The Star-Keeper Imperative

by C N Samson

  “Not always,” Rheinborne commented. “Do you have the clothes I came in with?”

  “Sure, yes, right over there.”

  Rheinborne looked to where she pointed, saw his flight suit neatly folded on a bed that jutted from the wall. He strode over and unfolded the suit, felt around in the small chest pocket. With relief, he extracted the object inside: a small disc made of metal, inscribed with the number “3” on one side. He flipped it over in his fingers; the reverse of the disc had a sequence of numbers and a date, thirteen years in the past.

  “Oh, a marriage token!” Dr. Seldra said as she came over to Rheinborne.

  Rheinborne closed the disc in his fist. “It’s expired.”

  “Three years, though? That was quite a commitment. These days, people still only opt for one or two—”

  “Is there any place I can put this?” Rheinborne interrupted.

  “Ah, sorry,” said the doctor. “She inclined her head at the workstation. “I have a locked drawer there.”

  “Thanks.”

  The room lights flashed blue, then an alert chime sounded over the shipwide comm: Ting-ting...ting-ting...ting-ting...

  “We’re about to leave orbit,” said Dr. Seldra. “I know I’m supposed to do a physical on you, but I don’t like to start things on the cusp.”

  “The cusp?”

  “Yes, a tiny superstition of mine. I’ll get started once we’re in hyperspace.”

  After Rheinborne’s disc was locked in the workstation drawer, Dr. Seldra sat in the chair, while Rheinborne hopped onto a bed. They stared at each other in uncomfortable silence for several long moments.

  “So,” Rheinborne finally said, “you’ve been briefed on the mission?”

  “Yes, I have.” Dr. Seldra leaned forward. “Listen, if you want out of it, I can make up a medical reason to disqualify you.”

  “Why would I want to get out of it? Do you know something I don’t?”

  “No, no, it’s just that...” The doctor shrugged. “I’ve been on many a mission with Mr. Gwynne, and sometimes the people he recruits...I just get the feeling that they were forced into it, somehow.”

  Something occurred to Rheinborne. “Were you down there?”

  “Down where?”

  “The planet. The maintenance shed, where the robot stunned me. I had to get stunned once, back when I joined the PSR. It was required of everyone, so we know what it feels like.”

  “That’s interesting,” Dr. Seldra said, twisting in her chair.

  “So I know it only blanks you out for a few seconds. But this time, I was out long enough to be transported up to this ship and stuck into an interrogation room. Much longer than a few seconds, wouldn’t you say, doctor?”

  The room lights flashed amber, and another musical tone sounded.

  “We’ve just entered hyperspace!” Dr. Seldra said, jumping up from the chair. “Time to begin. Please remove your clothes.”

  Rheinborne did as she asked, but kept on the sensor-wear. He had suspected that the doctor, or one of her medical staff, must have given him a sedative shot to facilitate his abduction, and her reaction more or less confirmed it. There was no point in pressing the issue, though; she would just claim to have been following orders.

  THE STANDARD EXAM WENT as expected. Dr. Seldra pronounced him to be in good shape; his blood and tissue samples came back normal. Rheinborne was surprised, however, when she informed him that Gwynne had ordered a nano treatment for him.

  “Nano, for me?” Rheinborne said. “Didn’t think I was worthy.”

  “Mr. Gwynne doesn’t want you getting sick while on the mission; it would be very inconvenient. The standard N-level will protect you from the usual range of diseases and toxins.”

  “How about stab wounds? Broken bones? Gunshots?”

  Dr. Seldra made a face. “You’ll heal faster, yes, but you won’t be indestructible.”

  “I’ll keep that in memory.”

  “Good. The nano will expire after about ten days, but that should be more than enough time.”

  After Dr. Seldra injected the medical nanobots into Rheinborne, she made him lie down on a bed.

  “Since this is your first time with the treatment, you’ll be feeling a little odd,” she told him. “Don’t move, I’ll be right back.”

