STAR HOUNDS -- OMNIBUS

by David Bischoff

  Within a minute the screens of the Starbow turned from a display of the panorama of space to the streaming colors and visual oddities heralding entrance into another dimension; a dimension o f greater speeds and shorter distances; the dimension that opened up the stars to humankind.

  After the light show there seemed to be a collective sigh of relief amongst the crew manning the bridge; there was no sign of Federation pursuit.

  Captain Northern swiveled over to face Laura. “Well done, Pilot Shemzak. I can truly say that after the unfortunate events on Walthor, it is good to see that you made it out.”

  “Yes,” she said, keeping her voice steely. “I see we have company. “She glared over at Friend Lasster. Of course, she knew that Northern had been captured, that Lasster had helped him escape; but of course she could not reveal this. “To what do we owe the dubious privilege?”

  “Simple,” said Northern. “As you may surmise, by my nonarrival back at the place of meeting with your friend Xersi, I was most unfortunately waylaid.”

  “That’s getting to be a bad habit,” she said sourly.

  “Somehow, though, I always seem to get out.”

  “I figured you had. Besides, I had to get out myself and I had to protect Xersi.”

  Garbage, of course. She just prayed now that Zarpfrin hadn’t nailed the helpful, rebellious native.

  “Quite. But then, this is supposed to be your debriefing, Laura, and I am sure that Dr. Mish is aching to know what you found out in the Fax Industries computer banks. “Chivon Lasster raised her eyebrows inquisitively.

  “Are you sure we can trust her?” Laura demanded in her best abrasive manner.

  “Oh, yes. Chivon has sacrificed quite a bit to join our little number.” He turned to the former Friend. “You see, Laura had accidentally acquired a wealth of data from the Walthorian computer when she was on a recent intelligence mission there for your chaps.”

  “Dr. Mish discovered it when he took out the implant Zarpfrin placed in me,” Laura said bitterly.

  “Yes,” said Mish. “Indications were that somehow the Jaxdron had infiltrated that facility and were manufacturing intelligence gathering spyware that in turn were spread throughout the human-colonized worlds. This is possibly the reason for Calspar Shemzak’s capture by the Jaxdron—through one or any number of these devices they learned of the nature of his project on Mulliphen and the significance of his work and contributions. So, Laura, what did you discover?”

  “I took a quick look around the system, but I’m afraid that I didn’t have time to copy any core data. The Feddies must have caught up with you about then, ‘cause everything in the system went wacko. I mean, totally haywire! I was lucky to get out without my internal ports getting fried!”

  “And what did you find?”

  “May I hazard a guess?” said Chivon Lasster quietly. “You found no indication of Jaxdron infiltration. That record was not the result of your tapping of the Walthor core computers. It was, like the other device, implanted in you before your journey to strike Out and rescue your brother.”

  Northern was aghast. “But … why?”

  “Simple,” said Laura. “A contingency. Zarpfrin was fully aware of the possibility that I might hook up with the Starbow.”

  “Zarpfrin plays everything like a quite complex chess game,” Chivon said.

  “And he loads the dice, to mix metaphors.”

  “As best he can. Clearly, he foresaw many possibilities and prepared for each one.”

  “You mean to tell me, he lured us to Walthor?” Captain Northern said.

  Alarm grew in Laura; she fought to control it and immediately said, “That would explain the problems I had!”

  “Problems?” Northern’s eyes were curious … or was that outright suspicion?

  “Hell, yes! Somehow they found out I was there! If it wasn’t for my fleet feet and smarts and Xersi’s help, they would have had me for sure!”

  Could they tell that her pulse was racing with this lie; could they read traitor in her eyes?

  “Yes, Captain,” said Arkm Thur, looking from the console. “I recorded two fighters chasing Laura’s blip when it first registered outside Walthor’s atmosphere.”

