by Chris Reher
He looked into that sad face, that pleasing assembly of whatever traits she had come to like among his species, and found himself entirely unsure of what he wanted. There was something undeniably fascinating about this creature and he, a lifelong scholar of all races Trans-Targon had to offer, yearned to learn more about it.
What he was not prepared to admit to himself was that this unique person, evolving by the hour, also held considerable appeal. He spent much of his time alone here on the Dutchman. And when among people he was usually in the rough company of felons and rebels or the fleeting comfort of women he never knew long enough to care for. Khoe’s unpredictable and vexing presence here felt like a little sunlight in the night.
“I don’t know if this is a good place for you,” he said carefully. “You will need to go home some time.”
“I need to find that disk! You don’t understand. I have no home without it. None of us do.”
“Do you know what those smugglers want with your… person?”
“No.”
Seth thought back to the horrific blast of energy surging through him to kill the officer. And the intense pain he suffered when Khoe first entered his brain and the way she had put him instantly to sleep. Of course, the ease with which she had cut through the Dutchman’s encryptions was the most remarkable thing of all. He had no trouble imagining how these entities might be very useful. And valuable. “I think you do,” he said finally. “You’re dangerous out here. To us. You saw that.” He raised his hands when she started to protest. “I believe that you didn’t mean to do that. But there is some powerful energy transfer going on. People will be interested. And frightened by it.”
“Are you?”
He tipped his head back and looked for answers on the ceiling. “You took a chance when you came aboard this ship. Hoping I’d be useful. That I’d help you. What would you have done if I hadn’t agreed? If I wasn’t able?”
“Another of my people would try again with another pilot, I guess,” she said. “Before those smugglers leave this sub-sector. We won’t be able to find them if they get too far. Your… space is so, uh, unconnected.”
“So should I be frightened? I am, I guess, your prisoner now. Or basically stuck with you in my head.”
She sat up. “I don’t want you to be stuck. That wasn’t our intent. We need you. And I trust you. You tried to help those soldiers when you could have just escaped. You were upset when they died. I think you could help me because you want to.” She allowed herself a small smile. “And you have more curiosity than good sense, I think.”
He grinned. “That has been problematic in the past.”
“If you want me to go away, I will. You don’t have to do this. You’re not a prisoner.”
“What’ll happen to you if I ask you to leave?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. I could try to join with another of your people. Although now I know to ask, first. Or maybe I’ll just stop being.”
He winced.
“I don’t think I’m wrong about—” She suddenly leaped out of her chair, eyes wide.
“What? Khoe?”
“They’re opening a keyhole. They’re going to jump!”
“A keyhole? Not the jumpsite?”
“No. They’re going into the breach. Now. We won’t get there on time.”
He hurried into the cockpit and sat down to engage the Dutchman’s neural interface. “Where?”
She accessed his navigator to show him coordinates much closer than the charted and stable gateway into other parts of Trans-Targon, the one that most pilots used to travel the immense distances separating the explored areas of their sector. But these new coordinates lay nowhere near those. The Dutchman reported a keyhole, difficult to detect and even more difficult to navigate. There were several such breaches in this area but using those required a tremendous amount of coolant, a very capable ship and, most importantly, a navigator with the necessary mental ability to find his way out again.
Seth changed their course. “It’s not that far. But I’m just a chartjumper. I can open that keyhole but I won’t be able to span it. It takes a special talent to do that. Most of us don’t have that.”
“I do,” she said, her attention on the ship’s sensors. “There they are. Too far.”
“We’ll get there soon,” he said, looking up into her tense face. “Don’t worry.”
“Yes, but I won’t be able to find their exit. They could emerge anywhere. Too far for me to follow.” She closed her eyes and her shoulders slumped. “Gone. They jumped. Too late.”
He surprised himself by reaching out to take her hand. She flinched when she felt her skin under his touch. “We’ll get some advice,” he said, half expecting her hand to melt through his fingers. But it was solid and soft and there was nothing about that hand that didn’t seem utterly real. “I know some very smart people. Don’t give up.”
She also seemed fascinated by the hand that held hers. “You’ll help me? You don’t mind, then? Me being here?”
He smiled quickly and released her. “I’m always up for an adventure,” he said. “So let’s get busy and get you home again.”
“What are we going to do?”
“First, a little clean up and intel gathering. I like to keep things tidy.” He avoided glancing into the cabin behind him when he said this. “My DNA is all over that officer. Unfortunately, it’s also all over Air Command files. They’ll be looking for me. I know someone who can call them off. He won’t like it, but he’ll do it.”
“For someone who’s not a rebel you’re awfully shy of Air Command.”
“We’ve had disagreements. We’ll head to Feyd. I do a little work for someone there.”
“But not a rebel?”
“Hardly. My boss is Baroch.”
“Baroch? Delphian. Factor. One of the ten governors of the whole entire Commonwealth?”
“The same. He’s my source of Union intel and clearance, which is useful. He can find out what Air Command has to do with your people being stolen.”
“And you think he’ll get them to stop chasing you for killing the officer?”
