Tethered Worlds: Unwelcome Star

by Gregory Faccone

  The glare faded, revealing a man sitting on a fanicle-sized golden "chair," although the word didn't do the object justice. It was ornate and somehow technological. It was that element that kept it from being called a throne. Streaks of white like those at its emergence flowed within contained channels.

  The man in the giant chair stood, paused, and then walked nimbly down the pile as if gravity were an afterthought. The siblings stepped back with shocked expressions. The man was covered in a thin veil of light, only noticeable when it shimmered and coruscated like the colors of manifold space. For a few seconds, his body wavered into translucence at the base of Ek-Hein's stairs. Jordahk felt a renewed pull from his wrist, his compy threatening to crush him with gravity of its own making. The man's features returned to opacity.

  He climbed the stairs with uninterrupted purpose. Jordahk recognized his raiment as ethereal versions of that worn by his mysterious rescuer during the near-disastrous Max restoration. Two oversized bracers glinted purple on his arms. The remaining clothing scintillated in iridescence, but the elements, tunic, and rotating rune-embroidered collar were all similar. Also, something about his face was all-too-familiar. He was older than what Jordahk remembered, yet somehow more formidable.

  "Thule-Riss..." Ek-Hein said.

  "Thule-Riss" focused his attention on the man of resonance, putting a hand on his shoulder. Jordahk felt another reeling wave of pressure, as if an invisible planet was passing by, crushing him with its mass.

  Ek-Hein nodded. "At last. Yes." His eyes took on a distant quality, but this time with lucidity.

  Thule-Riss removed his hand and retraced his steps back to the golden chair while everyone hung in silent amazement. He stood before it and noticed those aside from Ek-Hein for the first time. Jordahk was expending more and more effort just trying to stand against the gravitational pull of his bracelet. It was like a singularity strapped to his wrist.

  When Thule-Riss stared him in the eye, Jordahk felt he was being analyzed down to the particle. A curious expression crossed the enigmatic man's face, and he looked over at Aristahl with narrowing eyes. Was there reproof there? Questioning? Jordahk's grandfather stood tall under the powerful gaze.

  The "weight" of Jordahk's compy staggered him. Both men, locked in their wordless exchange, stopped to notice. The man who Ek-Hein called Thule-Riss sat back onto his chair. He cocked his head slightly, giving Jordahk a last inspection, and then white streaks emanated from the chair's golden channels, filling the cargo hold with light. When the streaks faded, the man and outsized chair were gone. Jordahk's compy resumed its normal mass.

  They all stood still a moment, the siblings and Jordahk casting tentative glances.

  Cranium, now somewhat accustomed to the unexpected and even bizarre, still turned to his sister with shaking head. "I'm breaking out the Aquarii Mead."

  After the encounter, Ek-Hein became distant, as if his focus was already another place. He prepared to separate his old ship from the makeshift collection and take it somewhere. Aristahl was in no shape to keep up when Ek-Hein left the hold. After a few strained steps, he sat on one of the crates. Jordahk went to him in concern.

  "Pops, let me help you back. Let Torious do his job."

  "There is not much he can do." Jordahk didn't like the sound of that. "Come, Jordahk, we have no time to worry about such things. A civilization is at stake, and your parents."

  "But—"

  Aristahl pointed at the siblings. "Have those two transfer as much of this cargo as possible to the launch."

  "What? It's Ek-Hein's."

  "He will not be needing it. This is no longer his mission."

  Jordahk hesitated.

  "Jordahk," Aristahl said, his conviction apparent, "the Onus has him. Alb-Sone's treatment is not a cure. His lucidity will fade. But if there was a place out there where he could find peace, would we not wish it for him?"

  "Excuse me, sir," Barrister said. "He has started the teslanium reactor. I estimate decoupling in just under an hour."

  Aristahl stood, with Jordahk's help.

  "Please do as I ask, Jordahk. Conscript the maintenance bots."

  Jordahk engaged in a gesticulation-filled conversation with the siblings. When he saw his grandfather hobble toward the hatch, he returned to his side.

  "I have to get to the bridge," Aristahl said.

