Daniel Coldstar #1

by Stel Pavlou

  “I don’t know who they are, only that I met one.”

  “Describe him to me.”

  Daniel cast his mind back, trying to separate what he had felt from what he had seen. He could find only one way to describe the mask that the Sinja wore. “He wore a face of blades.”

  Daniel glanced at the uneasy faces around the room. The Chief Verdicti rapped her fingers on the desk to what everybody else already knew. “Vega Virrus. Interesting.”

  One of the Chief’s fellow Verdicti could remain silent no longer. “If Virrus is involved, then this is a plot that extends all the way up to—”

  “Let us not allow the Lord of Lies,” said the Chief Verdicti, “to further darken our discussion.”

  But the deed had already been done. The mere mention of such dark and powerful forces had an unsettling effect on everyone in the room.

  Yet for Daniel, questions remained. Who was this Lord of Lies?

  The Chief Verdicti looked down her pointed nose at Daniel, her voice grave. “The Sinja,” she explained, “are the greatest threat to peace in the galaxy. They are liars and they are assassins. They like nothing more than to profit from chaos, misery, and war. They will turn friends against one another, they will persuade families to destroy one another, if it gives them what they want. Their greed is boundless.”

  “Why don’t you just arrest them? Or destroy them?” said Daniel.

  “We do, when we can find them. But because their true identities and the extent of their reach are unknown, and because they stay hidden in plain view, pretending to be part of the fabric of our society, it is not so simple. Any one of us in this room could be a Sinja, and on the surface, we would never know it.”

  “To that end,” one of the other Verdicti interjected, “the Guild of Truth’s preliminary investigation is complete. We can find no evidence of an increase in the number of missing children.”

  Daniel refused to believe what he was being told. “Where did you look, under your robes?”

  Ben Quick laughed, and had to turn it into a cough to try to cover up his improper response.

  The Verdicti explained, “It is possible that something has occurred on worlds where we have no jurisdiction, but I cannot answer to information that is unavailable.”

  “Besides,” another Verdicti protested, addressing his comments to the Chief Verdicti directly, “without knowledge of this boy’s origin, there aren’t enough resources in the galaxy to conduct a thorough investigation. Where would we even begin?”

  Daniel threw up his hands. “I can’t believe this! You’re not even going to try?”

  Ionica rushed to block him from storming out. “Daniel, nobody said we weren’t going to help. We’re just identifying what the problems are. This is our way.”

  “Meanwhile thousands of grubs—just like me—are trapped, underground, starving, being forced to work and suffer every. Single. Day.” Daniel turned on the Verdicti. “It’s a miracle I made it out. And you’re worried about evidence and where to begin? Begin with me, I’m standing right here! If you had evidence before I came in, you would have found us years ago! Of course you don’t have any other evidence—they don’t want us to be found.”

  Ionica laid a hand gently on Daniel’s shoulder. “Please, show some respect—”

  Daniel shook her off, the rage and frustration he’d been feeling for so long now far out of his control. “Respect? What about respecting me? If I were lying, would I be wearing this?” He ripped his dugs open to show them all the Aegis stuck to his chest. “This power has attached itself to me. It’s freed me from a life of chains. If you don’t believe me, put me on trial! I don’t even know who I am. I have no memory of anything before the mines. Maybe someone watching will recognize me and come forward and answer your questions. Put all your great and learned minds at ease. I don’t care if you think I’m speaking the truth or not. As the one who escaped, I have a responsibility. Help us. Please!”

  How long had tears been running down his face? He could feel them dripping from his chin.

  The Chief Verdicti nodded, thoughtfully. “I agree,” she said.

  Daniel’s legs shook. He hadn’t been expecting that. “Which part?”

  “Though a public inquest of some description is appealing,” one of the other Verdicti mused, “if he is telling the truth, we can’t afford to let the galaxy see him just yet.”

  “Agreed.”

  Daniel didn’t understand. If someone out there had answers, couldn’t that only help? “Why not?” he asked.

