Tethered Worlds: Unwelcome Star

by Gregory Faccone

  He raised an eyebrow in question. She was cautious out of habit, but he suspected deeper concerns. His wife always had his "six," as they used to say.

  "I don't think we're secure here anymore," Vittora link-said. Nothing audible was heard in the room. "You're concerned about the safe?" She resonance transmitted through contact, not even trusting pointblank wave.

  Kord answered in kind. "Yes. My father never knew which of his crazy altruistic missions would be his last. He charged me to keep the contents secure no matter what until Jordahk came of age." Now Kord glanced around the room suspiciously.

  "Can they even trace ownership of the cabin to us?"

  The safe was supposedly hidden underneath.

  "There's no official record," Kord said, "but that property's been in family possession since the founding. They're onto me, so sooner or later they're going to know of it. And if they look hard enough..." He left the rest unspoken.

  Scientum technology could be confused by mystic creations, but the Archivers had extensive mystic experience.

  A wave of sadness washed over Kord as he beheld the once beautiful face of his wife. He forced himself past it. Her reconstruction would come, only their heading was taking them even farther from that day.

  "I trust your instincts," he continued with the resonance transmission, "but I won't be mobile for another few days. And out there, we'll have to be on our game."

  Isadore's place was about as safe as a city dwelling could be. That was why Solia was there. The ownership was untraceable, and the interior subtly shielded.

  "As soon as you're ready. What about Solia and Ermine?"

  "It's us they're after. Solia will be safer once we're gone." Kord frowned. "But I don't feel right about leaving her, especially after Isadore's death."

  "Then we'll send for her when the time's right." Vittora was relieved. The girls were close.

  He nodded, switched thoughts, and scowled. "As for Ermine, the trendy faux is good at taking care of himself." Ermine didn't fit in with the rugged culture of Adams Rush, despite fighting for it. He acted like someone who felt entitled to what he had. A growing number of people were like that. Perhaps that was why they were in this mess.

  "He does have a way of landing on his feet." Vittora shivered. "I'll be glad when we're out of here."

  Strength returned to Kord's bones on the wings of a new mission to perform. He glanced up at the Perigeum news VAD. Highearn scrolled captions in empty air below. Gaston Canterbury's report ended with a polished smile and inhumanly white teeth.

  "And so the Raetia egress which laid in mothballs some fifty years will finally do mankind the good for which it was built. Gaston Canterbury, Confederated Comm, at Adams Rush."

  Kord rolled his eyes. "Shill."

  Light from the egress VAD wavered, casting cold, moving shadows across the huddled couple.

  From the Palisades, the Cohortium scrutinized the events at Adams Rush with great frustration. That it was a Perigeum gambit to annex the temporarily misguided Asterfraeo world was obvious. The crafty move was sealed by the fabricated vote legitimatizing egress construction. It tied the Cohortium's hands.

  The Vallum Corps' sole purpose was to protect the Asterfraeo from the Perigeum Starmada. They could never deploy to an Asterfraeo world uninvited. Doing so would break the voluntary coalition. So a Vallum Corps strike force, capable of routing the technically legal Perigeum task force, remained frozen in an orbit light years away.

  At Adams Rush, final egress assembly was organized in concentric, bustling rings. Perigeum ships guarded every angle—almost every angle. Six ships played by their own rules outside the chain of command.

  Five new frigates with silver and purple stripes formed a protective shell around a war-era mystic combat transport. As usual, the Archivers played along only enough to fulfill their agenda.

  Fully recovered though perpetually in pain, Archiver Commodore Inspector Rewe Frixion grew more frustrated. Unfortunately for him, his superiors likely felt similarly. He paced the bridge of the transport named after its AI, and stopped to review the same information.

  "Bring up the frigate crew rosters again."

  "Yes, commodore," Auscultare said. His voice emanated softly from everywhere.