  "We've got to get to the bridge," Jordahk amended.

  The old man appraised him for a long moment, then nodded.

  Jordahk was concerned, never having seen his grandfather pushed to this state. When they arrived at the open bridge hatch, Ek-Hein was reclined in the remaining command couch. He was surrounded by a myriad of VADs forming a loose egg shape. Status indicators were turning green. One pictured an area of space that was unmistakably the turbulent TransVex.

  Undoubtedly, Barrister was doing all he could with blood micros, but continued activity was emptying his grandfather's reserves. Jordahk stayed close.

  "Fate brought me to you at this time," Aristahl said to his old friend. "You can still help us."

  "It's time for me to go," Ek-Hein said. He prepped his ship absently.

  "Yes I know, but the egresses. Your resonance devices."

  "I'm leaving them behind," he said.

  "Ek-Hein, how small were you able to make them?" Aristahl entreated, trying to recall the man's attention from some far-off locus.

  A glimpse of the old scientist surfaced. The command couch stood him up, and he gestured vaguely to the space around them. "I used eighth—meter to protect this area. Standard ship guns meant fewer parts to fabricate."

  Eighth-meter "rocks" were a common ship-to-ship hypergun caliber, used extensively on destroyers and most everything smaller. Ek-Hein must have salvaged and forged numerous single-use launchers, seeding them in asteroids throughout his defense layers.

  "That will not help us," Aristahl said. "We would never get a ship close enough."

  Ek-Hein's attention was already fading back into the distance. Aristahl grabbed his arm.

  "An autobuss Ek-Hein. Listen! Did you ever create a legacy shell?"

  "A shell?" Ek-Hein shook his head. "I created a few long ago, but they were too small. I couldn't make them work." He observed Aristahl, fully cognizant of him for the first time since his strange encounter with "Thule-Riss," and smiled. "Thank you for coming for me. You've fulfilled your father's commitment. I know my perceptions will soon falter. My time at last to go beyond the 'Vex."

  They both knew it was true, but a hint of disappointment crossed Aristahl's face.

  Ek-Hein looked upon him with a touch of sadness, as if seeing how much he had aged for the first time. "The war's not really over, is it?"

  "The shooting has stopped. Well, more or less, but the clash of civilizations goes on." Aristahl shook his head. "And without our brethren out in front."

  "Yet you stay."

  "To help those who remained, and to set the next generation a true course. Is that not what the mantle of the Khromas is supposed to be about?" Aristahl closed his eyes in a long, slow blink. "A sometimes thankless burden. Our enemies have not been idle. But maybe the culture is ready at last for new Sojourners. Even a few could rally the Asterfraeo in its time of need. Most are oblivious to the sword of Damocles perched above their heads."

  Jordahk remained perfectly still, not wishing to draw attention to himself. He felt as though he was hearing things beyond his station.

  An expression of shame crossed Ek-Hein's face. "I'm sorry about your wife. What I shared with her." He looked away. "I didn't anticipate the end it led to."

  Aristahl grimaced. "No one could tell her what to do. Hmph, Centurions!" Exasperation spiked and was released just as fast. Aristahl's shoulders drooped. "She followed her passion to the end. I do not blame you."

  Ek-Hein exhaled, lifting his eyes in relief. "I was brash in my younger days, Arh-Tahl. You need to stop an egress, but I only made theoretical boasts." Ek-Hein studied his hands. "I burned my brain li
ngering in places for which we were not meant." His eyes grew distant. "Save them if you can, son of the Khromas." He reclined back into the command couch. "Avere, traveler."

  Aristahl gave a small, formal bow. "Avere."

  "Ek-Hein's ship has reached the top of the hill," Barrister said. "Detensor indicates MDHD engaging."

  "That was fast," Torious said.

  "Even you cannot cure the Onus, nurse," the AI responded.

  The Velia's launch was secured, its cargo hold filled with hastily accumulated flotsam and jetsam. Aristahl reclined on a bench seat, hooked up to Torious. Jordahk sat on a crate looking out into the bay through the launch's open cargo hatch. He'd not said anything for a number of minutes.

  "Who are we, Pops?"

