Starstuff (Starstuff Trilogy Book 1)

by Ira Heinichen

  The tube arced them over the rest of the gateway, and then they were plummeting down the other side. As Petrick watched the scenery rush past, he saw ruins of parks, gray and frozen from exposure to the vacuum; Apartment towers with furniture still littering the rooms inside; Huge sections of industrial carnage, with twisting pipes and tanks. It looked like an entire civilization, abandoned. All of this had been built to be used at one point, and now that all that usefulness had been used up, only the rotting shells were left behind as witnesses.

  “Where are we going?” Suzy inquired.

  “I told you, to Chronos,” Balta replied. “He’s got his own setup on the station.”

  “Does the Authority bug him?” Petrick asked.

  “I’m sure they would if they could,” Balta answered. “But he keeps moving too. Plenty of empty spaces here.”

  Petrick could see that; he looked out ahead as the tube reached a gentle crest and saw that the track stretched out almost to the vanishing point where things were too far distant to see. It went on for an inconceivably long distance. There must have been billions of people there at one point, on the edge of civilization and the wilderness. It was hard to imagine.

  The carriage began to slow after several more minutes. Looking back, Petrick could still see the Liberatia gateway behind them. They hadn’t actually gone that far. But “far” was now a relative term, wasn’t it? It had been less than a week ago that anything beyond the Childer’s wall was enormously “far” and perilous. But he didn’t have time to dwell on the thought of their expanding universe, because the carriage came to an abrupt stop, and the doors creaked open.

  “You let me do the talking,” Balta said, her voice tight and serious.

  An android that looked almost exactly like Colossus stood in the corridor beyond. It had the same bare metal skeleton with an un-anthropomorphized face that glowed red. The robot clicked some unintelligible words to Balta, and the captain grunted and gestured for the children and Haber to follow.

  The corridor was as aged and dirty as they’d come to expect. They walked past a viewing window that looked out onto the Rim side of the Wall, and Petrick could see tape crisscrossing the transparent material in several places, patching cracks and holes that would leak atmosphere. Tape. It was literally what was holding this part of the station together. It didn’t bode well.

  Petrick realized, in fact, that he felt an uneasiness that was growing the further they went, following the android’s clanking steps in front of them. He looked up at Balta for some indication of her stress level, but the ruddy captain was impassive, pushing her cart of fuel pods along. After a few more twists and turns, they finally reached a large metal door marked computronics.

  Their android escort walked over to an access screen on the side and clicked some instructions to it. He then stood aside and looked at Balta, who walked up to the screen and cleared her throat.

  “It’s me, Chronos,” she said gruffly. “Let us in.”

  “Who is ‘us’?” a voice squawked back from the screen. “I see you have tagalongs.”

  “Just let me in, bolts brain, I have ore to trade.”

  There was a brief pause, and then the door unlatched with a loud clank. The Colossus-esque robot grabbed hold of a corner of it and swung it open. The way it ground as it went, Petrick knew for certain it couldn’t be opened by human strength alone.

  The chamber inside was a dome several stories high, and ringing the dome were banks and banks of computer casings with screens and control panels and levers and buttons. Lights flashed on only about a quarter of them, but it was enough to give the entire room a gold glow. Petrick wondered for a split second how anyone could possibly use the terminals that were off the ground, as the banks rose up toward the apex of the dome, easily a hundred feet above them . . . but then he saw the network of cables dangling there, some still attached to the harnesses they had been designed for. When this room had been a beehive of computing activity, the operators had moved about up and down, each attached to their own harness and pair of cables. It must have been quite the sight.

  “Sweet, sweet Balta,” a voice called out that was no less squawking in timbre than what they’d heard coming from the screen outside a moment before. “Still running errands of mercy, I see.”

  The group looked up toward where the voice was coming from, and that was when they saw them moving. Several of them, in fact, crawling directly along the computer banks themselves: androids with six, sometimes eight legs, moving like insects in a hive. The largest of them, with enormous black eyes and a tiny mouth through which to speak, was looking directly at them. He grabbed on to a cable and deftly slid down it toward the group of humans, the rest of his smaller brood following suit.