“I hope so. As far as the Commonwealth sees things, you either follow their rules or you’re a rebel. An outlaw. If Baroch says I’m not an outlaw they will accept that.”
“Then it’s lucky you know someone powerful like that.”
“It’s been helpful,” he agreed, surprised by her comment and relieved to have avoided an ethics debate about getting away with murder. “The Union is just too big to oversee everything. Fortunately, they are also wise enough to leave allied governments to manage their own politics unless it affects the Commonwealth. But you can’t very well go around killing Union soldiers, no matter where you are. That’s definitely frowned upon.”
“Not if they’re there to keep the peace.”
“Right. And sometimes things are dealt with… carefully. Out of sight. Most of the governors are civilians. They can’t always use Air Command to… proxy for them. So most of them have their own staff.”
“Spies. Agents,” she said, pointing at him. “Assassins.”
“You read too much. Few people know what I do. Or for whom. Most think I’m a mercenary or smuggler or something. You can’t get far into rebel territory if you’re flying a Union flag. So I keep my hands dirty.”
She frowned. “That’s an awfully lonely way to live. And dangerous.”
He shrugged. “Kind of profitable, too.”
She browsed through his archive and brought an image of Factor Baroch onto the screen. Severe features scowled down on them, not softened by the slate blue hair so tightly pulled back into the traditional Delphian braid that the skin of his forehead seemed stretched. “And you think he’ll help?”
“I’m not much good to him in prison. He’ll make it go away. Also, he’s Delphian, as you can see. His people don’t really care much about Commonwealth expanding into places they shouldn’t be. I can trust him to keep news about you quiet un
til we know more. You’d be of great interest to Air Command.”
“Me?”
He nodded. “They’ll want to… meet you.”
She tilted her head. “Stop treating me like a newborn, Sethran, even if that’s what I am. You think they’ll hurt me, don’t you. Because they’ll want to know what I am. Or…” She chewed on her lip in a way that seemed Human. “Or because of what happened. What I did back there.”
“Let’s not find out. Baroch lives on Feyd when he’s not on Commonwealth business, so you’ll jump us there. I want him to get us in touch with one of their Shantirs.”
“The Delphian priests? Why?”
“They’re not even remotely priests although that’s the story. Officially. Not so official is that they can hack into my brain as easily as you can. Baroch can find us a Shantir without drawing attention.”
“And a Shantir will help us?”
“I think so. They don’t care about the Commonwealth at all. But they care about other species. And they’re a curious bunch. I have a feeling they’ve heard of your people by now. They’ve been poking around sub-space more than any of us have.”
She seemed unconvinced, still focused on the image on the screen. “I don’t know if I want one of them… umm, in here with us.”
“In my head, you mean?”
“Yeah.”
“It appears that I have a lot of empty space in here.” Seth relayed the information she had stolen from the Eagle from his data sleeve to the main screens before them. “We have some time before we get to that keyhole. Let’s see if we can get anything useful from what those officers had.”
“They didn’t know where those smugglers were going.”
“I don’t think they were going anywhere. I think those people were just collecting for someone else and Air Command walked in before they handed the goods over. Pirates, smugglers, even most rebel bands don’t have spanners that can use keyholes. That sort of navigator is just too rare. Anyone like that would have more interesting jobs than flying around places like Rishabel.” He let a long row of symbols and images scroll over the monitors. “Whoever is after your people owns some pretty powerful talent. And the attack back there was precisely executed. They didn’t even loot the bodies. That’s telling us something.”
They combed through the files, finding references to the trip to Rishabel, some discussion about Delphi, a message to someone’s friend on Targon. Seth happily tucked some unrelated morsels away for future reference but his main interest was in the incident with the people that had taken the sub-space entity.
“They don’t like Rishabel any more than you do,” Khoe said after a while. “What’s wrong with the place?”
“Kinda ugly, don’t you think?”
“I haven’t been anywhere else. There, I think I found a message from their colonel.” She transferred the file to the main screen. It had been a while since Seth had seen the officer but it was unmistakably Colonel Carras, the commander of Air Command’s Vanguard squadron.
“We read your report with interest, Captain Rephan,” the Centauri colonel said in his usual, slow drawl. “Good work. Go ahead and head over to Rishabel. The rebel we picked up is barely coherent but Targon wants it checked out, anyway. The objective will be a metal wheel, fairly heavy, trading hands out there. On a Fleetfoot tagged Haygen. Secure and return without delay to Targon for quarantine. Project is classified as Sius Red under General Dmitra. His people are tracking the other incursions.”
Seth paused the display. “Other incursions?” He glanced over to Khoe, who had decided to perch on the main console in front of him. “You shouldn’t sit on that.”
“You only think I’m sitting on it.” She slid off the board. “I didn’t want to frighten you again.”
“I was startled back there,” he amended. “That’s not the same thing. Any idea what he meant by ‘other incursions’?”
“None.” She tapped the screen where the colonel’s image was frozen into a still frame. “It’s not an incursion. We didn’t mean to come here.”
“You did.”
