the circular outline of a ground level entry for the scanning tower building. A low hum came from the tower, similar to the hums she heard from other sides of the plaza. Including from the plaza itself. Briefly she was fascinated by the fact that machinery still worked after 400,000 annual cycles. But the prior Harl ruins she had visited with the captain had also been partly active, with isolated structures still carrying power and sensors. This city, though, felt alive. Alive in the deadly sense.

  “Draken, what do you sense?” the captain asked.

  She ignored the armor-plated being who walked on six short legs. She kept her eyes, ears and senses focused ahead and to either side. The Woomba being brought up the rear of their column. The captain was just behind her.

  “Energy flows are everywhere,” honked the radiation-loving crew being. “Under the plaza, from the tower ahead, from other towers around the plaza, and from six other locations in this city. The energy pulsations from those six sites feel like nearby stars. I have never before felt such energy levels, even on planets settled by star-visiting peoples.”

  “Great,” the captain said in his acoustic language he called English, which her earbuds converted to proper hiss intervals. They all wore small Translators that linked to the Tessene AI by way of neutrino emissions. Fortunately modulated neutrino emissions were able to be discerned through the natural rain of neutrinos from this system’s yellow star.

  “I want that gravity projector!” barked the red-furred biped who was their employer.

  “Let us see how our entry goes,” the captain said slowly, as if thoughtful.

  Being thoughtful was fine when no predators threatened. Now, here, in this place, Claw felt as if the entire city was a predator. Or many predators in view of how energy alive all the structures were. A fact that announced itself through her chest hadron sensor.

  “Captain, we are being scanned by that entryway ahead,” she hissed, her knees bending as she went into an attack crouch.

  “Sharp Claw, that is expected,” Vitades said quickly. “Take no action. Let us see what happens when we arrive.”

  Waiting for an attack to happen, rather than pre-empt it by attacking first, went against all her instincts. But she had learned to control those instincts when first she met alien beings without scales and in forms that were disgusting. She forced herself to intense restraint. But she moved from side to side in instinctive movement that sought to make her a difficult target to attack.

  “Understood, captain.” She sniffed, then inhaled deep the air as she arrived before the entryway. “No bioforms have been here recently.”

  “Agreed,” chirped Flow. Behind her came the flutter of the avian’s wings. “However trees and plants are present at the edge of the city. Something has kept them from entering. Though mobile bioforms might be present elsewhere.”

  Claw agreed with the avian. Animals could be anywhere. And to survive in a city this empty of bioforms meant any animal roaming the city had to be a predator. Herd animals do not visit locations with no browsing. She stopped two body lengths from the circular entry. It was sealed. And twice her height. Behind her the team came to a stop.

  “Well?” barked Laserta. “Get the entry open!”

  Claw’s millimeter radar sensor went active, as did her UV and infrared sensors. “Captain! Intense scanning of us is being done!”

  Sounds came to her ears. Acoustic sounds like the languages spoken by the majority of star-traveling species. But her earbuds did not translate their meaning.

  “Akantha!” called the captain. “Can you translate? Have you ever heard these sounds?”

  “Working,” the AI said over Claw’s earbuds. “An automated component has a record of such sounds. It is the component that opened the entry in the Harl ruin where you found me.”

  “Well then, translate the sounds.”

  “As you wish,” the AI said, sounding to Claw as if she were surprised.

  “Beings, you do not have the bioform of the Tessene. Yet you arrived in a Tessene Biter craft. Explain.”

  The captain stepped forward to stand beside Claw.

  “Entryway, you are correct,” he said. “I discovered the Tessene craft while visiting a Harl city on another world. There were no Tessene inside it. The vessel allowed me entry. Ever since we have traveled the stars.”

  “Strange. Such vessels possess an intelligence that bonds with its captain. Has the Tessene intelligence bonded with one of you?”

  “The AI has bonded with me,” Vitades said. “May we enter and seek shelter from the bright daylight? Some of us have sensitive epidermal layers.”

  The entry stayed shut. “Biped who bonded with the Tessene intelligence, do you have a personal identifier?”

  “Yes. My name is Jake Demetrius Vitades. I respond to Jake among friends, like those beings who are with me.”

  “Biped Jake, do you now have mind-to-mind contact with the Tessene intelligence?”

  She did not like that question or the earlier questions. The captain was telling too much about her Nest group and they had yet to enter the tower. Or to learn the nature of the AI who spoke to them. She looked to her right at the captain. She shook her head in the Human negative sign.

  He scowled. “Yes, an implant allows mind-to-mind contact with the Tessene AI.”

  “Will you allow my mind to touch your mind?”

  No!

  Surprise showed on her leader’s bearded face. Then intense focus. “I belong to the species Human. Among my people one’s thoughts are private. The Tessene AI who calls herself Akantha has bonded with me as if she were a family member. I do not wish to allow another AI to perceive my thoughts.”

  “Regrettable. Mind-to-mind conversing is the common mode of communication among the Harl, and among intelligences such as myself,” the AI said in a tone that sounded neither aggressive nor bothered.

  “What is your personal identifier?” her leader asked.

  “Long ago I chose the identifier of Stars That Beckon because I am stationary here in this tower while the Harl and other artificial intelligences moved among the stars above us.”

  “Get us inside!” barked Laserta.

  The captain waved a gloved hand backward in a gesture Claw knew was indicative of ‘Do Not Bother Me!’

  “Stars That Beckon, are there other intelligences like you awake in this city?” the captain asked.

  “Of course there are. The other six Primaries like myself are all awake. They listen to us by contact with my mind. They are . . . friends like the other bioforms who accompany you. Smaller structures have small minds that respond to bioform speech.”

  “Will you allow us entry into your tower?”

  “Yes.” The circular entry spiraled open. Inside pale darkness beckoned. Yellow glows emanated from interior walls. “The six of you may enter.”

  Claw moved forward in a rush, entering a wide chamber with a high ceiling. On either side of the room ramps led up to the next
level. Glowing light strips ran around the room at the point where the walls met the high ceiling. It was empty except for a bulk in the center. As she moved forward in a side-to-side approach, light came on above the bulk. It illuminated what lay below. She stopped, her fingerclaws still extended, her heart thumping with sheer fright at what she saw.

  “A Harl!” yelled the captain.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  At first I thought the Harl shape was alive. A living Harl. Its two eyes were fixed on me, on us, with its arms extended and its forward-leaning posture one of dominance. Like that of a grizzly bear I had seen on a Greek nature vidcast. Before today all we had known of the Harl and their shapes were bas-reliefs carved on the inner walls of cities with large central buildings. No one had ever seen a Harl in full round form. Now we saw a Harl in all its terrible glory.

  So that is the lifeform my builders worked for.

  Since Akantha had no memory of her time before we met, she knew only the two dimensional bas-reliefs I and others had documented.

  So it is, I thought and focused on what I, Sharp Claw, Laserta and everyone else now perceived.

  The Harl resembled a grizzly bear with the face of a tiger. Its large head had the blocky shape of a bear, with two ear tuffs on either side. Parallel lines that had depth indicated fur adorned it, fur longer than Laserta’s short red fur. Yellow metal strips ran across the black stone of its face. They made a pattern that looked tigerish. Large round eyes were present at the front of the face, so it had binocular vision. But the eyes were set far enough back that it also had full side views. Below the eyes was a single narrow slot that might be a nasal entry. Below that was a predator’s mouth, projecting forward a bit. It was partly open. Large canine teeth filled the front of the mouth. Smaller canines and some molars filled the sides. It seemed to be a carnivore with the ability to be an omnivore when needed.