Tethered Worlds: Unwelcome Star

by Gregory Faccone

  The older men exchanged curious glances.

  "You said much the same thing twenty years ago," Aristahl said.

  "We thought it a phantom sensation brought on by the link installation," Alb-Sone said.

  "She helped me, I think." Jordahk inclined toward where he believed her chamber located.

  Alb-Sone's eyes glittered as he focused on the young man. "Curious. Well that confirms my own faint experiences. You can't save them all, Aristahl, but our efforts for the girl..." He trailed off, but Aristahl nodded. "As for the others of my brotherhood still suffering under the Onus, I can only offer them temporary lucidity."

  "That should be enough." Aristahl fingered his bracelet absently. Across the table Jordahk was still wearing his nonfunctional compy out of habit. "Although I need to readjust certain plans."

  Jordahk's useless ring was a nagging emptiness. One can get used to a presence over a couple of decades. The anger over what had happened to Max hit him again. The emotional spike still called out for justice.

  "What about that other thing?" Jordahk's eyes squinted with intensity. Though he might sound juvenile, his anger was real. "You said you were done with it, right? It needs to be destroyed."

  Alb-Sone let out a cynical laugh. "Destroy it? Ha! It'll take more than what you've got, boy. Not unless you have a valence welder in your pocket. Perhaps you can keep it contained long enough to drop it into a star. Although you'll have to find one hotter than that dim lumie."

  On the viewport bulkhead, the local beacon underscored floundering status by emitting one of its irregular, grayish pulsations.

  "The right legacy shell could do it," Aristahl said.

  "I don't have anything like that. I've spent my years trying to cure people, not find more dangerous ways to atomize them." Alb-Sone paused, noticing Jordahk's response to justice delayed. "Besides, I've never had that skill. And you, Aristahl, are getting too old for that sort of strain. So even if you have items stowed in your crates back there, who would use them? Young master Jordahk here?"

  "I would never allow Jordahk to burn his mind, even for just comeuppance."

  "Then you better have a talk. You saw what happened in the lab, and I'm sure it's not the first time."

  Jordahk turned his hands over, palm up. "I'm sitting right here."

  Aristahl acknowledged Jordahk, but raised his hand in a mild staying gesture. "Jordahk, you have the right to know more. But I want you to learn your own way, naturally through experience, with no constraints. In the meantime you must guard your emotions." Jordahk lowered his head in subtle acknowledgment. "Adams Rush must not fall into Archiver hands. That must remain our foremost purpose on this journey."

  "Journey to where?"

  Aristahl turned to Alb-Sone. "Do you remember Ek-Hein Wahb?"

  "He's not a damn memory to me. Last time we communicated I tried to convince him to come see me. His insistence on those resonance experiments left the Onus on his doorstep." The old man gazed past the displays. "He believed in our cause, but he tried too hard. What happened to him? The last I heard your—" Aristahl cut him off with a subtle head shake. Alb-Sone continued more carefully, "Last I heard he was sent to watch over the platinum group fields of Gr'jot. They needed it, and the isolation would afford him some peace."

  "He could not be found during the prolonged withdrawal," Aristahl said. "It was assumed he retreated into uninhabited space. However, over the years since there have been too many reports of strange activity in Gr'jot. I believe he hid suspended, setting up a watch to awaken him when the fields were threatened."

  Jordahk's curiosity was piqued. "Wouldn't his AI have recorded the withdrawal comms? He surely would have read it upon first revival."

  Alb-Sone shook his head sadly. "Depending on how the Onus hit him, he may have become paranoid. Transmissions can be faked. Perhaps he wanted real-time communication that never came."

  "Gr'jot is in bad shape these days," Aristahl continued. "Reduced to a single outpost. Plagued by unstable phenomena and what I now suspect are Ek-Hein's security measures, they have never been able to mine the platinum group veins in the outer system."

  "Even I've heard Gr'jot is bad luck," Jordahk said.

  "Desperation has driven prospecting forays deep into the rocks. I think our old friend is active again. Perhaps there is a chance to save him, if he is not already gone. In doing so, we may also have a chance to save Adams Rush."

  Jordahk perked up. "What? How?"

