Starcatchers 01 - Peter and the Starcatchers

by Dave Barry, Ridley Pearson

  “Starcatchers.”

  “Yes. My father is one, as was his mother, and so on. Most of us are descended from Starcatchers, but not all. There have been Starcatchers on Earth for centuries, Peter. Even we don’t know how long. But our task is always the same: to watch for the starstuff, and to get to it, and return it, before it falls into the hands of the Others.”

  “Return it where?”

  “That’s…difficult to explain.”

  “Well, then, who are the Others?”

  “They’re…people, too, or most of them are. And they’ve also been around for a long time. They are our—that is, the Starcatchers’—enemy. No, that’s not quite right: we oppose them, but in truth they are mankind’s enemy.”

  “Why? What do they do?”

  “They use the power. They take it, and they…” Molly saw the puzzlement on Peter’s face. “But you don’t know what I mean, do you? I need to explain, about the starstuff.”

  “Is that’s what’s in the trunk?” said Peter.

  “Yes,” said Molly. “That’s what’s in the trunk. It has amazing power, Peter. Wonderful power. Terrible power. It…it lets you do things.”

  “What kind of things?”

  “Well, that’s one of the mysteries. It’s not the same for everybody. And it’s not the same for animals as for people.”

  “The rat,” said Peter. “The flying rat.”

  “Yes,” said Molly. “That’s one of the powers it can give. Flight.”

  “To rats,” said Peter.

  “Not just rats,” said Molly. “People, too.”

  Peter’s eyes narrowed. “It makes people fly?”

  “It can,” said Molly.

  “Can you fly?” asked Peter.

  “I have,” said Molly.

  “Prove it,” said Peter.

  “What?”

  “Prove you can fly.”

  “Peter, this isn’t the time or the…”

  Peter was on his feet now. “Listen,” he said. “You’re asking me to believe…I mean, it all sounds like nonsense, really. This ‘starstuff,’ and these ‘others,’ and…and I don’t know why I should believe any of it.”

  “Peter, you saw the rat.”

  “I don’t know what I saw. I mean, I saw a rat in the air, yes, but what if it was a trick? What if, I don’t know…what if you tied a string to it?”

  “There was no string, Peter. The rat got into the starstuff somehow. It was flying.”

  “Prove it.”

  “Peter, please, you must…”

  “Prove it.”

  Molly took a deep breath, exhaling slowly. “All right, then,” she said. “I really shouldn’t do this, but if you’re going to be stubborn…”

  “I am,” said Peter.

  “Then sit down.”

  Peter sat. Molly reached her hand to her neck, put her finger under the gold chain, and from under her blouse pulled out a small golden five-pointed star. She placed this on the palm of her left hand, which she held at neck level.

  “What’s that?” said Peter.

  “A locket,” said Molly.

  With her right hand, she opened the lid of the locket. As she did, it was suffused by light, so that Peter couldn’t see the locket, only a small, glowing sphere of golden light. Molly’s face, and the cabin ceiling above her, were bathed in the glow. Peter had the strangest sense that he could feel the light, as well as see it.

  “Is that—” he began.

  “Quiet,” said Molly. Slowly, carefully, she touched her right index finger into the sphere.

  “Unhh,” she moaned, leaning her head back, her eyes closed, her expression calm, blissful. She remained that way for perhaps five seconds, and then there was the click of the locket closing, and the glow was gone.

  Peter wanted it back.

  Molly’s head came forward, and she opened her eyes, which to Peter looked unfocused, and more luminescent than ever.

  “Are you all right?” Peter said.

  Molly blinked, then looked at Peter. “Yes,” she said. “I’m all right.”

  “What was—”

  “Shhhh.” Molly said. “Watch.”

  She stared at Peter, and he stared back into her startling green eyes. After a few moments Peter said, “I don’t see anything.”

  “Peter,” she said. “Look at my feet.”

