House of the Silent Moons

by Tom Shepherd

  But this Gate was not black. The few Terrans who had encountered TF-Drifter unanimously reported it looked like a huge, golden wedding band. The thick, gilded ring in Tyler’s optical scanners confirmed those reports.

  “Gate lock acquired,” Frost said. “Zeroing thrust to standby. We’re on inertial glide.”

  “Steady as she goes. Standby docking thrusters to keep her centered.”

  “You got it, Boss-man.” She smiled. “I forgot how much fun—”

  “Adjust to starboard!” Tyler barked. “You’re drifting into the port ring surface.”

  “Sorry, sir. Celebrating too soon.” She tapped the docking thrusters and the Howling Tadpole slid back to center.

  “A tad off the pole, luv?” Suzie said. “Good to be chuffed about your new duties, but I’d prefer the Gate doesn’t kill us before the pirates get their chance.”

  Lovey sulked. “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Lieutenant, please call the speed and distance,” Tyler ordered.

  Frost bent to her instruments. “Converting Dengathi to metric system. One hundred twenty meters to event horizon. Twenty-three KPH.”

  “Too fast, too fast,” Arrupt croaked. “Must be not five.”

  “Brake with retro-thrusters. Walk it down slowly.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Arrupt twittered and clicked. “If you come fast, Gate kill you quick.”

  “Eleven KPH… eight… six… four… three…”

  “No slower,” Tyler said. “I want to jump through, not stay for the weekend.”

  “Holding at three KPH. Distance thirty-one meters… twenty six…”

  “All hands, prepare for Jump.”

  “Ten meters… seven… event horizon… now.”

  The Universe disappeared. Stars went dark, which was the normal experience when crossing a Jump Gate’s event horizon, but this time the transit was not instantaneous. The Howling Tadpole hung in an inky nothingness for several moments.

  Very odd. It should be immediate.

  Tyler had passed through countless Gates during his years of FTL travel. First as a child, accompanying his parents to vacation sites or working holidays on worlds across the wide, deep swath of Terran Commonwealth space. He encountered more Gates as a Naval Prep School Cadet, even more as a corporate lawyer for Matthews Interstellar Industries.

  And for almost two years, he spent most weekends far beyond Terran space. A self-appointed planet-hunter, Tyler sampled star systems in hundreds of Gate regions, looking for unclaimed worlds with habitable biospheres. He traveled alone in the Sioux City, accompanied only by his Yoruba 397-T, Artificial Intelligence, Main Library Computer, which he nicknamed Suzie after the ship she served.

  Those solitary jaunts gave him a sense of peace he never experienced anywhere else. Only recently had he begun to realize the joy wasn’t just from exploring the Cosmos, it was from exploring it with Suzie.

  His thought shifted as the stars returned in a whisper of diamond dust surrounding the vessel. Optical scanners showed another metallic band aft of the Howling Tadpole, not golden but coppery red. Tyler knew this exit point for arrivals from TF-Drifter would also send a ship back to the roving Gate’s current location. But the location of the second Drifter Gate and the ancient Imperial Battle Station House of the Silent Moons were still an unknown.

  “Lieutenant Frost, how long did that jump take?”

  “I’m showing an instant transit. Zero time lapse.” She re-checked. “Confirmed.”

  “Weird,” Tyler said. “Where are we?”

  “I can’t lock onto guide stars in the Huáng,” Lovey said. “The MLC is re-calculating.”

  “What happens next, Mr. Arrupt?” Tyler said. “Do we proceed on any particular course heading?”

  “Move clear Copper Gate, maybe fifty kilometer. Go to station-keeping. They find us quick-quick.”

  “What if we do a little quick-quick exploring without escort?” Tyler nodded to Lovey, who moved the ship away from the Gate.

  “We die quicker-quicker,” Arrupt said. “Better stay here, Boss-hu-man.”

  Lovey laughed. “Fifty Ks from the Gate and holding.”

  “Let’s see if the MLC has found any known planetary systems or guide stars,” Tyler said.

  “Nothing yet,” Lovey said.

  “Suzie? Check but stay external.”

  “On it,” she said. “Wait a bloody minute—I’m totally gobsmacked! Ty, look at this system, eight-point-four light years away.”

