Star Thief

by T. Jackson King

  I couldn’t think of anything else I needed from this new Employer. Then the obvious hit me. “Stars, my crew and I make these salvage archaeology trips in order to earn Galactic Credits. I use those credits to pay crew salaries, to buy food and fuel, and to pay for repairs and replacement parts needed by my vessel. Your task will take a long time. How do I pay for supplies and transit fees without earning new credits?”

  A low boom sounded. “You bioforms are entertaining. I should have allowed an earlier star vessel to land if only to hear their amusing and misguided thoughts.” A pause came. “I do not have access to Galactic Credits. However, my memory of the Harl includes a list of valuable metals and minerals that they used when trading with other species. Your food storage chamber is mostly full. Your chamber for storing valuables is mostly empty, except for two land skimmers. While my mechbot completes the antimatter beamer installation, I will transport valuable metals and minerals to that chamber. Satisfied?”

  Oh yes, I was satisfied. Being rich with other peoples’ credits always appealed to me. “Uh, valuable metals today include more than gold, you know?”

  “I do know. Valuable metals among current species include palladium, iridium, platinum, rhenium, indium, gold and various rare earths. I will provide a sufficiency of each.”

  “Thank you.” I turned away from the spot-lighted statue, tube and the green crystal of Quantum. “My crew and I will return to our vessel to make things ready for departure.”

  “Your departure is allowed.”

  “Captain Vitades,” came the voice of Quantum. “Thank you for bringing me here. Being among similar minds is . . . I no longer feel lonely. It is a gift I will long remember.”

  “You are welcome.” I smiled to myself. At least I had done one thing right. But this expedition to Laserta’s Harl world was fast becoming a cage that limited my choices. While it would be nice to learn why the Harl had vanished, that knowledge would bring me few credits. Finding a Harl alive in stasis would be incredible. And it could tell us why all Harl disappeared from the galaxy. Except I would have to bring it back to this world, or my ship would not operate. My crew and I must either perform these two tasks, or get off the Akantha at some future world and leave it behind, to pursue our lives individually. And without the powerful resource of an alien starship. I was not yet ready to give up the ship that I had bonded with.

  Laserta wanted to destroy the mechbot that now carried her bodily, moving her to Purple Glow’s exit airlock. She would have, if she had sensed the quiet approach of the bot while she sat in the vessel’s Control Chamber, fuming at the perfidy of Jake Vitades and trying to think of a way, any way, to gain control of the Harl vessel. It already held one or more gravity projectors and an antimatter beamer. She could abandon Vitades and his crew to live out their lives on this world, or die from predator attacks. She cared not, even for the crew beings who happened to be female. They were not members of her Mogel species. And gaining status among her fellows was what mattered to her. That and ruling an empire as the first Mogelian to control an interstellar empire. The record of Gate locations, the projector and the beamer would be enough to buy her control of a small empire. Which she could then enlarge over time. But her musings were disrupted by the clamping of mechgrips on her arms and legs. They lifted her bodily out of the captain’s seat and took her down the curving hallway to the airlock exit. She could reach no weapon.

  “Let me loose! I command you!”

  “You do not command aboard this vessel,” Purple Glow said abruptly. “I do. And a Harl will command once your vessel returns with a living Harl. Your life’s duty is to serve aboard the Akantha vessel. That is what your Captain Vitades declared.”

  “Idiot!” she bark-screamed. Anything Vitades had said was said solely to preserve her life. An action she naturally expected from any employee of hers. “I am his Employer! He goes where—”

  “Stars That Beckon is the new Employer of Captain Jake Vitades,” Glow said firmly. “You live now. Your duty is to obey Vitades. And to assist in his completion of the two tasks given him by Stars That Beckon.”

  She fell to profanities. They did no good. In moments she was carried into the airlock of the Harl vessel. Its outer airlock spiraled open. The mechbot placed her on the top of the ramp that led down to the plaza.

  “You are free to ambulate to the vessel Akantha. Any use of offensive weapons against my vessel will result in your vaporization.”

