The Sp’ossel ship had stopped moving toward us and was settling in for a landing.
“The Raina Huebner?” asked Felzich.
“That’s the ship you were on,” I said. “Or rather, that your body was on.”
“Hang on,” Felzich said. “You two hijacked the cargo ship that was carrying my body?”
“That’s right,” I said.
“And how did that come about exactly?”
The Sp’ossel ship landed.
I shrugged. “It was Rex’s idea. He got the crew drunk and we absconded with the ship. Then it was boarded by pirates and we escaped by voiding the cargo hold. In fact, it’s pure luck that any of us survived. If Boggs hadn’t grabbed you with that crane, you’d still be floating in deep space.”
“I see,” said Felzich, rubbing his chin. “And your theory is that the Sp’ossels orchestrated this hijacking?”
“Now that I think about it,” I said, “I can’t see how they’d have known exactly how it was going down. The only certain factor when dealing with Rex is the unmitigated chaos that follows in his wake.”
Rex scowled at me.
The Sp’ossel ship’s ramp descended and three well-dressed men began walking down it.
“That’s what I’m concerned about,” Felzich said. “It sounds like the Sp’ossels pointed you at the Raina Huebner and let you go. It’s almost as if…”
“They weren’t trying to extract him,” Rex said, suddenly looking very worried. “Uh-oh.”
“What?” Pepper asked. “What are you talking about?”
“The Sp’ossels don’t care about Felzich,” Rex said. “They were just trying to keep him from falling into the hands of the Malarchy.”
“Then why’d they agree to pay for him?”
Now only about ten paces away, the three men stopped. The man with the briefcase lifted it up and held it flat on his palms. The man on his left flipped the latches.
“To get me here,” Felzich said. “To kill me.”
“It’s a trap!” Rex yelled. “Run!”
We ran.
Lazegun blasts struck the Flagrante Delicto as we ran aboard. Glancing back, I saw that the empty briefcase was on the ground; all three men were firing lazepistols at us. So much for Felzich’s ransom.
“Get us off this damned planet, Sasha!” Rex ordered.
“Aye, sir,” I said, getting in the cockpit. I warmed up the ship and we blasted off. Down below, I saw the three Sp’ossels running back to their ship. This was not good news. Having decided their handguns were no match for the Flagrante Delicto’s hull, they were going to try to shoot us down with their ship’s cannons.
“Why are they trying to kill us?” Pepper cried.
“They’re trying to kill Felzich,” Rex said. “They don’t care about you one way or another.”
“And you?” Pepper asked.
“They’d prefer to take me and Sasha alive, but I’d bet they want Felzich dead more than they want us alive.”
Rex’s words were punctuated by lazecannon blasts that shook the Flagrante Delicto.
“Rationalize a course out of here, Sasha!” Rex yelled.
“It takes time, sir,” I said. “And I can’t even start plotting until we’re clear of the atmosphere.”
“We’re dead,” said Pepper. “A few more blasts like that and this piece of junk will rattle to pieces.”
Another blast rocked the ship.
“Evasive maneuvers, Sasha!” Rex yelled.
“Brilliant plan, sir,” I said. I continued to try to evade the Sp’ossel ship’s lazecannons, to little effect.
“Hail them,” Ort Felzich said.
“What for?” Pepper asked.
Ort made his way to the cockpit and sat down next to me. “Hail the Sp’ossel ship, Sasha.”
Rex didn’t countermand the order, so I opened a communication channel to the ship.
“Hello, crew of the Sp’ossel ship that is currently trying to shoot us down,” I said. “I have someone who wants to talk to you. Please stop firing if you don’t mind.”
A long pause followed.
“This is Captain Grimbald of the Space Apostle vessel Speed Pony,” said a voice over the comm. “Go ahead.”
Felzich leaned forward to speak into the comm. “This is Ort Felzich. I have the coordinates of Planet Z. If you fire at us again, I’m going to broadcast them on standard hailing frequencies, along with a request to forward the message to the nearest Malarchian authorities. Do you understand me?”