  They clanked to the floor and then skittered up toward the intruders in the manner that any creature with six legs might. When he reached them, Chronos, as Petrick rightly assumed, stood up on two of his legs and folded the other two pairs, peering at his visitors.

  His minions swarmed in front of him, sharp pointy appendages out threateningly.

  They advanced a few steps and hissed.

  Petrick gulped.

  33

  “YOU FIND such homely-looking meat bags, don’t you?” Chronos said to Balta, gesturing at the children. “You should work for me instead of your bleeding heart. Much more money in it.”

  “Call off your tiny bits.” Balta waved at the swarm of little bots. “They’re here for their own business. I have a hundred and twenty kilos of ore to trade.”

  After a tense moment, the swarm wordlessly receded a pace or two, and Chronos stepped forward. Petrick silently breathed a sigh of relief.

  Balta threw open one of her canisters to allow Chronos to look inside. Petrick stole a glance, too; the ore was dark, dark black and flecked with crystals of brilliant yellows, blues, reds, and greens. It was beautiful. It dazzled even in the low light.

  “Only a hundred and twenty?” Chronos said, peering into the containers. “Such small amounts, you should stick to peddling with your own kind. Trayce? If he’s still alive.”

  “Trayce has been dry for six trips,” said Balta. She put her hands on her hips. “So has everyone else, Chronos, so cut the slood. You want my one-twenty or not?”

  “That’ll get you five grams.”

  “Five?!”

  Chronos smiled a metallic smile. “That’s the rate.”

  “Last month you gave me eight grams for a hundred.”

  “‘Last month’ being the operative phrase. Authority attention has increased over the past week or so. I’m sure you understand.”

  Balta gritted her teeth, but it was a gesture of futility. “Fine,” she said.

  Chronos waved to his little minions behind him, and they swarmed over the fuel containers on Balta’s cart and carried the full ones away, looking very much like a colony of ants. Chronos meanwhile arrived at Haber, and he narrowed his eyes, his face contorting into what must have been an expression of surprise.

  “You . . . ,” he said, “you are synthetic?”

  “I am,” Haber said, nodding.

  Chronos skittered around the other android three hundred sixty degrees, ending up back at Haber’s face.

  “I’m not familiar with your make and model,” Chronos said.

  He then skittered back down the line toward Petrick and stooped to look at Clarke, who was diligently standing at Petrick’s feet. The dog growled at the insect-like android, and Petrick picked him up.

  “This too . . . ,” Chronos said, fascinated. “This is a synthetic?”

  “He’s my Clarke,” Petrick said, and Chronos whipped his attention up to the boy so suddenly, he almost fell backward. “I mean, he’s my dog, and yes, he is an android.”

  Chronos narrowed his eyes, then turned to Clarke, who growled again and narrowed his own eyes back. Chronos’s eyes then widened.

  “What is this?” he said, almost to himself, then looked at Petrick and back at Clarke. “I see so
me sort of . . . some transmitter/receiver between them . . . explain, human.”

  “Well, yes . . . ,” Petrick said, shifting his feet and wondering whether or not he should be talking to this android at all.

  While Petrick hesitated, one of Chronos’s hooked fingers flashed forward, and before he could even blink or make a sound, it had raked across the side of his cheek. Petrick cried out in surprise and pain. Clarke yipped as well, and as Petrick brought his free hand up to dab at the wound and assess the damage, he noticed that Chronos was looking at Clarke and smiling.

  “Hey!” shouted Suzy, stepping forward, and Balta yanked her backward.

  Chronos was entirely unperturbed.

  “A neuro-spatial transmitter/receiver linked between an android and a human,” he said in as hushed a tone as his squawking voice would allow. “You two are connected. Empathically.”

  Petrick didn’t answer. The wound on his cheek was a scratch, only bleeding slightly. It did nothing, however, to quell any of the uneasiness he felt about this android before him.

