All of this was because of starstuff. All of this was what Petrick’s father had been trying to teach him. Trying to save.
Barry and Suzy were knocked into violently by a rather small man who reeked of booze. Both would have been thrown to the ground were it not for Haber’s catching grasp. The man looked at them blearily once he righted himself, and flashed a grotesquely yellow and black toothy smile. Haber stepped in between the man and the children.
“Move along, sir,” he said.
“They bumped into me!” the drunk replied, straightening up to face the android.
He looked as if he was about to puff his chest out, or take a swing, or make some other drunken display of masculinity, but the impulse seemed to pass as another wave of intoxication hit him.
He smiled at Haber and swayed. “You’re tall!” he said too loudly. Then as quickly as he’d come, he disappeared into the throng of people.
Petrick breathed a sigh of relief and watched as Haber continued to scan the marketplace in all directions.
“What are you looking for?” Petrick half-shouted up toward him.
“I’m unsure specifically,” the android admitted, “but someone selling information on the station. Maps, or means of transportation. Something of that kind.”
“Can we sit down?” Barry asked. “Somewhere not in the crowd? These floors are hurting my feet.”
“Perhaps this is not the best method,” Haber said, looking down at his small charges standing shoulder to shoulder to ward off the throng around them.
“Maybe we should just ask someone where we can find the information we want,” Suzy pointed out.
“Are you seeing the same people I am?” Barry asked, looking at her like she was crazy. “They’d take our food and slit our throats in five seconds.”
CLICK!
The foursome was blinded for a moment by a flash of bright light.
“What information is it that you seek, travelers?” a voice called out from behind the light.
The group blinked, and a tall, thin man about Haber’s height was standing in a long dark coat holding a small black square. He was smiling a big smile. Too big. He extended a strong arm and produced a bony hand to shake in greeting. Haber took it cautiously.
“Pardon me for the flash on my imager. My name is Hek,” he said smoothly, slipping the black box into his coat. “I enjoy taking pictures of the many travelers we get through our little way station here; I hope you don’t mind. If you like, I can provide you with a holo-stick of yourselves for a small fee.” Haber waved off that notion and tried to extract himself from the handshake, but Hek continued. “I also peddle information. What is it you’re seeking today?”
“Habersham,” Haber said in wary introduction, finally able to let go of Hek’s hand. “Assistant and guardian to— . . . Petrick of Indacar.”
“Indacar?” Hek said, raising an eyebrow. “That’s out on the Fringe, is it not?”
Haber shifted uncomfortably.
“Oh, don’t worry, stranger,” Hek said, his big smile growing bigger. “No one on Liberatia cares where you’re from.”
Haber opted to change the subject. “We are in need of the historical records facility on this station.”
Hek laughed a slight, unpleasant chortle. “The historical records facility?” he got out. “Look around you. This is a pirate town. We don’t keep records, except what we have up here.” He tapped his skull and leaned forward close to Haber, giving him a big grin again. “I am your ‘historical records facility.’” Being as close to Haber’s face as he was, he squinted, looking him up and down. “You’re synthetic.”
“I am.”
“Who built you? I’ve never seen an android quite like you. Very human-like. Meenoc Corporation?”
“I was privately built.”
“On Indacar?”
“Yes.”
Haber, this time, was jostled by a passerby, and he nearly bumped heads with Hek. He looked down at the kids and then back up at the man offering them information.
Hek read the android’s body language. “Would you like to follow me to my tent?” he asked. “Humble as it is, it would be much more private.” He was smiling his extra-wide smile again.
Haber looked at him for a long moment, then nodded his head. “Yes,” he said. “What sort of payment would you require for your records?”
“It depends on who you’re trying to find,” Hek answered with a wink to Petrick. “But come. It will be much easier off the walkway here. I’m not too far.”
Hek turned, and Haber gestured to the children that it was all right for them to follow. They started threading their way through the dense crowd, and they’d made it maybe four or five steps when Barry cried out.
“Hey!” shouted Suzy, noticing that Hek had clamped his bony fingers around Barry’s arm. Hek looked back at her, and in a split second Suzy knew what was going to happen, what his intentions were with Barry. He was going to take him. She did the only thing she could think of.
She bit his arm.
Hek yelled and let go of Barry. In the press of people, Petrick and Haber found themselves an arm’s length away.
Too far.
Hek changed plans. He grabbed Suzy’s wild hair with his other hand, yanked her with him . . .
And they were gone into the crowd.
32
CLARKE, safely wrapped in Petrick’s arms, began barking furiously and tried to wrestle free to go after the kidnapped Suzy.
“Stop that man!” Haber yelled, pointing after him, but the crowd only looked back in confusion.
In just the mere moment it had taken them to reach Barry, who stood stunned and holding his bruised arm, there was nothing left to see.
They were gone.
“Come on,” said Petrick.
He linked arms with both Haber and Barry and knifed them into the multitude of bodies after Suzy. He held Clarke tight in his hands, who was fighting desperately to escape.
They slipped, pushed, and squeezed, going ever faster, but they were met only by the throng. Petrick listened desperately for her voice.
