The Hand of Grethia: A Space Opera

by Guy Antibes

  “Computer! What are the results of the autodoc?”

  “Sufficient immunization for all biologics. Autodoc was unable to neutralize the effects of seven of the toxins. Antidotes are on file in the autodoc, if you are stricken. This information has been downloaded to your viewer and your watch.” Jan examined the information. With all of the medical advances in the Empire, there were still diseases and nasty side effects that could seriously affect or kill visitors. Even man’s original home world, the planet Earth, was not free of biological dangers. Gathering his gear and the emergency anti-toxins, he went to the exit chamber and then stepped out into the air of Space Quest One, generally called SQ1.

  In the heat and humidity, he trudged over to a large building. There were over one hundred space ships on the huge blacktop. Ships were continually landing and taking off. Once inside, the low dark-blue brick edifice, Jan found himself sweating profusely in a registration line.

  “You don’t look very happy to be here,” said a middle aged black man who joined the line just after Jan.

  “I just want to get on with it. What’s it to you?” Jan said. His knew his brusque manner shielded the excitement and fear roiling inside.

  “One of those “driven” guys, huh? Are you going to try and go all the way and find all the beacons?” the man said with a chuckle.

  Jan grunted. He could tell he was being needled.

  “Most of you types don’t end up coming back. Me, I’m finished after two or three. That’s success for this old coot.” the man said. “It took me fifteen years to save up enough to play this time and look at you, a pup.”

  “I had a bit of an inheritance to run through. But we’re both here. So, good luck with your strategy,” Jan said, trying to make up for his rudeness.

  “Just watch yourself. The quest isn’t just for fun. Plenty have died. Grab the beacon locations that you need and then head back for your reward. The longer you play, the more chances you have to let someone sneak up behind and take you out.”

  “I can believe that. Thanks for the advice,” Jan said. He was glad to find himself at the head of the line. He nodded to the man behind him and went to a terminal to register as a full participant of the Space Quest.

  As he sat down all of the bitterness that festered after his ill-fated meeting with his father welled up again. I can beat Smith Mercantile. I’ll beat Artis at his own game. I’ll show him I’m ready to be just as ruthless. Someday, I’ll be the one hoodwinking SM, he thought.

  The buzzing of the terminal shook Jan from his funk. Jan went through the registration procedure. He registered and received a practice quest of five beacons on Space Quest Three.

  His bitterness and resentment could work to dull his edge, especially now that he had lost his job at SM, but Jan shook it off. He let excitement overtake him as he landed on SQ3, immunized, prepared for the external weather, and declared himself ready to go.

  It took him two weeks to find all five beacons. His encounters with the local populace were few and perfunctory; without incident. He returned to SQ1, got his final instructions, his starting point for the Space Quest and returned to Impollon IV to take care of his affairs before the big day in three weeks.

  ~

  The time had come for Jan to leave for the Quest. He gathered his clothes and what few personal possessions he wanted to keep, and then loaded them into a waiting taxi. As he was about to leave his apartment for the last time, Jan responded to a hailing on his intercom.

  “Jan, are you in there?” the voice asked. “It’s me, Fan. I heard you left SM. I want to talk to you.”

  Fianna was an old flame. They both thought they might have something going, but discovered theirs was a true friendship, but not true love. He replied to her through the intercom and then let her into his apartment.

  “What’s going on here?”

  “Fan, I’m leaving. I left the company because I had a falling out with my father. Wait, I never had a falling in.” Jan said, half to himself while he continued to pack as she stood talking to him. “I’m going away.”

  “The Space Quest? But you’re coming back, aren’t you?” Fianna said. Jan could see alarm on her face.

  “I have the space ship and enough to get by on. My father,” Jan said, “personally let me go. Maybe I remind him of his only failure, his first marriage. I always hoped he would let me get on with my career, working in the bowels of SM. Now, I am judged not worthy enough to set foot in the place, so I’m leaving. You know how hard I’ve trained for the Space Quest. So that’s my first destination. I don’t have any plans after that.” Jan said.

  “I know how the Space Quest has been an obsession for you. Just think, now you’ve got the excuse to go all out for it. I hope you look at the experience as an opportunity to put some of your past behind you, but not all of it. You are a dear friend and I want the best for you,” Fianna said. “I don’t want you to leave forever. We’ve had our friendship. It’s been important to me.”

  “I know, Fianna, it’s been important to me too, but I need to get away now that Artis told me to go. I can’t help but think that it’s his other family behind this.”

  “I agree. It’s that wife of his, Josette and that pig of a son, Trimpnell. Just meeting him gave me the shivers. I can see them pressuring him to do it. With whatever is in your mysterious trust, you could conceivably stand in the way of their getting total control of SM.”

  Jan laughed. “My mysterious trust remains a mystery. All I know is that I had just enough to buy my spaceship and take care of the Space Quest with my initial legacy. I’ve got to get off of Impollon IV and do some thinking,” Jan said as he hoisted the duffel containing the last of his possessions. “Take care of yourself, Fianna.”

