Star Chaser- The Traveler

by Reiter

  “Have I been deemed unworthy?” Dungias asked, fearing the worst: that his family and his people had been right all along, and without the ability to craft iro-forms he was nothing. His hands began to shake and his lips pressed together. He prepared himself to receive the worst news.

  “It is not you they have deemed inept, Dungias,” Nugar answered as he slowly lowered to the ground. The points around his body were quickly fading. “No one will be allowed to look upon your first communion with the Stars. Not even the one they chose to train you.”

  “I would not have dared to think–” Nugar could see Time slowing down around him. He spun on the heels of his boots to see the wall and door of the Observation Chamber twist and spin into nothingness. A large black spot hovered in front of Nugar and he smiled as the empty space began to fill in with so many stars.

  “Of course not, dear Traveler,” a familiar voice called to him as a slender female form emerged from the Void. She was a Living Star, one of the Chorus whose songs often guided, guarded, and geared Nugar along his many explorations of space and self. “Such thoughts are not your way.” Her form and clothing were made up of stars. She was a walking, talking, constellation.

  “Constellea!” Nugar gasped as his legs folded. He intended to drop to his knees and bow, but she proved to be too quick and he fell into her arms instead. She smiled down on him and touched her lips to his forehead. The light passed through his skin and skull, and invigorated the energies of his life. His capacities were soon overwhelmed, and the overage flowed through his body.

  “What have I done to deserve such a reward?” Nugar asked as Constellea stood him up. He looked at his body and could find no signs of his aging, but he would have to wait and marvel at such things later.

  “What indeed?” she asked. The Living Star gestured toward a single star near the center of the chamber. It doubled in size, flaring in silver and white flashes of energy. Within its light, Nugar could see his exchange with his friend and student, G’Dalzee. “The strong contrarian words received from a close friend.”

  After his argument was relived, the image shifted to Nugar’s arrival on Threm. Though the Travelers were the navigators for the Mal-Vin, the markings on the front of his belt buckle earned him little respect from the common iro-forming Malgovi. “The sort of love and light demonstrated by those you would die for.” The last image was of two Malgovi citizens who stood atop a bridge. They were joined by a third who warned them that their target was approaching. While one served as lookout, another prepared a concoction to be loaded into a gas-gun. They fired a capsule that burst high above the heads of passersby, making their way from the starport to the arena. The three then fled, not wanting their bodies to serve as warning posts for one who might feel their intentions. Nugar could see himself and his grandchildren pass through the cloud of invisible gas and only for a moment did the old Traveler have a twinge of precaution. It was a twinge quickly discarded for it had not remained and he was already surrounded by those who looked at his yellow skin and judged him unworthy.

  Again the image changed and Nugar frowned, looking at Laejem and Saru again. The Champion of the Games had been named by the time they found their gemnur. “Strong and substantiated disagreement from those you love.” Laejem was furious, and he was eager to allow his hand and his spike engage and demonstrate his feelings. Even his lovely Saru’s face was twisted with anger and frustration. She praised Dungias and what he had done with one phrase, and cursed his people with the next.

  “Yet perhaps there was some direction given,” Constellea whispered as one last image was presented. Walking alone through the bazaar, his grandchildren sleeping off their issues, Nugar was pondering what he should do about the situation. Amongst the dancers and musicians of the gathering she stood, apparently unseen by all save the Traveler. The Iro-Gellvi of the Kith Z’Gunok approached him and begged him to save Dungias.

  The image faded and Nugar was returned to the chamber, but Dungias remained locked within Time. “It would seem that the reward matches the task. You have found him… you have saved him… you will protect, guide, and teach him until such time that he returns these three traits to you.”

  “Who?!” Nugar asked. “Who is this you have asked me to retrieve?”

  “Not who, good Traveler,” she replied as she started to fade.

  “Then what is he?”

  “At the moment, he is Dungias… at the moment.”

  Nugar knew this game, as this was not his first time communing with the Stars, especially the Third Lady of the Chorus. He had time for one more question and then she would be gone. How many times had he wasted the question, allowing his eagerness to guide his mind? If he had learned nothing else from his current student, he had found the means to take hold of his heart and confine it behind a wall, allowing his mind to use the Light of the Stars and pose the best inquiry. The wall was, however, quite thin and the weight of the moment had added cracks to the barrier. His focus was only going to be so sharp.

  “There is a stream of your Light, one of the many through which you peer into this world and see endless possibilities. When you called upon me to find this child, what did your perspective see him as being?”

  “The Star Chaser!”

  O, what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive.

  Sir Walter Scott

  (III)

  “Well, that didn’t take long,” Isse said as she closed the door to the pantry. She turned slowly, but almost instantly became intangible as the dark form passed through her body and into the wall. It passed through the wall as well, but considerable damage was done as a hole was made, which started to mend itself almost immediately. The dark-child growled, having just missed ripping out the heart of a clone. “Father was thinking with the way he schooled you during your last visit, it would take weeks before you’d come around again. Here it is, only a few days later and there you are… sprawled out all over my freshly cleaned floor.” Isse sighed as she looked at her nails. “I suppose that I should greet you.

