Starcaster Complete Series Boxed Set

by J. N. Chaney

  Despite the tense and confrontational atmosphere, amusement flickered among the Delegates. It gratified the High Shaman that only a small number of the Delegates remained, like Satu, impassive.

  “In any case,” the High Shaman went on, “I do not actually expect the humans to hand Stellers over to the Danzur, no. More important is that there is no successful alliance between them and the humans. When it comes to dealing with Stellers, we have a far more powerful weapon.”

  “And what is that?” Satu asked, her voice tinged with skepticism.

  “The girl, Morgan.”

  After a moment of silence, a Delegate spoke. “You said that she is responsible for changing our people on Tāmtu.”

  “And I’ll ask again, what does that mean? How have our people on Tāmtu been changed, High Shaman?” Satu asked.

  “They are no longer in communion with the rest of our people. The girl, Morgan, has somehow made them into something else. It would appear that they are loyal to her, and are keeping her safe and well.”

  “And our ships? The ones that have been lost? Was that the doing of our changed people?”

  “We don’t know, but we don’t believe so. We believe that that, too, was the doing of Morgan.”

  “As was the occurrence of the new nebula,” one of the High Shaman’s advisors said. “We discerned that both she and Stellers were involved in its creation.”

  Another Delegate leaned forward. “So Stellers is immensely powerful, and Morgan is immensely powerful. Both are able to move fleets, create stars—to change reality itself. What possible hope could we have against that?”

  “Very little,” the High Shaman said.

  Once more, there was silence. Again, Satu broke it.

  “So you admit, then, that this war is a losing proposition, and it is time to approach the humans in the spirit of peace.”

  “No. Quite the opposite, in fact.”

  Satu flashed her frustration. “That makes no sense. You would have us fight against powers we cannot match, merely to pursue a war we can’t win? Is your ego so large, High Shaman—so large and fragile—that you cannot admit defeat, even when it’s painfully obvious?”

  “But we are not defeated,” the High Shaman replied. “In fact, we have an opportunity to deal with both Stellers and Morgan at once, to save our people on Tāmtu and deliver a final, crippling blow against the humans.”

  Luminous flickers, both intrigued and skeptical, flashed around the Caucus, accompanied by a faint murmur of conversation. The High Shaman pressed on.

  “Morgan is powerful but also immature for her species. Her thoughts are pliant. After much consultation with my Advisors, we have concluded that it would be possible to reshape her thoughts in a way that would not be possible with a mature human, based on a concept we know they identify as neuroplasticity—a complex word for a repulsive species trait, I might add. You may recall the report given here regarding the human female, Wixcombe, who proved utterly intractable despite our best and most concerted efforts. Were Morgan to be similarly mature, this would probably not be possible. As it is, her age is a boon to us.”

  “So you propose—what?” Satu said, her tone and luminosity both doubtful. “To influence Morgan’s thoughts sufficiently to change Tāmtu back to its natural state? To release our people from whatever she has done to them?”

  “Yes,” the High Shaman replied. “But we would go beyond that. There is some relationship between her and Stellers that we don’t understand. However, we believe we can continue to influence Morgan, turning her from adversary to neutral party, and then to ally.”

  “You’re suggesting that we ally with a human? And an immature one, at that?”

  The High Shaman flashed an amused but strained patience. “Only in a manner of speaking. In fact, she would become our operative, what the humans refer to as a Skin.”

  “To what end?”

  The High Shaman paused for dramatic effect, sensing this moment as the critical one. He would either convince the Caucus, or he wouldn’t.

  “To destroy Stellers, of course, and, in the process, destroy herself. And once that is accomplished, the two most potent obstacles to our victory will be removed.”

  The silence went on and on. Slowly just a few, then many of the Delegates glinted their approval. Satu and her closest collaborators abstained, but it didn’t matter. The support for the High Shaman’s proposal was overwhelming.