  He looked down and gasped. Then he jumped up from the cot and dropped to his hands and knees, his cheek pressed to the floor, looking to see how she did it, what the trick was. But there was no trick.

  Her feet weren’t touching the floor. They were at least two inches above it. And as Peter looked, the distance grew; Molly was rising, her head now gently touching the cabin ceiling. As it did, her body began to pivot, until she was completely horizontal, facing the floor, her back pressed to the ceiling, as though she were sleeping up there. She smiled down at Peter.

  “Now do you believe me?” she asked.

  “Yes,” said Peter.

  “Good,” she said. Her legs swung back down to the vertical, and she descended gently to the floor.

  For a moment Peter was speechless. Then questions came flooding out.

  “Can you…can you do that any time?” he began. “I mean, could you just fly around whenever you want? Like a bird?”

  “No,” said Molly. “To fly, I must use the power of the starstuff, and I…that is, we, the Starcatchers, carry only a limited amount. In time, it wears off. We’re supposed to use it only in an emergency. I really shouldn’t have used it just now. It’s precious, and I really don’t know how much I have in here.” She tapped her locket, and tucked it back into her blouse.

  “But can’t you just get more?” said Peter. “From the trunk, I mean. There must be lots in there.”

  “Yes, there is,” said Molly. “There’s enough in that trunk that I could fly forever, and do many other things besides.”

  “Is that why you’re so concerned about it?” said Peter. “Because you want to get it?”

  “No, Peter. I told you before. Our task is to get the starstuff before the Others do, and return it.”

  “But why don’t you just keep it?” said Peter.

  “Because of the power,” said Molly. “The power is too great. There’s too much danger that it can be used for evil.”

  “But the Starcatchers—you’re good, aren’t you?” said Peter. “If you have the power, why don’t you just use it to control these…these others?”

  “Because it doesn’t work,” said Molly. “Because if people have the power, even if they start out using it for good, in time they will use it for evil.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Because that’s how it all started, this business of the Starcatchers and the Others. It has been going on for thousands of years, Peter. Nobody knows precisely when it started, but in the beginning, somebody must have stumbled across some starstuff that had fallen to Earth. And whoever that was touched it, and felt it—it’s a wonderful feeling, Peter. Not just the flying. That’s the most obvious, but there’s much more…”

  “Like what?”

  “Intelligence, for one thing. It’s not so much that you become smarter, as that you feel as though you can really use your mind. You can see things you couldn’t see before, understand things that others can’t. Sometimes you even know what other people are feeling—you can feel it. And sometimes, if you’re close enough, you can change the way they feel—make them afraid, or happy, or sleepy…”

  “The guard,” said Peter. “The night I saw you in the room with the trunk, and the rat—the guard fell asleep that night. Slank thought he was drunk. But you made that happen.”

  “Yes,” said Molly. “I made that happen. I’d begun to suspect that the trunk…but I’m getting ahead of my story.”

  “You were talking about the first person who found the starstuff,” prompted Peter.

  “Right. Well, whoever that was had suddenly become the most powerful person on earth. And he
must have shared it with some others, probably his family, his descendants. Because in time there came to be legends—stories of beings who had incredible powers, who could fly, who could control others. You’ve heard of those legends, Peter.”

  “I have?”

  “Yes. In fact, I’m sure you studied them. The legends of Zeus, of Apollo…”

  “You mean mythology? The Greek and Roman gods? But Mr. Grempkin said that was just…”

  “That was all true, Peter. Except that they weren’t gods. They were people who’d found the starstuff. But to ordinary people, they appeared to be gods; they inspired fear; they were worshipped; they were obeyed absolutely. In time they learned to guard their secret better, to use the power more subtly; instead of gods, they were called royalty. But they ruled just the same. They grew in power; they prospered; they had families; there came to be more of them. And they all wanted the power; they all needed the starstuff.

