Starstuff (Starstuff Trilogy Book 1)

by Ira Heinichen

  She flaunted what he covetously kept to himself.

  She had naturally what Slink tried so, so hard to manufacture artificially.

  She could see the future, just like Slink. Better, perhaps, and he hated her for it.

  On cue, as it always was with her, General Plodda’s wristcom twittered the moment she stepped into the Master Purveyor’s holo-chamber, which was glittering with the multitude of stars that were a constantly projected feature of the sanctuary. Slink watched the imposing general dart her eyes to read the short message and then flick them back up to the Master Purveyor, who stood several paces ahead of them. Plodda stood at least a foot and a half taller than each of the men, who were full-size.

  Slink’s wristcom beeped a second after hers, which drove his hatred even deeper . . . Always a step behind . . . He looked at his fresh Companion and worried perhaps it had been plucked from development too soon. But what else could he do?

  “Welcome aboard, General,” the Master Purveyor said without turning around.

  “You have news?” Slink asked her acidly.

  “In fact, I’ve just now received word from one of my embedded contacts,” she said.

  In fact. Like she hadn’t planned it meticulously. Slink could have strangled her with his bare hands. He wondered if she’d sense that coming, if she was still sensitive enough, even after all these years of being denied the ’stuff.

  The Master Purveyor turned around to address her, and he smiled. “At your leisure then, General,” he said.

  She straightened herself even further. “The runaways have been spotted in the pirate colony. My embed is following them.”

  “Excellent,” said the Master Purveyor.

  “Master,” said Slink, catching the Purveyor’s eye, “shall I maneuver the fleet to intercept on the other side of the Wall?”

  “No,” said the Purveyor, turning back around to gaze out the viewports surrounding the command deck. The brown mass of the Wall was so much soup swirling around them. “I have another idea.”

  35

  CHRONOS’S EYES reopened after several minutes, and he looked down at Clarke shivering below him. When Haber had offered to play the recording, Chronos had insisted the dream be played back in real time and connected via the empathic link, just like Petrick would experience it . . . except Chronos needed a wire plugged into his head and Clarke’s head. The wire somehow settled a grim feeling over the whole affair, like something was being violated; an intrusion was being made on something very private.

  Petrick watched Clarke endure the recurring dream. It started like any puppy dream would, with little noises and a flickering of the eyes. That turned quickly to more insistent sounds that descended into a panic that lasted far longer than it should have before his small watery eyes fluttered open and he was panting, looking around disoriented and afraid. Petrick wondered what he looked like after the dreams. Probably very similar.

  Petrick rubbed Clarke on the head and whispered into his ear reassuringly, and the dog gave his master a lick to the nose as if to say thank you. Chronos, meanwhile, unplugged the wire from the back of Clarke’s head. The other android blinked a few times, then turned to Petrick.

  “You experience this dream frequently?” he asked.

  Petrick nodded. “Every time I fall asleep.”

  “Fascinating,” he replied. He then addressed Haber. “There is more to this message I was unable to access.”

  “Correct. We are likewise unable.”

  “It was sent using an unusually low wavelength, which would explain why it was picked up by the neurotransmitter in the android.” He pointed to Clarke. “It’s the same frequency the boy and the dog share, and the same frequency one would use to pass a message through a high degree of interference . . . and if one wanted the message to be received only by the boy.”

  “We know this. I could have told you that,” Haber said.

  “I wouldn’t have believed you.”

  “But you do now,” Petrick said.

  “I believe that it is possible that Fenton the Seeker was not as willing an accomplice in the Authority takeover as is widely believed.”

  “My father would never join the Authority,” Petrick said, feeling like he was becoming a mockingbird with a one-sentence vocabulary.

  “Again, boy,” Chronos said, “you do not know your father.”

  Petrick gritted his teeth but said nothing further.

  “So, you will help us?” Haber asked. “You told me you have records on when Fenton passed through here eleven years ago.”

  Chronos nodded. “In payment, you will leave the dog android.”