  18

  Thorn had been immensely gratified to find out that Bertilak did indeed have appropriate hygiene facilities aboard his ship, including a toilet. Of course, that raised other questions. Like why would the outsized alien have human-scaled plumbing? Thorn decided to leave the questions unasked for the moment. He decided to be as cooperative with Bertilak as he could be, hoping to leverage the alien’s effusive good humor into a more open relationship between them. After all, what he ultimately wanted from Bertilak was information, so it only made sense to make the alien as comfortable with him as possible.

  “So, captain, a question?” Thorn said, stepping onto the spartan bridge.

  “Ask, friend.”

  “Where the hell are we going?” Thorn waved vaguely at the expanse of black.

  The alien swept a hand toward the viewscreen, which depicted nothing, just the blankness of an Alcubierre bubble. “That way.”

  “That way.”

  “That’s right. You’ll note that we have plenty of room.”

  “Well, if I remember my intro nav course, we can go about thirteen billion light years that way, and then we’ll run out of universe.”

  “Ah, will we?”

  Thorn blinked at that. “I don’t know. That’s just how big I’ve been told the universe is. And who am I to doubt the astrophysicists who are all definitely smarter than me?”

  “Bah, you sell yourself short,” Bertilak said as Thorn sat down. “You are not a stupid man, Thorn Stellers, although I note that you enjoy staying below the radar, as some humans might say. I think this is by design.”

  “Saying that someone’s smarter than me isn’t the same as saying I’m stupid,” Thorn replied, forcing a smile. “How’s that for boundless confidence?”

  Bertilak laughed. “True. But that shows the importance of being precise. These specialists may be better educated and experienced in their fields, but that doesn’t make them necessarily smarter than you.” He glanced at Thorn sidelong. “I’m sure an astrophysicist would say the same about you when it comes to magic, no?”

  “Possibly,” Thorn said. “I just—”

  An alarm sounded, cutting him off. Bertilak turned back to his controls.

  “We aren’t alone, it seems,” he said. “There is a ship ahead.”

  Thorn deliberately said nothing. There was no technology he was aware of that would allow a ship inside an Alcubierre bubble to gather information about anything outside of it. That was the whole point—the drive generated a tiny, separate universe around the ship. It was a limitation that the ON, the Nyctus, and anyone else who used a similar drive for superluminal flight simply had to work around. And there weren’t, as far as Thorn knew, any other ways of traveling faster than light.

  So if Bertilak had some tech that would allow him to scan normal space from inside an Alcubierre bubble, that by itself would offer the ON a massive advantage.

  As he peered at the panel in front of Bertilak, all he saw was more of the flowing geometric shapes and a bunch of controls that amounted to little more than flashing, colored lights. If Bertilak was able to derive useful information from it, Thorn couldn’t see how.

  “Can you tell what sort of ship it is?” he asked.

  Bertilak narrowed his eyes. “Let’s find out, shall we? I do not enjoy surprises that are not culinary in nature.”

  “Culinary?”

  “I like food that looks like other things. That is pleasant. This? No.”

  Bertilak tapped at the controls. A few seconds later, the starfield reappeared as the ship returne
d to normal space. A dim point of light in the distance gradually grew larger as they approached it.

  “It’s a Nyctus vessel,” Bertilak said, looking at Thorn. “Badly damaged and broadcasting a distress beacon.”

  Thorn studied the zoomed image of the Nyctus ship. It was a frigate. She’d been badly pummeled in a recent fight and bore the scars. Her bow had been opened, ragged holes and gaping rents had been torn in her hull, and she seemed to only have power in the rearmost part of the ship, probably the engineering section. The rest of her interior had either been destroyed or laid open to hard vacuum.

  “No debris,” Thorn said, frowning.

  Bertilak glanced at him. “Should there be?”

  “There’s no debris. I’ve been in enough battles to know that it doesn’t take long for space to get filled with debris—pieces of ships, pieces blown off of ships, expended missiles, escape pods, all that sort of thing. But I don’t see any here.”