A long pause followed, during which the Sp’ossel ship did not fire again. Finally the voice from the ship spoke again.
“You don’t want to do that, Mr. Felzich. Let’s talk this over. The Sp’ossel High Council is willing to pay a lot of money to keep that information secure.”
“You should have thought about that before you tried to kill me,” Felzich said. “I have no desire to interfere with your plans, but if you fire again, the Malarchy will undoubtedly do it for me.”
“Are you willing to give us a guarantee that if we let you go, you won’t release that information?”
“The only guarantee I’m going to give you is that if you shoot at this ship again, the location of Planet Z is going to be known across the galaxy? Understood?”
There was another long pause. “Understood, Mr. Felzich. You’ll stay out of Sp’ossel business if you know what’s good for you.”
The ship broke off pursuit, arcing away from us.
“I don’t trust them,” Rex said from behind me. “Get us away from this planet and rationalize a course back to the Cabrisi Asteroid Field.”
“Sir? Why would we want to go back there?”
“Felzich is going to take us to Planet Z.”
“I was just bluffing, Rex,” said Felzich. “There is no Planet Z.”
“If there was no Planet Z, the Sp’ossels wouldn’t care about you telling the Malarchy where it is, you big naughty liar. Felzich has been holding out on us, Sasha.”
Felzich sighed. “Technically I told you the truth. I never found any zontonium asteroids.”
“Right,” said Rex. “Because the planet is still intact, hidden among the asteroids.”
“Sir, are you saying…?”
“I was right, Sasha. There is a treasure planet. But it’s not full of buried treasure. It is treasure. Tell her, Felzich.”
“I’m afraid Rex is correct,” he said. “The Sp’ossels are building their mind control device on a planet made of pure zontonium.”
Chapter Twenty-two
It all made sense now. Eighty years ago, driven by a desire to make everyone in the galaxy happy, the Sp’ossels had devised a method of mind control that used psionic transmitters amplified by zontonium crystals. Ort Felzich had piloted his ship into the Cabrisi Asteroid Field in search of the massive amounts of zontonium the Sp’ossels would need to build a transmitter capable of broadcasting a happiness signal across the galaxy. What he had found was an entire planet made of zontonium. On his return trip out of the asteroid field, his ship was destroyed. His body was recovered not long after by the Ragulians, who covered up the fact that Felzich’s mind was missing so that they’d be in a better position to get a ransom for Felzich from the Sp’ossels. But negotiations went nowhere, and eventually the Sp’ossels managed to locate the zontonium planet on their own. Then the Sp’ossels found out that the Ragulians were releasing Felzich’s body to the Malarchy, and the Sp’ossel leadership, worried that Felzich might reveal the planet’s location to the Malarchy, sent Rex and me to hijack the Raina Huebner. When we showed up with Felzich, the Sp’ossels tried to kill him to protect their secret. Pretty basic interstellar conspiracy stuff, really.
“There’s just one thing I don’t understand,” I heard Pepper say behind me. The Flagrante Delicto was in orbit around Schufnaasik Six and I was in the cockpit rationalizing a course back to Sargasso Seven. The rest of the crew, along with Felzich, were in the main cabin.
“Yes?” Felzich
asked.
“What are the sirens?” Pepper asked. “Where did they come from?”
Felzich replied, “The so-called sirens were my doing. The expedition where my I lost my mind was not my first sojourn into the Cabrisi Asteroid Field. I had discovered the zontonium planet several years earlier and was in the process of surveying it to determine what would be required to convert the planet into a psionic transmitter. I didn’t trust anyone else with the planet’s coordinates. Not the Sp’ossel leadership, not even my own crew. To make sure no one else would ever find the planet, I built a smaller scale transmitter on the planet. The transmitter sent out a constant signal urging anyone within its range to fly into the nearest asteroid. The problem, of course, was that I was as susceptible to the signal as anyone else. I had my mind moved to an external storage device so that I could safely travel to the zontonium planet.”
“Great plan,” said Rex. “Except for your crewman’s WACS malfunctioning.”