  Northern nodded. “Thank God you got out. But if that’s the case, then there’s something very strange about all this. A chess game with dice, played by Zarpfrin. But why? We’re going to have to analyze this a little more I think. Glad you got out, Laura. We’re going to need you.”

  “Need me?” She swallowed a sip of tea and smiled. “Of course you need me!”

  “For something special. You were wondering why Chivon Lasster joined our number. Well, I’ll tell you.”

  Keeping her exterior cool as she calmed down inside, Laura listened as Tars Northern related the events that occurred to him after they had parted; the discovery of the surgical rooms, the imprisonment under Zarpfrin’s too-familiar control, the release and escape with Chivon Lasster’s help.

  Chivon reprised the speech she had given to the other members of the Starbow crew, then apologized for her previous treatment of Laura and her part in the plan to rid the Federation of Cal.

  “We are all controlled in an intricate web of pull strings, Laura,” said Chivon. “I’ve only recently decided to start cutting those strings. I admire you for having more power and courage than I did, to rely on your heart and feelings instead of fully throwing in with the machinations of the Federation. I just hope that I can serve my new fellows as well as you have.”

  Laura felt empty inside. Empty and ashamed. But her voice was clear and assured as she spoke: “So what do I have to do with these alien spirits or energy beings or … whatever the hell they are.”

  “They are my kindred, Laura,” said Dr. Mish. “I must save them. I must bring them to the safety that I enjoy here, attached to my portal. And it is likely that they can help us tremendously.”

  Dr. Mish then explained how a complex environment of neural hardware was required to maintain the beings’ existence. “Of course, this means a mode of transfer is necessary,” he said, “since the Starbow is incapable of landing on a planetary surface. A shuttle would do, though it would be terribly risky. But a blip-ship would be extraordinarily superior, with a far better chance of success on the hostile situation of Earth’s solar system. You would merely have to land, jack into with the necessary interface until my brethren have transferred, and then depart. Once back on the Starbow, they may be transferred into our system here. But, of course, we’ll need your assent on the mission. It will be dangerous.”

  “Of course she’ll go!” said Northern. “Laura will do anything. Won’t you, dear heart?”

  Inside, she was all turmoil. You idiots, she thought. Don’t do this! I have to betray you! I’ll have to tell Zarpfrin, and he’ll have you all.

  She opened her mouth intending to confess, no matter what the consequences.

  No, said a voice clearly inside of her brain. And for the briefest instant she felt a foreshadow of the agony she would endure.

  “Laura! Laura, are you all right?” Northern asked. She blinked. “Yes. Yes, I guess I was just more tired than I thought.”

  “But you will do it, won’t you?” Mish asked, his eyes pleading.

  “Sure. Sure I’ll do it.”

  She got up and went to her cabin as quickly as she could.

  Chapter Five

  His butler set down breakfast for him.

  Scrambled eggs, bacon, toast, coffee, and marmalade, on a tray.

  “Thank you, Wilkins,” said Cal Shemzak. “Did you bring anything for Igor?”

  The tall, dignified man in coat and tails eyed the device grafted upon his charge’s back. “Igor, sir?”

  “Or would you prefer to call me the hunchback of Notre Dame?” He tapped the contraption, then let his fingers play upon the nodes on the plastic
surface. It was not heavy, but it was definitely unsightly: like a huge puppet master fit snugly onto his back, tendrils dug deep into the back of the neck, to spine and brain. “A mobile unit for the mixing of minds, Wilkins, don’t you know. Perhaps even now I am subconsciously doing all kinds of wonderful computations and equations, connected by neural interface to my delightful clones, droning a somnolent chorus in another room.”

  “Ah,” said his robotic servant.

  “But then, you already know, don’t you, Wilkins? Or you just don’t care.”

  “You must remember, sir, that I am hardly programmed to care.”

  Damn him, anyway—this caricature Jeeves they’d fashioned to serve and incidentally watch over him. To talk with him; perhaps even to analyze him surreptitiously through the seemingly innocent mode of conversation.