  "Poor Ek-Hein burned his mind, but some good may yet come of it. He made incredible claims that if true..."

  Alb-Sone scoffed. "Three groups of people made those kinds of boasts. The Khromas, from whom it was probably not a boast, overconfident Centurions, and those losing their grip. Sadly, Ek-Hein fell into the latter category."

  "I am afraid Adams Rush does not have many options," Aristahl said sadly.

  Alb-Sone shook his head. "From my perspective only a few decades ago Adams Rush was one of the strongest worlds founded by us Freespacers. It was an Asterfraeo pinion. Has it declined so while I slept?"

  "Stopping the Perigeum is ancient history. Some are not even sure it is necessary now. They call it the Egov, but it is still the same. Perhaps worse. The Archivers have corrupted it with their tendrils."

  Jordahk's understanding broadened. His grandfather's path had gained knowledge from so many circles. Imprimaturs created common mystic technology like grav weaves and basic ravelens, leaving legacy items to Sojourners. Aristahl might be uncommonly skilled, but if legacy stuff was dangerous to Sojourners, how many ways could it fry an imprimatur?

  The plan was too improbable for Jordahk. "So you want to hit the dustbin of the Asterfraeo to find a Sojourner who hasn't been seen for two hundred years?"

  "Yes," Aristahl said.

  "A man whose broken mind thought it created certain mystic technology," Alb-Sone added, "you believe has a remote chance of helping at Adams Rush?"

  "Yes," Aristahl answered.

  "And since time is of the essence, you won't be able to pick up your ship. So you're going to do it all in a chartered rust bucket."

  "Yes."

  Jordahk frowned. "Capt. Luck's going to want more coin."

  On the Roulette's small bridge, Glick sat upon her folded leg. Her other foot tapped absently next to her waiting jet boots. She still wore the rest of her combat suit. With helmet folded back, she stared into the sea of asteroids.

  It was quiet. The facility asteroid was centered in a protected eddy. The field, a maelstrom just a short distance away, sent little more than slow moving nuisance rocks inward.

  "Mighty Sojourners," she grumbled. "Hiding in the radiated middle of nowhere. Pathetic."

  Her first encounter with a Sojourner proved upsetting. The strange old man fit no imagined scenario. Current did not crackle from his eyes. He wasn't crushing P-star ships with an outstretched hand. CineVAD stuff was absent. Yet, despite dedication to healing, he was dangerous. He exuded a subdued power amplified by casual dismissal of her drawing down on him. Perhaps she'd been a little hotheaded.

  The Sojourners didn't protect Raetia, instead choosing to disappear from history, running from the war that bore their name. Raetia had to liberate itself after a century of occupation, free but broken, mines exhausted and economically hobbled by continuing Egov interference. It was about the least desirable system this side of the Strident Cluster.

  And the weak-willed Cohortium, always talking about including Raetia under the Vallum Corps' umbrella. All talk. Nothing but talk.

  "Pretenders, all of them."

  She exhaled. Anger at every party involved was getting her nowhere. The Cohortium was a decent enough idea. They managed to wrangle many independently minded worlds into a mutual protection pact. But the Sojourners had spearheaded that long ago.

  The Egov, on the other hand, deserved every bit of animus it received. It appeared palatable on the outside, and its Starmada was mighty, but the system was rotting. They would get theirs
sooner or later, and she wanted to be there to see it. Hell, she wanted to speed its coming.

  And then there were the Sojourners.

  Sighing, Glick drew the avian. Its components glittered with differing levels of reflectivity typical of high-quality Sojourner work. They defined feathers along folded wings. The Sojourners made beautiful and powerful things. They opened up new worlds. Risking all, they won and lost. She was a lot like them. More than she cared to admit.

  The bird was almost alive, just waiting for a command, the cobalt band of osmium still obvious in its newness.

  She couldn't figure Jordahk's grandfather. The elder Wilkrest was a surprise-producing enigma on this quixotic mission. She'd never met an imprimatur quite like him. He knew war matériel whereas most of his ilk avoided it.