  “But Stars promised I would live!” she screamed again, reaching for her laser pistol out of automatic reaction to being handled without permission.

  “So she did. I did not agree to that promise,” boomed the air voice of Purple Glow. “And my duty is to protect this vessel until we rise up with your vessel. Then I will mount guard against future visits by any bioform vessel while your vessel departs on its task duty.”

  Laserta pushed the pistol back into her holster. She dismissed the idea of using the mind confuser globe against the mechbot, which had only operational circuits. Instead, she thought furiously of how she might disable the control nexus crystal onboard the Akantha, so that vessel could take her home and then serve her as she demanded. Until she arrived home she had to remain aboard the Tessene vessel. At some point in the future she would have the chance to take control of it. With or without the cooperation of Vitades. He was only a male, after all.

  Draken followed the repair mechbot that now pulled the floater pad, atop which sat the zero-point energy unit block. It was heading to the Power Chamber. Which was where he wished to be. The captain and the other crew beings had earlier entered the hatch for the Galley Chamber, there to eat organic foods. He needed an intense particle influx. Which would surely be provided once the mechbot connected the zero-point energy block to the Akantha’s energy systems. While other mechbots now swarmed over the rear globe of his vessel, installing the antimatter beamer dome, he wanted only to absorb nourishment and to observe. The repair mechbot must somehow create a superconducting tube for the transport of antimatter from the power unit up to the beamer. That would surely release an abundance of energy fields and energetic particles. And he wished to more exactly locate the spot within the Akantha of the control nexus crystal. If he could find that location, without speaking to any other being and thereby alerting the Stars mind component that resided within the crystal, perhaps he could disable the crystal. Or at least remove it to float in space as his vessel departed.

  “Hello, Draken,” spoke Akantha through his earbuds. “It is good to have you back within me.”

  He moved over to the block and globe of the fusion reactor, which was always working. Its leakage of neutrinos and quark-level baryons tasted like a rich desert, as he understood the meaning of what other beings liked after a primary meal. From there he could watch the repair mechbot as it put down the zero-point energy block and began fabricating a silver metallic tube using materials that extruded from its chest unit.

  “Hello, Akantha,” he honked with just the right low notes to convey pleasure meaning to his vessel’s intelligence. She always treated him as important as the two or four-legged beings on her vessel. It was a fact he valued in view of the rarity of six-legged bioforms in this part of the galaxy. One value of this forced exploration might be the discovery of other star traveling beings who ate energy like he did and who needed a strong gravity field for proper digestion of energy food. “Were you bored by our absence?”

  “Not really,” the AI honked. “I was in the mind of Jake Vitades during your exploration of the research station. And I found the discovery of the stasis tube and what Quantum Entanglement had to say to be most interesting. Perhaps there are living Harl to be found in intact stasis tubes on other worlds.”

  “Perhaps,” he honked, watching closely as the repair mechbot spun out the superconducting tube. “Why is it good to have me back within your vessel?”

  A low hum sounded. “Is it not obvious? You are as different from the other crew beings of this vessel a
s I am different from any bioform. Our two differences make us natural . . . friends, do they not?”

  The thought of Akantha as his friend was welcome. Before he left his home world, he had only had members of his family group as friends. Other Woomba communicated with his family and with him, of course. Everyone wanted to know the arrival time of a coronal mass ejection from their home star. But the sociality he had observed during the four cycles of his service with the Human Vitades was missing among his people. Perhaps that was why they had taken longer to develop space vessels, then to discover the Gate at the outer edge of their star system. Or perhaps not. While all tech species were naturally curious and outward-exploring, the rates at which species developed space-going tech varied greatly within the galaxy. Or so said his study of other cultures, based on the data archive within Akantha. His musing ended as he felt the zero-point energy unit go to full power under the touch of the mechbot.

  “Yes, it is good to have you as a friend. And to be your friend.” He soaked in the neutrons, electrons, protons, quarks, other fermions and the gluon fields coming out of the energy unit. “Educate me as to why this zero-point energy unit is so powerful? And does it relate somehow to the mystery of Dark Matter and Dark Energy?”