  The main viewscreen filled with a yellow star and eleven planets. Suzie focused on the fourth planet, a blue pearl in the goldilocks zone, holding five moons and a nitrogen-oxygen atmosphere comparable to Terra. It also had smallish polar caps, evidence of seasonal shift, and signs of ozone, methane and C02 in the upper atmosphere. Evidence pointed to living organisms thriving on that world, beyond a shadow of a doubt.

  Tyler recognized the planet at first glance. “That can’t be right.”

  “Your first and only hab world discovery, luv. We are looking at the planet you modestly named Tyler-4.”

  “That means we’re on the Rimward side of the Perseus, sixty thousand-plus light years from the Huáng Expanse. The Sioux City arrived here through Jump Gate TCG-4893, which must be nearby.”

  “I have it on long range sensors, tagged by your original bookmark,” Suzie said. “Eighty-seven-point two light years.”

  “So, why didn’t the pirates come after us the first time?”

  Suzie turned to him. “Two possibilities. First, somebody did come after us. Remember Senior Captain Zalaar-17 of the Rek Kett Empire?”

  “How could I forget Captain Cow Patty? He attacked the Sioux City soon as we popped up from the surface of my new planet. Then he picked a fight with me at the Trade Embassy on Suryadivan Prime, and he showed up at the battle for Jump Gate Alpha, on the pirate side.”

  “Zalaar-17, know ugly well.” Arrupt grunted and clucked. “Not Dirt Monkey, him just dirt. No pirate. Like playing pirate. Rek Kett Empire not Free Enterprise League. No trust dirt men.”

  Tyler gestured to Suzie. “If Zalaaar-17 isn’t officially a pirate, what was the other reason the corsairs didn’t attack us?”

  “Your mum was patrolling the neighborhood with a heavy cruiser and three destroyers. Pirates are notoriously cack-handed in a real battle. They prefer to ambush lightly armed merchant ships.”

  “That I believe. But if this is Pirate space, where are they hiding? I don’t see the fabled Gate-Keeper anywhere. We have to find that pirate court, or Tavares will hang for his crimes.” He turned to Arrupt Kilub Riff. “Is this Gate region well-known to you Dengathi?”

  “Not Lagoon. Dengathi privateer come here, by Drifter. Dunno other Gate you speak.”

  “Not surprising,” Suzie said. “Original Gates are bloody impossible to detect. Absent your bookmark, we couldn’t find TCG-4893, even with spectacular scanning. You can fly right past an ancient Gate and never see the bugger five hundred meters to starboard.”

  “Mr. Arrupt, did you encounter any non-pirate ships or settlements in this Gate region?” Tyler said.

  “Arrupt see mud people and blue gooks.”

  “Blue—you mean Quirt-Thymeans?”

  “Them have science outpost. Not know where, but see ship one time. We not attack. Had no cargo.”

  “Tyler to Mr. Blue. Come to the bridge, please.”

  The Quirt-Thymean stepped out of the lift a few moments later with a stuffed tote bag under each arm.

  “I brought box lunches,” he announced. “Prepared fresh by the delightful Mrs. Léon.”

  “Put down the carry-out and get to the aux-ops station,” Tyler said.

  “Friend Tyler, I am no spaceship pilot.”

  “You can operate a sensor panel. I need your Quirt-Thymean eyeballs on the scanners.”

  “May I leave them in place and look from a distance?”

  “Indigo!”

  “Oh, another Terran metaphor.” He plodded to the se
mi-circular auxiliary command station, which had the ability to perform all bridge operations if no one remained to fly and guide the ship. Lovey Frost, Mr. Blue’s wife number two, leaned over from the nav-helm and gave him a quick kiss.

  “Nice to work beside you, Zenna,” she said. “Where’s my sister-wife?”

  “Yumiko and Doctor Solorio are doing inexplicably painful martial arts gyrations in the cargo bay.” He turned to the XO/CO chairs. “Thank you for converting the instrumentation to Pharmaadoodil, friend Suzie.”

  “I fancied your native lingo would get you cracking.”

  Tyler interrupted the banter. “So, get cracking, Indigo. Three-sixty scan to max range, please.”

  Zenna activated the hunt with multiple devices. “This Dengathi ship has great powers of deduction.”

  “Detection,” Tyler corrected.

  “What am I detecting, friend Tyler?”

  “Other ships or bases. Not just pirates—anybody.”

  “I already know one. Quirt-Thymean Science Outpost 478 lies off the port, 221.7 mark 048 degrees. Distance 1,521 light years. Do you want to go there? I hear they have a wonderful food court.”