  Restraint was fading among opposing forces. Even the Archiver squadron, almost a third faction, wasn't immune to the pressure. Rewe had been hotheaded, even heavy-handed, qualities his masters wouldn't overlook. Although outwardly the Archivers took orders from Perigeum Starmada High Command, the Ring of arkhons were the real authority behind them. He knew the rewards and dangers of being among that secret seven.

  A few years before, the third arkhon met an unexpected end. None in the Ring believed it chance. Then the old, second arkhon retired. Rewe moved up to fifth in short order. The man who likely caused this reordering was now ranked number two. He was the most feared arkhon outside the legendary first, surpassing him only in ruthlessness.

  "How many of our frigate commanders sent private bursts via the last commship?" Rewe asked.

  "All of them."

  The sweating, red-faced man let out an expletive. Most Archivers outside the eccentric R&D division or the Onus-crazed were ambitious. The squadron took orders from him but undoubtedly reported secretly for their own benefit.

  "Would you like me to access their systems and extract the contents of their messages?" Auscultare asked.

  The mystic AI could do it. No one but Sojourners could make AIs of Auscultare's level. Each of the shiny new frigates had custom Archiver ship AIs, conventional cores boosted with imprimatur-made mystic components. But hybrid AIs were still half scientum.

  "No. I've a good idea what they reported," Rewe grumbled.

  Some rash actions were taken, but he was so close. Let the old men bore into Numen until they died seeking dusty relics. He had a real chance of finding Sojourner secrets. Not just any secrets either. If the mountain range below was aptly named, he would go where no Archiver had. The Khromas were half myth after all.

  The commodore smiled. Even if he only gained the power of a Sojourner Centurion, it could change the game. The Centurions might have done so during the war if their efforts were not diluted across a vast and hopeless front. Sojourner strength lay in individual power. It was unsuited for armies and fleets. He would use it to cut a surgical swath where he wanted to go.

  "Our informant," Auscultare said, "just checked in with Legion command."

  Rewe grasped his chance, desperate to find something before it was too late, something to justify himself to those whose edicts he'd broken, those who had the power to break him.

  "What's the data?"

  "The informant is finally offering locations to some new government movement safe houses. A coordinated strike is in the works." Auscultare paused. "It's becoming increasingly difficult to extract information from the task force. Their continuing efforts to lock out my shadows are becoming more effective."

  "What's wrong, Auscultare, losing your battle against a proxy Starmada bitsmith?" Rewe had no patience for mechanical flunkies. "A mighty mystic AI," he said sarcastically.

  "Commodore, the original taps were meant to remain undetectably small," the AI said without a hint of insult. But Rewe knew mystic AIs had "pride" that could be hurt. He sensed it in Auscultare. "If you let me breach again, I'm sure I can—"

  "I'm in enough trouble, slag," Rewe spat. "The Ring would sooner cut me off—or in half—than see their machinations exposed further. You know why the drakking egress timetable was altered."

  "Our informant is comming directly." Auscultare popped up a VAD filled with a generic avatar. He opened another next to it in which many rapid actions were displayed. Auscultare slipped or pushed his way through a hundred networks. The avatar fuzzed in and out twice before resolving into a low-quality image of a man taken from a compy micro eye.

  The commodore stared in disdain. "So you finally found out who he is."

  "Adams Rush is privacy-oriented, wi
th stopgaps designed to thwart such inquiries," Auscultare said. "I had to backtrace a coin line through numerous financial institutions and cross-reference anonymous protocols."

  "Stow it." The commodore scanned the informant's background. "Oh, I bet there's a lot he can tell us about our mystic user. Open the comm."

  "I can't talk long," came the distorted audio. Obviously, the man thought he was still safely anonymous. Rewe would let him believe that, for now.

  "Your information regarding the Wilkrests hasn't been as valuable to me as you implied," the commodore said, taking a hard tack.

  "I'm not a damn bitsmith. The records—it's Adams Rush, not the drakking Six Sisters!"

  "My AI is sending exploits to use on isolated local systems. I need financial records and property holdings back to when the first grime set foot on this jerkwater world."