  "Who we were is a story for another time," Aristahl said wearily. "Who we will become is dependent on what we, or perhaps just you, do at Adams Rush and beyond."

  "That's not really an answer." Jordahk said gently. His grandfather's state was precarious. Beyond that, he wouldn't allow himself to think.

  "The Perigeum member worlds are physically linked by egresses," Aristahl said. "But Asterfraeo worlds are also tethered with an invisible thread. Though cultures vary, they are unified by the common fire of their forging. The Sojourners' Crusade was not a war for conquest or territory but a way of life. A way for which the Perigeum leaves no room... has no room."

  Jordahk listened, and silence stretched out. Even Torious withheld wisecracks.

  "I get it, a little. But what can I do? I'm just a guy, not even out of long adolescence."

  Aristahl squeezed his eyes shut and clenched his fist. His body trembled. The glowing leads touching his head from the strange ceramic box oscillated in a different pattern. Torious put a probe to Aristahl's arm and infused more micros. Jordahk felt like biting his tongue.

  The color was gone from Aristahl when he opened his eyes. "No, no. It is not you. I am older than you think, even cheating the years. You will have to start the last leg of this journey on your own."

  "But, Pops, I don't know what to do."

  Aristahl paused, adopting a distant expression. The glowing leads oscillated a different pattern again. He craned his neck, peering over the assorted cargo from Ek-Hein. "He made a few... Ah, yes." He focused on a crate, which unlocked and popped open. "There should be a couple in there," he gestured to Jordahk.

  Following his grandfather's gaze, Jordahk retrieved two legacy shells from the container, the assorted mystic contents of which he would have liked to explore for days. As he gripped them, an impression of their workings formed in his mind. They resembled dormant seeds. No, more accurately, fossils, lifeless hunks of metal mimicking the shape but not the function of something long dead, something Jordahk suspected never worked anyway.

  "You can sense their potential, can you not?" his grandfather said weakly.

  Jordahk examined the shiny shells with their onyx caps. Faint, intersecting rings of matte numenium expanded across its surface. It happened so slowly that it would be easy to dismiss as a trick of the light.

  "Yeah, but not like the ones I fired on Adams Rush. I don't know how to say it. These have no life. They've been... crushed."

  "You have to make it work, Jordahk," Aristahl's breathing was labored, his strength fading. "It is the gift and the burden of our line." Aristahl closed his eyes. "Barrister is compiling a report for you. I will stay to secure Ek-Hein's work and our financial stake. Support... will follow."

  Jordahk stood. He wanted to say so much more, wanted to know so much more. But the universe wouldn't wait. "Is Thule-Riss Quext really my grandsire?"

  "Go... and find out."

  An object floated below the system's elliptical. If examined closely, it might be detected. Otherwise, it blended in with the other rogue rocks. Gr'jot was plagued by them, adding to its long list of hazards.

  Though far from obscuring dust, no one paid it any mind except to avoid it. No one noticed or cared that this particular "rock" changed course.

  Mimicking an asteroid was perfect local cover for a sneakership. The expensive AI craft accelerated away from gravitic interference. Ion thrusters were old technology, but they didn't light up detensors like teslanium fission.

  Cleverly obscured reserves powered the sneakership's thrusters for the days required. Venerable technology was simple. For extended reconnaissance missions, where stealth and reliability were most important, "simple" was best.

  After a time the skin of the sneakership shifted back to dark gray. Its AI observed things meeting the criteria for immediate reporting. It continued recording ships coming and going. The AI's patient vigil was ending. Some days later its teslanium reactor went online. Dual starkeels formed radiation deadly to organic tissue. To the AI it was "all systems green."

  On Co-Op Station, detensors detected a reconnaissance vessel leaving the system. The distance was too great to see the low profile insignia and stripes of silver and purple.

  A galaxy of sterile worlds surprised old-world academia but mattered little to practical colonial scientists with no axe to grind or points to prove. A colorful crystal growth named "khromathyst" was the closest thing to life humanity had encountered. It was discovered first in caves on Numen and later on mostly uninhabitable worlds.

