STAR HOUNDS -- OMNIBUS

by David Bischoff

  He spun on his heel and left, after which a deathly silence engulfed the room. Lasster stood frozen, her gaze riveted on Northern’s smiling face. He didn’t budge. His arms pinned him spread eagled to the wall.

  “You know, Chivon,” said Captain Northern, looking at Lasster with soft eyes. “Have I every told you how adorable you look before torturing someone?”

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Laura Shemzak thought she was ready for anything.

  But not for this.

  When she had split off from Tars Northern in the hallway, she had immediately headed toward the Heart Computer a good distance away. When she used the slidewalks and the railcar and the elevators to get there, her principal worry had been that someone would recognize her from her last stay here. But they did not—either that, or Governor Bartlick had failed to report her activities to the security section.

  That would make sense. She was a high-priority Federation agent. She had been sent there to test the security system for access to the Heart Computer. Naturally, the Governor would not be eager to broadcast the fact that she had succeeded in penetrating it.

  She was ready for added security precautions, though. She was surprised to find that the setup was exactly the same as when she had last been here! Talk about lack of efficiency!

  Good thing she wasn’t working for the Feddies anymore, she thought as she made her way down toward the guarded area. She’d kick some butts, that was for sure!

  Still, the lack of change made the process of getting into the core that much easier, and she couldn’t complain about that!

  Even as she slipped down the deserted corridor, she inwardly checked the fine tuning of cybernetic controls that would allow her to pick up all sensor sweeps, hack into secure systems for authorization codes, and request up-front clearance for all secure combands.

  Thus she successfully made her way past the first barrage of security measures. She handled the robots at the checkpoints in a like manner. It wasn’t until she reached the next to last guard that she had a little difficulty.

  The guard was human. And he recognized her!

  “Hello, Ms. Googoo!” he said, flashing a smile. “What are you doing down here?”

  She blinked. Her memory raced. Who was this guy? He was very attractive, but her mind was drawing a complete blank.

  And then she remembered. As a guard while doing undercover work as a biotech specialist at Pax Industries, he had flirted with her several times. Nothing had ever come of it. Still, she couldn’t remember his name.

  He helped her out. “Mike Moshon, Ms. Googoo, don’t you remember?”

  “Oh yes. Mike. How are you?” God that sounded inane!

  “Surviving. How are the folks back in biotech? I don’t see them much.”

  “Fine. Just fine. We don’t get down here much. Not much call for it.”

  “Yes. Not exactly your area, is it? I mean, you can access what you need.” His sharp features tilted a bit, assaying. “But you didn’t come down here to see me, did you, Ms. Googoo?”

  “Oh yes, I suppose you want to look me over—I mean … want to look at my authorization band.”

  “Well, the latter is my job,” he said, grinning at her flirtatious slip up.

  Apparatus raised from the top of the desk at the touch of Moshon’s finger.

  Laura had to steady her nerves. This machine was new, and she could sense her inability to deal with it. Nonetheless, her intuition told her to stick her left hand with her fake ID band around its wrist through the metal hoop. She did her best to alter the signal, and supply them with what they needed, then immediately pulled her arm back.

  Moshon looked up from the readout screens. “Fine. But what are you going to do down there?”

  “Supposed to meet up with one of the technicians and advise him on a tricky relay. Kind of stuff we know about.”

  Moshon smiled. “Fine. How about dinner sometime?”

  She smiled at him. “Sure. I’ll check with you when I get back.”

  She casually strode past the station with a mock salute. Whew. That was easy. Almost too easy. But then again, guys like him were fairly easy to manipulate. She shrugged it off and readied herself for the next hurdle.

  The final station was guarded by one of the Conglomerates. Exactly why they were being created—an activity expressly against the genetic laws of most planets—was still a mystery to her. She suspected it was an attempt by the Federation to perfect the human race, now that Northern had filled her in on the bit about the quest for progress.

  Still, these things were hardly human ….

  This was a subject of a sensitive nature to Laura Shemzak, what with her own cyborg additions. Just how human was she? Just what defined the parameters of belonging to the human race?

  She certainly felt human enough, so she always supposed that was the only necessary criterion she needed. But still she felt doubtful and defensive when her differences were pointed out. She often wished she was like everyone else; but then she remembered the joy of being different, and perhaps, in many ways, better.

  The thought gave her a much-needed spark of self-confidence. Her gait down the hallway grew jaunty even as she remained tuned for possible identification sweeps that might be focused upon her.

  She detected none.

  In a minute, she approached the final desk, and sure enough, there was a Conglomerate parked at the entrance to the core computer banks. It resembled the other one, but was different. Each of the Conglomerates, it seemed, was a different combination of human, alien, and artificial elements. This one had no antennae and was much shorter and squatter than the one she had so deftly dealt with. Surely everything would be just as easy—her unique qualities made it possible for her to insert the creature’s set of identity wires and jack them into her own system, allowing her access to the core.