  “There,” Bertilak said, pointing at his enigmatic displays. “There’s your debris, over there.”

  Thorn returned a blank look. “What I see is a bunch of circles spinning inside each other on your screen there. If that says there’s debris out there somewhere, I’m sorry, Bertilak, but I can’t—”

  Bertilak nodded. “Yes, I forget that you wouldn’t be familiar with these instruments.” The big alien fiddled with the controls, and the image on the main viewscreen changed. It now showed a debris field about a hundred klicks across, fragments of shattered alloy and hull plating slowly tumbling across a few tens of klicks.

  Thorn stood and walked up to the display. “Looks like they managed to move the ship this far, probably to get clear of that mess.”

  Bertilak switched the view back to the stricken Nyctus vessel.

  “You said they’re broadcasting a distress signal?” Thorn asked.

  “Correct,” the alien replied, tapping yet another incomprehensible display. “That, and minimal life support are the only returns I am seeing from my scans. At face value, that indicates a ship on the edge of being dead.”

  “They must have been hit by an ON patrol,” Thorn said, staring at the image of the battered ship. “Not sure why they didn’t finish her off.”

  “Should I do it for them?” Bertilak asked, hands posed like a musician waiting to strike the first note.

  “Bertilak, do your”—he gestured at the panel— “instruments tell you if there are actually any squids still alive?”

  “Yes. Four, all in the engineering section.”

  Thorn sighed as he studied the wreck. Thanks to radiation shielding and all of the structural bracing holding the powerplant and drives in place, the engineering sections of most ships were probably their toughest parts. These four squids must be the engineering crew, or what was left of them, who’d managed to take refuge in the only part of the ship still holding atmosphere and heat.

  For a moment, he tried to imagine what it would be like if the Hecate had been pounded to scrap with only her engineering compartments still intact, crew trapped inside. They’d know little or nothing about what was going on around them and would only be able to huddle in the fitful darkness. They’d be desperately hoping for rescue, terrified that safeties were going to fail, or the powerplant would suddenly explode. Or maybe worse, the lights and air processors dying, leaving them alone in the dark, the atmosphere getting ever more stale, their breath starting to form clouds of frozen mist—

  “Thorn?”

  He turned to Bertilak, nightmarish imaginings still hovering nearby.

  “Should I simply destroy this vessel and then we’ll be on our way?” Bertilak said. “I ask for your input here, as you are now part of this ship.”

  Thorn took a breath and nodded. Living a nightmare or not, they were still squids “Yes. Go ahead.”

  Bertilak stared back at Thorn for a moment, then reached for his panel—

  “Wait.”

  Thorn blinked as Bertilak turned again to look at him, surprised at his own word. The alien just waited.

  Thorn stared at the smashed remains of the Nyctus frigate.

  —huddle in the fitful darkness, desperately hoping for rescue—the atmosphere getting ever more stale, their breath starting to form clouds of frozen mist—

  “Can you tell if there are any other Nyctus ships nearby?” Thorn asked. “Any close enough to respond to their distress call?”

  Bertilak looked at his instruments, then nodded. “About four light-years distant, a Nyctus patrol. They’re on their way here.”

  “How long?”

  “About three hours, at their current velocity.”

  Thorn nodded, making a mental note that Bertilak couldn’t only scan outside of an Alcubierre bubble, he could scan ships inside them—and up to at least four light-years away.

  “Thorn, do you want me to destroy this Nyctus ship, or not?” Bertilak pressed.

  Thorn sighed, rich with disgust. “No. Let’s just leave them and hope that one of them doesn’t turn out to come up with some war-winning scheme.”

  Again, Bertilak just watched Thorn for a moment. “Are you sure?”

  “I am.”

  “What about looting her? There might be some useful items aboard.”

  Thorn shook his head at the wreck. “I doubt it.”

  “There is in the engineering section. The fuel alone would save me having to replenish for a good, long while.”