  Rheinborne sat up on his elbows and watched her go into a small room through a door on the wall opposite the beds. What did she mean by odd? He felt fine.

  Without warning, a wave of dizziness struck him. The room seemed to whirl around his head. A powerful hunger came over him, like a stabbing pain in his gut, and he doubled over. He gasped, tried to grip the edge of the bed. His hand slipped, and he tumbled to the floor.

  “Oh Great Lord!” Dr. Seldra shouted, seemingly from a distance. Rheinborne’s vision went fuzzy, and he could barely make out her form as she helped him to sit up against the base of the diagnostic bed.

  “Here, drink this,” she said.

  Rheinborne felt something forced between his lips—the straw-stem of a drink bulb. He greedily sucked down the sweet liquid.

  “Good, here’s another one.”

  He drank that down as well, and the hunger began to subside. Dr. Seldra fed him a chemical-sweet food cube, and after a minute he was able to see clearly. The hunger vanished, as did the light-headed feeling.

  “What happened?” he asked.

  “The nano used up nearly all your blood sugar; it’s how they’re powered. You’ll need to eat these nano-specific food cubes, at least once a day.”

  “A little warning would have been nice.”

  “You shouldn’t have moved.”

  Dr. Seldra helped Rheinborne return to the bed. She told him that he would be sleepy for a while until his body adjusted to the nano. He yawned, said that he understood, and fell asleep.

  CHAPTER 6

  ON THE PLANET DALAJUR, in the city of Langensbern, Ellis Norland approached the door of Simeon Prester’s office, which was located on the tenth floor of the RaxiCorp building. The words “Meeting in Progress: Do Not Disturb” scrolled across the face of the door, so Norland crossed his arms and leaned on the wall.

  He fought down the feeling of apprehension in his gut. He hated to report a lack of results, let alone outright failure. But, he reminded himself, he had accomplished something few others had ever done: a deep infiltration of one of the Treilath government’s most secure agencies. No matter what happened, no one could take that away from him.

  Still, the fact that Dr. Valicia Parzo had escaped with the Chyth artifact weighed on him. People would say he underestimated her, or that he was negligent. The situation could still be salvaged, though; for whatever reason, she had landed on this world, and there was yet hope that she would be captured.

  The office door slid open a few minutes later. Norland smoothed out his suit and entered.

  Prester had one of those “virtual decor” rooms, with wall-sized holoscreens that projected the illusion of a much larger space. Today, the office looked like the interior of an ancient library, with wood-paneled walls and vast shelves of books that dwarfed the large desk and plush chairs in the center of the room. Norland had to hide his displeasure at the scene; holograms of this magnitude always gave him a slight headache.

  Simeon Prester sat alone at the desk, an array of documents open on the desktop’s computer-display surface. As there was no one else around, Prester must have been on a private call.

  At the man’s invitation, Norland sat on one of the chairs in front of the desk.

  “Well?” Prester said.

  “Nothing as of yet,” Norland said.

  “I’m to assume that means you haven’t found her.”

  “Look, my team and I have only been here for half a day,” Norland said defensively. “You’ve had your men, robots, and drones out searching for the past two days. And you know the city better than we do.”

  Prester frowned. “I was just talking to Gill Briggston. Have you met him?” He tapped th
e control surface on his desk, and a holographic image materialized. It was an elderly man in his late nineties, wearing a tailored green business suit.

  “I haven’t had the privilege,” Norland said. He already knew that Briggston was one of the patriarchs of the Devorne organization.

  “He was responsible for inserting you into the DSI, as you’re probably aware. When I told him what you’d done, he said to tell you ‘congratulations’.” Prester dismissed the holo-image. “But that won’t be worth much if we don’t deliver.”

  “You didn’t tell him that we already have the tech in hand, did you?” Norland asked, alarmed.

  “First, watch your tone,” Prester said, a dark expression coming over his face. “Second...” He sighed, rubbed his eyes. “Did I mention that I used to work directly for Briggston? It wasn’t that long ago. I even got to call him Gill.”

  “How nice,” said Norland.