  Now he had another mechanical friend riding his back.

  “We have studied the situation thoroughly,” the aliens had said as he still hung, securely wrapped in translucent film, “and it is to our disadvantage to keep you under such constraint. Our studies of human beings show this is bad psychologically, and we wish to keep you as happy as possible during the course of work upon the problems we want you to solve. Therefore, we have devised a mobile device, which you will be fitted with shortly, fully as capable of connecting you to the brain bank of your extensions as these hardwires.

  “Then the lovely puzzles and games can begin.”

  With a plume of smoke, a whiff of perfume, his mind had been punted off to slumberland. He’d awoken snug in his bed, with an odd sensation on his back. A quick look in the mirror had revealed this monstrous pimple, this terrible growth: muted purple and red veins faintly apulse with lights.

  Gaah! The ladies would have nothing to do with him now.

  Of course, there were no ladies to be had on this planet of the Jaxdron. The only lady Cal wanted to see was his sister, Laura. He’d asked the Jaxdron about her and their answer had been very strange, and sounded surprisingly truthful.

  “Ah, yes, the lady who flies the ingenious Federation starship!”

  “You know of her?”

  “Oh, indeed. Of course, we’d know her in any event. She is constantly on your mind.”

  “She’s all right, isn’t she?”

  “All right?”

  “I mean, alive?”

  “Yes, as far as we know.”

  “But she’s been trying to rescue me?”

  “Oh, truly, and the web of our game has grown in richness due to the complications of her work.”

  “She’s on her Own?”

  The Jaxdron had conferred in their own language on that one. Then the middle one had spoken to him in Galactic Standard.

  “There is no harm in letting you know. It might even improve your spirits and make our alliance an easier one. No, the one you call your sister, this Laura Shemzak, she is not alone in her efforts.”

  “The Federation is helping her then?” Cal said hopefully.

  “No. She has fallen in with pirate have been a number of attempts to procure your freedom, Cal Shemzak.”

  “Pi-mercs? What’s going on?”

  Ignoring the question, the Jaxdron said, “In fact, we have obliged the Starbow with the exact location of our planet. They should be along presently.”

  Cal was nonplussed by this. “But why?”

  “Why, to play the game!”

  “Wait a minute, let me get this straight. What use do you have for my sister and whatever bunch of hooligans she’s attached herself to? I mean, all she wants is my freedom! That’s what I want too!”

  “We can only say for now that their well-being upon arrival depends entirely upon your cooperation with us presently. We assure you that we are totally in command of the situation. Should they arrive when your work is finished, then perhaps we may simply let you join them and be gone. But should the work not be finished … perhaps we will have to destroy them.”

  “Or at least ask them to sit in the waiting room and play a few games of tic-tac-toe!”

  “Ah! Sarcasm! A verbal game. Very pleasant. Be assured, however, that we speak entirely true here, Calspar Shemzak. The threat is real. You do not wish to have the death of your sister—and her friends—on your hands, do you?”

  But how much truth was there in that? Cal wondered. Still, no reason to complain too much, he thought now as he ate his breakfast thoughtfully. Just see what happens.

  When he had finished the last crunch of bacon, the final slurp of coffee, Wilkins reentered to carry away his tray.

  “Oh, sir, I hope you are suitably rested,” the dry, unemotional creature said. “Please dress. The Masters wish me to take you to the Play Room.”

  This was Wilkins’s term for the room in which Cal had undergone his series o f diagnostic reality tests—seemingly real scenarios in which he was placed in metaphorical conditions with situational problems to solve. Thus, the aliens had no doubt scoped out his interconnections with the duplicates they had constructed.

  “Time for a little workout, eh, Wilky?”

  “I think that is what the Masters have in mind, sir.”

  “Okay. You’ll be happy to know that I am now in full cooperation with the Jaxdron. No more resistance.”

  “So pleasant to hear, sir, but you never were very resistant, even from the first.”