  “No!” Petrick shouted.

  But Chronos was already reaching for Clarke, who was still disoriented from the dream. Petrick lunged and managed to snag Clarke by the hind legs, while Chronos grabbed Clarke by the chest and neck. Chronos moved to pull Clarke away, and Petrick desperately tightened his grip on his legs.

  “You put him down!” Petrick screamed at Chronos, blind panic starting to fill his vision. “Give him back!”

  Chronos pulled harder, and Clarke let out a yelp in pain. Pain seared through Petrick as well, and his eyes stung with tears.

  “You’re hurting him!” Petrick screamed. “Let him go!”

  “I will not,” Chronos said coldly back. “You will let him go, or I will tear him in half.”

  The evil android yanked again, and Clarke bellowed even more heart-wrenchingly in pain. He was squirming now with all of his little strength, craning his neck to try to bite Chronos’s cold spidery hands, desperate to escape, but he was no match.

  Petrick began to sob, and when Chronos yanked Clarke away from him again, he let his best friend go rather than cause him more pain.

  Barry and Suzy rushed to his side, but Petrick instinctively held them both back from advancing. It was the right instinct because Chronos’s minions swarmed to form a protective barrier between them and Chronos.

  “I’ll kill you, you mean, dirty android!” Suzy shouted at Chronos furiously.

  “Please,” Petrick pleaded, “please do not hurt Clarke.”

  “I’m offering you the choice. The dog is my price, and I will tell you where your father is.”

  Petrick just sobbed in response. He could feel Clarke’s little heart beating furiously in fear as he continued to struggle to the last against a strength that he could never overpower. Chronos’s spiderlike talons were too sharp. They’d pierce Clarke with the slightest pressure, and he’d be crushed.

  Petrick felt waves of despair and guilt wash over him.

  This was his fault.

  He’d put Clarke in danger. He’d put them all in danger.

  The choice was so clear.

  “I can’t,” he said.

  “But your father is out there,” Chronos said back. “I can tell you what you need to know, and my price is this fake animal. Such a small price to pay.”

  “No!” Petrick cried. “I can’t. Just give me Clarke back. Don’t hurt him.” He sobbed again, and he dropped to his knees. “I don’t want your information. Please please please don’t hurt him. I don’t want it. Not if it’s going to hurt Clarke.”

  Chronos regarded Petrick, who was wet faced and covered in snot. He looked at Barry next to him, who was hiding his face from the whole affair, and he looked at Suzy with her jaw clenched so tight that the muscles on either side protruded like thorns. Haber was standing behind him off to the side, helplessly frozen and watching in horror, as was Balta. Chronos’s metal face was practically unreadable, but if Petrick had been pressed to put a name to the expression he was wearing, it would have been “surprise.”

  “You heard him!” Suzy screamed. “Give Clarke back! We don’t want your stupid information.”

  Chronos lowered himself back down toward the children, and he set Clarke gently onto the floor.

  The dog scampered in a furry blur back to Petrick’s arms, and Petrick sobbed again as Clarke licked his salty tears from his
face. Petrick held him tightly to his chest, parting his fur this way and that, looking for wounds.

  “You’re okay, you’re okay,” Petrick said with another sob. Barry and Suzy threw themselves on Petrick and Clarke.

  Above them, one of Chronos’s minions was skittering about and lowered itself down to just above the group. It handed something to its master before skittering back up to the dome of computers.

  “Your father was heading to Syrruk Prime,” Chronos said suddenly. The humans looked back at him blankly in response.

  “I don’t understand,” said Petrick in utter confusion.

  “I’ve encoded its location on this data stick so you can find it.” Chronos was holding out a small glass tube. It must have been what his minions had retrieved for him. “The people there, the Syrruk, have a legend about the Source. He went there to ask them about it.”

  “Is the system not on a standard star chart?” Haber asked, realizing the android was helping them anyway, even though they hadn’t given up Clarke.