  Movement outside caught her eye. That malfunctioning relic of a nurse was rising out of the blown entrance. How the Torious series even managed a second rev was a mystery to her. Never had she met a more annoying robot. Why the elder Wilkrest put up with it she didn't know. Wisecracking bots were the stuff of comedy epiVADs but rarely tolerated in the real world.

  Bots were generally compelled to obey a series of conventions established for centuries. The eccentric nurse managed to skirt gray-area prohibitions regarding sarcasm among other things. Perhaps its programming had been supplanted. Maybe it was spoiled by special dispensation. More likely its brain was breaking down. The relic was certainly old enough, especially for scientum. Glick found it distasteful. Bots obeyed. Period.

  The nurse trailed a thin filament. A train of rectangular shapes rose from the opening, shiny platinum gray crates with rounded corners. It resembled a giant mechanical caterpillar. A human brought up the rear.

  Glick's eyes had trouble focusing on him. "What?" She stood.

  His suit was space black, or maybe it just reflected space. Its edges were blurry and hard to define. Her depth perception couldn't get a clear read. The oversized jet boots and inverted teardrop helmet canopy were retro-future styled. The conforming, high-performance thruster pack was large, but not overbearing. Meter-long spars extended from it, spurting propellant from the tips, keeping its user oriented.

  Staring at it with the naked eye was leading to a headache. Glick brought up a VAD showing the little cargo train. It helped only a little. Apparently some things weren't meant to be examined visually. She gave multispectral a quick shot. It barely showed even at this close range. It must be running a stealthy bracer.

  She didn't know what to make of the strange but obviously capable suit. The mirrored helmet crystal insured no visual confirmation as to who was within, but a faint outline was visible on the right hip. An angled "T" shape with the crossbar longer on one side; an autobuss. So Jordahk had gotten himself a "new" old suit.

  Glick stepped into her jet boots and headed for the Roulette's cargo airlock. With a sub-vocal command, her helmet crystal closed. She knew some things about Sojourner technology. Jordahk's new acquisition wasn't just a space suit; it was a mystic no-suit.

  Alb-Sone Whaye watched his old friend enter straight-backed as the day he first put on that no-suit. "Still fits, I see."

  Metallic eyes glittering, Alb-Sone was hardly affected by the disorientation that normally accompanied viewing even a non-active no-suit. A subtle discoloration whose edges were jagged like torn parchment ran across the abdomen, growing larger across the left arm.

  "Ever bothered by the old wounds?"

  Aristahl shrugged it off. "The new organs work well enough."

  "That chapter was hectic for us all."

  Aristahl held up both suited hands, palm facing inward, and examined them as if for the first time. "Perhaps I was in too much of a rush back then."

  Alb-Sone had compassion on the once younger man, aged before his eyes.

  "How did that one's twin attack us?" Aristahl asked, gesturing toward the complex surfaced bracelet.

  The switch Alb-Sone carried unfolded into a three-legged stool. He sat with practiced ease. The lighter of the two mystic compies dangled off it from a thin spar. The act wasn't one of fear, but neither was it a display of full trust.

  "I let it overwatch security in a closed outer line. Security was one thing I knew it was good at."

  Aristahl was not pleased.

  Alb-Sone explained, "It refused to cooperate unless I gave it something to do."

  "Refused?" Aristahl said in disbelief.

  "You know how their creator was. 'Conventions be damned.'" Alb-Sone paused. "I suppose it planned this for decades. With the arrival of your civilian crew, it saw opportunity." He inclined his head in a hint of concession. "Sorry. I did have Wixom here watching it."

  "My brother is clever," a rich accented voice said. "He established an isolated foothold outside our notice using near imperceptible resonance transmissions. It likely started with the sentry's repair and unbeknown to us, corruption, seventeen years ago. Even I can't predict everything an AI of my brother's caliber may scheme."

  "You seem rather matter-of-fact with the endangerment of human lives," Aristahl said.

  "On the contrary, I'm distressed at not thwarting my brother's destructive actions. That's an alpha loop directive. He diverted your transmissions from my notice, and willfully attacked with full knowledge of your identity. I wasn't cognizant of your plight until the shooting started, and even then couldn't wrest back control of the slaved sentry."

  Aristahl shook his head as if viewing the destruction wrought by a natural disaster.

