Tethered Worlds: Blue Star Setting

by Gregory Faccone

  "Tesla's rays!"

  Khai took it all in with curious wonder.

  "Max," Jordahk sub-whispered, "what is all this?"

  Indicators pointing to the different VADs began to appear on his rets. He always wore them now, ever since his irises flecked with platinum. The rets masked his ocular phenomenon from the longwave scans. He could imagine how anything hinting at Sojourner might be treated within the Hex. He chose not to dwell on it, for destiny couldn't be undone, whatever it meant.

  The indicators showed multiple government media feeds, social nexus updates, the latest pop-culture epiVADs, and a slew of advertisements.

  "Wild RideZ?" It was the most popular ad.

  "I have established secure communication," Aristahl commed. His casual stride did not change in any way. "Only use it when you have line of sight. Follow me."

  Aristahl headed down a passage that led deeper into the moonlet, opting for whatever reason to avoid the travel tubes.

  The tunnels were smaller than hubs. The walls and ceilings were covered in active surfaces showing the same mix of media feeds. Jordahk was starting to understand why so many local inhabitants walked with their heads down.

  The gravity reduced as they moved deeper. By the end of the tunnel, at the entrance to the second hub, the gravity was down to about half. Aristahl, as usual, was cognizant of Jordahk's thoughts.

  "HAB rock was designed long ago," Aristahl commed, "when grav weaves were inexpensive and manufacture of them was on the rise."

  Imitation grav weaves, composed of scientum technology, were still very expensive. The only practical manufacturing came from imprimaturs. And while their ranks were not necessarily decreasing, they were not increasing either. What was decreasing was their knowledge base and skills. Their mentors—or their mentor's mentors, the Sojourners—were long gone.

  The second hub was similar to the first, although less busy and less finished. The air was still congested with VADs. A strong-looking man, only about Khai's height, approached. He had dark hair and an impassive expression. His eyes were bracketed by crow's feet.

  "You are Aristahl, yes? I'm Humberto. Welcome to Beuker. Thank you for interest in our ore."

  The man raised his forearm for a bump, but Aristahl was old-fashioned, and stuck his hand out to shake. Humberto recognized the gesture as if recalling a distant memory, and shook.

  "Thank you for meeting us," Aristahl said. "I hope our visit is indeed profitable." They locked gazes. "For us all." Humberto had to look away. "My grandson and ward will be aiding me."

  "I see." He looked around with surreptitious suspicion. "I'll be glad to put you up. It'll be a short stay on HAB rock until you launch for the mine. Follow me, please."

  Jordahk got the distinct impression he meant, "Follow me and don't say anything else." Their conversation sounded scripted. Universal warnings around a tunnel running deeper into the moonlet indicated microgravity. Humberto led them instead, into one of the side tunnels that ran parallel to the surface. They walked in silence.

  "Why not share the secure comm?" Jordahk sub-whispered to Aristahl.

  "No doubt his compy is compromised. I want to clean it carefully with Barrister in a secure environment so that his overseers remain unaware of the change."

  "I doubt there's a secure environment on this entire rock."

  "There is not."

  Khai was drawn to the Wild RideZ advertisements plastered on the active surfaces. They featured the latest advertising icon, Jaan. Even he had seen ads featuring her in the Asterfraeo. She appeared as a fit and comely blonde, with tanned skin, perky features, and voluminous hair. She was quite the star within the Hex, independent of whose ads she was pushing.

  Apparently, Wild RideZ thought she was worth the expense. He didn't know much more about her, but her shtick had already played out two or three times since he had arrived. It was the same regardless of product. Jaan, dressed in a suggestive version of whatever outfit was appropriate to the ad, acted oblivious to the prurient and envious looks from those around her. She was always smiling and never offended. Then she performed some outrageously skilled feat to the amazement of everyone, and they all become friends in the end. Some of the more libertine ads implied more than friends.

  Jordahk shook his head. The Hex was spiraling in a decaying orbit.