“We are expanding the operation,” Colonel Carras continued when Seth resumed the message. “Your priority will be to secure the mechanism being used to harvest the pathogen. Vanguard Seven’s heading for Delphi to make some inquiries there. Good luck with retrieving the storage unit. I’ll be tied up with the Shaddallam event for a while yet. Carras out.”
“Harvest.” Khoe grimaced. “That sounds evil.”
“Pathogen,” Seth pondered. “Doesn’t sound like he thinks your people are sentient. It also sounds like they think you might be dangerous to our species. If someone’s collecting your kind Air Command is going to pay very close attention. And they’d want to know how it’s done.”
“So do I,” she said. “If we can find out how it’s done, we can maybe find a way to avoid it. Your Air Command people are going to try that ‘harvest’ for themselves, aren’t they? Your people are a curious species. Collectively speaking.” She considered this for a moment. “Would they, though, if they knew that we’re not some pathogen? That we’re sentient?”
Seth nodded slowly. “The Commonwealth grows by including other worlds peacefully. Mostly for profit. But not if they think you’re dangerous. Doesn’t sound like Air Command thinks you’re harmless. And today we’ve given them another reason.” He looked over the screen showing the message packet code. “What he said about consulting Delphi is interesting. Guess I’m right about checking this out with Baroch. I’m a bit surprised that this message wasn’t sent more securely.”
“It was,” she said. “Took me a while to get through the encryption. The tab on it was coded with a symbol like a hand.”
He raised his eyebrows. “A hand? Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
He whistled appreciatively. “You’ve got talent, lady. You might want to encrypt it again. Do you still have the code?”
She tapped her forehead. “What goes in there stays in there.” She pointed at his head. “Actually, in there.”
“I’m going to start charging you rent, I think. Speaking of which…” he peered at one of the maintenance monitors on the console. “We might want to pick up more thorium. You’re an expensive house guest.”
“Pardon? I wasn’t listening, being so busy decoding your secret messages.”
“Your secret messages, darling. If not for you, I’d be on my way to Aram for a payday.”
Chapter Three
The creature, dark and insectile, had barely moved during the endless hours since the last jump. After their ship emerged from sub-space, the pain in Liron Deve’s head felt like someone was pulling his brain out of his eye sockets. He’d passed out; the only way his commander would let him get away with remaining in his bunk while the others went to meet their contacts over Rishabel. The headache stopped soon enough and then the madness began.
The thing crouching in the middle of the cabin shifted now and again, sometimes spoke in languages Deve barely recognized, and mostly ignored Deve unless Deve tried to leave. Or speak. Or call for help. At those times it lashed out with something that caused such intense pain that he soon learned to cower on his bunk and keep his mouth shut. Where were the others? It had been hours since they left to deliver the disks.
The thing was some sort of alien, that much was clear. Deve had never bothered to learn much about the non-Prime species of Trans-Targon but when he tried to capture an image of it to feed into his data sleeve, he’d gotten some more of that pain.
Something was going on with the unit on his wrist. The com was busy, and the indicators on the flexible screen showed constant activity. He wondered if some sort of systems diagnostic was being run aboard the ship while docked on the orbiter.
He flinched when the creature moved across the floor. Its primitive extremities reshaped into something vaguely mammalian, grew in size, changed in color, and sprouted dense, horse-like hair, patterned in blond and brown whorls like those of a Caspia
n.
Deve, himself Human like most of this crew, stared in mute incomprehension as its hands grew an extra thumb and then fierce claws appeared on the oversized feet. Like those of all Caspians, its reproductive organs were internal but the shape of its elongated head along with powerful shoulders identified it as a male.
The yellow eyes turned to Deve. After a long silence, the alien shifted again to thicken his waist, a weak point of the Caspian body, and changed his rich caramel color to dark grey with black patterns over his back and thighs. For some bizarrely whimsical reason he reshaped his head to look almost Human. “That’ll do, I think,” he said finally in a voice that sounded as if it came from the next room.
Deve cringed back against the wall by his bunk and drew his booted feet onto it in some attempt to make himself as small as possible. Expecting another surge of pain for his impertinence, he said, “What… who are you? What do you want?”
The alien seemed to consider the question. “Looking for someone,” he said finally. “You’re going to help me.”
“What? Not likely! You’d better get off this ship before the boss gets back here. He won’t tolerate stowaways aboard.”
“There is not much he can do about that,” the alien said. He turned slowly in front of Deve. “Only you can see me. That’s a pity, don’t you think? Should I add a tail?”
“Tail? What…” Deve frowned, overwhelmed by all of this.
“I’ll take a Caspian name. Call me Lep Ako.” The alien sat down on Deve’s bed, companionably close. Deve tried to shrink back and found himself out of room. “Grow a spine, pirate,” Lep Ako said, using words and an accent that had never crossed a Caspian’s lips. “I’ve just spent a very long time trying to figure this place out and you people are so irrational that it’s making my brain hurt. Your brain.” He pointed to Deve’s data sleeve. “Nothing useful on that, but I got to the ship’s data bank. And from there I grabbed anything I wanted on this orbiter. It’s been enlightening. We better leave.”
Deve blinked. “Huh?”