  “But as I said, it only lasts for a while, and then you need more. From time to time, more falls to Earth, but nobody knows when it will fall, or where, or how much there will be. And so there came to be struggles, desperate struggles, over the starstuff that was known to exist, and the new batches that fell to Earth. Wars were fought, Peter. In the history you were taught, the wars were caused by disputes over land, or trade, or religion. And some of them were. But in truth, much of the death and misery visited upon mankind over the centuries was the result of a secret, vicious struggle, among a very few people, over starstuff.”

  “And were the Starcatchers part of that struggle?” asked Peter.

  “No,” said Molly. “They were a response to it. As the struggle became more violent and widespread, a few of the people who knew the secret of the starstuff began to see how dangerous it was—how there could never be enough of it, and how easily it could be turned to evil purposes. Those few formed a secret society—a secret society within a secret society, really. They swore an oath that they would dedicate their lives to ridding the earth of the starstuff, except for the small quantities they would need to carry out their mission. Their strategy was simple. They would not try to get the existing supplies of starstuff away from the Others; in time, they knew, those supplies would be used up. Instead, they would focus their efforts on new batches of falling starstuff. They would get to these first, and capture them. And so they called themselves the Starcatchers.

  “And their strategy worked, Peter. It took time, but it worked. For years the Others didn’t realize what was happening—only that it was more and more difficult to replenish their starstuff supplies. By the time they found out about the Starcatchers, they had been greatly weakened, and most of the starstuff was gone.”

  “Where did it go?” asked Peter. “What do the Starcatchers do with it?”

  “I don’t honestly know,” said Molly.

  “What do you mean, you don’t know?” said Peter. “You’re one of them, aren’t you?”

  “Yes,” said Molly, “but I’m still only an apprentice. It takes a great deal of training to be a senior Starcatcher. And one of the last things we learn is how to return the starstuff, once we’ve captured it.”

  “But what do you mean return?” said Peter. “Return it where?”

  “That’s what I’m telling you,” said Molly. “I haven’t learned that yet. However the process works, I think it’s dangerous, because there are…forces, I think, and…they’re not all good. This is probably a crude way of putting it, but: just as we have the Others and the Starcatchers here on Earth, there seems to be something similar going on up there.” She pointed toward the sky. “And you must be very, very careful when you deal with these forces, or…” She shook her head.

  “But here on Earth—the Starcatchers are winning here, aren’t they?” said Peter. “You have the upper hand?”

  “Well,” said Molly, “in recent times, yes. We’re better organized than the Others, by our very nature—we’re working for a common cause, while they’re every man for himself, and quick to stab the other one in the back for a bit of starstuff. So we’ve got quite an organization, and plenty of observers, counting people and porpoises.”

  “The porpoises!” said Peter. “So you were talking to them!”

  “Yes,” said Molly, blushing. “Sorry about the lie. We’ve been working with the porpoises for many years. Extremely intelligent, they are. More intelligent than many people, if you ask me. Anyway, there’s more sea than land, so as you’d imagine a fair amount of starstuff lands in the water, and the porpoises have learned, much as we did, that it’s best to get rid of it.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “It’s very odd, what it can do to animals. Some of them hardly seem to be affected by it. But some of them change in the strangest ways. Horses, for example. It’s very bad to let a horse near starstuff.”

  “Why?” said Peter.

  “Back to your mythology,” said Molly. “Have you ever heard of a centaur?”

  “The thing that’s half man, half horse,” said Peter. “But Mr. Grempkin said that was…”

  “It was real, Peter. And not very pleasant, either. Something quite similar happens with squid.”

  “What’s a squid?”

  “An ugly, slimy, ill-tempered beast that lives in the sea, with lots of long arms,” said Molly. “Some time ago, some of them got hold of a large batch of starstuff and…well, the porpoises were years sorting all that out, not to mention all the problems that human sailors had with what they called ‘sea serpents.’”

  “Oh,” said Peter.