  Often regarded as a curiosity, to a few thinkers on Numen who veered far from the conventional, it opened doors. Acting like a lens of sorts, it aligned a narrow band of thought and matter for a few able to traverse deep paths. It was an introduction that led to insights about the uncharted quantum fields of the brain and eventually to a new technology.

  The quantum fields were dubbed "spirit fields" by the first Sojourners. Conventional scientists couldn't replicate their accomplishments. Numen became prosperous exporting "mystic" wares. It attracted those refusing the cultural inculcation of the spreading egress network. When the Perigeum made overtures to egress Numen, its inhabitants staunchly refused, linking mystic to the burgeoning Freespace Movement.

  Some Sojourners pioneered further into space, seeking freedom from encroachment and pressure. By the dawn of the Sojourners' Crusade, they founded most of the early Asterfraeo. One such colony was, at the time, on the fringes of inhabited space.

  If Adams Rush was awkward in government and overzealous for personal liberty, it owed it to its determined, albeit unorthodox, founders. A cursory observation of the planet's place names highlighted what the Perigeum considered an obsession with bygone concepts.

  Historical inspiration was nothing new. The totality of human culture went through a long flirtation with classical antiquity. The overused and occasionally comical adoration reached its peak before the war, thankfully fading since. Adams Rush differentiated itself with its emphasis on a neoclassical culture millenniums younger.

  In Sojourner circles, such focus garnered extra scrutiny. Interest in classical antiquity was usually based in principles. Those enamored with later cultures sometimes focused on movements and individuals of questionable virtue. Occasionally, it meant a mind was drifting into the Onus. For a very few, it pointed to more nefarious possibilities.

  On Adams Rush, it just meant an uncommon band of Sojourners found cultural resonance with a later period. The colony was fiercely independent. Its Sojourner inhabitants lived alongside a growing colony of like-minded Freespace Movement immigrants.

  But succeeding generations failed incrementally to capture the founding vision, once so integral. Two hundred years later, the planet was not so independent, and the Sojourners were long gone. If Adams Rush fell under Perigeum dominion, it would be a blow to the Cohortium that would echo throughout the Asterfraeo.

  The far worlds, on the new edge of inhabited space, already contributed little to the Vallum Corps. It wouldn't take much for them to doubt its efficacy altogether. The Vallum Corps was busy holding the Palisades line. Could they even stop the Perigeum Starmada launching from an egress behind it at Adams Rush?

  Directly below where such an advance would sta
rt, the sun was setting. From the surface, the egress bore a crimson hue. In a Thule-Riss valley, Kord, in soft, non-activated armor surveyed it through zoomies. He knew indulging in such a time-waster was pointless. Yet, look or not, the giant hexagon's presence loomed.

  Whatever secrets Kord's forebears hid in the cabin vault would soon be compromised. No deeds, no electronic traces linking the Wilkrest's to the place were on record, but it wasn't completely secret either. The Archivers were onto them, and only so many cabins dotted the Thule-Riss Range. Recent generations had little desire to build inconvenient domiciles in mono-wooded areas offering nothing more than isolation, and water if you were lucky. When the egress opened, there would be more than enough manpower to run down each and every one.

  Had the area genuinely been a retreat for Thule-Riss himself? Even Kord was unsure, but that was the story. The early colonists dubbed the range in his name. No doubt any vault constructed by him or Aristahl would be nearly invulnerable—and undetectable. Unfortunately, "nearly" wouldn't stand up to prolonged Archiver scrutiny. They didn't wield the power of Sojourners, but they were far more than imprimaturs. And they had been busy for 200 years.

  Lost in thought, Kord wasn't really looking at the egress anymore. He zoomed out. "About to get busy up there."

  After a slight delay, Vittora's synthesized voice came through his link. "Yes, gefera. But it's out of our hands. Let's press on with what the Creator set before us." A few seconds ticked by. "Picking up nothing. You're clear forward."

  The sound quality was subnormal. Between scrambling, compression, and transmission through a hodgepodge chain of line of sight espies, it was expected. They hovered just below the tree line, peeking up just long enough to relay. It was cumbersome but secure. Sneaking onto property he owned made him feel like a criminal.