“Suzy!” he shouted. Nothing. “They can’t have gone far.” His breath was starting to get ragged from the effort, like he was crawling his way through sand. “Do you see anything?” he asked Haber.
“I do not,” said Haber. He was scanning back and forth, his lanky form putting him just above the heads of the crowd. “Wait—”
A scream echoed through the cavernous room.
It wasn’t Suzy’s.
Haber gripped Petrick and Barry’s hands and urged them forward, on a beeline.
“Let me go!” Hek shouted as they burst into a small ring of people surrounding the kidnapper.
He was fully suspended up in the air, desperately and ineffectively wielding a knife. Petrick realized with surprise it was Colossus who was holding him off the ground. Balta was at her robot’s side, red-faced with fury.
“You tell him to let me go!” Hek demanded of the pirate captain.
Balta strode around her cart, which was buried somewhat in the crowd. Petrick noticed people had stopped moving about them, their interest piqued by the distraction.
The captain balled her fists and glared at the writhing man, who wasn’t smiling any longer. “Drop the knife,” she commanded.
“Suzy?” called Haber, and sure enough, she popped out from behind Balta and ran over to them. “You are unharmed?” he asked, looking her over.
“She okay, android?” Balta called to Haber, not taking her eyes off Hek.
“She appears to be,” Haber answered.
Hek caught sight of them then, and his face twisted. “You’d aid the son of the traitor?” he snarled to Balta, and pointed the knife directly at Petrick. “Do you know who he is?”
Petrick’s stomach turned.
“Drop. The. Knife,” Balta said again, stone cold.
Hek dropped his knife.
Balta nodded at Colossus.
The ro
bot released Hek, and he was gone in an instant without another word, back into the crowd of people, who for their part collectively shrugged and moved on. Balta watched to make sure the kidnapper was gone, then turned to the group of four, her face twisted in anger.
“You want to get yourselves killed?!” she asked them furiously. “What did I tell you about this place?!”
The four looked among each other, then back at the captain of the Red Robert.
“You didn’t tell us anything,” Suzy said.
“Yeah, that’s right,” chimed in Barry.
“Well, what did you think you were going to find here?” Balta countered. “Daisies and puppies? Do you know who that man was? What he does to people?”
“No, we do not,” Haber answered.
Balta wiped her forehead and appeared as though she was trying to calm herself down. “Hek is one of the slave traders in Liberatia. One of the many. He snatches kids just like you and sells them to whoever is willing to pay!”
“Were you following us?” Suzy asked.
Balta glared at her. “No—I was not. At all. I just happened to be in . . . you know, the right place at the right time. Lucky for you.”
Suzy nodded, unconvinced. “Lucky for us.”
“We should inform the authorities,” Haber said.
“There are no authorities here,” Balta hissed. “It’s a pirate colony. You have to protect yourselves. That man would have slit Haber’s throat and thrown you all on the first slave ship to Cygnus or Ganymede Prime. Or whatever horrible place those scum take children.”
“He said that he could help us find information,” Barry said.
“Yeah, well, they’ll say anything they need to get you to come with them, won’t they?”
“A slit to my throat would fail to deactivate me,” Haber said, apparently still stuck on Balta’s gruesome point from the moment before.
Balta was too frustrated to reply. She made a series of hand movements and grunts, but nothing of sense emerged from them.
“That man called my father ‘the traitor,’” Petrick said to Balta.
The pirate captain didn’t answer the implied question. Instead, she scanned the crowd back and forth. “You’re not safe here.”
“That would seem to be obvious,” the android answered.
Balta sighed. “Come with me,” she said.
“I thought you didn’t want to help us,” Suzy said to Balta as soon as they could hear each other again.
She’d taken them and her cart out one of the side entrances to the marketplace, and the din was noticeably quieter as soon as they stepped into the corridor beyond. Petrick wondered if there was some sort of noise-canceling effect that was working here. He could imagine such a feature would have been useful, given the noise that the shipyard would have given off when it was operational all those years ago.
“I’m not helping you,” Balta barked back at her. “I don’t help anyone except myself.”
“But you helped Dedrin and Arris?” Barry asked, looking genuinely confused.
“They paid me, boy,” she replied. She then turned to Haber. “Speaking of which, how did you think you were going to pay for information?”
Haber patted his pack. “We have items of particular value,” he answered.
“Show me what you have,” she said. “If it’s sufficient, I’ll take you to see Chronos, and you’ll pay me for the time you spent on my ship and for my troubles here.”
“Who is Chronos?” Haber asked.
Balta shook her head. “No, you show me now.”
Haber looked down at Petrick, and he realized that the android was looking at him for confirmation that it was okay to take Balta’s bargain. Petrick hesitated simply because he wasn’t sure if what Haber had packed had any real value out here. If not, they were on a collision course with the end of someone’s patience. Balta’s seemed as good as anyone’s, so . . . Petrick nodded.
“Well?” Balta asked of them.
Haber set the satchel down on the top of Balta’s fuel pod cart. He began to pull out various items ranging in size and function, and Petrick knew they were some of the best. He flushed with gratitude for the android and his foresight: he’d chosen well.