  "They don't take kindly to that kind of thing down here," the voice said. The audio distortion didn't quite hide his trepidation.

  "If you want to spend my generosity in peace, I suggest you get what I need." The commodore didn't bother hiding the threat.

  A pause. "What else do you want?"

  The commodore provided his reluctant stooge with additional direction.

  "I'll, I'll see what I can do," the informant faltered.

  Rewe could practically smell the worm's fear. "Change is coming to your little planet, grime. Make sure you're on the winning side." The transmission cut off. "Swanky bastard."

  The commodore paced. Few could tell him what to do. Soon he would have to give an accounting to one who could. The sense of dread was strange. It rose from his pores with ever flowing sweat.

  He held no illusions that if his masters so chose, Auscultare could experience a brief but catastrophic malfunction, one that would have the unfortunate result of killing the only human occupant aboard the old ship.

  A ship traveling downhill virtually broadcast its position great distances to anyone with a detensor. It also left a wake of fleeting artifacts in normal space. Commonly called "smoke rings," their mechanics weren't fully understood. That vexed scientists who in every era enjoyed having all the answers. The construction of the universe was revealing itself to be more flexible than they could explain. As humanity spread to the stars, the weakened back of establishment scientific infallibility was broken by mystic technology.

  So-called mainstream scientists couldn't explain how mystic bent conventional "laws" of physics, causing their ranks to fractionate, along with their funding sources. Some, freed from insular notions, embraced a new openness regarding unexplainable phenomena. Arbitrary boundaries of the impossible shattered.

  In regard to smoke rings, it was known that ships with greater mass left larger rings. A line of relatively small ones was being laid deep in the Asterfraeo. Each ring faded, but not before the next pointed the way to an interstellar cloud of ocher gas and dingy dust. A frigate-sized, ex-police vessel headed toward rarely traveled space, far from the Perigeum.

  From within, the bleak destination was obscured by the dark, downhill side of the MDHD field into which the ship was being pushed. Yet, those aboard could still sense it. A dreary cloud for a dreary outlook.

  Jordahk sat at the shadowed desk in his Monte Crest cabin, head resting on folded arms. The active wall displayed a large, stored image of their destination, casting him in a dismal, sulfurous tinge. His mind was light years away.

  He determined being without an AI was inconvenient. "But not having a compy at all sucks hydrogen."

  Like most people thrust into such a situation, he was realizing how much the devices inserted themselves into everyday life. Communications, food-jerk preferences, and even operating his dumb active wall were things he never thought twice about before. Barrister had backups of his settings and could perform common tasks remotely, but Jordahk had grown too independent. The inconveniences weren't a big deal, but each reminded him of a stupid loss. It was as if he kept an old-style diary, which someone had burned.

  It would have been easier if Maximilian were lost in an accident. Even in a hostile thresh a compy could be shut down before incurring catastrophic damage. Deliberate destruction was different. Max had no chance of standing up to that thing. Jordahk doubted even mighty Barrister could have survived. If true, few AIs would have had a chance.

  The pale color of the cabin changed subtly. A new comm window opened on the active wall. Imaged was an old robot outside his cabin hatch.

  "A comm through an active wall. How quaint. I haven't used some of these routines in years." Torious was his usual eccentric self.

  Jordahk rolled his eyes. "What do you want?" He wasn't mad at the robot, but was far from feeling up to specs.

  "It's time to final check your external wounds and, of course, scan your brain again. It's not like I have a lot of duties."

  Jordahk sighed. "Come."

  The nurse trundled in with medical arms already unfolding, head swiveling 360 degrees. "Your substandard lighting scheme isn't one I've come to associate with 'cheeriness.'"

  "Stow it, Torious. The banter's older than you."

  The nurse touched a device to Jordahk's neck and ran a scanning appendage over his arm and shoulder. The wounds inflicted by the corrupted sentry left no obvious trace. Jordahk flopped back in his chair, staring at the ceiling. He wasn't defeated, but he didn't have the energy for witty exchange.

