Children of the White Star

by Linda Thackeray

  He sat in the cockpit of the Wayward Son, manning the controls while Flinn affected repairs on the ship. After its confrontation with the Brysdynian warship and their flight through the debris field left behind by Cathomira's nova, the ship was in need of maintenance. Flinn put them on course for the nearest commercial star base, so that he could conduct the more urgent work.

  Garryn stared through the canopy at the stars streaking past him, trying to decide what he would do now. He could admit to himself, finally, how much he had been deluding himself. He did not come from Cathomira. He did not know where he came from. Garryn's intended course of action, since leaving Brysdyn, had never extended beyond reaching Cathomira. What he'd learned here had only created more riddles.

  If he was smart, he would go home to be Prime and forget all this.

  Only there was something inside him incapable of allowing him to give up. This wasn't finished! The demons plaguing him now would plague him forever if he returned home like a defeated animal. He couldn't face Edwen knowing the man had won!

  Garryn shook such thoughts out of his head, because they did little except to torment him further. Instead, he turned his attention to the archive crystal Jonen had given him. As he studied the piece of crystal, Garryn felt a pang of grief for the thoughtful man who had been his confidante through most of this. He wondered if Jonen had lived long enough to learn the truth about Cathomira, or had he died in ignorance like so many others?

  I will never know.

  Garryn inserted the crystal into the reader slot on the cockpit panel and waited for a few minutes while the computer deciphered the information into a viewable context. Jonen's face appeared on the console screen a moment later. It was good to see Jonen again, even if it was like this. It served to remind Garryn again just how much he missed the man.

  “Case Study 102, Garryn, Son of Iran.” Jonen never felt the need to linger on his title, Garryn remembered. It was one of the things that Garryn liked so much about him.

  The next few minutes of the recording outlined Garryn's sessions with Jonen and the general impressions the mentalist gained from those sessions. Nothing said surprised Garryn, because Jonen had been up front with him from the very start. It went a long way to explaining Jonen's success as a mentalist.

  Included in the crystal was a record of his neural analyser results and Garryn found himself viewing his dreams for the first time while he was awake. It was strange watching the images unfold before him on holographic viewer and even more surprising when it affected him no less potently than it did when he was asleep. Accompanying the images was commentary by Jonen as he explained symbolism in clinical brutality.

  “This last image sets Garryn's dreams apart from the others.”

  A blue planet appeared. He didn't remember this. Garryn leaned closer forward, staring at the blue planet in fascination. It was breathtakingly beautiful, with iridescent colours and swirling white clouds covering parts of the surface. It seemed to be frozen on its axis and Garryn found himself staring at a continent on the southern end, just before the polar ice caps. He knew this world.

  Somehow, he knew this world.

  * * *

  They were making the world spin.

  The world spun faster and faster until the continents were a blur of blue and green colours. A child's laughter rang in his ears. A man's hand caught the world and made it slow. The child stopped laughing and there was silence as the man's finger pointed to one particular place…

  “This is h…”

  * * *

  Garryn blinked. It was as if the visual information was too much for his mind to take all at once. He looked back at the screen and saw Jonen's image on the screen again. He quickly found the retrace button to review the part of the archive he wanted. Once the blue planet appeared on the screen again, Garryn froze the image.

  The world he had remembered moments ago was like this one, with subtle differences. The continents were more clearly marked when he dreamed. Here, they were obscured by the swirling white clouds, with faint outlines of continents and landmasses. The world in his dreams seemed less real than this one on the screen, but he knew with certainty they were one and the same.

  He set the archive in motion again to hear Jonen's opinion on this image.

  “It is the first time we are presented with a visual image of a planet. Initially, I believed this to be the home planet of the New Citizens, but this is a very young planet and we know the Cathomiran star is billions of years old and is a red star. Very clearly, the sun in Garryn's dreams is a yellow star. At present, Garryn is the only Dreamer who has seen it.”