  She stepped lightly up to the Conglomerate, whose eyes snapped to attention. All she had to do now was to figure out how to get to the creature’s control plate, deliver the necessary burst of electricity to render it unconscious, and then snap on its ID wires.

  “Your presence is acknowledged,” said the creature in a peculiar polyharmonic voice. “Access to core clearance code effected from previous station. Access granted.”

  A long, oddly-jointed digit tapped a number of buttons, and the door to one side of the wall slid open.

  Laura blinked. “Uh … ”

  “Please hurry. Door remains open for only fifteen seconds.”

  Her intuition suddenly told her to start running the other way. It told her something was terribly wrong here. But she had a mission, an important mission she had promised to complete, so she overrode the intuitive urge to bolt and stepped through into the next corridor.

  The door slid closed behind her.

  The walls of the corridor were in a pattern of tile-like panels. Automatically, she retraced her path to where she had tapped the central core the last time, extracting a large partition of binary data.

  Quickly she found it and unscrewed the panel. It was just as it had been last time. Although no traps were apparent, she was on guard.

  This was just too simple.

  Hit it and run, she told herself, laying open segments of her skin to hook up with ports she pulled out from her neural interface array. She would be much too fast for any alarms to go off.

  She jacked in.

  Again, her mind seemed to float through an immensely complex three-dee landscape of data and secure applications. Like whirling through an asteroid field, she hunted down what she needed: more evidence of Jaxdron activity here, what its exact nature was, and information about these warlike aliens.

  Suddenly, her mind hit a block and she was brought up short.

  She tried to shut the connection off immediately but could not—something more powerful than her mind kept
her glued in place, like a bug on flypaper.

  She heard a voice. “Welcome back, Laura,” it said. “We do hope you can linger a little while. We have things to speak to you about.”

  Just before unconsciousness overcame her, Laura realized who that voice belonged to.

  It was the voice of Friend Arnal Zarpfrin.

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  She slapped him.

  After a moment of shock, he recovered and showed surprise. “That’s really not at all like the unemotional, always controlled Chivon Lasster I used to know,” said Tars Northern.

  She took a deep breath, looked around to see if anyone was watching, then said, “There are some things that have changed indeed, Tars.”

  “And so, are you to be in charge of my mind-rape, my love?” he said tartly. “Or would you prefer to start with a physical one, and work your way up to that?”

  “No. Something a little more surprising is in store, I think.” She walked up to the controls of his bonds, and coded them off.

  Northern couldn’t hide his shock. He stood before her, rubbing the circulation back into his hands, “Uhm … actually I was jesting about that, I didn’t think you’re still—”

  “Shut up!” She hissed, “We have to get off this planet and back to the Starbow.”

  “Wait a moment,” he said. “You’re a bad guy.”

  “I don’t have time to argue. Here. Put these handcuffs back on. I have a gun. I’ll tell any security folk who ask that I’m transferring you to another interrogation area.” She tossed him the cuffs. “You don’t have to lock them. And here’s your needler back, in case we need it.” She slipped the weapon in his hip pocket, keeping it there a few moments. “It’s fully loaded. Now do you believe me?”

  “But how are we going to get back to my ship?”

  “I have a personal starship I came in. Remember, I’m a pilot myself.”

  He stared at her, not moving. “This is a trick to get me to reveal where the Starbow is,” he stated flatly.

  “I can see how you would believe that, Tars. And I understand why you wish to protect your ship and crew. But believe me, I shipped from Earth expressly to find you and join you. And I can prove it. The alien ships discovered by the Federation, the ones in the AI project, the Comet’s Breath, the Morningstar, the Nebulon, the Moonshadow—”

  “You knew they were alien before—”

  “Yes, and the intelligences inside them. They’ve contacted me. They chose me.”

  A troubled look passed over Northern’s face. “But they were destroyed!”

  “Somehow they’ve escaped to Earth’s computer system, where they’re hiding, relatively powerless but still sentient, supported somehow by the network. They seek Dr. Mish … the Starbow.”

  “I don’t believe it,” said Northern, shaken. “I don’t trust you.”

  “They thought you might not. Therefore, they told me to repeat a word to you. ‘Isafornph.’”

  The effect clearly registered on Northern’s face—surprise. “Do you know the meaning of that word?”

  “No. They said you would, though.”

  “It’s Mish’s real name. I thought no one alive knew that but he and I.” He smiled grimly. “Okay, Lasster. I’ll take a chance and ask questions later. But if you’ve betrayed me, you can bet that you’re the first one to go!”

  “I’ll accept that.”

  “Sounds good then. You never were one for personal risk.”

  “You don’t think I’m taking a risk now! I’m abandoning everything I’ve worked for! Don’t ever think it hasn’t been tough, Northern.”

  “Come on then, and let’s make sure the risk was worthwhile.” He put on the handcuffs, but did not lock them. “Come on then. Let’s go.”

