Star Matters

by David John West

  Keeran and Amily arrived at the Akhbar. It was low rise, five storeys high but impressively long, occupying the whole city block. The street front was occupied by expensive-looking shops and bars selling food and drink from several different cultures around the empire. The cabaret club was to the side of the main atrium and Amily headed in after being greeted affectionately by the doormen, who looked too spindly to be effective security. Keeran glanced at them dismissively on his way to the hotel check-in desk and found it sparsely populated, presumably a quiet time of day to check in as there were long metres of desk space and several check-in staff unused in the deserted atrium.

  He transferred the necessary credit from his account for his room and collected his key. He followed the signs to his room and found himself walking along a wide corridor of red carpet, with dark wood walls and white plaster ceilings. There were very few people about and those he did see were furtive and did not meet his eye despite the long walks to approach and pass by and the lack of other walking guests. All of which suited Keeran just fine. He exited this first corridor turning right and immediately left and on it went with a second corridor as long and wide as the first. The pale lighting contributed to an air of shabby disrepair. It must have been three or four corridors later when he found his room. It was large and comfortable but unwelcoming with the same dark wood furniture teamed with white ceilings and dull red fabrics. He eyed the sleeping area with some distaste but could not resist the need for some rest after his long travels. He took a couple of hours’ sleep until he could meet up with Amily after her show in the club below.

  Sometime later he revived with a hot shower, dressed and headed back the way he had come, this time following signs for ‘The Spa’. This involved walking back down the many lonely corridors interspersed by stairs down so that he fetched up several floors below street level. He reached a marble arched entry and a simple sign confirming he had arrived at the spa itself. There was a short line of people at a desk where a uniformed Akhbar receptionist checked names against a rooming list before passing through to a natural cavern of brown, amber and yellow rock formations lit by irregular torches, so different to the uniform hotel corridors leading to the spa. Roughly hewn steps illuminated by flaming torches in the rock led steeply downwards starting as a loose spiral clinging to the sides of the shaft before widening out where the steps lost their uniformity and spread out to cling to the primitively crafted walls. More stairs down and the rock walls became rounder and expanded suddenly into a massive space of pools, stalactites and naturally deposited columns. The cavernous space was littered with complex stone formations like mildly melted clotted ice cream illuminated by myriad onyx wax candles. Customers had disported themselves among the many and varied naturally hot pools though many more pools were still available. Some pools were large and in the open with groups of spa-goers drinking and relaxing in whatever fashion took their fancy. Others were small enclosures with two or three individuals speaking quietly and furtively among themselves, their hushed voices muted further by the acoustics of the soft stone and the buzz of noise from the groups in the larger pools.

  Keeran chose a secluded pool not so far from the other guests so as to be suspicious, but screened enough to disguise their conversation. Amily arrived shortly after and stripped to her underwear before stepping in to the hot mineral water. Keeran started out by congratulating her on the impressive way she had configured this, her latest body, and that it was notably attractive. In truth, Amily’s athletic psyche would always produce an athletically honed physique each time she passed through and developed in harmony with her new body. Gayan souls and their training were most effective at firing their physical bodies to an advanced state of tone and fitness. Amily was displaying this ability to great effect with her current body, born naturally on Spargan.

  “Thank you for noticing – again, Keeran,” Amily acknowledged his observation. “Here on Spargan women are restrained in public, but that does not apply to cabaret stars like myself. Women are also not expected to participate directly in politics, which is interesting if only because Omeyn MuneMei is widely considered female and was thought to be a woman when she was alive before she merged her physical form with the first Mind. Women don’t get top jobs in business or government but they still play a great part in advising and scheming to get their husbands and male colleagues into advantageous positions of power. A singer like myself attracts a lot of attention from Spargar men of power who keep their own women at home in the suburbs. I indulge them and enjoy their company and they talk loosely in the atmosphere of the spa and the cabaret here at the Akhbar. The clients want you and like to be seen with you but they couldn’t possibly have a serious relationship with a night-club singer. I get introduced to many upper-level politicos here at the club and they suspect nothing from a mere entertainer, other than the hope of a more intimate liaison. This suits me too as I can entertain and listen without letting things get out of hand. The highest echelons of Spargar society affect a blurring of gender presumably to identify with Omeyn MuneMei’s own persona which is, of course, only virtual manifestations so long after her lifetime. The most senior people want intimate conversation, but withdraw from sexual contact as gender-neutrals. Perhaps it’s more accurately a disguise of gender to signify that they are above issues of mating and raising children. The highest levels focus their lives on blending with the collective image of Omeyn MuneMei and her Mind, which controls their universe but actually is just an enormous biological computer. They anticipate somehow that they will continue to serve Omeyn MuneMei in the upper echelons of their society beyond their deaths when they join their spent bodies with the Mind itself.”

  “And what is the status of Spargar thinking towards events on planet Earth and even the Gayan challenge to them there?” inquired Keeran.

