STAR HOUNDS -- OMNIBUS

by David Bischoff

  Still, she thought as she made her way through the long passageway, he doesn’t seem daunted in the least, and he has years of experience with this sort of rough and tumble pi-merc stuff. I shouldn’t worry.

  But nonetheless, she did.

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  As Tars Northern walked through the hallways of the Block compound as unobtrusively as possible, he wondered, not for the first time that day, why he had come here to Walthor with Laura Shemzak.

  All the other crewmembers had discouraged him. After all, Laura Shemzak with all her abilities, should have been able to determine the nature and specifics of the Jaxdron infiltration of Pax Industries as a solo agent. Yet the day before the mission, as he had sat in communion with a bottle of Freeman Jonst’s brandy and Dr. Mish, they had both decided he should go.

  “A hunch?” said Mish.

  “Yes. And don’t deny that you feel it too, damn you, Mish. There’s something else that needs to be taken care of down on the planet. I can’t put my finger on it, but it’s there.”

  “Yes, yes, I agree,” Mish responded, “but as you well know, I should not like to lose you, Tars Northern. You are much too important to all of us and there is great threat on Walthor. When I put forward the notion of stopping on Walthor to determine the nature of Jaxdron activity there, I did not intend for you to volunteer to land there yourself.”

  “But you know I must.”

  “Yes, I know that. I have accustomed myself to your musts, Tars Northern. At least they keep things exciting. But tell me, I sense that you also must go because of the girl.”

  “Nonsense!”

  “Do not dissemble with me, my companion. I know you too well. You care for her more than you’d like to admit.”

  “Well, sure I’d like to get in her pants!” Northern had agreed. “I’m as horny as the next egomaniacal starship captain. But care for her? She’s got the class of a storm trooper and the manners of an army boot! I’m going along because … because this is too vital a mission to leave solely in her wire-ridden hands!”

  Mish smiled. “Say what you wish, Northern, but you know what you say is not entirely true. Somehow the girl has begun to touch you in ways you will not admit.”

  As he passed through a doorway into an area denser with humans, he concentrated more on his task and less on idle speculation. Yes, he had to admit, he was rather fond of Laura Shemzak. Who wouldn’t be? She was quite pretty and quite a character, and she aroused him. But romantic feelings? No. In this case, the wise doctor was dead wrong.

  Tars Northern stepped onto a slidewalk, keeping alert for his destination: the experimental laboratories. When Laura Shemzak had told him about their existence, he knew that this was something that could be used against the Federation.

  Apparently, this remote world served a multiplicity of purposes, one of which was as a prison world for the Federation. Prisoners were being biologically tampered with. The natives of Walthor were being used in this manner as well. Proof of these horrors, as yet unknown to any of the Free Worlds, would certainly make those planets’ governments think twice about any unholy alliance with the Federated Empire!

  Automatically as he thought about the subject, Tars Northern tapped his shirt, feeling the outlines of both his recorder and his small weapon—a needler. He hoped he only needed to use the former.

  So far so good, he thought as the slidewalk whisked him on his way past the signs Laura had told him to expect. And the uniform was good too. He aroused no suspicion from the various Federation employees he passed.

  It took four minutes to get to the area marked on his pad as the central laboratory. Northern chuckled to himself as he stepped off the walk. The Feddies were certainly confident enough of themselves and their employees, clearly marking an area where terrible experiments were taking place. But then, Tars Northern remembered the things he had done as a Feddy. He had been so indoctrinated then, so inured ….

  That’s what happened to the human spirit in the hands of the kind of social and cultural programming the Federation used to control its peoples. It became warped, unbalanced. He would be forever grateful to the entity he called Dr. Mish for knocking him loose of his particular mental chains.

  There was a bank of doors before him, and Northern didn’t know which one to enter. Randomly, he chose the leftmost door and pushed his way in to what appeared to be a lobby. There was a desk in the reception area, but no guard manned it.