  He was a fool. Garryn had always assumed that the other Dreamers saw the same star in the dreams, because Jonen had never told him otherwise. During the Dreamer session at Jonen's home, Garryn remembered listening to the stories told by the other Dreamers, but realised now that he never actually heard them mention the yellow star. Why was he so different?

  Yellow stars were not uncommon. It was only temperature and the view from a planet's atmosphere determining its colour. When Garryn was serving at Erebo, the sun of that system was yellow. It occurred to Garryn that perhaps that was why he dreamed of a yellow star. Was it because he saw the star at Erebo and it awakened the memory inside of him?

  Erebo Station had been built on a moon orbiting the fifth planet of the Theran star system.

  Garryn leaned back into his chair, absorbing the information he'd inadvertently stumbled upon. The nightmares had begun two days after he arrived at Erebor. He remembered how his bunkmate Shyle had shaken him awake. After a week of similar awakenings, he'd asked for his own private quarters. No one refused him the request.

  If being in Erebor was the key, then what about the others? The other Dreamers had never been to Theran. Except the Transband's relentless coverage of the uprising ensured they would have seen the media footage at home. How many times had he and his fellow pilots warded media ships away from the fighting? How many images of Erebor were transmitted all across the Empire, along with its native star?

  Garryn could imagine the future Dreamers sitting down with their beverages in the morning to watch the broadcast everyday before they went to work or got on with their lives. How many of them were able to escape the images for very long?

  It all made perfect sense now that he was in possession of a big piece of the puzzle. Garryn rose to his feet and hurried out of the cockpit. Running up the length of the Wayward Son, he made it to the other end of the ship in a matter of seconds. Garryn paused at the edge of the maintenance hatch and stared into the guts of the ship. Flinn was working diligently on a pressure valve, surrounded by steam and heat.

  “Flinn!” Garryn called out over the sounds of engines working.

  Flinn looked up at him and put down the tool he was holding. Wiping the sweat off his brow he yelled back at Garryn. “Who's flying the ship?”

  “Relax. She's on autopilot. Look, we need to make a course correction.”

  “A course correction? For where?”

  “Theran,” Garryn replied intently. “We have to go to Theran.”

  XX

  Theran

  There was not much on record about Theran.

  As the ship sped towards its new destination, Garryn tried to learn all he could about the star system. Some of what Garryn knew came from his memories of being stationed there, but most of his information came from the star tapes Flinn Ester kept on board the Wayward Son. Flinn's collection was impressive, but there was little information regarding Theran.

  Theran was a standard G-type star, young by galactic standards, with nine planetary bodies in orbit around it. As star systems went, it was not very dissimilar to a hundred such systems throughout the galaxy. Prior to colonisation, only one of those planets was capable of supporting life. If Theran sparked his dreams, then it was a good place to start.

  Little was known about the species inhabiting the third planet, except that they'd accumulated a sizeable nuclear ar
senal which ultimately destroyed them. Since they had not colonised the neighbouring planets, the entire race was annihilated in that final confrontation. Little else was known about the species and no exploration could be made of the planet since it was now a radioactive wasteland.

  The Empire had charted Theran a year after the children of Cathomira became New Citizens. Exploration expeditions resumed, to bolster public confidence in the belief life was at last returning to normal. During these missions, Theran was charted and science teams found a star system thriving with commercial possibilities. Even though none of the planets were capable of supporting life, it was still a veritable fortune of mineral deposits.

  The fifth planet, a large gas giant, yielded high-grade ore in its dozen moons. It was not long before the first mining colonists arrived to exploit these new resources. Building large, life-sustaining complexes on the surface of the moons, they carved out a new existence for themselves in the farthest corner of the Empire.

  For the next twenty years, colonies spread across the star system. In response to this expansion, the Empire began the construction of Erebo Station. From Erebo, a permanently assigned warship and a garrison of troops ensured the protection of the star system from smugglers. It was one of the best-equipped star bases in that sector of the galaxy and no expense had been spared for its personnel.

