Under Nameless Stars

by Christian Schoon

“Jules? What is that?”

  “I am looking at it. I have no words…” They both went to stand next to the Captain.

  “Captain, do you know where we are?” Zenn asked.

  “If these readings are correct… we’re somewhere in the galaxy’s Scutum Arm.” He waited for a moment, as if trying to comprehend the meaning of what he’d just said.

  “The Scutum Arm,” Jules said, leaning in closer to the Captain and his screens. “That place is many thousands of light years beyond our home place, is it not?”

  “Yes, it is. The instruments are behaving strangely,” the Captain said, fine-tuning one of the screens. “But it looks like we actually tunneled past the Carina-Sagittarius Arm and re-emerged in the Scutum. Phenomenal.”

  “Captain,” Zenn pointed to the view port, “What is that out there?”

  He glanced up at the object she and Jules had seen, then looked down again. “I’m still collecting data,” he said, then made an abrupt gesture to call up a new screen. Zenn sensed that whatever the huge object outside was, the Captain was in no mood to discuss it.

  “What about the passengers?” Zenn asked.

  “The Indra’s violent tunneling action. Could it have vaporized them?” asked Jules.

  “Jules,” Zenn scolded. “What a thing to say. Of course it didn’t.” But Jules’s words were alarming enough to bring a terrible realization to her.

  “Katie.” She’d forgotten all about her. “Captain,” she said, starting for the door. “I have to get back to my cabin… Jules’s cabin. I left Katie there, my rikkaset. She’ll be terrified.”

  “Novice, stay here,” the Captain said sternly, not looking away from his screens.

  “I have to go,” she pleaded. “She’s deaf. She’s all alone. I told her… I told her she couldn’t come with me and that I’d be right back. She won’t know what’s happening.”

  “Novice Scarlett,” the Captain said. “Ship sensors show the only life forms from upper decks to steerage are right here on the bridge.”

  “Steerage,” she cried out. “Liam.” She’d forgotten about him as well. “I know someone, he was down in steerage.”

  “Novice, even if your friend, or your pet, was still aboard, I would still insist we all remain here, in one place. Until I ascertain our situation, no one goes anywhere.”

  She did understand. It didn’t make her feel any less frantic.

  “But, Captain Oolo,” Jules asked, “what about that Indra’s radiation that it sprays about? Could it have harmed the passengers?”

  “I can’t be sure, but it appears Treth got the damping field up. Almost seventy-five percent. That should have screened most of the passenger decks when we reached threshold. But that only tells us what didn’t happen. Not what did.” The Captain waved up a new screen. “The lifeboats are still in their bays. No one got off the ship that way. But the ship’s internal status devices went offline as we dropped out of tunnel. They were shorted out by… Wait. Wait wait wait! What’s this…?” He enlarged one of the screens and made it float up closer to his face. He moved his head in a small circular motion, blinking at the screen, reading the data as it scrolled by at a rapid-fire rate.

  “We need to find Groom Treth. And her sacrist,” he said abruptly. But the next moment, the door at the far end of the bridge slid open.

  Treth entered the room, followed by Fane. The Groom no longer wore the cumbersome interface suit but was clad in a close-fitting body sheath of black metal thread material. Her solidly muscled arms were bare from the shoulder down, displaying her intricately interwoven anitats. The animated tattoos swirled sinuously up and down her arms, the abstract flamelike designs brightening and fading, contracting and expanding. Fane seemed to be cradling his midsection with one hand, his body bent forward slightly. Zenn thought at first he might be hurt, but other than his posture, he seemed fine.

  “It is certain,” the Groom said then, struggling to keep her voice level. “She was taken. My stonehorse was ripped from the chamber. I will find who did this. They will pay.”

  “Treth, there’s something else going on here.” The Captain took one last look at the virt-screens, then waved them away. “We need to get off this ship. Now.”

  FIFTEEN

  “We are to abandon ship?” Jules said, looking from the Captain to Zenn. “But this is thrilling and exciting.”