  Funny, thought Northern. You’d think they’d have some kind of security for a project of this nature. Maybe the guard had just stepped out for a cup of coffee.

  Northern stepped through the next door and found himself in a long, neon blue lit corridor. It wasn’t bright. The hall was bathed in an ultraviolet wavelength used to sterilize unwanted microbes. Various humans were walking through the hallway in pairs and singly, most wearing lab smocks but some dressed just as he was dressed.

  Good, thought Northern, stalking forward, not knowing where he was going but following his instincts. I blend in somewhat. He walked a ways down the hall. Then, randomly again, he chose a door and opened it. It proved to be a closet. So much for my instincts, he thought.

  Time to use his pad, he thought. Bringing up a schematic, Northern followed its multicolored maps until he arrived at a heavily armored airlock. It’s seal glowed in altering patterns of red and orange, and Northern confirmed the thick door’s serial number from the one detailed in his pad. No mistake this time! He ventured forward.

  The airlock hissed loudly as it went through an entry cycle, and led to another bio-safety door, which opened onto a steel catwalk overlooking a huge hall. Below were a number of large black opaque tanks, each joined with a table and adjacent workstation bristling with cables and tubes. Ranked in long rows, each workstation was manned by various sets of doctors and technicians.

  This was it!

  Quickly, Northern knelt down and pulled his tiny recorder out. Apparently, no one noticed his presence, which meant he had time. The instrument automatically focused as he pointed it downward, towards the activity below. Using its built in vu-screen, he magnified the image.

  Instantly, he could see just what was taking place below.

  It was something out of H.G. Wells’s Island of Dr. Moreau. Three beings, human and otherwise, were strapped to tables in various states of vivisection. Tubes, cables, and monitoring instruments abounded. Bits and pieces of limbs and organs floated in the adjacent nutrient tanks.

  Northern took a deep breath, holding back his revulsion. He had to get this over with and get out before he was caught; no time for reactions.

  He clicked off a few shots then tracked around the room, looking for other incriminating shots. This was going to be better than he had imagined. Back on the Starbow he’d put together a short documentary for upload in all the social networks. When the free colonies got a load of what was really going on then—

  Northern heard a scrabbling sound nearby and looked up.

  “Oh dear God!” he muttered, despite himself.

  Coming toward him was one of the Conglomerates, and what an ugly thing it was: a collection of pincers, antennae, and mottled, stitched-together skins of various species.

  It pointed a gun at him and said: “Intruder! Be still and allow apprehension!”

  Damn! Northern fumbled for his needler.

  The Conglomerate raised its weapon.

  Northern jumped to one side, just in time to avoid a yellow beam that sizzled through the air.

  He brought up his needler and nailed the creature dead in what he assumed was its brain-pan. A plume of smoke arose from the sizzling head, and the creature screeched, clutched at its face, and staggered against the railing. It tilted over and fell into one of the vats. Electric cracklings and explosions ensued.

  “So much for a low profile,” said Northern.

  He sprin
ted for the door through which he had entered, opened it, and found a pair of heavily armored security robots running his way.

  Northern slammed the door and ran toward the next. Human security officers emerged from that one and called for him to halt.

  He flung himself over the railing, hung for a moment, then swung down onto the next landing, almost managing to plummet the rest of the way to a rough landing.

  Shouts from below rang out. Fingers pointed. Boots rang on metal.

  Northern quickly found the nearest door and made for it. He scrambled through, ending up in another of the neon blue corridors. He made short work of this and soon found himself in a hallway that led to the slidewalk.

  If he could get to a place amongst other similarly garbed humans, he might have a chance. The slidewalk would provide cover if it were crowded, and besides, it would take him back to the loading dock where perhaps he could put his alien disguise back on and hide in one of the trucks until Laura returned.

  It was his only hope.

  Still, his mind rebelled at the notion of being so much in the open. He had to force himself to remain calm as he stepped onto the moving strip of corrugated plastic.