  “Then I made one mistake,” Prester continued, “and I ended up stuck underground. The last thing I want is to die down here. You understand?”

  “But you shouldn’t make promises you might not be able to keep.”

  Prester tapped the desk. A flat holographic video recording sprang up between them, showing Briggston sitting in a lavishly decorated room. Behind the man was floor-to-ceiling window, through which could be seen a vast blue ocean.

  “Tell you what,” the video image of Briggston said. “Bring it here, give me a demonstration. I’ll be leaving on the twenty-eighth. If you don’t show up by then, don’t bother trying to find me.”

  “But sir—” came Prester’s voice from the video.

  “That gives you about ten days. Be sure not to waste my time.”

  The holo-vid vanished.

  Norland said, “Does he know you record your calls?”

  “You heard him. Ten days. He’s at the Arusia Hotel on Maralto.”

  Norland accessed his ECM, pulled up a table of planetary distances and did some calculations. Ten days may not be enough time. As he had told Prester, if he was in Dr. Parzo’s place he would have stashed the tech somewhere and returned for it later. And if the hiding place was too remote...

  “Any suggestions, or are you just going sit there?” Prester said, scowling.

  “We could still try to backtrack, search for places she might have landed and left the tech.”

  “No time for that now, is there?”

  An idea came to Norland. “Then we have to search smarter, not harder.”

  Prester scoffed. “Is that something you learned from the DSI?”

  “Believe it or not, yes. Can you bring up a map of the city?”

  Prester typed on the desktop. A map of Langensbern appeared, filling the entire display surface. The city had the appearance of random geometric shapes linked by thick lines.

  “Now show the districts under your control,” Norland said.

  Prester touched an icon on the sidebar. On the map, a number of areas took on a red tint. A triangular symbol in the Tepperbonn district blinked, indicating the location of the RaxiCorp building.

  “So everything outside that, you haven’t been able to search?” Norland asked.

  “Everything else is split up between the Ormonds, the Palashars, and the smaller rabble factions.”

  “And she hasn’t been spotted at the spaceport or in the Central Zone?”

  “If she was, we’d already have her.”

  “Okay,” said Norland. “I’m guessing she has a predefined extraction plan. If she’s holed up in one of the other districts, she might be waiting for someone to bring her out.”

  “Go on,” Prester said.

  “I would suggest that we put a watch at the transit hubs, and tail anyone that looks like military or law enforcement. If any of them travels into the other districts—”

  “Then they might be going to meet with her,” Prester finished. “Not bad.” He leaned back in his chair. “I’ll put the word out to the independents. They can get around where my people can’t.”

  “I’ll get my team on it as well,” Norland said.

  Prester cracked a smile. “You know, I have a feeling that Harris would’ve approved of your plan.”

  Norland felt a twinge at the mention of his father’s name. “Let’s get to it,” he said.

  CHAPTER 7

  ON BOARD THE Adventurer, Blake Rheinborne sat on the bunk in the quarters that Gwynne had assigned him. The room was tiny, just large enough to contain the bunk, a locker, and little desk with a video screen. It was almost like a prison cell; evidently, Gwynne didn’t want Rheinborne to have any contact with the crew, and so had gotten him this private berth.

  He held the dataslate that the DSI man had given him, and studied the plan to extract Kaye—or rather, Valicia—from the underground city. It was straightforward enough, but he knew full well that plans rarely went as designed.

  He scrolled through the slate’s directory and found what he was looking for: a file that would explain Kaye’s apparent resurrection and transformation into Valicia. He opened the document and began reading.

  The first part described what Rheinborne already knew. At age seventeen, Kaye was a passenger on a stratojet, flying home after seeing him off at the spaceport on the day of his deployment. The aircraft suffered a mechanical failure and crashed; Kaye survived, but with severe brain injuries. She was put into cryo-stasis while the doctors developed a plan of repair.

  At the time, Rheinborne had wanted to immediately return home; but after being told that she could be in stasis for weeks, he reluctantly remained with his unit.