“There was no malfunction,” Felzich replied. “The Sp’ossel leadership placed a spy in my crew. He took out his WACS to transmit the planet’s location to his handlers. But he succumbed to the sirens’ call before he had a chance.”
“The Sp’ossels found the planet anyway,” Pepper said.
“Evidently,” Felzich said. “If they were still looking for the planet, they wouldn’t have tried to kill me. Apparently the only reason they sent you to hijack the Raina Huebner was to keep me from getting to the Malarchian research station. They thought I might tell the Malarchy where Planet Z was and foil the Sp’ossels’ plans.”
“All of this raises an important question,” said Rex.
“Which is?” Pepper asked.
“Why aren’t I happy?”
“I’m not sure this is the time for such musings,” Pepper said.
“Stay with me,” said Rex. “We know the Sp’ossels have found the zontonium planet. And thanks to our visit to Vericulon Four, we know the Sp’ossels have successfully tested large-scale mind control. So why aren’t I happy? Why aren’t we all happy?”
“Setting up a planet-sized psionic transmitter is no small task,” Felzich said. “Depending on when they discovered the planet, the Sp’ossels might still be years away from a functioning transmitter.”
“There’s probably no immediate threat then,” said Rex. “Excellent. Sasha, have you rationalized our course yet?”
“Almost finished, sir. We’ll be back at Sargasso Seven shortly.”
“Sargasso Seven?” Rex said. “Forget that. We’re going back to the asteroid field.”
Not sure I heard him correctly, I got up from my seat and walked back to the cabin. “Sir?”
“Think of it, Sasha. A planet made of zontonium. We scoop up a cargo hold of that stuff and we’re set for life. We know how to get past the sirens, and our pal Ort has the coordinates to the planet.”
“But the Sp’ossels…” Pepper started.
“There’s no way the Sp’ossels can watch the whole planet,” Rex said. “We just have to sneak in, land, fill our hold with zontonium, and hightail it out of there. Easiest money we’ve ever made.”
Flying through an asteroid field to steal from crazed space cultists didn’t sound that easy to me, but maybe I was missing something.
“Won’t they be expecting that?” Pepper asked. “They know Felzich knows where the planet is.”
“As long as we don’t interfere with their plan of galactic domination, I don’t think the Sp’ossels will care one way or another.”
“He’s got a point,” Felzich admitted. “To the Sp’ossels, a shipload of zontonium would be a small price to pay for our silence. They won’t care about a little missing zontonium. It’s not enough to lessen the effectiveness of the transmitter.”
“Then maybe we should just ask them,” I suggested. “Offer not to tell anyone about the planet in exchange for a shipload of zontonium.”
“I don’t trust those shifty bastards,” Rex said. “Better to slip in and just take it.”
Felzich nodded.
“So we’re letting them get away with it,” Pepper said. “Their plan to control the minds of everyone in the galaxy.”
“What choice do we have?” Rex asked. “The Sp’ossels are a massive interstellar organization with billions of credits in funding. We might as well take on the Malarchy itself. No, we’re not going to stop the Sp’ossels. I’ll settle for skimming some profits off the top of their nutty scheme.”
“That nutty scheme affects us too,” I said. “When the transmitter is completed, the whole galaxy will essentially be under Sp’ossel control.”
“Being happy isn’t so bad, Sasha,” Rex said. “Anyway, that could be years from now. A lot could happen between now and then.”
“Like what?”
“How should I know?” Rex said. “Maybe something really awful. Something that will make us all incredibly sad. And then, just when we think we can’t go on anymore, the Sp’ossels activate their happiness transmitter and boom, everything is fine again.”
“That’s the worst rationalization I’ve ever heard,” I said.
“Maybe we’ll find some way to stop them,” Pepper said. “We can think of this as a reconnaissance expedition.”
“Also unconvincing,” I said, “but light-years ahead of Rex’s argument.”
“Look,” said Pepper. “If I don’t get some money quick, I’m going to lose Sargasso Seven. I’m not a fan of the Sp’ossels or their evil schemes, but Rex is right. There’s no way we’re going to stop them. We might as well make some money off them.”