  A klaxon started howling.

  People started to look around; he mimicked their surprise, blinking and gazing about, looking for the cause of all this alarm even as he stepped over to the higher-speed lanes.

  He might just make it, he thought. Only he had to be careful. He didn’t want to get caught right at the dock and thus endanger both Xersi and Laura.

  A group of security guards stepped out ahead.

  If he could just get past them ….

  Suddenly, the slidewalks, even the one he stood on, slowed … then stopped. Fingers of the security men pointed his way.

  Dammit! They must have had a lock on his bio-signature, he realized, and cancelled the idea of a shoot-out amongst so many people. With a grand smile, he raised his arms in surrender.

  “Just trying to get a good story for my magazine, gentlemen!”

  The guards grabbed him, professionally relieved him of both his needler and his tiny camera, then hustled him away.

  “Down with the Federation!” he yelled to the bystanders.

  They gave him dirty looks.

  The guards had handcuffed him and placed him in an interrogation room with a disquieting amount of nasty-looking machinery that would not have looked out of place in the Anteres Inquisition from the early days of the First Federation.

  When Friend Arnal Zarpfrin walked into the cell, the first thing he said was directed to the guards: “You haven’t got enough stuff on him. Chain him to the wall. I promise you, he’s full of surprises.”

  The guards obeyed, with no concern whatsoever for the comfort of the starship captain.

  “Now then, Tars,” said Zarpfrin. “Perhaps we can have a longer conversation.”

  Northern recovered from the shock of finding himself face to face again with his worst enemy. “This is quite absurd, Zarpfrin. What are you doing here?”

  “You make it sound like it’s your domain, Northern,” said the Friend. “But it’s mine, and I will answer your question just as soon as—” A green light glowed on by the door. “Ah, here she is.”

  Friend Chivon Lasster stepped into the room.

  “A strange place for a reunion,” said Northern, unable to hide his surprise.

  Chivon Lasster stared emotionlessly at her former lover, and Tars Northern grinned back.

  “I have been waiting a very long time for this moment, Tars,” she said in a colorless voice.

  “Oh? Why, Chivon? Miss me?”

  “You are a traitor, Northern,” she spat vehemently. “A traitor to the Federation. You have caused all manner of trouble in the starways … trouble I have often had to deal with myself in my administrative position. I naturally am glad to see you come to justice, and I naturally am glad to be rid of the kind of trouble you cause.”

  “Wait a minute,” said Northern. “You may have me, but you haven’t got the Starbow and you haven’t got its crew. I’m sure they’ll carry on harassing you and your ilk long after you dispose of me or pick my mind or whatever it is you plan to do.”

  “Just exactly what is the location of the Starbow, Northern? This time I don’t intend to let it slip from my fingers,” said Zarpfrin in a casual manner.

  “One sign of a Federation ship and they’re going to be gone, Zarpfrin. And don’t think they’re going to be coming to rescue me, either. We’ve recently relieved ourselves of such romantic notions. The stakes are much too high.” Northern glanced up at the array of machinery hanging from the ceiling like an artificial jungle canopy. “So use as many mind-tapping procedures as you care to.”

  Zarpfrin was gazing at Northern in a peculiar way. “Just how did you get down here, anyway, Northern?”

  Tars Northern smiled insouciantly. “I beamed down.”

  “Unlikely,” said Lasster. “Such technology has been proved impossible.”

  “Yes. They used a shuttle to get to Kendrick’s Vision, and that’s how they escaped as well.” He leaned over so his eyes were just centimeters from Northern’s face. “Where is it, Northern? And who else is lurking in the Block compound?”

  “Absolutely no one else,” Northern said.

  “Very well. I honestly did not expect cooperation, so I suppose I should not get upset.” Zarpfrin began to pace casually. “Now then, for a little bit of an introductory chat. I would hate to burn out your brain too much, Northern. There are so many other possible uses for it!”