  “Captain,” Zenn said, “do we have to?” Frightful images swam in her head. Katie, alone, lost. And Liam… “What if somebody’s still aboard, and we leave them behind?”

  “I’m sorry. No time for discussion,” the Captain said, waving the virt-screens away. “I’ll explain as we go. Wait one second.”

  The Captain trotted to a small room just off the bridge. He went to a safe in the corner, identified himself and told the safe to open. From within, he swept a small pile of mem-crystal shards into his palm and stuffed them into one of his vest pockets. Then, to Zenn’s surprise, he reached into the back of the safe and withdrew a small particle-beam pistol. He slapped it against his side, and it adhered to his uniform vest. He then hurried them all out into the corridor.

  “But, Captain Oolo,” Jules said, “where are we to go?”

  “Lifeboats,” he said. “This way.”

  The next minutes were a chaotic blur of hurrying down passageways and crowding into lev-tubes. They were halfway to the lifeboat deck when Zenn spoke up.

  “Captain,” she said. “Jules’s cabin. It’s on the next deck down.” This would be her last chance. Maybe Katie’s last chance.

  “As I already said. Your pet is not there.”

  “No. My vet field kit,” she lied. “It will only take a second to stop and get it.”

  “Really,” he told her. “We don’t have time.”

  “It would contain medical supplies, would it not?” These were the first words Fane had spoken since they left the bridge. “These could be of use.” She suppressed an impulse to kiss him.

  The Captain considered for a few seconds. “Very well. Make it quick.”

  When they stopped, Zenn exited, with Jules behind her. They rushed to his cabin.

  “Katie,” she called when they’d entered. Katie couldn’t have heard her, of course, even if she’d been there. But that didn’t matter.

  They searched, but the rooms offered few hiding places. There was no rikkaset.

  “Zenn Scarlett, your Katie is not here.”

  “We can’t give up.”

  “We must go. I am sorry. They await our return.”

  Zenn looked at him, then looked around the room one last time, willing Katie to appear. Finally, she grabbed up her kit backpack and went to the door.

  “Katie…” she said softly into the empty room. Numb, she followed Jules out into the passage.

  As the lev-car started up again, Zenn held the battered backpack close to her. It smelled of worn leather, and animals, and Mars. That’s where she should have left Katie. Back on Mars. She shouldn’t have let her come. Tears threatened. This was all her fault. The thought made her too angry and ashamed to cry.

  They continued their hectic progress downward through lev-tubes and empty corridors, and as they went the Captain detailed what little he had been able to glean from the ship’s log. As soon as the Helen exited the quantum tunnel, the ship had been scanned – he didn’t know by who or what. All of the passengers, crew and any biologically viable organisms had been identified and, it appeared, rapidly removed from the ship. Again, he had no idea who or what was responsible. More urgently, the Captain’s last read of the sensors showed a fleet of small craft approaching from the direction of the huge structure Zenn and Jules had seen nearby.

  “Could these ships be coming to rescue us?” Jules asked, quite sensibly, Zenn thought.

  “Those aren’t rescue ships,” the Captain said. “They appear to be unmanned salvage drones. I assume they mean to strip the ship.”

  “What of our stonehorse?” Fane said. “Where is she?”

  “I
can’t say,” the Captain said. “I couldn’t risk a long-range probe of… whatever that structure is out there. They might be watching for signals from the Helen.”

  They’d just left the lev-car and entered another corridor when they heard something in the semi-darkness ahead. It was faint at first, but quickly grew louder – a sound of banging, and ripping metal. Then, a stark white spot of light flashed onto the wall of the intersecting passage ahead. The circle of light vanished, then reappeared, brighter, the clanging noise louder.

  “Treth, what is that?” the Captain said, keeping his voice low. The Groom sprinted ahead, looked around the corner, quickly jerked her body back.

  “Drone! In the passage, coming this way.”

  “We can’t let it see us,” the Captain said. “This way.” And he started back in the direction they’d just come, stopping a short distance down the passage and craning his neck at the ceiling.

  “Can you reach that panel, Treth?”

  The ceiling wasn’t high there, and the Groom easily reached the small lever on the panel and popped the access door open.