  Jan pecked her on the cheek. Fianna threw her arms around him and hugged him, a little tearfully. It made him feel wanted, but nothing would sway him from leaving.

  “By the way, feel free to dispose of anything I’ve left and find someone nice to let the apartment to, you’re the prettiest real estate agent alive.” said Jan as he kissed her good-bye again and left her standing alone in his apartment.

  ~~~

  Chapter 4

  The alarms clanged in his ship. “Emergency! Power drain in the right engine cell. This is a mission-critical emergency!”

  “Can we make it somewhere?” said Jan.

  “I took the liberty of exiting hyperspace. You are in a remote section of an outer arm. I can’t generate enough power for another jump.”

  “Where is the nearest planet?” Jan couldn’t believe the turn of bad luck. Two-thirds of the beacons found in 52 days and then this—marooned in an unexplored sector by this mysterious problem. He already had more than enough beacons to call his Space Quest a success. Perhaps the black man at the training center was right, after all. “Before you search, where is the source of the power drain?”

  “In the stabilization circuitry of the starboard propulsion unit. The specifics of the anomaly are undetectable by my sensors. I am continuing the planetary search.”

  Jan checked and rechecked the controls. He checked and rechecked the computer’s diagnostics for sensor malfunction. Then crawled back to the dormant right engine cell and opened up the plate covering hyperdrive stabilization circuitry. For once he was appreciative of the space engineering degree that he earned to get his pilot classification. He noticed a strange box attached to a lead from the circuit cube. Jan followed the lead up to the drive coil. He went to the left engine and examined the same area and there was no box and no lead. He clipped a transponder to the box and took a video with his pocket communicator so the computer could analyze it.

  Reluctantly he went to the control room and uploaded the video to the computer. “The adjustment in the right engine coil was caused by that unidentified control outside of my sensor range. Telemetry from the transponder indicates that it was programmed to instruct the starboard engine cell to power-up to maximum and burn out, which would have eliminated you
r ability to exit hyperspace.”

  Jan shook his head and pressed his lips together in frustration.

  “The surge was identified in progress and I executed an override instruction to bypass the intended destruction. However, in the process, the power drain that disabled the cell could not be fully stopped. Non-power circuitry was identified and sufficient power channeled to the port cell to exit hyperspace. The ship is now using battery power. Your survival is programmed for top priority, so the charted course was ignored. To rectify the problem and upon exit to normal space, you were alerted,” the computer reported.

  “If you were a Series 200 computer instead of a Series 202X computer, could you have gotten the ship out of hyperspace?” Jan said.

  “No. There are only six 202X computers in existence. Each 202X has been optimized differently. An in-specification Series 200 computer would have shut the drive down to protect overall power and, once shut down, and, without the ability to generate power, energy would continue to bleed off until no return to normal space would have been possible.”

  It looked like somebody wanted him out of the way. It was Dackwiler’s special computer, and the special installation he ordered, that gave Jan a chance at survival. If marooned in hyperspace there would have been no place to go. Nothing existed there except other ships moving through the folds of the universe.

  “What is the safest way to remove the box and its lead?” Jan asked, fury and fear alternately wrenching his insides.

  “A total power-down would be safest, with removal taking place in the shutdown environment. Since life-supporting operations will be affected by the shutdown, it is recommended to land first.”

  “How has your search been going?”

  “Only one suitable planet is in range. It has carbon-based life. There are significant radiation readings on 50% of the planet. There are minimal background power emissions, but no general use of electricity. There are some intermittent power bursts, but nothing that would indicate an extensive technological culture. There is a 99.95 percent probability that the planet is a re-discovery candidate.”

  “Do I have the battery power to get there?”

  “There are sufficient resources to get there, orbit and analyze the planet for an autodoc session and then land. I have insufficient reserves to self-repair the power generator.”

  “So I can’t return to hyperspace.” Jan made the statement out loud. At least he had a chance at survival. Whoever had done this to him had not intended Jan to return from anywhere. “Computer, we’ll land at the planet. Please continue to monitor while we approach it.” Jan said.

  ~

  The ship circled the planet. No significant power emissions were evident except for strange intermittent bursts. The computer detected some untapped background levels that might indicate the existence of batteries or solar power generators, but no usage.

  Two land masses dominated a planet that looked a lot like Earth from space. One land mass covered much of the north hemisphere and a much smaller one existed in the other. His instruments detected lethal radiation that covered the larger of the two continents.

  The smaller continent, more like a very large island, seemed to be radiation-free. Evidently the cataclysm didn’t extend much past the equator. A large plains area exhibited agricultural activity. A few cities hugged the coast on the west side. Jan found a district that looked promising close to both the mountains and the sea.

  There was a large city by a river that transitioned from a jumble of streets to planned areas. The most consistent of the tiny power emissions were centered there. That presence indicated an emerging technology. He decided to discreetly land in the mountains and make his way, on foot, into the settled areas and the city.

  The craft settled down in a small, secluded valley nestled between craggy cliffs, while Jan viewed the output of monitoring sensors and measured the status of the planet. Gravity was just about earth-normal. The planet was smaller that Impollon IV, but evidently more dense. Cursory biological analysis showed no pathogenic bacteria present that would compromise Jan’s immune system. The autodoc rated the planet less hostile than Impollon. After a twenty-minute immunization session, He dialed in a purge of air from his ship, then he removed the offending circuitry and crossed his fingers while the ship powered up.

  “The ship can be idled for approximately three standard years,” the 202X said. “More energy will be required to activate the internal power generation equipment.”

  “I can’t promise I’ll return, but if there is power to find, I will locate it,” Jan said, feeling foolish promising anything to the computer that saved his life.

  ~

  The crisp, cold air of morning made Jan blink and take a quick breath as he stepped out of the port and descended to the ground of the isolated planet. He took in the smells and closed his eyes, trying to detect differences between high country smells on Impollon and here. Wearing his plainest, most non-descript clothing and hiding his blaster and tool kit in his pack, Jan made his way over a jumble of rocks and down into another valley. There were no easy ways in or out of his ship’s hiding place. In time, Jan picked up a game trail, leading in the direction Jan wanted to go.

  Jan carefully marked his way, so he could find his way back. The trees towered over Jan as he trudged into the forest shadows. They seemed to swallow him up, leaving his dormant lifeline to the universe far behind.