  “All too true. Part of my nature, I suppose,” said Cal, starting to dress. “God, it is a bit of a bother with this thing on my back. My shirts don’t fit anymore!”

  “Allow me, sir,” said Wilkins, who produced a pair of scissors and made the appropriate cutting adjustments to allow his shirt to fit comfortably over the hump.

  “Thank you, Wilkins. Not exactly smart-looking, but I suppose it will have to do. I’m not attending any fancy dress functions, now am I?”

  “No, sir.”

  “You know, Wilkins, sometime I’d like to see just how you work inside. I’ve dabbled from time to time with robots—I’d be curious to see how you’re put together.”

  “I hardly think, sir, that the Masters would allow that.”

  “Oh, now we wouldn’t have to let them in on our little secret, would we? I mean, you and I have come to be good friends, haven’t we?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Oh, come on, Wilky. Just a little peek?”

  “Let us be on the way, sir. The Masters are expecting us.”

  “Okay, whatever you say!”

  They marched down the corridor to the room.

  Surprisingly, despite the new addition riding his back, Cal didn’t feel too bad. In fact, he felt pretty damned good. At least now he knew what was going on. After his capture the Jaxdron had put him through all kinds of stuff, with nary an explanation. Now that it was all spelled out, he understood what was expected of him.

  He could work with that, certainly!

  “Would you care for some iced tea?” Wilkins asked as Cal sat in his usual chair and Wilkins went to the control board.

  “That would be nice, Wilkins.”

  “Very well, sir. I presume the beach would be suitable?”

  “Just fine.”

  Wilkins’s hands did things at the control board. The blank walls surrounding him faded from dull gray to movement: a shoreline coalesced; blues and greens and sand. The sun beat down from the ceiling-turned-sky. A fresh salty breeze scudded plump cloud puffs and fluttered the end of Cal’s untucked flower-print shirt.

  All very calm and relaxing.

  Wilkins departed for a moment, returning quickly with a fresh glass of cubes and tea, topped with a wedge of lemon.

  Cal took a sip of the cool stuff.

  “Just call should you need anything, sir,” said Wilkins, and he was gone.

  Cal was halfway through the tea when the warmth at the back of his neck grew noticea
ble: He reached back and could almost feel the Watcher glowing bright.

  There was a sharp shock. The glass fell from his hands, splashing into the sparkling sand.

  “Ouch! Goddamn it, this hurts!” he cried out to the sky.

  “Sorry,” said a cloud. “We will adjust.”

  The pain died away and the heat gradually blended with the soft pound of the sun.

  Cal relaxed and slowly began to drift away into the matrix of minds that he had felt intimations of before and now felt fully. The beach slowly dissolved into a series of crystalline reflections of himself, stretching out toward an empty horizon like some wondrously complex geometric hive.

  “Hi, guys, how’s tricks?” he said, but the others did not answer.

  “Still boring, huh?”

  The cool voice of the Jaxdron interrupted this one sided conversation. “The circuits are now fully integrated, Cal Shemzak. Your new mind is now complete. Soon the necessary data will be fed to you. You need but to begin carrying on the work you were engaged in back on Mulliphen … but this time, you will discover powers within your mind you did not own before!”

  Suddenly, hanging in the air like clouds of numerals and signs, were a series of equations. Cal did not merely see them, he comprehended their meaning and import immediately.

  Whole areas of physics previously hidden to him were suddenly clear. He began to explore the ramifications like a child explores its gifts under the Christmas tree.

  The lights about him all glittered like ornaments of stringed jewelry.

  And he was lost in wonder.

  Chapter Six

  Laura Shemzak wandered the halls of the Starbow.

  If anyone asked her what she was doing, she explained that she was nervous and restless; she just needed to walk.

  It was partially true, at least.

  Good, good, said the voice inside her as she gave it the grand tour. Circuits recording. Please narrate full knowledge of each section subvocally.