  For Wild RideZ, Jaan was wearing a rather tight spacesuit. It wasn't an armored combat suit, nor would that fit. Using only arm-mounted filament casters, she roped, swung, and drew her way upstream through a crowded asteroid field. Strewn amidst the rocks were tumbling hulks of haulers, cavernous skeletal foundries, and other discarded equipment. She threaded some incredible needles and barely avoided being crushed in the churning tumult.

  "Her moves are amazing," Khai said. "No wasted motion."

  "You know she's generated, right?"

  Khai was slightly crestfallen. He felt like a parent telling a child that the Ajurian Realm wasn't a real place—although now he was pretty sure it was a lot more real than Jaan.

  "Oh," Khai said.

  Her inspiration was lessened but not extinguished. He still thought her ready to break out some serious moves right there in the corridor.

  "Max, what's up with Wild RideZ? Why are there so many advertisements here?"

  "Barrister is up on this stuff, I'll query his datalattice. Ah. They are a surprisingly successful up-and-coming capitalist venture within the Perigeum."

  "They must be putting coin in the right palms."

  "They've got resorts all over the place." Max scrolled list of locations on Jordahk's rets. They seemed to be floating an arms length away. "Anywhere there's a large, signature piece of crumbling infrastructure and a little danger, Wild RideZ Incorporated buys the infrastructure—hence the reason the Perigeum is okay with it—and sets up dangerous thrill courses for bored uppies."

  "Bored rich uppies, no doubt," Jordahk added. "Why here?"

  "You saw the asteroid belt. It's been mined out and become a condemned dumping ground for wrecks and discards. Just the kind of thing Wild RideZ likes. They've got a resort set up on one of the gas giant's moons. It's getting some traffic. I think that's one of the reasons we got out here so easily. The upper-class tourist trade has loosened things up."

  Khai eyed the asteroid course listings, noting the fastest passages. "I could do that."

  Jordahk nodded subtly. She was made for tumbling among the stars. Jaan had nothing over her, except an unbalancing number of centimeters around the chest.

  The advertising density lessened as they exited the entry port areas and moved into the regular living spaces. The quality wasn't high, and the atmosphere felt heavy. It was more than the air.

  "The first tier accommodations are on the level closest to the surface," Max link-said. "Down here is for permanent residents and anyone who can't afford to live up there."

  Humberto kept to the widest corridors. They passed another microgravity tunnel leading deeper into the rock.

  "I work down there sometimes," Humberto said, "on the air recyclers."

  They passed what looked like a large, half-filled recreation room. A man flew by, smashing into the wall. A couple of people in the hall stopped to peek in, and Jordahk looked over their shoulders. The man got up from a sprawl, his wrist obviously broken. Two large men grabbed him by the arms.

  Across the chamber, someone walked in another entrance, and everyone took notice. It was the sharp-nosed man from earlier. People showed him obvious deference. The two bruisers held steady.

  "What's this all about?" sharp-nose asked.

  "He was caught cheating on the upper level," one of the bruisers said.

  "Alomar, Alomar. I don't recall you paying this week for that privilege. You know we can't have everyone who wants to going up there and cheating. If word got out, we'd have no new coin coming in, and who would that serve? Not you, or your wife Liza. Not even your little girl, what was her name again? Oh yes, Orinda. Precious child."

  He nodded to
the goons, and they threw Alomar. He flew far in the half-gravity, hitting the wall harder and more awkwardly than the first time. It made a horrid sound. The man slid to the ground, unconscious and jerking. Two people moved cautiously toward him, but sharp-nose stopped them with a glare then swept the room.

  "Do remember to check in with me before initiating any of your schemes. Paying for one of our limited weekly slots is a way to ensure we all continue to prosper."

  He jerked his head in indication, and the two people carried Alomar away.

  "One must get a license for illegal activity here?" Khai commed.

  Jordahk couldn't bring himself to answer right away.

  "It is graft, Khai-aLael," Aristahl commed. "Let us stay below his notice."

  Humberto was all too eager to move along with minimal prompting.

  Jordahk touched Khai's elbow, encouraging her to follow. She shouldn't have to see such men.

  Torious lingered briefly, no doubt wishing to use his skills.