  “Everyone in.” He raised his head up on his long neck to look back down the passage. The approaching light spilled across the far wall, the banging noises growing ever louder. The drone was almost to the corner.

  Treth jumped up, grabbed the edge of the opening and hoisted herself through the hole. Then she leaned back down and helped pull Zenn up, followed by Jules, who had some trouble but with Zenn’s help managed to squeeze his walksuit through the opening. They were inside a low service tunnel filled with tubes and piping, with not quite enough room to stand.

  The Captain pulled himself up next. Zenn was about to move away from the opening when she looked back down to see Fane trying, and failing, to jump up and grab onto the edge of the hole. He still held his stomach with one hand and so had only one hand free to try and grab with. But he looked weighed down somehow and unable to overcome whatever it was that held him back.

  “Novice, I cannot.”

  Zenn could see the spotlight of the drone playing on the wall just behind him.

  “Fane… hurry.”

  “Here,” Fane said, and he reached under his tunic and brought out a small pile of odd-shaped articles. “Catch,” he said, throwing something up into the open hatch. She bobbled the thing but caught it. It was a piece of stone. He held several more in his hands.

  “There’s no time,” she called down at him.

  “Get back,” he said, and she ducked back a step. With a great effort, he heaved the rest of the stones up all at once to land clattering inside the lip of the opening. Then, a moment later, he was up and through the hatch. He pulled it shut behind him and they both held very still as the clanging sound of the drone approached, blundered by beneath them and receded down the passage.

  Fane gathered the stones off the floor and took the one Zenn had caught.

  “Thank you for your assistance,” he said. Then he gestured at her to go ahead of him, and she jogged on, crouched over, to catch up with the others.

  They continued to move ahead, and as they rounded a corner, Zenn realized Fane was no longer behind her. She stopped, but after a short pause, he appeared again.

  “What were you doing back there?” She was starting to feel that she had to keep looking over her shoulder to make sure he was keeping up.

  “Nothing to concern you. Go on, I’m coming.”

  After making their way through the tunnel for several minutes, they reached a metal ladder and descended one level. The Captain located another access panel, and they exited out into the corridor. As they hurried along, Zenn found herself trotting next to the boy.

  “You know those rocks almost got us caught back there.”

  “Rocks? These are the Shuryn Dohlm,” he said, giving her an incredulous look. “I could not leave the altar in the pilot room. It could have been found. And defiled.”

  Zenn resisted pointing out that maybe losing a few stones was preferable to being taken prisoner by whatever had been banging its way down the corridor.

  “So, I guess you got your promotion,” she said instead. “To sacrist.”

  “Yes. I wear the gold now.” He indicated the rough cloth of his tunic. “That is the mark of a full sacrist.”

  “Well, congratulations.”

  “It was never in doubt. I fulfilled all the requirements.” After a brief pause, he added, “Thank you.”

  They stopped, and up ahead Zenn saw Treth open another access panel. After they’d all clambered into the passageway, they went on to a narrow stairwell and started down.

  “You said a sacrist gets his choice of starships,” Zenn said as they descended. “So you picked the Helen?”

  “Yes. She is one of the longest-serving stonehorse craft. And Groom Treth is famed among pilots. It was a natural choice to remain on board as full sacrist.” They left the stairwell and took the corridor to the right. They could still hear the salvage drone, but it sounded far away now.

  “And what of you?” Fane asked her. “I will confess my surprise at seeing you in the chambers. How did that come about?”

  “I… stowed away,” she said, not sure what he would think of that. “But I had to. My father’s in trouble. I’m trying to find him.”

  “You stowed away. On a starship? You?” His tone implied this was even more shocking than seeing her in the Indra chambers.

  “Yes. Me,” she said.

  “I simply mean that is no simple task, stealing passage,” he said. “How did you do it?”

  “I hid in the cage-crate of a sandhog, back at the launch port in Pavonis,” she said. She looked back to see him raise an eyebrow at this. “No one checked. And it got loaded aboard. It wasn’t that hard, really.”