  “We’re looking for the pirate court,” Tyler said. “Any suspicious FTL starcraft cruising the neighborhood?”

  “Nothing at FTL. Would a Segerian vessel traveling at sublight qualify as suspicious?” Zenna said.

  “Segerian?” Tyler punched up his scanners and shared the conversation shipwide. “Where is the bogey?”

  “I’ve got him, Captain,” Lovey said. “Approaching at point-seven-five C, on a heading of 094 mark 120.”

  “Maximum optics, Lieutenant.”

  A moving point of light on the viewscreen swelled to an oval starcraft that vaguely reminded Tyler of flying saucers from early Terran videos. Three-eyed monsters invading Earth. Tentacled, ashen beasts who craved busty human females for God-knows-what reason.

  This vessel looked more like a flat-backed aquatic turtle with a lens-shaped bridge section in place of neck and head. Tyler knew only one tribe from another world who flew a substantial number of saucers, and they were humans themselves.

  The Segerian system had been settled by Brazilian colonists, later joined by linguistically compatible settlers from Portugal. A century earlier, they declared independence from Terra. After amicable negotiations, Segerians became trade partners with the Commonwealth. Unfortunately, they also spawned a fair number of privateers, as pirates liked to call themselves. One of them was Capitão Flávio Tavares.

  “Segerian turtle,” Tyler said.

  “Arrupt know ship. Dead Dog Maker.” The Dengathi leaned around Tyler’s command seat and peered at the main viewscreen. “Good-bad luck.”

  “Care to elaborate?” Tyler said.

  When the Frog’s eyes bulged incomprehensively, Suzie translated the question into Regalik. He twittered and croaked, added a single ribbit, then resumed pidgin Terran.

  “Pilot name…Lor..something. Curil… Curly-axe? No can say words. Dumbest Dirt Monkey in space. Him Gatekeeper. He no good guy. Alla time want new women for sex-fuck.” Arrupt chortled. “Frog breeding better. No sex-fuck. Female lay eggs, male visit later. No touchee-feelie thingee.”

  Tyler grunted. “Good-bad luck, for real.”

  Suzie frowned. “You’ve never complained, Dirt Monkey.”

  “Curly-axe want come aboard. Him take something for tariff before give pass-code.”

  “Can we negotiate with him?”

  “He no trader, Matt Junior.”

  Dr. Solorio called from the ship’s tiny medical bay. “Ty, I’m ready to greet surprise visitors.”

  “No, no. I want the Gatekeeper alive.”

  “That’s up to him,” Julieta said.

  “Stand by.” He turned to Suzie. “Hail them.”

  “Not necessary. They’re hailing us.”

  She tapped her panel and a man in his late thirties appeared. Remnants of once-thick black hair curved from ears to a bald zone, which stretched like a skin-Mohawk from eyebrows to the crown of his head. He had beady dark eyes, a miniature nose and ears, and dark facial stubble just short of beard length.

  He glared at Tyler. “Who might you be?”

  “Tyler Matthews, sailing under a permit issued by Capitão Flávio Tavares. Check our registry.”

  The Gatekeeper called his first mate to run the data. “You’re flying the Howling Tadpole into my approach zone. How’s that possible, chum? You ain’t no Frog.”

  “I ship’s Frog, Co-Captain Tadpole.” Arrupt stepped from behind the command chair. “I know you, Curly-axe.”

  “My name is Curilak, you stupid Denny.” He ignored Arrupt. “You, Tyler Matthews. I’m Capitão Lourenço Curilak, Gatekeeper of Region One. You belong to me now.”

  Tyler shook his head. “Let’s try this again. We’re here to participate in a trial at the capital of the Free Enterprise League. I have a safe conduct pass.”

  Curilak sneered. Three front teeth were missing, two uppers. “I know what you’re here for, Matthews. Up to me, I’d blow you to stardust. Your mother is Public Enemy Number One in our world.”

  “Guess you haven’t met my father.”

  “He’s Number Two.”

  “He’ll be disappointed,” Tyler said dryly.

  “I fought you Matthews people earlier this year. Helped destroy that Jump Gate you was building to Andromeda. Fucked up a lot of Suryadivan ships, too. It was a grand slaughter.”

  “Can we discuss the procedure to get to your Capital?”

  “I’ll grant you safe passage, but not for free, There’s a tariff to enter Pirate space.”