  In the room, sharp-nose cleared the largest table with a glance. He sat at its head while a dozen people, shifty men and a few shrewd looking women, sat like evil knights at the king's table.

  His brazen superiority made Jordahk like him even less.

  At the end of a dimly lit tunnel, its smooth walls cut through naked rock, they entered Humberto's tiny apartment. Jordahk wasn't sure what a hovel was, but it was the word that came to mind. It was a single room with a divider blocking off an area for privacy. A small kitchen occupied one corner. The only other doors looked to be storage space and a small, efficient laver. One entire wall was active surface, running four official-looking feeds in split screen.

  Aristahl said a few words of greeting to Humberto's wife, but his eyes said something different. There was a rush of activity in Wixom.

  "What's going on, Max?" Jordahk sub-whispered.

  "Aristahl and Barrister are trying to clear the place of bugs. Wixom is also checking it out, turning off what he feels is challenging."

  "Nothing qualifies, but I'm not above helping," Wixom link-said.

  Jordahk concentrated, closing his eyes. The technology in the room was scientum, so he couldn't really feel it, but the energy coursing about... he could almost sense its flow and intersections. And there was unidentified mystic nearby, masked and hard to detect.

  The active wall's images distorted, and the lights flickered. He smelled a hint of something burnt. A small, VAD hemisphere appeared on the ceiling. It depicted a view of the room with them in it.

  "We can speak now," Aristahl said.

  After hours of Orwellian scrutiny, Jordahk wasn't comfortable testing that pronouncement. How much more would Humberto and his wife feel that after a lifetime of exposure? No one made a move to talk.

  "I am backtracing the buffers and generating innocuous footage," Barrister said. "Nothing we say or do in this apartment will be compromised electronically. We have two twenty-five hour day cycles before this is discovered. After that, our face-replacement techniques will break down, and modifications will be noticed.

  Humberto's wife, still needing formal introductions, looked worried. "Humberto!"

  "We knew it would come to this," Humberto said. "We are all-in, Nuria." He grabbed for her hand, but she pulled away.

  "The ceiling eye is so rudimentary that it was difficult to compromise internally," Barrister said. "We had to project an image in front of it. The active wall media feeds cannot be turned off. They are hardwired. But I can obscure them now with impunity."

  An opaque, black VAD appeared a tiny distance in front of the media wall, obscuring the government feeds. The room was reduced to cool, sparse lighting, peaceful in comparison to the visual assault since their arrival.

  "You cannot cover the feeds," Nuria said. Her eyes darted.

  Humberto clasped both of her shoulders. "We're leaving, do you hear me?"

  She was taller than him, and thin. It wasn't a healthy-looking slimness. It struck Jordahk as emaciation brought about by worry. Black hair wrapped around her head in sloppy curls. It was shot with streaks of gray. Nuria wasn't even as old as his parents. She must have been the victim of a very cheap retta.

  "Sosimo will be home soon," she said. "He will see."

  Humberto turned to Aristahl. "Our son is in mandatory, full-time first school. He is only four, but we hardly recognize him anymore."

  "We see him for a few hours at night before he sleeps," Nuria said. She looked on the verge of tears. "We don't even share meals together."

  "It's best... if we don't speak of our plans in front of him."

  "Camouflage your work, Barrister," Aristahl said, "and uncover the feeds when the boy is here."

  "Madam, may I examine you?" Torious asked.

  Humberto and Aristahl nodded, and Nuria assented reluctantly. Torious must have looked familiar. HAB rock's infirmary probably used relic scientum nurses. They went behind the privacy screen.

  "Privacy, Max." The four of them moved closer together. "Is this what it's come to? Family turning each other in?" Jordahk was incredulous.

  "It is the cult of government," Aristahl said. "Most of these people have never known anything else."

  Humberto looked reluctant and squeezed his eyes shut. When he opened them again, he wore the expression of a man who had nothing to lose and was willing to bet it all.