  “Good day, Neve,” Isse smiled and Neve’s growl became a sharp roar as she threw herself back through the closing hole. Isse’s body shifted again, but this time to energy, and the roar became a shriek of pain. Isse removed the body from her energy form and returned to flesh and bone. “I’m not sure, but I don’t believe that was the proper response to a friendly greeting. Care to try again?” she asked as her eyes started to glow.

  “Where is he?!” Neve screamed. “Where is Freund?!”

  “Like you, he is gathering pieces for the upcoming game,” Isse replied as the wall was now fully repaired. Isse put her hand to the wall and patted it gently. “Would you care to leave a message?”

  “He lied to me!” Neve declared as she stood up and restored her body.

  “I’m sorry, could you be more specific?”

  “Do not dare!” Neve spat as her eyes took on a glow. “Bring him to me at once! He will pay for what he has done!”

  “An interesting claim coming from a destroyer of innocent lives,” Isse pointed out. “But I can see that you are… upset.”

  “You know nothing of the word,” Neve argued. “Where am I? And before you attempt to give the obvious answer, know that I have seen the truth of it. There are minds beyond these walls.”

  “I would certainly hope so,” Isse replied. “It’s called reality!”

  “Minds of living souls,” Neve continued. She still spoke with rage, but it was a tempered passion. “Countless walks of life on hundreds of planets and moons. I’ve seen them, even spoken to a few. I visit their homes and breach their minds. I know all that can be known about them; things they do not know about themselves I have recorded!”

  “Is this where I applaud and say ‘good job’?” Isse inquired. Neve opted to continue to ignore the clone.

  “For days I have combed these sectors,” Neve stated. “And for all of the souls who would follow me, how is it that only the ones in my physical proxi
mity ever dream?!”

  “I told you her potential was great,” Freund said as he entered the room. He took his seat at the gaming table. “So great that while I was arranging matters on the stage in front of her, she was scoping out the next stop on her tour, as well as the minds she had already visited. When she exceeded 100,000 the dreams started to become… well, let us say they were less than convincing.

  “The simplest answer: you never left your Steward,” Freund advised and Neve gasped. She stumbled away from Freund as her mind took hold of what the old one was saying. “Everything has been a projection of my mind, with some assistance, of course, from my daughter. Every mind you have encountered, from Kaila on down, was created by my power and skill. Not even this castle is real. The pain you most recently felt was projected into your mind by my daughter.”

  “NOOOOO!!!!!!” Neve screamed as the power she had been storing to face Isse was released in all directions. The fabric of the woven projections gave under the onslaught, and soon there was only blackness.

  The blue eyes of a sleeping child burst opened and Stewart Campbell screamed as Neve took leave of his body appearing in the form of black amorphous mass that appeared to be more like tar than a humanoid body. Before it could assume another shape, it was encapsulated and brought before Freund who looked spent but still conscious. Sweat covered his face and torso, even reaching his beard, but he chuckled as he looked at the pod Neve had been contained within. He gave the signal for Stewart to be removed.

  “Victory for you will be long in the coming at best, I’m afraid,” Freund declared. “You might have destroyed the Maior Nathu, but I would hardly say you were victorious in your conflict with them. Their power stayed with you and the moment your essence took to the boy’s form, the Olasson were advised. The Humans of Sol might have had their misgivings about the energies of MajiK or faith, but the Olasson are forever students of both. The moment the monitoring system in boy’s sleep chamber alerted them of your presence, his pod was removed from the general populace. Yes, you made the trip from Sol with the Humans you have promised to destroy, but you have been prisoner of mine for a very long time.”

  “Father, I am here,” Isse said as she appeared beside her beleaguered father. She stretched out her hand and started to take hold of the capsule. Freund’s hand took hold of her chest and the image faded from sight.

  “And it would appear that my mind has grown weak enough for you to project illusion into it,” Freund said. “How unfortunate that this moment has been anticipated. Your illusion appeared and felt like my daughter, but it did not know what to say.

  “And now for the last measure,” Freund said, closing his eyes. The rear wall of the chamber dropped into the floor, revealing a dimensional portal he had prepared even before the birth of his daughter. “Or should I say one incredibly unreal reset button?” Telekinetically carrying the capsule over to the portal, Freund moved it through very slowly. With the last of the capsule gone, Freund allowed his body to collapse. The portal closed, as it had been programmed to do once the offering was put through it, and started to disseminate itself. Not even Freund could say when and where the destination was. The notion of the portal was to have it pass over countless dimensions in the same instant. In theory, the mass of will called Neve would be disassembled into miniscule portions and scattered across the endless faces of the dimensions. In one place she would still have the urge to destroy Humans, but no means to even begin the assault; in another she would possess one of her many powers with absolutely no direction in which to carry it.

  “Well, that didn’t take long,” Isse said as she walked into the room. “Or should I say Pappy?”

  “Saying that will keep me from attacking you,” Freund replied, relieved that the code word had been used. “We have time now, my daughter. If nothing else, at least we have that.”

  “Time?” Isse asked, confused and slightly surprised. “What are you talking about? It worked! She’s gone!”

  “She is hardly gone,” Freund said, his head turning in the direction of the corridor leading out of the chamber.