  “Then the Sinja would know that we know what they’ve been up to,” Ionica explained, her voice soft but serious. “They’d shut down operations and move your friends before we even knew where to begin to look.”

  The revelation felt like a kick in the gut. “I hadn’t thought of that,” Daniel admitted.

  “That’s why I’m ordering you to take him to the Seven Summits,” the Chief Verdicti explained to Ben and Ionica. “He will be safe there. The Fortress of Truth will provide shelter and assist all three of you in your investigation in any way that it can. If he wishes, he can train with the other students and learn the Way of Truth. Certainly he is going to need guidance on how to handle his Aegis. But from this moment on, Ionica Lux and Benjamin Quick, you are his guardians, and his actions are your responsibility.”

  Ben, who had had nothing to add to any of the deliberations, and who had been nodding off, nearly fell out of his chair. “Do what?”

  “Your honor,” Ionica protested, “we’re Beacons ourselves, we’re not even close to becoming full Truth Seekers yet.”

  The Chief Verdicti smiled. “Then this is going to be a challenge, isn’t it?” she said. “Or are you not the same students who just aided the Guild of Truth in convicting one of the most wanted criminals in the galaxy?”

  30

  FORTRESS OF TRUTH

  The splintership Equinox flew low over the rugged mountains of Orpheus Core, in final approach to the Fortress of Truth.

  The Fortress, the lone building on the face of the planet, sat nestled within a ring of seven mountain peaks—the Seven Summits, though as far as Daniel could tell, it was more like six mountains and a stump.

  All seven of the mountains, hollowed out and glittering with windows, were connected to the Fortress via bridges, except for the seventh, the stump, an exiled blackened pile of rubble that appeared to have been destroyed long, long ago.

  It wasn’t exactly a welcome party when Daniel, Hex, Ionica, and Ben stepped out of the hangar, but the bustling crowd of students going to and from classes certainly knew Daniel had arrived and gave him long, sideways glances, if they didn’t outright stare.

  They didn’t trust him.

  Daniel glanced up at Hex, trying to steady him. “You okay?”

  “I’m been complaining since you put me in this horrendous, drotefest of a suit! Haven’t you been listening?”

  Daniel tried his best to sound innocent. “I hadn’t noticed,” he said, shrugging. “Hey, wait up!”

  Leaving the anatom to follow in his wake, he caught up with Ionica and Ben. This place was not what he’d been expecting. Like the mines, the students here were his age and younger, originating from more worlds than he could count.

  “You live here?”

  “Sometimes. When we’re in training, or we’re not assigned to an outpost,” Ionica explained.

  “Or when they give us a few days off and send us, er . . . home.” Ben shuddered, as though that were the worst possible thing he could think of.

  A short kid blocked their path, making a kind of grunting sound at Daniel, who couldn’t tell if he was supposed to be impressed or if the kid was mocking him. Then he opened his mouth.

  “I don’t speak Chaff,” Daniel said, trying to cut past him.

  The kid stepped in his way again.

  Daniel glanced around, trying to see a way through, but it was obvious the boy wasn’t going to move. “You’re making a mistake,” Daniel said
quietly.

  The boy put his hand on Daniel’s chest. Daniel smacked it away.

  “Touch me again and I’ll stick your hand somewhere you really don’t want it.”

  The kid had a look of utter shock on his face and, turning his back on Daniel, ran into the crowd and disappeared.

  Ionica grimaced. “He was, er, welcoming you,” she explained.

  “Not everyone in the universe is a dootbag,” Ben explained.

  Embarrassed, Daniel slapped a hand over his mouth. “Oh . . .” He looked for the kid in the crowd. “I’m sorry!” he cried, but the kid was long gone.

  Behind him, Hex started laughing, which in his new body sounded like a T-Dozer rolling in to level the place.

  Daniel glowered. “You know, I can put you back in the jar.”

