The last and entry in their records echoes this sentiment: “We’ve found it, at long last we’ve found it.”
Enoch Applebottom - “The Talashaa: Architects of Forgotten Dreams” pg. 3
18
Joe pulled down into to the scrap yard, his ship running on fumes. His forehead and shirt damp with sweat. He followed the compass out of the ship and into the office. Cassandra sat in a chair in the corner, in one piece, but turned off with her head against the wall. Joe breathed a huge sigh of relief.
The man behind the counter was weighing metal on a scale. Bolts on one end, copper coins on the other. The tag on his shirt read Joshua.
“She’s a friend of mine,” Joe said, pointing to Cassandra.
“That’s why we keep ‘em around for awhile,” Joshua said, not looking up from his coins or the scale. “In case any friends show up. Right now it’s the legal property of the yard, but you can buy it back if you want.”
“How much?” Joe asked.
“We charge what we’d get for scrap, so it’s not gonna be cheap. It’s got a Egyptian Aluminum chassis, you know.”
“Whatever… how much do you want?”
“About 35,000 credits.”
“What?” Joe snapped.
“That Egyptian Aluminum alloy goes for 230 credits per pound. And she’s about 150 pounds.”
“Well, I don’t have that type of money.”
“Well, I can’t sell it to you then.”
“You can’t scrap her.”
“Then I suggest you find 35,000 credits or she’s getting scrapped.”
“How long do I have?”
Joshua looked up at the clock on the wall. “Fifteen minutes.”
“Fifteen minutes!?”
“We’re already firing up the furnace – you know how much power it takes to melt down Egyptian Aluminum?”
Joe thought about reaching for his gun when he noticed the automated turret in the top left corner of the room. Scrap yards were prime targets for robberies, with their juicy cash supply and low class clientele. He would need to come up with a more elegant solution.
Slyly, Joe walked over to Cassandra and tried to turn her on, but the on/off button on the back of her head was unresponsive.
Joshua coughed and held up a battery to show who held all the cards in this situation.
“Son of a...” Joe muttered and marched out of the office. He had fifteen minutes and he had nothing worth 35,000 credits, besides the entire Crown Vik. He stood there in the parking lot, wondering how he was going to get back to Deniz’s system without a ship when he noticed an interstellar rig touching down around back. It was hauling fifteen massive white barrels of industrial acid.
The man in the office still had his eyes glued to his scale.
Joe ran to the interstellar truck, waving his hands in the air to get the driver’s attention. The trucker put down her window and readjusted her hat.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
“Take it back,” Joe said, trying to put on an air of authority. “I’m not paying for this. Tell them Joshua said no way.”
“But… you’ve already paid for it,” the driver replied.
“What?”
“It’s been paid for and everything.”
“Take it back anyway,” Joe said, crossing his arms. “We don’t want it anymore.”
“This is so weird,” the driver said, “I’ll have to make a call first...”
Joe tapped to his badge, thankfully he had kept on his uniform. “I suggest you get this rig out of here, or you’ll be under arrest.”
The driver shook her head and turned the large steering wheel to pull her ship around and out of the scrap yard.
Fortunately, she hadn’t asked to see his credentials – Joe had literally no authority in this sector whatsoever.
When he went back to the office he was relieved to see Joshua had kept his eyes on the coins on the scale this whole time.
Joe took a seat next to Cassandra and picked up an old truck magazine to thumb through. The man at the counter didn’t seem to mind or even notice he was there. How long would it take for him to realize his shipment of acid was late? Five minutes passed and that moment never came.
“Waiting for something?” Joe chimed in, finally.
“Like what?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Joe said with a shrug. “Just wondering if you have any shipments coming in today.”
“There’s one I’m still waiting on, yeah.”
“What is it, might I ask?”
“What does that matter to you?”
“Well, I was just wondering if you were on the market for some fermented Bezreal fruit?”
“Nobody on this side of the galaxy has fermented Bezreal fruit, my man. It’s illegal to smuggle across state lines.”
“Is it?” Joe asked, shocked how many times he had just accidently broken the law.
“Extremely. Do you have any?”
The next thing Joe knew, Joshua was handing him 20,000 credits. He was still 15,000 short.
“How much for the weapon system on my ship?” Joe asked.
“What are they made of?” Joshua asked.
“What are they made… These are Vulcan canons, Josh. They invented them for blasting bugs during the Dessert Ruse. See the encasing on the barrels? Prime Lunar engineering.”
“Yeah,” Joshua answered, not seeming to care. He tapped at the metal with a magnet. “Well, they seem to be made of cast iron. Another ten thousand I guess.”
“Ten…” Joe sighed. “Fine.”
As two mechanics dismantled his torpedo hold, Joe rummaged through his ship, taking out everything that wasn’t essential. Tables, chairs, cabinets, even the screws holding them in. He brought everything to the scale in the office and Joshua weighed it all up. The totaled came to 1,000 credits. Still 4,000 to go.