  Several months later, after Kaye had undergone the last of many expensive operations, her cognitive functions had been fully restored. Soon, though, she began experiencing fits of unexplained rage, and apparently committed suicide. That time, Rheinborne did return home and attend her funeral.

  He pushed aside the memory and kept reading.

  The next part of the document described how, a little over a year ago, a woman named Valicia Parzo was caught up in a government operation to root out illegal entrants into the Greater Republic of Treilath. Miss Parzo, doing contract archaeological work for the Galactic Institute of Antiquities, was found to have a falsified identity and altered biometrics. Under interrogation, she revealed that she was, in fact, the formerly-deceased Kaye Henstler.

  Mr. Gwynne, the External Operations Director of the DSI, heard about her case and argued against having her deported or imprisoned. Instead, he reasoned that her occupation as a freelance archaeologist would provide the ideal cover for the DSI’s off-the-books assignments. This was approved, and she was released from detention. Gwynne’s people rewrote her personal history, going so far as to give her a doctorate in xeno-archaeology. The Institute was then coerced into listing her as a member of the faculty.

  That was the end of the document. Rheinborne looked through the rest of the files on the slate, but none of them addressed the questions he needed answers to. Why had Kaye’s death been faked, and who had taken part in the deception? Where had she been living all this time? Why did she return to Treilath space and risk being found out?

  Rheinborne now thought about the marriage token. He had tried to give it to Kaye’s parents at the funeral, but they had refused, saying that he should hold onto it. Could they have been the ones behind the scheme?

  A little chime sounded, and the door opened. Gwynne entered the tiny cabin, stood just inside. “Feeling better, I see,” he said. “I just came by to see if you had any questions.”

  “Yes, many,” said Rheinborne. “This doesn’t tell me anything.”

  “It doesn’t?” Gwynne looked confused. “I thought it was fairly self-explanatory.”

  “Not the extraction plan. The file about Valicia.”

  “Right.” Gwynne leaned against the wall. “That was everything she told us. She would rather go to prison than fill in the gaps.”

  “And so you just started using her, exploiting her, because you had that to
hang over her head.”

  “You couldn’t know this, but Dr. Parzo has helped save countless lives, many times over. She deserves a chestful of medals, as far as I’m concerned.”

  That didn’t matter to Rheinborne, but he had another issue to raise. He glanced at the dataslate and said, “According to this, Valicia reported that after she arrived in Langensbern, she was arrested by the city police, but some Devorne thugs tried to grab her. She got away in the confusion, then ran from the spaceport to the Central Zone, where she lost them.”

  “That’s accurate, yes.”

  “And then she hid in the Alchromia District, where she still is, as far as you know.”

  “Your point, Mr. Rheinborne?”

  “Isn’t it true that on every planet where the Devornes have some measure of control, they have a tap into the GalSigNet?”

  “In contravention of galactic law. But yes, it’s true.”

  “So if she reported to you through the ‘net after she made landfall, doesn’t it mean that the Devornes might have intercepted her calls, or fixed her location? Maybe they’ve already caught up with her?”

  “No, not at all. I’ve just talked—” Gwynne’s eyes widened as he shut his mouth.

  “What are you not telling me?” Rheinborne asked, watching the other man. “How can she call in without being traced?”

  Gwynne pushed away from the wall and scratched his beard. After a brief period of silence, he said, “She has a special type of module. Experimental prototype, first of its kind. An XCM is what we call it.”

  “You mean it’s direct real-time transmission at long range, without the GSN? How does it work?”

  “It’s classified. You’re not cleared to know.”

  “I can keep a secret. Trust me.”

  “Trust is earned, not given, Mr. Rheinborne,” Gwynne said. “In any case, it’s not relevant to the mission. We’ll arrive at the planet in about twenty-six hours, so use that time well.” He backed out of the cabin.

  “Wait!” Rheinborne sprang off the bunk, but the door slid closed before he could reach it. He palmed the access plate, but a low buzz indicated that the door was locked.