  ~~~

  Chapter 5

  Jan read the information extracted from his computer and the sensor mapping of the planet on the tiny holoscreen projected by his watch. This district had a number of valleys under cultivation all surrounded by forest. The trees appeared similar enough to the coniferous trees on Impollon IV.

  He rounded a large rocky outcropping and walked right into a village before he knew it was there. A few people looked at him with mild curiosity. Jan just walked on as the path merged with a dirt road filled with ruts. He didn’t want any kind of delays until he made it into the large port that was likely the capital of the area. Jan kept his head down, intent on not being noticed.

  As he went he picked up a few conversations and puzzled out the script on building signs. He recognized the dialect as an archaic Universal Basic. Evidently, these people were definitely once part of his civilization.

  A certain amount of fear gnawed at his stomach making him feel like a marooned man on a desert island. For a second, he panicked. Should he turn around and live like a hermit using his ship as a cave? But then he took a deep breath and realized he needed to do some interaction with the locals first.Better to know the language a little better before I go to the capital, Jan thought as he reversed direction on the road and headed back towards the settlement.

  The inn and the entire village looked like something right out of his Space Quest manuals. The forest framed the main street. Other dwellings were nestled in among the trees. Now that Jan stopped to notice, he could see that the village straddled a stream that went into a small, cultivated valley.

  Jan walked into an inn. The people here wore much more rustic clothes than he had on. He felt uncomfortably out of place. Where his pack was made out of woven synthetic fiber with plastic parts, these people used homespun materials with laces and buttons fastening their clothing. He had fabric fasteners on his jacket, shirt and trousers. Jan didn’t notice any fair complexions, but did see a red headed fellow. His blond hair made him stand out, he thought. He clamped his lips together to build up enough determination to approach the bar.

  “Hello, I’m not from around here.” he said slowly. The barman was drying a glass. Jan looked at a collection of bottles of glass and glazed earthenware of different sizes, shapes and colors lining the shelves. It took trading to create that kind of diversity.

  “I gathered that,” the barman said dryly, as he looked Jan over. “Is there something I can do for you?” Even with his lack of familiarity with the dialect, Jan detected the sense of humor that came out through his words. The bar’s cus
tomers had begun to increase markedly since Jan had entered.

  “I don’t have any funds. I was wondering if there were some odd jobs around to earn some food and a little money so I can continue on my way?”

  “What can you do?” the barman said, his face suppressing a smile.

  “I can read and write and fix machinery. I can do a lot of things.” His words came more easily that he expected.

  “Who are you, lad?” The barman’s wife asked as she walked from the back, presumably a kitchen. Her breath about knocked Jan over. He couldn’t keep from wincing. “Sorry, occupational hazard.” She blew her breath to the side. “Not for me, but for you!” She punched him on the shoulder and broke into laughter, as did the rest of the men. She was thin as a rail, and had a long, plain face.

  Jan blinked a little. “I’m on my way to the capital city. I have journeyed a great distance to get here. I’m afraid I’m out of money, but I’m good for it.” He had far to go, but at this point Jan felt totally adrift. He had no idea what he needed to do and had no feel for this kind of thing. He’d have to improvise as he went. That was something he abhorred doing.

  “We don’t get many visitors coming from the mountains to our village—we call it Tryst—but you look like a trustworthy young man. We can find something for you,” she said. She smiled at him, but the look she gave her husband didn’t quite reassure him.

  Later, Jan had finished an interesting culinary experience. The food tasted hearty, likely nourishing, but he didn’t want to ask what he had eaten. One thing he did notice--beer was beer. It tasted a little different, but still similar enough to the stronger brew he had back home. The men in the bar began to talk to him. But Jan found that he ended up asking most of the questions.

  He was in the country of Diltrant, which was ruled by King Obsomil, from the port city that was also named Diltrant. The country was isolated from the rest of the continent by the mountains that Jan had landed in.