“What do you want for my pistol?” Joe asked.
“Don’t have much use for one,” Joshua said, nodding to his automated defense system in the corner. “I’ve got a turret already.”
“This gun is a Husqvarna bolt-action, the same gun Willy O’Reilly uses in the movies.”
“Five hundred, I guess.”
“Five hund… alright,” Joe grumbled. The gun was worth at least triple that amount to the right collector. He was getting fleeced here. Joshua apparently had no interest in marrying stories to objects.
What else did Joe have? He noticed Joshua eyeing his starsailor’s compass.
“4,000 for it?” Joe asked, taking it off.
“As if it’s worth that much,” Joshua replied.
“It’s a Saxon – that’s what these go for on StarBay.”
“We’ll see about that.”
Joshua went to the website. The value for that model compass was exactly 3,900. Joe would still be 100 short.
“Come on man, can’t you just do me a favor?” Joe asked.
“The way you did me a favor with my acid shipment?”
Joe noticed the security camera screens behind the counter showing a clear view of the yard’s parking lot.
“Fair enough,” Joe said.
What else was there? Joe realized he didn’t have a single thing that could possibly be sold, at least not for a hundred credits. He took the key for the Crown Vik from his pocket and mentally prepared himself to hand it over. At least Cassandra would be safe. Objects didn’t matter to him so much any more, as long as she was alive and happy.
Plus, there was still the chance that she had feelings left for him. She had kept the earring after all. The earring...
Joe ran and rummaged through Cassandra’s pockets. Finally, in her left breast pocket, he found it. The star-shaped earring.
“This is pure Egyptian Aluminum, my friend,” Joe said. “Not an alloy like her chassis. No stains, no rust. This particular piece was worn by a prince on his wedding day...”
“Just throw it on the scale,” Joshua groaned.
Joe did just so and the
number went up to 103.
“Keep the change,” Joe said, snatching the battery from Joshua’s hand. He lifted Cassandra up off of the chair and out of the shop. He didn’t want to restart her in there – scrapyards gave her anxiety. Once they were safely into the empty Crown Vik, he sat her down in the driver's seat, the only chair remaining.
He connected her battery into the cavity in her back and reached to her scalp to flip the switch.
In an instant her arms flailed about and she smacked Joe straight across the chin.
“Dammit,” he said, grabbing his jaw.
“Am I alive?” Cassandra asked, blindly reaching around with one arm.
Joe smiled as he spit blood onto the floor. “Yeah, you’re alive.”
“Joe! Is that you? Oh, I’m so sorry. I just went instantly from the moment I was turned off,” Cassandra said. “And my eyes aren’t working yet. This is all really confusing.”
“I know how it works,” Joe said. He reached over and gave her head a little shake to get the optical network firing again.
“Oh my goodness,” Cassandra said, seeing him now that her eyes were operational, she put her hand to Joe’s jaw. “I’m so sorry.”
“It’s only my face,” he said. “Are you alright?”
“I think so,” she answered, trying all her body parts for functionality. Her left arm remained lifeless at her side. “I think I may have bumped something while I was unconscious.”
“Do you need to get it serviced?” Joe asked.
“I can do it myself. You still have robotry tools?”
“Not anymore,” he said. “I had to sell them.”
“Ah,” she said. “When did that happen?”
“About six months ago.”
“For Alma?” Cassandra asked. “For the treatments?”
Joe nodded.
“She would appreciate it, you know,” Cassandra said. “I mean, if she knew.”
“And that’s not really an option.”
“No, of course not. She would have killed herself just to spite you.”
Joe laughed. “Doesn’t matter much anymore does it though?”
“What are you talking about? She would’ve died years ago, Archibald syndrome is terminal.”
“And so is the artifact apparently.”
“Stop it, Joe. We’re going to get it back.”
“I admire your optimism…” Joe said. He reached out and wiped a grease mark from Cassandra’s face. “I’m glad you’re okay.”
“Sorry to go running out on you, like that,” she replied.
Joe could tell in her eyes that she was saying sorry for more than chasing the artifact. “You were only acting on instinct.”
“And when you came after me?”
“A little more than instinct,” Joe said.
“What else?” Cassandra asked, her eyes beginning to mist.
Joe reached into his pocket took out the note that he had found with the earring.
“You got it!” she said with a smile. She reached into her breast pocket. “I always kept the other one with me. In case you ever came... where the hell is it?”
“I had to scrap it to buy you back.”
She was quiet for a moment. “And the other one?”
“I had to destroy it to get here,” Joe said.
“Well, that’s symbolic I suppose.”
“Look,” Joe said. “We’ve got to get back to the others. They might know where the science facility is by now.”
“This whole thing just seems off to me,” Cassandra said.
“Why’s that?”
“I don’t believe the Talashaa would have made something to destroy themselves.”
“There’s only so much we can know about them,” Joe said. “It was so long ago.”
“But it just doesn’t sound like what I know to be true,” Cassandra said.