  Thorn gave Bertilak a hard look. “You seem really determined to find a reason to screw with these squids.”

  Bertilak grinned. “It isn’t about them. You see, I’m an opportunist. And this is an opportunity.”

  “So, if I wasn’t here, you’d just scavenge whatever you could and let the squids die?”

  The alien lifted his lower lip, considering the question. “Maybe. It would depend on my mood. I might even rescue them myself.”

  “Bring four squids aboard this ship? Yeah, I’d rather you didn’t do that.”

  “I leave it up to you.”

  “Why? Why are you asking me to make the call here?” Thorn asked.

  “It only seems appropriate. You are my guest, after all. I wouldn’t want to leave this place with you carrying a burden of either second guessing yourself or regretting what we do here.”

  “Oh, that’s probably going to happen anyway, no matter what we do.”

  Bertilak raised an eyebrow but merely waited.

  Thorn finally shook his head. “Let’s just leave them. If they survive until their friends get here, good for them. And if they don’t, well, they understood the risks of warfare and now they can live—and die—with that decision.”

  “Very well. We shall be on our way then,” Bertilak said, tapping at his controls. A moment later, the Nyctus derelict vanished, replaced by the featureless void of an Alcubierre bubble.

  Morgan drifted around the vent, trying to peer inside. The elder shaman said there was molten rock deep within it, which she thought would be very interesting to see. The trouble was that the heat was just too intense. Most of the plume of superheated water jetted straight up, but enough seemed to mix with the surrounding water to make even it uncomfortably hot. She could get close—but not close enough.

  Of course, she could fix that. She could just change—

  I’m here.

  She stopped and pulled back from the vent.

  Are you with him?

  I am.

  Did you do the test thing?

  I did. He chose to spare the Nyctus.

  Really?

  Really, yes.

  Morgan blinked, surprised. She hadn’t actually expected Bertilak to report that. So this was unexpected.

  Did you try to make him kill them? All of them?

  She could sense Bertilak’s frown across the void. Make him? As in, force him to do it, even if he didn’t want to? That does not really fit with what you wanted me to do.

  No, not like force him. You know, tell him to do it.

  You mean
convince him.

  Convince?

  Yes. Persuade him. Use words to make him want to do it.

  Oh, okay. Yeah, convince him. Did you try to do that?

  Not really. You made it clear that you wanted it to be his choice.

  Morgan glowered at the nearby vent. Occasionally, it puffed out a murky cloud of something like fine, shimmering sand. The elder shaman said it was minerals, and that some vents spewed out lots of minerals all the time. Apparently, the Nyctus could collect those minerals and use them to make stuff.

  I did want him to decide, yeah, she finally said. I just didn’t think he would let them live. I wonder why he did?

  I think it’s because he put himself in their place. If he were trapped the same way the Nyctus were, what would he want someone to do if they found him?

  Morgan bit her lip and glared at the vent, which had suddenly coughed out a thick, billowing stream of minerals. The dark, roiling cloud spread overhead, then began to rain back down. Morgan held out her hand and watched the dark grit slowly accumulate on her palm.

  So he passed, she said.

  He did, Bertilak replied. You sound disappointed.

  Morgan looked at the dusting of grey across her palm. The little grains actually sparkled in the dim glow of the Radiance, a tiny, flickering light show. She smiled at it for a moment, then brushed her palm clean and drifted back from the vent, extracting herself from the thickening mineral haze around it.

  Well, a little, she said. If he was bad to those Nyctus, then I could just keep hating him. But now I don’t know.

  Perhaps another test?

  She nodded. Yeah. Yeah, a really hard one, this time. One that’s really gonna force him to be either good or bad.

  What do you want me to do?

  Morgan just drifted for a while, considering it. Eventually, she brightened.

  Ooh. I know.

  Thorn wandered Bertilak’s ship from stem to stern. The big alien didn’t seem to care, apparently quite content to let him explore freely.

  Thorn didn’t learn very much.