  “It is one of the most critical planets outside their empire occupying their minds at present. Earth is poised to move either towards Dawn or Spargar as the internet there rolls out. Technology cycles on Earth are accelerating and it will soon be time for Spargar to step in and claim the planet for the empire. This is a matter of a few years rather than decades away, as Spargar see it, so the war for hearts and minds will play out very soon. It’s all about whether Spargar or Dawn of Gaya attract the different political and religious groups on Earth that seek supremacy for themselves. The fact that Spargar consider Earth to be in their local galactic neighbourhood puts it in the galactic zone dominated by their empire. They want to own all the worlds in their home territory. This would give Spargar culture the ideally uniform power base from which they can launch their crusades in all directions. From that point of view they have the advantage; Gaya is three times further away from Earth with a much more diverse society than Spargan so we are much slower getting the enlightenment message across.”

  “That may be true,” admitted Keeran, “but we have been working planet Earth for many more years and our ideology is well established, not to mention much more beneficial when the peoples there compare us to Spargar. It will be difficult for Spargar to overturn us after all the time we have been developing enlightenment on Earth.”

  “The Spargar way is to wait until computer technology becomes established in a developing culture,” Amily replied. “They consider incursions in prior ages to be largely a waste of time compared to making a big push when people are on the brink of being ruled by computer technology. So now they are investing much time and many resources to win the ideological battle.”

  “I know that to be true. There is increasing Zarnha activity right across Earth especially in military and government centres. I am here directly as a result of coming across Zarnha operatives working in computing companies to push early Spargar control of global computer networks on Earth. There is little real fear among the people there that technology will ultimately control the peoples of Earth except in popular fiction and drama. Zarnha competition agents on Earth were the ones who told me about
the plot to kidnap Kyra. That in itself is a big risk for them to take so it shows they are confident and also trying to eliminate threats from us as urgently as they can.”

  “Well, all this means that they think they are controlling the game just now,” observed Amily drily. “They knew who you were and how you would react and they have, temporarily at least, taken you out from activities on Earth. They must be expecting you to arrive here at the very least. More likely you would be coming here to Spargan than returning to Earth until you have tracked down Kyra. So the best place they could keep her is in the middle of The Spyre across the river.”

  “That much is true but they can’t know where I am exactly or when I am coming. I arrived by Cavallo craft and there are only the three of us here and two of those are hidden onboard Maria in the river bed.”

  “Plus me and my group here, of course,” added Amily cheerfully. “I can get us in to the Ministry for Alien Affairs across the river in North of Traganz. They are possibly holding Kyra there but she will be well guarded especially if it’s just a plot to attract you in to free her. If we are unlucky then she will be held further into the middle of The Spyre and that would be very difficult to get to.”

  “If you can get me in the building then I can find her from there and get her out, either way!”6 Amily knew he was referring to Cavallos dark humour of escape either the physical way, by the Cavallo craft holed up in the bed of the river, or the spirit route if that failed and they both perished in the attempt.

  “I can get you in, I am sure, but will need to come with you,” Amily said.

  Keeran interjected, “I am not having your cover blown. This is my idea and I don’t want to risk taking you and all your work down with me. Once you get me in there, I am on my own and that’s it!”

  Amily looked at Keeran sternly through steady, lowered eyes that brooked no argument. “There is only one way this is happening, Keeran, and that is with me running things! You are in my territory now. You would have no chance of getting in without my contacts. Best if you get a good night’s rest and change your appearance as best you can and wait for my call in the morning. Darken your hair and eyes at the very least. You will attract attention from everybody there with blonde hair and blue eyes looking like that!” A small group of guests had approached as she was speaking and she had stretched across him to whisper the last part close to his ear. The group stared and cast surreptitious envious glances and verbal aspersions at the lithe form of Amily clad only in wet underwear angled across the reclining figure of the young off-worlder, and then moved on.

  “You see just how conspicuous you are,” she hissed into his ear. Keeran could not help but notice Amily’s skimpily clad wet body against him. He maintained his aloofness, rationalising that this was just a diversion until the Spargar group had stopped staring and moved along.

  “All right, all right, you are right as usual,” he said. “You are being sensible, of course. But I want you to get out of there and protect yourself and your group as top priority if things get bad, I couldn’t stand taking you down with me – this is all completely unofficial for now.”

  They remained for an hour or so to catch up on news of each other’s current lives and the progress of other colleagues that the other was unaware of. This small talk was at least more akin to the normal chatter of hotel guests when they visited the famous Akhbar spa. Eventually they climbed out of the warm pool, towelled dry and headed off, Keeran to his hotel room and Amily to her apartment to make plans for the next morning.

  The Ghola had been observing the quiet pool containing Keeran and Amily from across the spa, listening in but out of direct sight as he was unsure of the Gayans’ ability to detect him with their heightened spirituality. He had noticed them turn to look in his direction at times in the past and that filled him with fear that he could be detected. If he were not a spy for Omeyn MuneMei then he was absolutely nothing. He needed this acknowledgement of some worth to the Omeyn. He drifted after Keeran and Amily at a very discreet distance when they left back up the stairs to the hotel. The Ghola needed to report back to the network, which required it to interface to a Ghola port in the network surrounding Omeyn MuneMei’s ‘Mind’.