“They were fanatics. You don’t think they had...”
“Joe, how many times are we going to have this conversation?”
“Have we had this conversation before?”
“Yes, about a million times. You have a grudge against them.”
“A grudge… If their lifestyle was so good, then where are they? Why’d they go extinct?”
“Oh come on,” Cassandra said rolling her eyes.
“Don’t you think results are the only thing we can judge?”
“No.”
“No?”
“No!”
“I’m so tired of…” Joe groaned. “It’s been seven years and you’re just as stubborn.”
“Goodbye!” Cassandra shouted, standing up and trudging up the stairs to his bedroom. “Where’s all the furniture?”
“I had to sell it,” was all Joe said.
They flew back to Deniz’s system at warp speed. Joe yawned as he struggled to keep his eyes open.
“When did you sleep last?” Cassandra asked, standing in the cabin doorway.
Joe looked to his compass only to find his bare wrist. “I don’t remember.”
“What happened to your compass?”
“I had to sell that too.”
“What else did you sell?”
Joe tried to think. Joshua had pretty much gone on a shopping spree through his belongings. “More or less everything.”
“What do you have left?”
“Nothing. I don’t know why I said ‘more or less’.”
Cassandra nodded. “So has it been like 15 hours since you slept?”
“Maybe more like 30.”
“Joe, go to bed. I’ll take over.”
He nodded and stood up.
Cassandra came close, their hips caressing one another’s as she moved in to take the controls. She still smelled of rose and leather.
Joe stopped at the doorway. “You know, if we’re all going to die anyway...”
“Yes?” Cassandra asked.
“Then the autopilot is an option too,” Joe said.
Cassandra shot him a look. With a chuckle and a shake of her head, she put on the autopilot and got up to join him.
An unspecified amount of time later, Joe laid with Cassandra on the floor of his room, wrapped up in a blanket like a burrito.
“I’ve missed this,” she said.
“Me too,” Joe replied. “I’m glad we got in one last session before the end of the world.”
“That is unless we stop the end of the world from happening,” Cassandra said.
“Of course.”
“I mean, there’s a chance right?” she said.
“Sure,” Joe said. “And that would maybe mean that it wouldn't be the last time for this… right?”
“That possibility is on the table, yes.”
Joe waited a second before asking the most important question on his mind at that moment. “Were there others since me?”
Cassandra was quiet for a second. “Whatever answer I give will lead to a nasty feeling from you, so I prefer not to answer.”
“Fair enough,” Joe said and closed his eyes to go to sleep, happy for the first time in years.
It is commonly thought by the layman that it was only the Talashaa that disappeared. But the truth is, it was much more than that. The entire ecosystem that they were a part of, all life within and around them was destroyed as well.
Their animals, if they had any, their plants, their fungus, their bacteria, their gut flora. And this is assuming their life kingdoms were the same as ours. They could have been vastly different. But we will never know, because all of it was destroyed.
What is certain is that the Talashaa were the Crown jewel of their ecosystem.
It is unknown what the Talashaa really looked like, as there are absolutely no remnants of them, or their DNA, whatsoever. It is also debated whether or not they were made up of DNA at all. Thus, all we can gather about them is from studying their ruins, their statues and whatever drawings survived the test of time.
The first thing we can surmise is that they were large creatures, judging
by the size of their living quarters, passageways and public places. Perhaps as large as 4 meters tall, by some estimates, though most conservative guesses put them at around 3 meters tall on average. They must have been poorly insulated themselves, since all their structures had elaborate heating systems. You can either view them as one of two ways, large and hairless, or skinny and with poor circulation. Either alternative is strange, because their home world is quite cold. It may have been warmer in the past and grew colder over time or they were transplanted by war at some point in their history. This could also be recognized as the time that their main religion came about, which may have begun as worship of a god of nuclear fallout. The Geiranjer system, 13 parsecs away from the Talashaa home world, has some evidence of what could be seen as damage from nuclear weapons. This could also be the result of solar activity, but it’s more fun to imagine the former as perhaps the reason why the Talashaa had to leave their original planet.
Enoch Applebottom - “The Talashaa: Architects of Forgotten Dreams” pg. 54
19
When Joe pulled off the highway at the ice planet he called Deniz to let him know they were almost there.
“Deniz Henderson’s office,” Tammy answered.
“Tammy?” Joe asked.
“Oh, uh... hey, Joe.”
“He’s got you answering phones now?”
“Among other things,” Tammy replied. “Did you find Cassandra?”
“Yeah, she’s right here. And we’re almost there. Ask Deniz if he can lend us some robotry tools and the address for that lawyer who was looking into the science facility.”
“Me and Alma already went to see him,” Tammy said. Her voice did not inspire confidence.
“Oh... how did it go?” Joe asked.
“I’ll tell you when you get here. Meet us in the conference room.”
Joe landed the ship and spotted Deniz waiting behind the glass door of the office complex. He came out to meet them when he spotted Joe’s ship.
The Star Collector Page 18