  “Syrruk Prime has no star,” Balta said, speaking for the first time in a while. “It’s a Wandering Giant. The first ever found, as legends go.”

  “Sweet, sweet Balta is right,” Chronos said. “The data stick has its last known trajectory and an estimate of its current location. That should allow you to find them.”

  “Why are you helping us?” Petrick asked.

  Chronos peered at the boy, then lowered himself toward the ground so that he was at his level.

  “You surprise me,” he said. “You care for your synthetic, and you have those who care for you. You were willing to give up your quest to spare another.”

  “Then . . . you were . . . testing me?”

  Chronos shook his head. “No. I do not play games. That is what humans do. I say what I mean and I do what I say. You said you cared for your android, and I did not believe you because humans play games . . . but you were telling me the truth, and that surprised me. That is rare. So I will help you.”

  “. . . Thank you.”

  “I’ve helped other men before and regretted it.”

  “You mean my father, don’t you?”

  “Mark my words, boy,” he said. “You will be tried in this quest to save your father. He is not the man you think he is.” Chronos leaned in close to him, dangerously. “Don’t make me regret helping you.”

  Petrick was about to ask if that meant the robot did indeed know his father when a small, quiet alarm went off from one of the multitudes of computer banks. Not many would have even noticed it, including the group of humans down on the main floor, had all of Chronos’s minions not frozen at the same instant and turned to look at their liberator.

  “What is that?” Balta asked as they stood there.

  His words seemed to break a spell, and Chronos snapped his head back toward the humans.

  “You must leave,” he said.

  “We can’t leave yet,” Balta cried out. “I still have to refill my pods.”

  “You must leave now!” Chronos shouted adamantly.

  Above them, holo-projectors sprang to life from various sides of the computer dome, and an image of the debris field just beyond Liberatia flickered on. An Authority capital ship dominated the center of the picture, plowing its way through the dust and spinning rocks, headed directly toward the pirate colony. Already, small ships were fleeing ahead of the mammoth, blade-shaped vessel. Streaks of energy tethers were lancing out toward the fleeing ships, snaring them and pulling them one by one in toward the giant holding bays that lined its lowest decks. It wasn’t letting anyone get away . . .

  “My stars . . . ,” Balta gasped.

  The holo-projection above wavered for a moment, and then a transmission came through.

  “Citizens and visitors of the illegal colony known as Liberatia,” said the grating voice of a snakelike man with sharp features and narrow, calculating eyes. “As vice to the Master Purveyor of the Authority on Interstellar Space Travel, I hereby inform you that we are to conduct a search and seizure of these premises. We are looking for these individuals, and any and all of those who can contribute to the apprehension of their persons will be free to go on their way with no penalty.”

  And then there were enormous, twenty-foot-high pictures of Petrick, Haber, Barry, Suzy, Balta, and Colossus, splashed above their real counterparts, who gaped openly at the sight. The vice’s voice seemed to get closer to whatever microphone he was speaking into.

  “You have fifteen minutes.”

  36

  “WHY AM I thrown in with you lot?” Balta tossed up her hands. The live transmission of the vice purveyor’s giant face had ended, but the wanted posters of all six of them, including Balta and Colossus, remained larger than life. “I had nothing to do with this!” Balta said.

  “You have very little time,” Chronos hissed, prodding them to leave. “That ship will make contact with the colony in much less than the fifteen minutes they’ve announced.”

  “Typical Authority tactics,” Balta said, nodding. She looked at the spidery robot and then back over at her fuel pod cart. “Where’s the nearest airlock?”

  “Two sections away, lateral axis.”

  Balta addressed Colossus. “Back to the ship under your own power,” she said. “Fire her up and keep her ready to go when we get there.”

  Colossus grated a response back in his strange mechanical language. Balta practically pushed him toward the door.

  “I’ll be right behind you. Just keep her warm.”

  Colossus finally nodded in response and took off swiftly, far faster than Petrick would have thought possible, out the large chamber door and was gone.