  Garryn remembered the place well. He'd spent almost a year at Erebo during the Uprising. It came equipped with state-of-the-art docking facilities, luxurious living quarters with indoors parks, malls and restaurants. These were operated by the civilian sector and gave Erebo Station the feel of an Imperial star base.

  While he was on Erebo, far away from Brysdyn and the Imperator, Garryn had never felt more comfortable. His military service on Erebo made him feel closer to being normal than he'd ever felt in his entire life. As they now journeyed to Erebo, he wondered if his contentment had had to do with more than just being accepted.

  Was it because Theran seemed familiar to him?

  * * *

  “I don't care how much money you paid, I ought to have let you off at the first star base after Cathomira,” Flinn Ester grumbled.

  “Stop complaining,” Garryn said good-naturedly as they entered the last leg of their journey through hyperspace. “We'll be there soon.”

  True enough. It would only be a matter of minutes before they would emerge from hyperspace into the Theran star system. The trip here had taken three days and Flinn had spent most of the time keeping a vigil on the Wayward Son engines to ensure she could make the trip.

  Theran sat on the edge of Brysdynian territory. In recent years, it had been expanded to officially include the system as part of the Empire. Flinn was unimpressed at having to make the long journey, mindful of damage to his ship following the encounter with the warship at Cathomira. To appease him, Garryn promised the freighter captain full access to the lavish space dock facilities at Erebo Station once they arrived there.

  “Easy for you to say,” Flinn continued to grumble. “This is more than just a ship to me, you know. It's my livelihood.”

  Garryn rolled his eyes, having listened to the nagging for most of the trip here. “So you keep saying. Don't worry, I promised you the best techs in the galaxy to look after your baby and that's what you'll get.”

  “I'll be happy if no one shoots at us.”

  “Did you turn into an old woman on the way here? I swear you haven't stopped nagging.”

  “Get fragged,” Flinn said sweetly, completing the response by flashing Garryn an obscene gesture with his fingers.

  Garryn laughed, enjoying their banter. He would miss the pilot when he had to return to Brysdyn. Despite the reason for the trip, he couldn't deny he had enjoyed the freedom of the past few weeks more than he cared to admit. Once he went home, his life would return to its regimen of tradition and rule.

  “Are you sure Theran is the place, Gar?” Flinn asked, once the playful banter had died down. “There are a lot of yellow stars out there and Theran is pretty ordinary.”

  “It's where the dreams started. It could be coincidence or it could be something more. I have a strong feeling Theran is the place to start.”

  Flinn, who was accustomed to relying on his gut instincts to make his decisions, could understand the sentiment. “Fair enough. Theran it is, then.”

  Garryn was grateful for the Captain's understanding. Ever since he'd made the connection through Jonen's crystal, it seemed as if everything was falling into place. There was more to this mystery than just reaching Theran. Garryn was realistic about that. Yet, for the first time, Garryn was confident, because he was dealing in real facts and not just on his dreams. Whatever came next, he would work it out as he went along.

  Right now, he just wanted to get there.

  * * *

  Days after his meeting with the Imperator, Edwen was still in a state of mild panic.

  Despite projecting a façade of complete control in the Imperator's presence after the man came storming into his office, Edwen was still affected. After the meeting, Edwen left his offices at the Enclave and returned home. The crushing weight of impending doom has settled over him and it was no longer a matter of if it would break him but, rather, when.

  The end had come, not only for him, but for all of Brysdyn.

  Edwen wandered through the rooms of his house and realised how close he was to losing his daughter for good. For the first time in his life, Edwen appreciated the place she held in his life. She filled in the emptiness following the death of his sons and his wife with warmth. For most of her life, he had made her believe she was something he had to tolerate. Only in the last few years did he realise how much she mattered.