  “How much?”

  “Every gatekeeper sets his own price. I’ll tell you once me and my lads board the Tadpole.”

  “Curilak, you’re not boarding this ship unless we agree on terms.”

  “You really want to go toe-to-toe with me, Matthews? I have three times your firepower.”

  Tyler nodded slowly. “Who’s talking about fighting, Capitão? I’m talking about negotiating a settlement that will give you more than you want. Something you’ve never imagined possible.”

  “And what might that be?”

  “Do I have your oath that you will respect the safety of my crew?” Tyler knew this cabrón couldn’t be trusted, but he suspected the man’s greed trumped his love of violence.

  “Well, Matthews, I am the Gatekeeper, ain’t I now? Killin’ you be outside my job description. So, yeah. You play fair by me, your crew won’t be permanently damaged goods.”

  “All right, I agree. Let’s dock. You can visit the Tadpole and see what I’m offering.”

  Curilak pursed his lips. “No tricks, Matthews. My lads will destroy you at the first sight of treachery.”

  “Stand by for docking port handshake signal.”

  “I want your whole crew assembled at the airlock,” Curilak said.

  “The ship won’t fly itself, even at station-keeping.”

  “Fine,” Curilak grumbled. “Leave somebody on the bridge and engineering. But I’ll put eyeballs on everybody else, or this conversação ends now.”

  Tyler turned to Suzie, who nodded.

  “We’ll see you in the cargo bay.” Tyler gave Suzie the cut off gesture and the viewscreen went dark.

  “Primo, this is a mistake,” Julieta said over the shipwide comm. “That pendejo won’t keep his word.”

  “No transponder code, no coordinates to the Free Enterprise League capital, no chance to save Tavares and find the House of the Silent Moons.”

  “If you let that Segerian rata macho aboard this ship,” Julieta said, “I’m not promising there won’t be a Spanish gato femenino ready to pounce.”

  “Self-defense only.” Tyler clicked off the shipwide and spoke to his cousin privately. “Do you understand how important this is, Julieta? Sé bueno, por favor. No lo quiero muerto.”

  She sighed audibly. “Si, te entiendo.”

  Tyler resumed shipwide comms. �
��All hands, prepare to gather in the cargo hold for a peaceful meeting with our hosts.” He took a deep breath. “I say again—this is a peaceful meeting, not a muster to repel boarders. Dorla, stay with the engines. Lieutenant Frost, you have the conn.”

  Lovey brought up the image of the Dead Dog Maker as the turtle-shaped vessel followed the handshake signal and rotated into position off the Howling Tadpole’s starboard docking port. The process would take a few minutes, just enough time for Tyler’s crew to gather in the cargo bay and await their murderous guests.

  Twelve

  Lourenço Curilak and four armed pirates strutted onto the cargo deck of the Howling Tadpole from the stubby, pressurized jet bridge. The term for a short neck of connective passageway between starcraft had survived from pre-space age days when passengers entered and exited jet planes at airport terminals.

  “Is this everyone?” the pirate chief said.

  “Per our agreement, I have one officer at the bridge and another in engineering,” Tyler said. “Both unarmed.”

  Curilak ignored Tyler and circled the small crowd of humanoids, ogled the three women—Julieta, Suzie, and Yumiko—without touching them, but frisked the males—Tyler, Paco, Zenna and Arrupt—for concealed weapons. He stopped in his tracks when he saw Mr. Blue.

  “What the hell are you doing here?”

  “I am a Star Lawyer.”

  “You’re a fucking blue gook.”

  Zenna appeared unfazed. “I believe your colorful description is correct, Mister Pirate Captain. Although I would have said it differently. My species does not consider any form of coitus to be a profane word.”

  “Shut up, Quirt,” Curilak snarled. “I might just slice you open. See if them stories about blue gooks an’ green blood are true.”

  Tyler’s eyes darted to Julieta and Yumiko; he shook his head quickly. Lord Jesus, grant me patience. If I turn Naca Jen and Samurai Yumiko loose, these idiots are going to learn what it means to get fucked-up.

  “Shall we do business?” Tyler said. “I have the safe conduct pass from Capitão Flávio—”

  “He ain’t Capitão shit anymores. The League stripped the guilty bastard of his rank an’ titles. Tavares done sailed the last leg. You may as well run back to your puta mãe, forget defending her traitorous dog.”