  A few words of explanation to the security people was all it took. Soon they were walking briskly down the corridors toward the spaceport. They were silent, Northern making sure that he maintained a properly grim expression instead of revealing the jubilance he felt.

  Slipping from Zarpfrin’s grasp again. The man would have heart failure!

  But what about Laura?

  Laura would have to take care of herself. And she was more than capable of that, Northern knew.

  It was not until they reached the access area to the spaceport that they encountered any trouble.

  “May I check your clearance for transferring a prisoner,” a security guard requested.

  “Clearance?” said Chivon Lasster in her best authoritative voice. “I can give you my ID net. That should be sufficient. I am a Friend.”

  “I’m sorry, Friend Lasster,” said the short-haired young man after checking the readout. “But Friend Zarpfrin has—”

  “I don’t care what Friend Zarpfrin has done. It is of vital importance that I take this man out to my ship.”

  “I’ll have to clear that with those in command, Friend Lasster. And that means I must contact your superior, Friend Zarpfrin, before this is possible. I—”

  Northern was quick. He delivered a blow to the back of the man’s neck, then rabbit punched him under the chin, catching him as he slumped and laying him gently on the ground.

  Lasster was equally quick about handling the controls of the guard’s station, adjusting them so that no alarm would ring to signal the guard’s change in consciousness.

  “I’ve bought only a few minutes, Northern,” she said. “We’ve got to be quick.”

  They strode out onto the spaceport landing area. Fortunately, Lasster’s private starship, the Eagle, was docked very close. They had almost reached it when a voice called out behind them: “Stop!”

  “Oops,” said Northern, abandoning his guise of prisoner and slipping the needler from his pocket. He squeezed off a shot and then they began to run.

  A beam screamed over their heads.

  “Hey, you idiots. You might hurt a Friend!” Northern cried. Swiveling around, he fired at the group of guards charging their way.

  Lasster was already at the ramp to her starship. She punched in her code. The door cycled open and she shouted for Northern to follow her inside.

  Northern managed to get another shot off before climbing up the ramp and jumping into the airlock. Quickly, Lasster punched the door closed then hurried to the nearby control room.

  She gestured at the seat beside her. “Copilots again, Northern. Take us where we should go.” She accommodated him by switching the engine on, using her identity bracelet.

  Screens switched on, revealing Federation soldiers scurrying to placements on the starport to the rhythms of alarms.

  The null-grav engines spun up and readied for takeoff. Northern plotted their course as quickly as he could in the time allowed. Lasster was busy herself engaging force-screens, and a myriad other support system they’d need to escape.

  “Fifteen seconds before takeoff,” Northern reported. “I hope you’re erecting the force screens.”

  “Better,” she said, adjusting something on the vu-screen. “This should prove I’m being straight with you.” She pecked at a few touch sensitive buttons from her control vu-screen. A whining sound filled the cabin. It was followed by a purple-crimson beam that lashed out, striking the nearest Federation ship ready for takeoff, blowing a hole in its hull.

  Quickly, as though she’d never stopped doing this sort of thing since her days as a starship pilot ended, she blasted two more nearby starships. Smoke, plasma-fires and utter chaos filled the landing area as emergency klaxons rang out.

  “That should eliminate immediate pursuit,” she said, face pale as what she was doing sunk into her awareness.

  “Right!” said Northern, obviously pleased. “And here we go.”

  They took off into the sun-bright sky.

  Chapter Thirty

  Meshed with the computer, she dreamed.

  L
anguages assembled, disassembled, paraded through her mind in bare binary bits. Machines, forever and ever, machines and more machines stretched out, staircasing planets to their stars, bridging stars, spanning galaxies.

  Click, clack, click.

  Zero, one, zero.

  And she seemed stretched out on that crucifix of metal and glass now, stretched out, dying for the universe, but detached and with no pain.

  Events rippled across this matrix of universal activity in waves and eddies, and she suddenly understood everything … but did not understand her understanding.

  Cal was suddenly speaking to her. Very close.

  “Hey, Laura,” he said. “I’m over here.”

  She went to him, held him.

  “I’ve looked for you so long, Cal,” she said. “Been through so much.”

  “We’ve been played for fools, Laura,” said Cal, grinning.

  “We’ve been chumps. Real pawns.”

  “Yes. Yes I know.”

  “But the game isn’t over. And if we don’t win, let’s promise that at least we’ll get out alive.”

  “Yes, I promise.”

  “And we’ll be together in one place, and we won’t have anything else separate us again, ever.”

  “No,” said Laura. “We can ride on the Starbow. We’ll be safe there, Cal. You’ll see.”

  “But we’ve got to get out of the game first, Laura. How do we do that?”

  And because she had no answer, he started fading away. “Cal!” she screamed. “Don’t go away! Please don’t go away!”

  A very long time began to pass and the stars seemed to slowly shift, like spangles on a cosmic pinwheel.

  Oh Be a Fine Girl, Kiss Me Right Now Sweetie, they sang in multipart harmony.

  When she awoke, she was on a cybernetic operating table.