  “Oh? Not that hard?” he said. “Heh…” But his laughter wasn’t mocking as it was when the yote had unloaded its stomach’s contents on her during his visit to the cloister. She saw him smiling broadly at her with his crooked grin. She smiled back.

  “Yeah, heh,” she laughed, mimicking him, and then they both laughed together.

  “Why would you think to do such a thing – to stow away? And your father – he is missing?”

  “It’s a long story,” Zenn said, starting to have some difficulty talking and keeping up with the others at the same time.

  “I look forward to its telling,” the boy said, adding, “A sandhog crate. Well.”

  The Captain called back at them to keep up, and they hurried on, not talking.

  A few minutes later, they arrived, breathless, at the lifeboat bay, a broad, low-ceilinged room with a double row of dozens of small, oblong-shaped, bright orange craft lined up facing the bulkheads on either side. Stepping up to one of the lifeboats resting on its ejection-tracks, the Captain commanded the vessel to open its hatch and prepare for emergency launch.

  “Captain Oolo, are you sure?” Zenn had to try one last time. “Sure no one else is on board? I mean, why were we the only ones left behind?”

  “I have wondered something similar,” Jules said. “Why is it we weren’t scanned as you said and taken with the others?”

  “I assume it was the safe-room shielding. And yes, I’m sure no one else is aboard,” the Captain said. He motioned to Zenn to go ahead. Resigned, she climbed in through the side hatch as the lifeboat’s lighting and support systems blinked and clicked to life.

  “The safe room’s radiation shielding would have blocked any probing field,” Treth said as she and Fane followed Zenn into the lifeboat. “And my scrim field would have shielded me.”

  “Whoever took the Helen will certainly notice the ship’s captain and groom are missing. They’ll come looking for us. We need to get off the ship and find out what happened to the passengers and my crew. Until we learn more, we simply can’t afford to assume the circumstances are benign.” The Captain flipped switches and spoke to the lifeboat’s computer. Zenn could hear the hatch closing behind them. Then there was a slight bump as the cr
aft moved onto the rail that would guide it out of the ship.

  “Secure for launch. Hold on, everyone. In three, two…” The deployment mechanism seized the lifeboat and, with a single massive lurch, propelled it ahead at bone-rattling speed. Then the acceleration dropped, and Zenn drifted up, weightless against the restraining belts as the lifeboat exited the Helen. The craft now began to tumble slowly, rolling end over end as it moved away from the starliner. Her stomach didn’t approve.

  She leaned out into the aisle to see around Jules. Too large for the seats, he had secured himself to the craft’s bulkhead by holding onto a length of cargo netting attached to one wall. She was just able to glimpse the small view screen at the forward end of the cabin. It showed the colossal, shadowy structure directly ahead of them. The huge form filled more and more of the screen as they approached. Smaller details on the hulking shape began to emerge as the lifeboat coasted ahead. She could also make out other shapes floating in space around them – other lifeboats. They were tumbling as well. Finally, it was Jules who spoke up.

  “We seem to be rolling about in an uncontrolled manner, Captain Oolo. Is there no steering engine aboard this craft?”

  “Engaging thrusters would attract attention,” the Captain said. “I had all the other lifeboats launched automatically when we left the Helen. With luck, it will look like a malfunction and we’ll just be one boat among dozens.”

  Whatever the thing was that they were approaching, Zenn thought, it was bigger than anything ever built by humans – or by any Asent species humans had so far encountered. As they drew nearer the looming shape, she saw something on the outer surface nearest them, something that simply didn’t belong.

  It can’t be. I’m not seeing this.

  There was no mistake. Zenn could see script on the hull of the thing they were approaching. It read: LSAS Nova Procyon. Zenn remembered the name from news reports. It was a Procyoni military ship of some sort. About a year ago it had vanished in the Outer Reaches without a trace.

  “Captain,” Zenn said. “Is that… one of the Indra ships?”

  “Yes. The Nova,” Treth said. “She disappeared on a recon mission fifteen months ago. At the edge of the Enchara void. Her groom and I trained together.”