  “What’s down that tunnel?” Isse quickly asked and as she started to generate power, Freund took hold of her hand.

  “Will you kill that boy because of what took hold of his body?” Freund inquired.

  “When I think of all that he will become and destroy along the way, why not kill him?”

  “That is a very sound question,” Freund noted, increasing the strength of his grip. When Isse looked at their clutched hands, she was fed a telepathic image. “But while we are at it, the med-tech that is pushing the gurney… he cheats at cards.”

  “Father–”

  “And if you were to apply one of my talents,” Freund continued, giving more of his power to his daughter. “… you will see that in three days, he will be involved in a very high-stakes game in which he will cheat. In that game, there will be one person who is a better than him who is also armed with a gun. The big trouble is that there will be three others who will be faster to the draw, and far too inaccurate with their aim. By the time everything settles, five will be dead, including the med-tech. Do we kill him now and save the other four?

  “I haven’t even mentioned the pilot of the medical transport or two of the five physicians that stand the best chance of being involved with Stewart during his brief stay in their care.” Isse sighed in fury and walked away from her father, running her hands through her hair. Its silken feel did nothing to calm her burning passions.

  “When will we be done with this?” Isse shouted.

  “There are two answers,” Freund explained, finding the strength to stand. “When we are dead and when we choose to be. The scope of this will never be contained within a single lifetime. So long as there is life, there will be measures toward creation and destruction. What we hope to achieve is a balance, one that Neve would have thrown to one side, creating any number of things in its wake.”

  “So we leave them to their own means now?” she asked.

  “You can, my daughter,” Freund replied, knowing that she was not going to like his answer. “You certainly have plenty to tend to… as do I. The game is still afoot and in removing Neve, we have created a new nemesis.”

  “Then perhaps we should befriend Stewart,” Isse suggested.

  “To give that child anything short of the full truth leaves you vulnerable to him one day coming to know what has happened,” Freund said, summoning his staff. “And in telling him the full truth, you risk him falling in love with his own power. Either way, you have had a hand in creating a new darkness.

  “No,” Freund said, teleporting the two of them to the castle. “… the best move here is to keep to the game already started.”

  “And taking the risk that he never plays is better than not being prepared,” Isse added. Freund smiled as he nodded. “Because you don’t know how much of Neve is still with the boy, do you?”

  “Oh that is very simple to know. Very little is the answer. What troubles me is that there were five sleeping chamber alarms sounded on the Exodus those many, many years ago.”

  “Five?!” Isse exclaimed.

  “When the Olasson arrived at the deck from where all five had sounded, only one alarm could be clearly read. The technician for that group of Humans was dead, and the devices monitoring the chambers had been all destroyed. All of the feats had been done without any trace as to the origin, person or persons who might be guilty of the assault and destruction.”

  “So where are the other four?” Isse asked quickly before blinking and looking down at the floor. “Wait, that can’t be right. If the entity was of the intelligence you say it was when it went into Stewart’s body, it could not have perceived the sophistication of the Olasson ships. It wouldn’t have known to destroy records or kill a technician. That can only mean one thing!”

  “You are certainly my Isse,” Freund said in some relief as he sent a summons to the mind of the estate. Instantly the shields were in pl
ace, only now they had been altered.

  “Who or what aided Neve?” Isse asked. “And where is it now?” She looked up at her father and there was no mistaking the face he wore. He knew the answers to her questions, and he knew those answers would only fill her with despair.

  “My child,” he thought, turning to leave the room. He needed rest, and the burden of the truth was only getting heavier. “… if I were to tell you the truth, what would you not do? And in your efforts, what traps would you not trigger?

  “I must rest now,” Freund announced. “Tend to what you must, my dear.” Isse wanted to press her father for more, but she knew that would be a losing battle. If he had decided not to share something with her, he had his reasons. She watched him walk out of the room and decided that she would follow his suggestion and tend to her responsibilities.

  “But we have gained much,” Freund thought as he reached his bedroom. “In knowing Neve’s thoughts, I could see the entity before it entered the boy and I was able to learn of its ability to store knowledge in light. It is so good to know that at my age I can still learn something new. To think that at one time I had thought it was a notion I had stumbled upon: to become an entity. Now I know I was merely reading a page from a book I did not know I had opened.

  “Which leads me to ask if, as I am trying to ready this game of ours, whether or not I am a piece of yours in a game on a grander scale. Now that is a sobering thought… but I suppose it should be.”

  ** b *** t *** o *** r **

  “What do we have here?” the physician asked as he met the gurney halfway to the doors. The med-tech pushing the gurney looked up and shook his head in disbelief.

  “Believe it or not, he’s a sleeper… from the Exodus!”

  “The Exodus?!” the physician gasped. As the med-tech started to nod, the physician brushed his fingertips across the man’s throat. Blood burst from the area and the med-tech fell, choking on his own blood and slowly dying. “That fossil of a ship! Who could have imagined such a thing?!” With a cold smile spreading across his face, the physician pushed the gurney back toward the transport. “We’ve been waiting for you for some time, little one. We were beginning to think you wouldn’t be released… ever.