“I’m afraid I find myself in agreement with Pepper and Rex,” said Felzich. “Everything I once owned is under the control of a group who wants to kill me. Also, at some point it would be really nice to have my mind moved back into my body.” He patted the briefcase in his lap. “If I’m going to survive, I need money. Assuming we all get an equal share of the proceeds, I say it’s worth the risk.”
“I don’t know about that equal share stuff,” Rex said, glancing at Boggs and Donny, who were playing checkers in the rear of the cabin, “but there should be plenty for everybody. Sasha, get us back to that asteroid field.”
Chapter Twenty-three
Once again I found myself piloting the Flagrante Delicto through the asteroid field. Everyone except Rex, Donny and I put in WACS as we neared the edge of the field. Rex refused to wear them on the grounds that he needed to be able to “concentrate.” I, in turn, refused to pilot the ship unless Rex was bound and gagged. Rex had been growling at me incoherently through his gag for nearly an hour when finally my curiosity got the better of me. I pulled off the gag.
“Blast it, Sasha!” Rex shouted. “I’ve been trying to tell you for an hour now. The voices are gone!”
“Sir?”
“I don’t hear them. Not since we entered the field.”
“This sounds like a trick,” I said. “Are the sirens making you say this?”
“There aren’t any sirens, you galvanized gasbag. I’m telling you, the voices are gone. Untie me!”
“What if they come back?” I asked.
“Fine, just loosen my hands a little. I can’t feel my fingers.”
I obliged. “Should we tell the others?”
“Nah, let them suffer.”
“Wow!” Boggs shouted.
“What did you say, Boggs?” Pepper asked.
“Shut up!” shouted Felzich.
A few hours later, we were approaching the coordinated Felzich had given us. There were fewer asteroids here, and the ship’s sensors indicated that we were nearing a large, roughly spherical mass. “That’s got to be Planet Z,” I said. “Are you hearing any voices?”
“Not a one,” Rex said. “The Sp’ossels must have turned off the transmitter. Untie me. I’m going to get Felzich.”
“Sir, are you sure…?”
“We aren’t going to be able to pick up a shipload of zontonium if we’re all tied up or mentally incapacitated
,” Rex said. “Felzich might be able to help us avoid Sp’ossel ships.”
“Aye, sir,” I said, and reluctantly untied him.
Rex went into the main cabin and returned shortly with Felzich. Straight ahead was a sphere that glowed with a deep blue against the blackness of space. So it was true: a planet, nearly as big as Earth, made entirely of zontonium. I tried to calculate the value of the ore, but I ran into a memory buffer overflow and had to halt the calculation before I shut down. The fact was, the planet had so much zontonium that if word of its existence got out, the price of zontonium on the interstellar market would collapse. Whoever controlled this planet was going to rule the galaxy one way or another, even without mind control.
“I’m not sure how much help I can give you,” Felzich said. “I haven’t been here in eighty years. I’m sure the… what is that?”
As we neared the big azure globe, we could see that the surface was not uniformly blue. At regular intervals, it was checkered with black squares.
“Did they remove some of the ore?” Rex asked.
“The planet is zontonium all the way through,” Felzich said. “Those are structures of some sort.”
“They’d have to be gigantic,” I said.
“They’re not on the surface,” Felzich said. “They’re above it.”
As we got nearer, we saw that Felzich was right: the Sp’ossels had built a framework of gigantic curved beams around the planet, enclosing it like a cage. The black squares we had noticed were metal panels, a hundred kilometers or more on a side, parallel with the surface of the planet.
“What in Space…?” Rex asked.
“It’s the transmitter,” Felzich says. “Those panels direct the signal toward the planet, which amplifies it and sends it out across the galaxy. They’re a lot farther along than I expected.”
“Maybe that’s why they turned off the sirens,” I said. “They’re getting ready to activate it.”
“Nothing has changed,” Rex said. “We land, scoop up a shipload of zontonium, and take off.”
Aye, Robot (A Rex Nihilo Adventure) (Starship Grifters Book 2) Page 15