  Torious analyzed his body chemistry and exchanged information and orders with blood micros. "Yes, I'm old, older than this oxidized bucket of a ship. Older than poor Max was. Older even than Barrister." The nurse droned on while its arms moved with their centuries of experience.

  Jordahk shut his eyes, but the dismal yellow light penetrated his lids. "You're not making me feel any better."

  He opened his eyes to a new whirring sound. A medical device scene only on Torious unfolded to touch his head in multiple spots. It was comprised of glowing sensor strands, many of which focused behind his right ear near his link. The strands lit up the cabin as they fed into an age-tinged ceramic box. Jordahk might have thought the instrument something out of the early days of planetary exploration if not for a thick band of numenium wrapped around the ceramic.

  "What's next, Torious, stitches?" Jordahk breathed a weak chuckle, befitting his weak joke. "Do you also do clothes?"

  The robot was uncharacteristically silent. Jordahk remembered it needed to devote a lot of capacity when using this instrument. The nurse generated a number of "uh-huh" and "hmm" sounds as glowing strands moved in various patterns across his skull. No doubt an ancient study found such sounds comforting to humans when treated by robots. Jordahk supposed such a thing was a novelty once.

  The nurse wound down from the computationally heavy scan. "Why don't you leave the humor to me? Apparently I'm better at it."

  The gloom returned as the strands dimmed.

  Jordahk thought he would make a second effort to zing the robot. "Oh, recovered enough bandwidth for barbs?"

  He wondered about the ancient medical instrument. It was like some sort of scientum-mystic hybrid. Though Torious could wield it, interpreting the data was beyond him.

  "Sent the results back to Barrister for crunching, have you?" Jordahk knew the rivalry between the scientum nurse and mystic AI was a topic from which he could get a rise.

  "You know this cobbled together, nonstandard instrument wasn't something my enlightened hardware designers felt the need to accommodate." The nurse folded the darkening instrument. "You'll likely not find its like on any other scientum nurse, or anywhere outside the brain ward on a Sojourner heritage world."

  Mystic nurses and medical devices were growing increasingly rare. New generations of imprimaturs lacked the skills, or the intuitive Sojourner-level knowledge, to create anything very advanced.

  "A little touchy, aren't we, Torious? Seems you can't receive as well as you give."

  "I was able to interpret enough to know that your brain is in its usual state. Retarded."

&nbs
p; "Touché," Jordahk said. He half grinned, which was half more than he'd smiled in some time.

  The nurse had treated him since birth. It knew the ins and outs of his physiology. After an examination was cross-referenced with a virtual datalattice of history, Jordahk's emotional state could be determined with 85 percent certainty.

  "It'll be more difficult standing up to that snob Barrister without dear old Max," Torious said. His drone was serious. "Your grandfather's coming. If your life is anything like his, there will be more for me to do in the future."

  A new comm window opened on the active wall showing the approach. "Aristahl would like to see you," Barrister said.

  "Come on in," Jordahk replied.

  Torious packed himself back down into trundle mode. "Your grandfather is older than I am."

  Jordahk wasn't sure what the nurse was trying to say. If he didn't know better, he might think it was expressing concern for Aristahl.

  "I just—" Jordahk started.

  "Yet still he crusades across space on these chimerical quests."

  "Chimerical?" Jordahk didn't have an AI to help him out with that one.

  "Mythical, visionary, Utopian, even absurd," the robot droned. He moved toward the hatch, but his head remained focused on Jordahk. "And who's always there to pick up the organs?"

  The hatch opened revealing Aristahl, standing straight with his hands clasped behind his back.

  "He heals fast," Torious said on his way out, "an inheritance from your line." The robot turned in the corridor. "He also inherited everything else that goes with it. You have my sympathies." The hatch shut.

  Aristahl raised an eyebrow and looked toward his grandson. "What did you say to him?"

  "I'm not sure." Jordahk stood out of respect. "You do seem to collect eccentric—"