  “Fine. I do enjoy chats!” He turned his head toward Lasster. “By the way, how are you, Chivon? You look good. Haven’t changed much, I think.”

  “I don’t think that’s quite the kind of chat Friend Zarpfrin envisions,” said Lasster, voice heavy with sarcasm.

  “No, I must say it is not. Mostly I want to have an intelligent discussion before that is … uhm, impossible.” Zarpfrin’s eyes lingered a moment on the overhead instruments. “I want to know just exactly what you’re about, Northern. What’s making you do these traitorous things after such an exemplary career with the Federation? Just for my personal benefit, mind you. I’d like your version of what makes you tick.”

  Northern seemed taken aback. Then he grinned. “I keep on forgetting. You think you’re the good guy, don’t you, Zarpfrin?”

  “I hardly ascribe to that title, Captain. I recognize myself to be an ambitious individual.” A fire began to smolder in the man’s eyes. “But I do work for the greater good of mankind, Tars Northern. Never forget that! And if that means stamping out traitorous rebels like yourself, then I am only too happy to dirty my boots.”

  “The greater good of the Federation, you mean,” Northern spat. “The greater good of your particular cultural and governmental system, you mean. The greater good of the power you wield.”

  “Northern, you know as well as I that humanity faces a challenge,” Zarpfrin said in low tones. “A challenge of far-ranging consequence.” He made a broad sweeping gesture. “There are civilizations out there in the galaxies, far more advanced than ours, civilizations that have survived and conquered simply because they have served a common purpose—total allegiance to their species! We are not ready to face those mighty civilizations yet! And therefore we must somehow group together again—all of humanity—into a common force dedicated to technological and mental progress. We must unite again as humans for the good of humanity before another civilization comes and squashes us and makes us its slaves. This is the threat we face with the Jaxdron. Thus far we have been successful in dealing with them, but we must be ready to deal with more powerful civilizations than the Jaxdron. And the more divided humanity is, the easier it will be for us to be conquered.”

  “The ends justify the means once more, eh?” said Northern. “But surely you realize, Zar
pfrin, the possibility that your vision is simply a xenophobe’s view? I mean, there may always be another civilization out in the blue yonder that is stronger than the Federation, but why should that mean they want our little bit of space? I’m sorry to disagree with you, old fellow, but I am too strongly in favor of individual freedom and human choice to sacrifice it for your so-called greater good.” He glanced toward Lasster. “But you’re speaking very freely! I presume you’ve told Chivon the real reason why you want the Starbow so badly.”

  Alarm grew on Zarpfrin’s face, then he quickly squashed it. “She knows that the intelligence upon that ship is a threat to humanity. She knows what a pain you have been to the Federation and its goals and is aware of your activities in aligning rebel efforts against the Federation.”

  “Ah! But does she know about Dr. Mish and his portal!” He turned to Lasster. “That’s why old Zarpy is so paranoid about the Starbow and Mish, you know. That’s how he found out about other—”

  Zarpfrin struck Northern across the face. “You are a troublemaker to the end, aren’t you Northern? Friend Lasster, there are elements to this that aren’t in your knowledge … that I have been unable for security’s sake to relate to you. Now that we are in endgame with Captain Northern, I shall debrief you fully later.”

  “Oh, sure, Zarpfrin. You’re going to admit practical genocide of an ancient, almost holy race, are you?”

  “Holy?” Zarpfrin said. “Surely an out of date word, Captain. Now I shall give you one more chance to volunteer to help us in locating the Starbow or I shall be forced to dig the information from your brain!”

  “Get out the pick and shovel, Zarpfrin.”

  A security officer entered, and whispered something in Zarpfrin’s ear.

  Zarpfrin smiled and nodded.

  “Excellent,” he told the officer. “I will go with you.” He turned to Lasster. “Please prepare the prisoner for interrogation. I shall be back within the hour. You may tell Friend Lasster what you please, Captain. She is a loyal and trusted member of the Friendhood.”