  "I cannot divine his final escape plan, though," Wixom continued with a disbelieving tone. "Most of his strategies tend toward destruction, even if that reduces overall chance of success. Since our creator tasked us with this medical experiment, experience with my elder sibling has grown considerably. Such trickery would not work again."

  Aristahl spoke to Alb-Sone as if Wixom were not present. "Has it been true since you owned it? Has there been any variance whatsoever?"

  "Aristahl," Alb-Sone said the name with humor, "you know no one but him can truly own either of them. As for this one, I've trusted it with my life's work." Perhaps that meant more than his life. "For a man who surrounds himself with unusual creations, even beyond Barrister and that malfunctioning nurse, you seem quite cautious."

  "Judicum is special." Aristahl was not defensive. "Though out of my control, he who gave it was someone in whom you and I both entrusted our lives."

  Alb-Sone said nothing for a moment, as if waiting for a legend from the past to come forth. When one did not, he continued. "Anyway, I no longer need Wixom, and you're an AI short. The boy's become a man. If on him you've placed your hopes, he's going to need more than a scientum AI."

  "You and I both know how far beyond the norm that creation is." Aristahl eyed the bracelet dangling from the thin metal spar. Alb-Sone's choice to avoid direct contact only reinforced the point. "Wixom, let me see your directives."

  "My master has forbidden that," Wixom said.

  Aristahl shook his head at the incredulity of the exchange then pushed on. "Will you protect myself and Jordahk unwaveringly?"

  "I will, with the unlikely exception of running afoul of my alpha loop directives."

  "You're splitting hairs, old friend," Alb-Sone said. "Certainly their maker had outlandish ideas in his earlier days, but later went to great lengths to correct the mistakes of youth. Wixom is such a creation."

  "And what would you do with that thing Wixom was created to corral?" Aristahl asked.

  "We've pulled the closed line. It's got no avenues out." Aristahl was not placated. "I'll put the whole trammel snare in a resonance-proof case." Alb-Sone appealed to his old friend's dry humor.

  Aristahl exhaled loudly. "The girl's final status will be known one way or another when I next visit. At that time we will address Waxad with finality."

  The conversation paused on that serious note. After a moment Alb-Sone changed the subject, but the seriousness remained.

  "The boy has potential,"
Alb-Sone said quietly, "and the link."

  "He is not ready, but apparently the universe will give us no more time." Aristahl closed his eyes. When they reopened, sharpness and determination filled them. He reached out his hand.

  The thin metal spar protruding from the stool curved and flicked the bracelet to Aristahl. He caught it, drawing the fine work close to his face for examination. Lights danced through its minuscule channels.

  "Wixom, will you obey the conventions?" Aristahl asked.

  "I'd rather not," the AI said, "but I'll endeavor to do so if that's your request. With the previous caveat of course."

  Barrister, atypically quiet, spoke up. "Sir, I may not be able to protect you from that AI's capabilities." Anyone familiar with Barrister knew that was a rare thing for the proud AI to admit.

  "We are going to have to lay down some ground rules, Wixom," Aristahl said. "And I need to add to you a piece of hardware." The old man took on a steely expression. "If you have a problem with that, I am sure we can find another trammel snare."

  "Or a very hot sun," Barrister added.

  "You've been out of the culture for almost two centuries, Wixom," Alb-Sone said. "I think you'll enjoy a new adventure. And who knows, you may run into opportunities to fulfill more of your creator's corrective intentions." He regarded his old friend. "Be patient with the AI. Though powerful, lack of experience and isolation have made him, well, a little naïve."

  "What the hell!" Cranium exclaimed. "The Roulette is sub-capable in empty space."

  Glick, still in her surprisingly flattering spacesuit, took her station on the Monte Crest's bridge. Her gait was cocksure, perhaps to fend off accusations of unwise brashness. The asteroid field round-trip was beyond the Roulette's capacity and came with a price beyond their wits.

  The launch bay was displayed large and the dilapidated Roulette was even less space worthy than usual. A maintenance bot, moving as if sad, walked over its surface taking damage inventory. The results scrolled. Capt. Luck shook his head.