  Like the spokes on an ancient wheel, to reach any of the Seven Summits, the students first had to pass through the Fortress of Truth. In the center of the domed atrium stood an eight-legged fossil, a skeleton of an Arachnivore in an attack pose fighting a pack of Fathacond. The sign explained that it was just a baby, but it was the most complete example ever found. Arachnivores had been found on eighteen different planets before dying out some 250 million years ago at what exopaleontologists called the GEB—the Galactic Extinction Boundary, when every intelligent alien race across the galaxy was wiped out in a single event.

  Ionica shook her head. “Long before humans ever left home to journey on the Great Migration,” she said, “whole worlds lived and died, leaving behind incredible legacies. Can you imagine what it was like to have known them?”

  Daniel had a pretty good idea. Having worked the Sinja mines, and seeing what he had seen: all those machines of war.

  Under his feet, the floor had shifted from stone to glass, exposing a vast hall of knowledge. A library of sorts, rows of digital information running between relics sitting encased under security domes. Inside one, a Truth Seeker stood in front of a large book lying on a podium, plucking stars and planets out of thin air and examining them like tree blossoms.

  “What’s she doing?” he asked.

  “Studying,” Ben explained hastily, “the Book of Planets.”

  “Star charts?”

  “Not exactly,” Ionica said. “Every planet in the entire galaxy is linked to that one book.”

  “Linked?” said Daniel. “How?”

  “It’s complicated,” she said.

  “And dangerous,” Ben added. “Never go in there alone. You can get killed.”

  “From a book?”

  Daniel watched the Seeker’s companion, outside the chamber, monitoring her progress carefully on a holocule console.

  “Hmm,” Ionica remarked, “I don’t see the Keeper anywhere.”

  “Probably ripping another relic apart,” said Ben. “One day he’s going to get himself disintegrated.”

  “Well, let’s just get Daniel to your room and get him settled,” Ionica said, marching on ahead.

  Ben pulled up short. “Wait a minute. My room?”

  Ionica rolled her eyes. “Where else is he going to go?”

  “Er, what about you?”

  “He can’t stay with me.”

  “Why not?”

  “I’m a girl. And he can’t stay with any of the other Seekers. They don’t know him like we do.”

  “We just met him!”

  “Quit shouting!”

  “I am not shouting!” Ben’s voice echoed throughout the Fortress of Truth.

  Daniel eased off into the crowd. “Don’t tire yourself out. I can find somewhere to bed down on my own.”

  “Oi, don’t be daft,” Ben called after him. “Of course you’re staying with me.”

  “But I thought—”

  Ben took a deep breath, trying to keep his cool. “I’ve just got two rules. Snore, and you’re out on your ear.”

  “And the other?”

  “For the love of the Fuse, take a bath. Or a shower. Or throw yourself into the Rogue River for all I care. Either way, scrub up. Then take whatever those sorry rags are that you’re wearing and throw them away—better yet, burn ’em.”

  That all would have seemed reasonable to Daniel if the request had come from somebody else, but this Ben Quick kid, with his matted hair and his muddy boots?

  “Have you looked in a mirror recently?”

  Ionica laughed at that.

  31

  ZUBENEL GENUBI’S GALACTIC HISTORY OF THE EXODUSSIC AGE

  “Catch!” said Ben, tossing over one of those armored Truth Seeker kilts. “They’re called sleeks. They should fit you.”

  Up close, Daniel realized he’d never seen a fabric quite like it, if you could call it a fabric. The entire thing seemed to be made up of tiny hexagonal pieces of metal; cold to the touch on the outside, surprisingly warm and soft on the inside. “Should I be wearing these? People might think I’m a Truth Seeker.”

  “I’m pretty sure they won’t,” Ben replied, almost too confidently.

  Ben’s room, now also Daniel’s room, was situated high up in the Second Summit, with a view looking out at the wilderness of Orpheus Core, rather than inward at the Fortress of Truth.

  For the longest time, Daniel just sat on the edge of his new bed, clutching his sleeks, watching the clouds drift by.

  Ben, on the other hand, couldn’t see the appeal. “Are you going to shower or what? Classes start in ten minutes.”