  The Spargar mortals that surrounded the Ghola were unaware of him crossing the broad river with them on one of the many ferries that plied across at all times of day and night. On the shore North of Traganz, the immense interconnected buildings of The Spyre rose a thousand storeys above Braganza, each seeming in competition with the next to be the most vertiginous. The newest buildings sported architectural follies after the fashion to titillate vertigo in the people of Spargar: lofty bridges and turrets suspended thousands of feet up, some with no visible walls, elevators that hurtled up and down, seemingly without doors. It was a thrill-seekers paradise; an acrophobic’s nightmare. Several narrow streams of spacecraft arced in and out of docks into The Spyre; these were so busy they appeared as a wall of shimmering metal from a distance, gently moving along proscribed narrow paths to deliver their loads and return to space.

  The Ghola needed no physical pass. It entered Spargar Headquarters through closed doors and rode one of the automated elevators to its own floor mildly observing the Traganz disappearing into the light haze far below as it climbed high into the sky. Stepping off the shooting lift, the shade picked one of the Ghola input stations and pushed its head in to report. It resembled an illuminated oval mirror standing vertically, the network manifesting itself as the face of Omeyn MuneMei so the Mind could interrogate the Ghola and suck the information from its vassal. The network connected the new data with its own database and spun off scenarios as to the most likely series of events that would arise from the Gayan suspects across the river. It connected to reports from Earth and collated it with the Ghola report. Once it had exhausted the information, it sent the Ghola back to South of Traganz to track Amily once more. Meanwhile, the network fired off a series of security warnings to Spargar personnel that may be involved in future activities of the Gayan couple.

  The following day dawned blustery with blue, grey and salmon watercolour washed skies. Very high mackerel-pattern clouds grazed the high skies at a speed that seemed sedate viewed from the ground so far below. Clouds on Spargan flew high and thin such that they smeared in freezing layers. Sunlight diffracted through the ice crystal layer to produce sheet rainbows of swirling rainbow colours like oil in a puddle. Amily and Keeran met for breakfast in a small cafe next to one of the ferry stations under these smeared skies. The north bank was far enough away that the high spike buildings lining it were blued out and their height was unreal with distance. Even taller pointed buildings of the central Spyre were behind those on the riverbank. They were all interconnected with bridges and flying buttresses. The bronzed and silvered metals and glazes of the buildings diffracted light like tempered glass through polarised lenses, giving a light colour spectrum wash effect that further blurred one tower into the next. Keeran reflected, mildly grudgingly, that Braganza was an impressive-looking city, albeit in a technological way, rearing up to pierce the spectacular skies. It lacked the organic warmth and natural colour of Corinth City though.

  Amily pointed out the building housing the ministry they were heading for, dead across the choppy waters of the Traganz. It had three slender main towers joined close to the base by a wide bridge. The central spike was the tallest. Buttresses rose in clusters from the base to the bridge and beyond to reach up to the upper tiers where they attached to the main towers, all containing offices, living spaces and the facilities of a small town in a single edifice.

  “Spargar people do like their buildings to have built-in architectural thrills,” remarked Amily over a coffee-tasting beverage that Keeran considered appealing after just a few sips. “The Spyre district has grown into a concentrated zone of very many of the tallest edifices surrounding Omeyn MuneMei’s central tower. I do hope you are recovering from your fear of heights, Keeran. In
this wind those buildings will all be swaying about and everyone there will pretend to be enjoying it.”

  Keeran swallowed hard on his mock coffee. In truth he had previously thought he was getting over his anxieties that he had thought had overstayed their welcome from his latest childhood jejeune7 phase. Recently though his phobias had been coming back and were now if anything worse than before. He knew these feelings disappeared when he was in action and he liked to think they actually helped sometimes to give him an edge in threatening situations.

  “No need to worry on my behalf,” gruffed Keeran. “All I am concerned with is getting to where they are holding Kyra and breaking her out. I can’t stand her being taken from our home and held like a common abductee with all the rest.”

  The streams of aircraft inbound and outbound to The Spyre were contained in narrow navigational chimneys arcing from the buildings carrying Zarnha personnel transits from subject worlds and across Spargan. Zharna craft regularly abducted millions of individuals from subject worlds and recent planets of interest. Planet Earth’s current high profile and proximity to Spargan marked it out for special attention, with Omeyn MuneMei demanding tens of thousands of human individuals be brought to The Spyre each year from Earth so that their biology could be studied and their DNA could be processed into the Mind. The computer itself used a version of highly intertwined DNA for memory and human biological nerves for interconnections to provide the most powerful, most dense computer system known in the galaxy. The Mind was a biological computer that functioned like an enormous brain based on the real life brain of the original Omeyn MuneMei. It could process data with far greater speed and density than any silicon-based computer system. It was also completely compatible with natural human brain activity, made of the same building blocks so that when it was time to process human individuals into the Spargar network then this could easily be achieved and the deceased physical body disposed of. Keeran had always been staggered that so many thousands of individuals from Earth could disappear each year with seemingly little attention let alone coordinated response from the governing authorities. Thousands of people a year were abducted in the USA alone and almost all of the abductions were concentrated in supposedly advanced countries, taken from high-profile cities and military bases.