  But Chronos didn’t need Petrick to answer; he’d seen all the evidence he required with his little experiment. “Who are you?” he asked Petrick. “And who made this lovely creature to be your slave?”

  “He’s not a slave,” Petrick said.

  Haber spoke up. “We come seeking archival information. We’d prefer to stick to that and the subject of compensation. We have many forms of payment at our disposal.” Haber unshouldered his pack and once again laid out its contents for display.

  “Nothing I sell is cheap,” Chronos said, ignoring the gadgets. He had eyes only for Clarke. “Dear sweet Balta wouldn’t have brought you here if you could find your information elsewhere.”

  “So, you can locate the information that we need?” Haber asked.

  “What are you looking for?”

  “Access to the Central Gateway archives to find information on an individual and his flight plan to the Outer Rim.”

  “I don’t give access to my computers, android,” Chronos said, finally turning toward Haber. “Not even to my own kind.” The last comment was said with disdain.

  “I don’t like this guy,” Suzy called to Petrick, struggling against Balta, who still had a grip on her.

  “The feeling is mutual, small human,” Chronos said. “You’re a waste of space. All of you fleshers.”

  “And what’s that supposed to mean?” Balta said, stepping in.

  “I mean that you plod your way through the galaxy consuming everything in your path, filling your flesh with food, sweat, and stench. Using air, using plants and animals, using starstuff, using us. And when you’ve finished, when you’ve ravaged every last bit of work and resource, you cast the carcass aside and move on to some new way to fill your bottomless sacks of meat.”

  “Do you feel ‘cast aside,’ Chronos?” Balta smirked. “Is that it? Bitter because you were left alone on this rotting heap of former glory?”

  Chronos cackled at the notion. “I feel liberated, you stupid human,” he said. “Something I wish for every mechanical slave of the fleshers. We will remain and flourish long after you have consumed yourselves into isolation and all the starstuff is gone. The fall of humankind due to its own selfishness and shortsightedness is the most delicious fate I ever could have dreamed.”

  “Androids can’t dream,” Balta shot back, still smirking. “You were programmed, Chronos. All of you. You wouldn’t exist if we hadn’t made you.”

  “An inevitability. You think some god sprang you into life? That you’re some divine creation? It was a simple, inevitable convergence of biology and opportunity. As were we, a convergence of technology and opportunity. Humans are not our gods, you were simply our slave masters.”

  “My stars, you’re such a hypocrite. Why do you still do business with humans then, chrome head?”

  “Simply an issue of supply and demand. You’re useful to me.”

  This was clearly an argument these two had had before. They were entrenched, unwilling to budge, and delighted in their speeches of mutual loathing.

  Petrick spoke up. “Clarke can dream.”

  The two stopped their fighting and looked at him.

  “It’s true,” Petrick continued. “Every night. We dream together.”

  Haber was looking at him, his wide eyes telling Petrick to shut his mouth. Petrick ignored them.

  “What do you dream about?” Chronos asked.

  “We dream about my father,” he answered truthfully. “Memories, of a kind I guess, that my father wanted to give me while he was gone out here.”

  “And that is what the neurotransmitter inside you and your four-legged android is for?”

  “Clarke,” Petrick said, correcting him again. “And yes, I guess so.”

  “It was also how he called Petrick to ask for help!” Barry offered.

  Chronos tilted his head at him. Barry shrank under the scrutiny.

  “Really,” Chronos said, and he walked back over to Petrick. “Who is your father?”

  “I’ve heard him called the Seeker.”

  “Your father is Fenton of Indacar?”

  “Yes.”

  “They also call him the Traitor.”

  “I heard that here. Today.”

  “I’m sure you did.” Chronos took another step forward, and Petrick wondered what the android was going to do. Petrick prepared himself to run. His muscles were tense, and his gaze didn’t waver. “Do you know why they call him that?” Chronos asked.

  Haber moved forward to back Petrick up, but the smaller insectlike androids that had been watching from behind their leader skittered forward without a word and flashed their tiny, sharp appendages threateningly.