  Reluctantly, Daniel did as he was told. Although the first problem was trying to figure out how to take his smelly old mining dugs off when the Aegis on his chest refused to budge. He clawed his fingers under the fastenings down the front and managed to yank some of the fabric out from underneath it, but he had to keep his fingers there while he tugged the rest out with his other hand.

  When he was done, the Aegis pressed harder against his bare chest.

  Great. He was going to have to shower still wearing this thing. He would have to keep reminding himself that this was all perfectly normal and that he wasn’t under attack, or he’d end up accidentally destroying the entire bathroom.

  It took a while to figure out all the controls; there was water and sonic waves, and try as he might he couldn’t get the autodry to work, so he used a towel. He didn’t think he’d ever been this clean in his life. He wasn’t sure if he liked it, but he’d go with it for now.

  When it was time to put on the sleeks Ben had given him, that was a whole other issue. There didn’t appear to be any fastenings. How did anyone put these things on? Maybe it stretched. He found the opening to the kilt section and decided to try pulling it on over his head.

  That was when things took an unexpected turn. The tiny metallic hexagons that made up the garment began breaking apart. At first, Daniel thought that maybe he’d ripped it, but then the individual pieces began moving—all on their own! They raced down his body, forming sleeves, and a kilt, wrapping around his chest and back, reconfiguring into the perfect size.

  Once they had settled into their final shape, Daniel glanced down, mesmerized, as the tiny hexagons pulled back from the Aegis, before burrowing under it and lifting it up onto its finished surface.

  Ben gave a modest nod of approval when Daniel took a step. “Not bad. You actually do look like one of us, huh,” he said, handing him a pair of boots. “Come on.”

  Daniel wasn’t sure what to expect when they arrived at the lecture hall. Nothing about the whole process seemed familiar at all. The room was circular, with benches ringing an open area in the center. The benches themselves rose progressively higher so that the Truth Seekers taking the class looked down on Zubenel Genubi, the instructor.

  Genubi had a narrow face and long limbs, and when he spoke his voice sounded like air being squeezed out of a balloon.

  “Can anyone tell me,” he asked, “the name of the planet where humans originated?”

  The first Truth Seeker to try to answer the question said, “Dirt.”

  Another one said, “Clay.”

  It turned o
ut the name of the planet was Earth.

  The class didn’t go any faster from there. Genubi plodded through the timeline of how humans left this planet Earth in the Great Migration some ten thousand years ago because there wasn’t enough food and water to go around. Humans depended on other worlds to survive.

  Genubi also talked about how humans were not united when they left Earth. They were separated by what were called countries, and also by languages, and these separations were what led to the nature of humankind throughout the galaxy today.

  After two hours of this, Daniel had progressed from being mildly bored to being frustrated and angry.

  What was the point in having someone stand there and tell you all this stuff when you could just get plugged in and load it all into your head in a matter of seconds? It seemed like such a waste of valuable time.

  This is what the Verdicti on Toshka had wanted for him? It felt like a pointless distraction.

  When a brief alarm echoed throughout the chamber for recess, Daniel was instantly on his feet.

  “Why am I here?” he asked. “Why am I learning things I’m never going to use?”

  Ben wasn’t sure he understood. “It’s a history class,” he said.

  “What is the point of it?” Daniel demanded, “For me. What is the point? How does it help me find where I came from? How does it help me get back there?”

  “It doesn’t. We learn the histories of worlds so we don’t make the same mistakes all over again.”

  “Oh, don’t worry, we’re not repeating old mistakes,” said Daniel. “We’re making whole new ones. I can’t sit around while my friends are in chains. I need to be out there doing something about it!”

  32

  SKYRIDER’S GORGE

  Daniel ran.

  Out of that class. Out of that fortress. He just had to get away. Far away. Out across the open grassland and the loosely wooded foothills where the abandoned columns and fallen arches of the once-mighty bridge to the Seventh Summit stood like petrified giants. Scrambling through the thicket until he emerged onto a bluff overlooking Rogue River and the Seventh Summit beyond, his aching lungs filled with the fresh scent of tree sap and fallen leaves.