  "This is how it's been all my life. Your people's original contact was my grandfather. He fought in a corvette during the war but was wounded and didn't pull out with his squadron. Then the system fell." Humberto looked past the walls. "He told me stories of pioneering and fighting alongside the... Sojourners." The word came out a whisper. "He believed in them, even into his old age. Said one saved his life. He showed my father and I his secret communications with who he believed were Sojourners. But they're long gone, and only you have come."

  Aristahl did not say anything, and Jordahk followed his lead.

  "What happened to your father?" Khai asked. Her innocent demeanor excused much.

  Humberto didn't take offense, but his words were sour. "He didn't even live to one fifty. There is no place in Beuker to get a good retta. I hear the planetside uppies go off-world for theirs. Perhaps some even go to imprimaturs for a ravelen, if they can afford it." He looked back over his shoulder toward the divider. "Nuria's retta is no good," he whispered. "In a few years she'll transition to sempai, and she's not even one hundred."

  Jordahk and Aristahl exchanged looks.

  "My grandfather was a fighter, but his generation was the last. There were no more battles to fight. Now we just work." Humberto moved to the small interior door. "I don't know if you knew the Sojourners who fought here. Maybe my grandfather was wrong. I don't think there's anyone left to trust." He dug into the storage area for a moment, and Jordahk heard the sound of scraping rock. Humberto handed a box to Aristahl. "Take this before my son returns. It's an artifact we've kept safe, though none of us can use it."

  Aristahl opened the ceramic box, revealing a second earthenware box nested within. "Ah, yes. Thank you Humberto. This may indeed help." He handed the smaller box to Jordahk. "Let this encode to you, and see what you can make of it."

  Jordahk felt empowered. In the middle of hostile territory, his grandfather was entrusting him with an ancient mystic device. But empowerment and confidence were two different things. He pulled a rectangular, blue card from the box. It shocked him with a sharp crack. It was made of translucent blue crystal, faintly faceted. The edges were etched with tiny canals of metal. He recognized their mirror finish.

  "Rhodium."

  "You know this thing?" Humberto asked. He looked between the two men. "You are imprimaturs?"

  Aristahl did not answer. Khai eyes were riveted on the device. As the pause stretched, Jordahk realized it was up to him to answer.

  "We all have mystic links." It was more or less true. Khai had more mystic tech in her head than any of them, and some of it acted as a link. "And I'm a collector."

/>   "A collector?" Humberto looked disappointed.

  "Show him two hundred years of hiding this contraband was not in vain," Aristahl commed to Jordahk privately. "The device is called an etch. You can make it work. It will help you see things."

  He started to sense the device's functions as he turned it over in his hands. It would charge, like most small devices, from commonplace basal transmissions. It didn't detect one. Perhaps none were present on the entire rock. It wouldn't surprise him if people were made to pay for even the most basic, low-level power.

  "Wixom's got power to spare. Authorize a tap, Max."

  The etch powered up immediately. Jordahk dove into it mentally without reservation. He wanted to justify his grandfather's faith and give Humberto hope.

  The device reset to him and didn't fight its new user, but its natural resistance still had to be overcome. He closed his eyes and pushed through, getting the impression the device was not easy to create. It was complex, but its functions were simple.

  His mind coursed through it from end-to-end, waking it up, and taking dominion over it. He held it in front of his face and looked through. The translucency and faceting melted into transparency. He saw the room divider colored blue by the crystal. Then the blue faded, and he saw images on the other side of the divider.

  Humberto whispered something in amazement.

  Jordahk recognized the faint silhouette of Torious, his internal power lines the most visible, appearing a cool blue-white. Nuria wasn't transparent like the bot. Her body glowed a subtle orange, lighting her clothes from the inside and shedding dim light upon her seat and the divider.

  He looked over the etch. The divider appeared quite normal, and opaque. He looked through it again, and the penetrating vision returned. Torious ran another device around Nuria's head. Jordahk had to concentrate to keep the little scene sharp. It was easy to lose focus into the darkness before or after, where there were no energetic beings or bots.

  "Can you see this?" Jordahk asked. "Look over my shoulder, because I have to concentrate through it to keep it going."

  "Energy," Khai said.

  "The energy of humans," Aristahl added. "That is what it seems most attuned to."