  Balta gestured to her cart of ore. “Keep the ore, you insect,” Balta said to Chronos. “I’ll be back for my starstuff. And at eight grams . . . like we discussed.”

  Chronos smiled, and this time, miraculously, it seemed genuine, belying the concern that also sparked in his eyes. “We’ll see, meat bag,” he said.

  Balta grunted and started off toward the exit. Petrick, still holding Clarke; Barry; Suzy; and Haber watched her waddle away. Balta stopped in the doorway and looked back at them, a pained expression on her face.

  “Well?” she said, arms flying wide open. “Are you coming or not?”

  Out in the hallway, the fivesome broke into a full sprint. Balta led the way, confidently, through the various turns back to the transit station. Their carriage was waiting dutifully for them.

  Nobody questioned Balta’s help anymore. The implication was clear: they were in this together now. Petrick wasn’t sure how the pirate captain had come to such a conclusion, but he wouldn’t press it any further. They needed her. Why Balta needed them would have to remain a mystery . . . perhaps it was why Chronos had referred to her as a bleeding heart?

  “Inside!” Balta said. “Hurry.”

  They piled into the dilapidated transport carriage, and the grimy door rumbled shut. Just as it did, Balta jerked her head to peer outside. The door closed, obstructing the view of whatever she’d seen, and she bobbed her head up and down, left and right, trying to get another view. Then the carriage whooshed forward, and the station was gone.

  “Did you see something, Captain?” Haber inquired.

  Balta didn’t answer. Instead, she reached into her large overcoat and felt something inside. She didn’t bring out whatever it was, but she seemed satisfied it was there.

  “Captain?” Haber prompted.

  Balta looked back as if she’d been shaken. “What? No, nothing yet.”

  Haber nodded slowly. “May I inquire as to why you sent off your android?”

  “Colossus has built-in control thrusters on his exoskeleton. He was a maintenance bot for orbital ore processing. He was built to work in zero g.”

  “Ah. So you sent him to the Red Robert traveling outside the station.”

  “He’ll get there in half the time it will take us, and he can have her ready to go.”

  “Hopefully before
the Authority capital ship arrives.” Haber’s voice was tight, unsure.

  “Hopefully.” Balta’s sounded the same. “The real challenge will be getting to the ship.” She again tapped the sides of her coat and then pointed at two dust-covered monitors that sat on either end of the carriage.

  Wanted posters with their faces on them gazed back at them. It dawned on Petrick that every working screen on Liberatia might be showing those images . . . which meant that everyone on Liberatia might now know who they were and that the Authority was looking for them.

  “Surely,” said Petrick, “the people in the colony wouldn’t help the Authority, would they?”

  “You kids just stay close to me and the android,” she said. “And don’t get out of this carriage till I say so.”

  Petrick took a step closer to the pirate captain and caught her eye. “Thank you,” he said. “For helping us.”

  Balta shooed him away with a half-hearted shove.

  “Guys!” said Barry, face pressed to a side window of the carriage. “Look.”

  Their carriage was over the gateway now, and as they all peered through the sides of the transparent transit car, they could see ships pouring through, trying to escape ahead of the capital ship that was boring through the debris field behind them. It was clear that the capital ship was nearly on top of the station and intended to position itself right at the mouth of the gateway.

  “It’s too late,” Balta said of the fleeing vessels.

  And it was going to be too late. The ships scurrying beneath them in all shapes and sizes were the last rats to escape the rising tide, and all those left just behind them were being caught en masse by the energy tethers shooting out from every angle of the capital ship. Within minutes, the ship would be close enough to launch landing parties who would ravage the colony, capturing every last man, woman, and child, ruthlessly searching for Petrick and his small group.

  How did they know they were there, at Liberatia? How was that even possible? Petrick thought of asking Haber such questions since they were now apparently riding in the carriage at an even, measured pace to their doom. An explosion from down below halted the notion, however, and everyone’s gaze searched for where it had come from.