“Whoooaaa,” said Barry, taking in all the gadgetry.
“Hands off, Master Barry.” Haber slapped at him, and Barry yanked away his outstretched arm. “This device is an atom reorganizer,” he said of the first, a smallish box. “It can create minerals and substances of virtually any kind using any raw material.” He gestured to a second device, a small sphere. “This is a density and phase adjuster. It can raise or lower the density of whatever is inside its field of displacement, at varying depths and ranges. To pass through a wall, say, or even to let light pass through you, for hiding.”
“How does that work?” Barry asked, entranced.
“We only see stuff because light bounces off it and reflects that light into our eyeballs,” Petrick answered. “If light passes through an object, it might as well be invisible.”
“How do I know any of this stuff works?” Balta said, squinting and nodding at the objects laid out.
Petrick stepped forward and grabbed the small sphere. Before Haber could stop him, he’d twisted its top, pressed a couple buttons, and flipped a small switch. There was a crackling sound for an instant . . .
. . . and he disappeared.
Barry gasped. Even Balta’s mouth dropped open.
With another crackle, Petrick flicked back into view, grinning.
“My father designed it with an adjustable field radius,” he said, setting it down proudly. “To encompass more than one person, if necessary.”
Balta held up her hand. “Okay,” she said. “These are devices of Fenton the Seeker’s creation?”
Haber nodded.
“I want nothing to do with them,” Balta said. Petrick was about to protest and ask for an explanation when Balta threw a hand up to stop him and added, “But . . . Chronos may find them interesting.”
“Who is Chronos?” Petrick asked.
“He’s who you’re looking for on this station,” Balta said.
“He knows where my dad went?”
“Maybe. If you can get him to talk. He’s not going to like you.”
“Does he like you?” Suzy asked.
“Nope,” Balta answered, “but apparently he’s also the only one right now who can fill these up.” Balta gestured to the fuel pods. “So, it all works out, doesn’t it?”
It made sense in a network of domes and tunnels and connecting passageways that there would be some sort of rapid transit system to ferry people from one interior to another. What was actually remarkable was that some of it still worked. Balta had led them down a sloping hallway from the marketplace, through several twists and turns, and they’d emerged at what she’d identified as the far side of Gateway Station. Ahead of them was a station platform of some kind with a transparent wall that provided a wide view of the other side of the Wall.
“That’s the Outer Rim out there,” Balta said, pointing to the wilderness that stretched out beyond.
Not that you could see much of it through the murky dust and rocks floating beyond the station, but it did still feel dangerous and exciting. The group’s attention then moved to the platform that they were all standing on, which opened on both ends to a tube about twenty feet in circumference. If the children had ever seen one before, they would have thought it looked like a subway.
Balta had chirped some words into a comm panel over at one end of the platform, and a few moments later, the air began to whoosh from the tube on the left side of the platform. A few moments after that, a transparent, enclosed carriage arrived (almost) noiselessly, and its doors hissed open invitingly.
Balta gestured for everyone to move inside. “This is our ride,” she said.
They stepped inside, and Balta rumbled her cart in with them, Colossus right behind. Colossus stood with the cart, and the rest all took various seat
s in the carriage.
The interior was musty, most likely an effect of the run-down-looking seats, which clearly hadn’t been cleaned or replaced in who knew how long, and the floor, which was littered here and there with rubbish. But the completely transparent sides of the car clearly had been cleaned and maintained. That was fortunate, because a moment later the doors behind our group shuffled closed, the carriage launched back out into the tube from whence it had arrived, and a brand-new spectacular view of Gateway Station and the Wall beyond opened up to them. The transport tube was transparent along its entire track.
“Whoaaaa,” Barry exclaimed. “Look at that!”
He was pointing to the gate they were fast approaching. It was the one they’d seen when they’d first flown into Liberatia. In stark contrast to the gleaming Authority-maintained gateway, this one was falling apart in every direction in which one could look. Still . . . as they sped toward it in their tube carriage, its sheer size made it a sight to behold. As they approached the edge and their path led over the top curve of the circular gate, they could see several large ships floating behind it.
“That’s Dedrin and Arris’s colony ship,” Balta said, pointing to a gigantic, lumpy, oval-shaped ship. It was dotted with more windows than Petrick had ever seen.
“What about that one?” Barry asked, pointing to another, even larger ship. It was oddly marked and appeared to be well armed, with several gunlike protrusions poking out here and there.
“That’s a Tusian battleship,” Balta answered, gazing with raised eyebrows. “I wasn’t aware there were any left.”
“What do you mean?” Barry asked, wide-eyed, not taking his gaze off the starship.
“Tusia went to war with the Authority almost ten years ago. Rumor was that they were completely wiped out. Those rumors were not entirely accurate, it would seem.”
“People are going to war with the Authority?” Haber asked.
“Whole planetary alliances, android,” Balta confirmed. “Not everyone likes being told what they can and cannot do with their starstuff.”
Starstuff (Starstuff Trilogy Book 1) Page 21