  “You do not understand zero-point energy? Strange in view of how you absorb particles and energy fields as nourishment.” He listened to her as he watched the repair mechbot rise up on a maglev field and attach the silver tube to the ceiling of the Power Chamber. Then it moved to one side, waited until a part of the ceiling slid open, and rose up into the vessel’s interior spaces. The ceiling closed. “You are familiar with the fact that ordinary, visible matter and energy make up only 4.9 percent of the matter-energy resident in our universe?”

  “I am.” That fact was a post-birth level learning.

  “Then you must also be aware that the remaining content of the universe is 26.8 percent Dark Matter and 68.3 percent Dark Energy.”

  “Yes, my parents taught me that simple group of facts. My issue is, why? Why is the universe made up mostly of matter and energy we cannot directly see or sense?” he honked impatiently.

  “Well, first off, we do sense Dark Matter. It is a majority component of the matter within this galaxy. It is what allows the arms of this galaxy to maintain their form while rotating about the central black hole,” Akantha said in syncopated honks. “We also see the gravitational effect of Dark Matter through gravitational lensing of distant star light as it passes by a galaxy on the way to the observer. As for Dark Energy, some species say it is equivalent to the zero-point vacuum energy that fills our universe.” The honking from Akantha was pleasant to his ear pits. “You do understand that vacuum energy is the quantum-level state of energy that exists in vacuum? And in all matter? For example, liquid helium will not become frozen or motionless when cooled down to absolute zero. That is due to the quantum-level energy that permeates our universe, including the vacuum. Dark Energy is what is causing our universe to expand, rather than collapse due to gravitational rebound effects.”

  Draken recalled these facts as data he absorbed while studying with his parents and his family group. The senses of the Woomba were more exact than any scientific device for detection of subatomic particles and weak energy fields. “Yes I do understand the concept of vacuum energy. But what makes up Dark Matter and Dark Energy? And why do they exist?”

  Soft laughter came from the vessel AI. “That is the same as asking an animal why does it breath? It just does. The existence of this strange matter and energy just is. While some species argue that Dark Matter is composed of GIMPs, or gravitationally interacting massive particles, its nature is still being determined.” She paused a few moments during which Draken soaked in the rich particle flow from the fusion reactor. “However, my observation of the antimatter beamer dome installation and the emissions of the zero-point energy block that the captain brought to our vessel tell me Dark Matter includes an antimatter component just like the visible universe contains antimatter. In this case the energy unit somehow creates a dimensional portal within itself, then it draws in positron antimatter for use in the beamer. Since positrons have a positive charge, magnetic fields can contain and guide such antimatter.”

  The AI was explaining how, not why. “Akantha, do you have any idea why the universe is mostly composed of Dark Matter and Dark Energy?”

  “Perhaps Dark Energy and Dark Matter are the natural state of our universe?” she honked. “And the visible matter like stars and planets we see, and the energy we feel like gravity and starlight, are the abnormal content of this universe.”

  This was a concept worth contemplation. No Guider within his family group had ever advanced such a concept. “That is one answer to my why question,” he honked low and musingly. “Could that mean there exist beings made up of Dark Matter and Dark Energy?”

  “Why not? Bioforms exist in this universe of visible matter and energy. In view of the cosmic symmetry we often see, it makes sense such beings could exist within this universe. However, detecting them could be as difficult as defining Dark Energy.”

  Draken had no doubt detecting such entities would be difficult. But the Harl zero-point energy blocks drew power from the Dark Energy field that filled the vacuum. Was Dark Energy what powered the star-level power sources underlying each Primary? He did not know the answer, but the issue intrigued him. Along with the nature of Dark Matter that could think and feel and be an entity like himself. While his people were exotic when compared to the majority of oxy-nitro breathing species who traveled this part of the galaxy, his Woomba could be quite normal when compared to a Dark Matter being.

  “Akantha, thank you for your thought sharing. I will consider this while I absorb my evening meal.”