  How much did she know?

  Did she know the extent of his complicity? Somehow Kalistar knowing the full, ugly truth struck real fear into Edwen's soul. Real fear was something he had rarely felt. All his life, he had been the one who made people afraid. His power over their fear made him the master of Security Elite. It kept the Empire in the palm of his hand and allowed him to act in its best interest, even if his methods were questionable. How could a slip of a girl understand the true importance of that?

  Edwen wanted her home. After the meeting with the Imperator, he needed her home. A part of Edwen wished Kalistar had never met the Prime, so her voice could still warm this empty mansion when he returned from the Enclave. Yet the part of him clinging to power knew Kalistar's association and possible marriage to Garryn would be a powerful advantage. Kalistar would never allow Garryn to hurt him by dismantling Security Elite.

  Thus Edwen spent the evening sitting alone in his study, allowing no one to bother him as he tried to escape the fire awaiting him. Perhaps his actions were doomed to failure from the very beginning. Yet even as he thought that, he regretted nothing. Brysdyn had life now! Twenty-three years ago, there was nothing. They were devoid of hope. Iran could rage at him with self-righteous fury, but the truth was undeniable. He'd saved Brysdyn!

  What right did the Imperator have to judge him?

  When the next day came, Edwen was still in his study, refusing to see anybody. For the first time in years, he did not prepare to go to the Enclave. He watched the sun rise in his window and his household staff readying themselves for the working day. Edwen allowed them to do so without making a move himself. He was content to remain in his chair and drain the contents of his decanter, while watching the world pass by.

  Around noon, a knock was heard on the door.

  “Go away.”

  “General, it's Danten. I'm afraid it's urgent.”

  “I do not wish to see anyone today, Danten.”

  “General,” Danten tried again. “General, Garryn has arrived at Erebo Station. General, he is in Theran.”

  Strangely enough, Edwen was not surprised. When Iran had asked the question the day before, the General had a premonition that Garryn would eventually arrive there. Still, hearing it now as a reality gave Edwen the push he needed to rise
above his self-pity. He had one more chance at this and it was a gamble. It was not easy to make the decision, knowing how desperate it was, but there was no avoiding it.

  “Come in.”

  Danten did not waste any time on ceremony and hurried into the room. He looked across the floor at the General seated behind his desk and did his best to hide his shock. Edwen was wearing a day's growth on his face, showing how long he'd been sitting behind his desk. Edwen had always seemed in complete control of himself, but right now the General appeared haggard and withdrawn. Like a feeble old man.

  “Where is the Warhammer?” Edwen asked, aware of how he looked as he ran his fingers through his greying hair.

  “She will be arriving in Theran within the next ten hours.”

  “Good.” The General nodded and took a deep breath. “Tell Commander Barin he is to maintain strict radio silence. He is not to contact Erebo Station at all. When the Wayward Son approaches the third planet, he is to deploy all fighters and use every available effort to destroy her.”

  “But Garryn will be on that ship…”

  “I am aware of that!” Edwen cut him off savagely. “However, it has gone beyond the point where his safety can be considered. We cannot allow him to land on the third planet. Is that understood, Danten?”

  “Yes Sir.” The major nodded in understanding. The response was extreme, but there was no other way out of their predicament. Still, killing the Prime to save the Empire made the line between treason and patriotism increasingly difficult to distinguish. He hoped after the deed was done history would judge them kindly.

  “What will we tell the Imperator?” Danten asked quietly.

  Edwen took a deep breath and met the major's gaze. “When the time comes, I will tell him the truth. For the loss of a son, I owe him that much.”

  Danten left the room at that moment and Edwen watched him leave. When he was gone, Edwen returned to his chair and poured himself the last drops of liquor from his decanter. He took a big gulp of it, emptying the glass as he stared out the window. The scene outside, depicting serene domesticity, did as much to calm his nerves as the contents of his glass.