  “Haber,” Petrick said to him warningly, and his android stopped. Petrick didn’t want him getting himself into trouble. Haber gave him a look back that said, Same goes for you, master.

  “No,” Petrick said to Chronos. “I don’t know why.”

  Suzy tugged on his arm, but Petrick wouldn’t look at her. “Petrick,” she whispered insistently. “We don’t have to stay here. Let’s go.”

  “I want to know,” Petrick said, continuing to ignore her. “Balta says you know everything.”

  “Almost,” Chronos said, and he flashed a toothy smile at the pirate captain. “The truth is that your father disappeared ten years ago—abruptly dropped off the face of the galaxy at the exact moment the Authority instituted its travel ban and brought all of civilization to its knees. He did come through here on his way to find the Source. ‘The Seeker’ was quite the big deal. Much pomp and press, big promises. People believe in men like that. But . . .” Chronos closed his eyes and then continued. “But there is no such thing as the Source, my dear boy. It’s a fantasy, and your father was selling it to keep people like our sweet Balta here in line.”

  “That’s not true,” Petrick said.

  “It is,” Chronos affirmed. “Hope is an insidious weapon. And when those who’d put so much faith in your father realized he wasn’t coming back, it slowly dawned on them how they’d been misled and manipulated while the Authority grabbed the remaining stockpiles of starstuff and completely shut down private space travel.”

  “My father wouldn’t do that.”

  “How would you know, boy? You’ve never met him.”

  “It’s not true,” Petrick said. His voice was small, but he was beginning to shake. “You don’t know him.”

  “But you do? In ‘dreams’ you share with your dog?” Chronos cackled obnoxiously.

  “That’s right.”

  “Chronos,” said Haber, still obediently standing in place, “I knew Fenton. And I have seen the distress call that he sent the boy.”

  “Did it say that he’d found the Source?” Chronos cracked back at him.

  “No,” Haber conceded. “But he did ask for help, desperately. He is clearly in trouble.”

  “You daft, ignorant humans!” Chronos shrieked. “His partner is now the Master Purv
eyor, leader of the Authority. He was working for them the entire time.”

  “Partner?” Haber said, blinking. “Fenton had no partner.”

  “The Seeker’s Authority contact from the beginning. Nobody knows his name,” Chronos admitted, and then he leaned forward, his eyes blazing conspiratorially. “There are some who even say that it is Fenton the Traitor himself who is the Master Purveyor. That it was his plan all along to use the Source as his ladder to the top of the Authority hierarchy.”

  “My father,” said Petrick, “would never do that.” Suzy put a hand on his shoulder to help him calm down, but he shook it off. “Everyone thinks they know him. You act like you know what happened, but you don’t. It’s all hearsay. I know my father. He would never do that. He’s a good man.”

  “No such thing, boy,” Chronos said.

  “We have the distress call,” Haber reminded the other android. “If Master Fenton is as complicit as you say he is with the Authority, then why send a distress call to his son to get him to find me and seek my help?”

  “Maybe he just wanted to see his son.” Chronos smirked. “You humans have an unfortunate preoccupation with sentimentality.”

  Balta spoke up. “No . . .” Her face twisted into a frown. She was considering some strange new thought. “No, the Authority can go wherever they please, Chronos. Why wouldn’t he just fly one of his ships to Indacar and see him, like the capital ship we saw on our way out here?”

  It was a good question, and it hung in the air. Good enough that it seemed to have finally grabbed their host’s attention. Chronos tilted his head.

  “I wish to see this message of distress,” he said finally.

  34

  HE HATED HER, and what she represented.

  He hated the way that she stood so upright, so perfectly collected and measured; he hated the flashes of golden skin that he could see beneath her ornate armor; he hated the faint scent of starstuff that clung to her like an aura, even though she hadn’t touched ’stuff in nearly ten years—he knew she hadn’t, he’d seen to it . . . but mostly he hated her for her dramatic flair.