  “You are welcome. I enjoy your presence within me.”

  He wrapped his body around the base of the fusion reactor and fell into restful slumber. But dark shadows moved through his mind as dreams. The dreams were disturbing. In one dream a Dark Matter being enclosed him in black tentacles and absorbed him into itself, the way antimatter absorbs normal matter. He disappeared in a flash of star-like light. It awoke him. His body was trembling.

  At that moment he determined to keep watch over the antimatter inflow tube. It was a direct link with the Dark Matter component of the universe. If any Dark Matter being wished to enter his part of the universe, it would enter by way of the dimensional link within the zero-point energy block. And that block was something he could destroy by crushing or by eating its metal container. The Woomba preferred energy flows for nourishment. But his people had first evolved by eating dense metals within lava tubes. He was prepared to give his life by eating the Dark Matter portal and perhaps being absorbed by a Dark Matter being. Doing so would protect his crewmates. More vitally it would preserve the lives of his Woomba people and all thinking beings on this side of the matter-energy divide. For if a Dark Matter being ever got loose within his galaxy, he had no doubt it would eat entire worlds.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  The next morning the antimatter beamer was installed on the top of the stern of my vessel. Its dome was close to that of the gravity projector, since both drew zero-point energy from the power block scavenged from the Harl stasis tube. As I sat in my captain’s seat with accel straps across my jumpsuit, Laserta sat to my right, wearing only her shoulder straps, her leather tool belt and her green shorts. Red fur flared atop her fox-like head.

  “Let us leave this accursed place,” she barked sharply. “Now!”

  Her command matched my own wish. I looked ahead at the front vidscreen, then down to the arc of control pedestals occupied by my crew beings. On the far left lay Draken at his floor-mounted Engineer post. To his right stood Meander at her Astrogator pedestal. Beyond her stood or sat Flow at Pilot station, Sharp Claw at Weapons post and Lotan at his Influencer station. As usual there were no visitors in the accel seats to the rear of mine and Laserta’s central seats. I looked to Claw.

  “
Weapons, recall the four spybot videyes we launched on arrival. I prefer to preserve our mobile sensors.”

  “Captain, recalling spybots,” she hissed, one claw-finger tapping the control panel atop her pedestal.

  Up front the vidscreen showed the blue and green Harl world partly covered in white clouds. It filled the left side of the screen. Directly ahead of us was black space. I looked at the right side of the vidscreen. That image showed the orbital positions of the system’s other worlds, along with the purple dot of the Gate just beyond the outermost planet. The contractor vessel close to the Gate showed as an orange dot. The left side of the front vidscreen now zoomed in on the Harl world’s atmosphere. It fixed on a triangular ship with globes at its midbody and its rear. Purple Glow! She was heading toward us.

  “Weapons, activate our lasers, the gravity projector and the antimatter beamer.”

  Sharp Claw tapped several spots on her control panel. A hiss of anger sounded. “Captain! I cannot activate any of our weapons!”

  “Of course she cannot activate weapons,” came the voice of Stars That Beckon. “My component within your vessel will not allow you to fire on or threaten any Harl vessel.”

  Akantha! Can you block her control?

  Yes, to our own weapons. The lasers and plasma beamers are now operational. But the gravity projector and antimatter beamer are solidly blocked. The control nexus crystal is doing this.

  “Captain!” hissed Claw. “Our CO2, x-ray and gamma ray lasers are now operational. The plasma beamers are also responding to my controls. I will target the Purple Glow vessel.”

  “No! Do not target the Harl vessel. Just keep our lasers powered up and active.” I paused. “Stars That Beckon, do you not trust us?”

  “Bothersome your Akantha is. I shall study how she bypassed my orders,” she boomed in a feminine voice that echoed off the curving walls of my Control Chamber. “Trust is not part of this relationship. I am the Employer. You carry out the tasks my larger part ordered you to do. And the Harl vessel that now approaches will not harm this vessel. In truth it is will assist you in performing your tasks.”