  “But, as I was saying, with the porpoises helping us, the Starcatchers have been able to deal with the starstuff situation most of the time, over most of the earth. The problem is that, every now and then, a new batch falls, and we’re not always able to get there before somebody finds it. Often, no harm is done; in fact, the results can be quite nice. Not so many years ago, some starstuff fell in Italy. Our agents got there soon enough, and thought they’d retrieved it all, but apparently they missed some, and some young men found it. Fortunately, they were not inclined toward evil. Have you ever heard of the artists Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo?”

  “No,” said Peter.”

  “Well,” said Molly, “they were quite good. But we’ve not always been so lucky. I don’t suppose you’ve heard of Attila the Hun?”

  “Was he an artist?”

  “He most certainly was not. He was a very bad man who found a very big bit of starstuff and did some very bad things.”

  “Oh.”

  “Occasionally,” Molly continued, “very occasionally, even one of the Starcatchers succumbs to the lure of the starstuff, and has to be…dealt with. But for the most part, the Starcatchers have done their job, and done it very well. I don’t mean we’ve eradicated evil from the world, of course—the world will always have evil—but because of the Starcatchers, it has been a good long time since any widespread evil has been the result of starstuff. So to answer your question: Yes, for the moment, the Starcatchers have the upper hand. But only for the moment.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean at the moment, the situation is a bit…unbalanced.”

  “Unbalanced?”

  “Yes. About two months ago, a very large quantity of starstuff fell to Earth, in Scotland. A very large quantity. Father says it’s the most that has fallen in his memory, and perhaps in centuries. The Starcatchers knew it was coming; I don’t know why, but we feel it when it falls. And, as I say, this was an unusually large amount—we had people see it as well as feel it. They were headed to the landing place on horseback immediately. It was a remote spot, no towns around, and our men got there quickly. But the starstuff was gone.”

  “Somebody found it first.”

  “Yes,” said Molly, “but that has happened before. And usually whoever it is is still there when our agents arrive. In fact usually they’re floating at treetop level, happy as birds, and it’s easy enough for our agents to retrieve the
starstuff from them, and help them to forget all about it by…well, it’s a technique I haven’t learned yet. But when it’s used, they fall asleep; and when they wake up, they’ve forgotten all about it, no harm done. But this time there was nobody there, and no starstuff. And that was the odd part. This was a large and powerful supply, Peter. It can be moved, but it takes skill and knowledge to handle it, and a proper container to put it in. So it wasn’t moved by some local folk who happened across it. Whoever took it knew what it was, and knew how to handle it.”

  “The Others.”

  “Yes. Somehow, they got there first, and now they have more starstuff than they’ve had for centuries.”

  “And you…the Starcatchers…you don’t know what they’ve done with it?”

  Molly laughed, but not happily. “Oh, I know exactly what they’ve done with it.”

  “What, you…you mean…You mean the trunk on this ship?”

  “Yes,” said Molly. “That trunk.”

  “But how…I mean, who…”

  “Bear with me just a little longer,” said Molly. “We’re almost there. The Starcatchers have always had spies among the Others. After the starstuff went missing in Scotland, we had our spies poke around, and they found out quickly enough what had happened to it. It had been placed in a trunk and taken to a castle in a little town called Fenkirk.”

  “Couldn’t the Starcatchers fetch it from there?” asked Peter. “Using those, what did you call them, techniques?”

  “Unfortunately, no,” said Molly. “For two reasons. One is that those techniques are not effective against people who know how to use the starstuff power. The other is that, in addition to the Others, the castle was heavily guarded by soldiers.”

  “Soldiers?”

  “Soldiers of the Queen of England.”

  “The Queen?” said Peter. “Are you saying the Queen is one of the Others?”

  “No,” said Molly. “At least we don’t think so. The Starcatchers have people who know the Queen—my father is one of them—and they’re quite certain she is not in league with the Others. But apparently somebody close to the Queen is, and whoever that person is has made it impossible for our agents to get near the trunk. After a week in the castle, it was moved under heavy guard to London, where our spies learned that it was to be loaded onto a ship called the Wasp. And that was a very bad sign indeed.”