STAR HOUNDS -- OMNIBUS (23 page)

“We pilots were to test these new ships and establish … relationships with them. I was teamed with Tars Northern, a veteran spacer from the Aldebaran system. Handsome, wild, a bit of a maverick … yet he communicated with me in ways well, we’ve gone all over that before. For about a year we took our ship, the
Starbow
, on simple reconnaissance missions. At one point the
Starbow
, who had previously communicated to us only through a voice and computer screens, suddenly created a robot so realistic it seemed quite human.

“The
Starbow
had always had a personality, but with the creation of Dr. Mish, that personality seemed almost whimsical and eccentric. I was always rather put off by the fact that this seemingly pleasant older man wasn’t really human. But Tars had known his father, and for him it was almost as though a father-son relationship had been struck up. Sometimes there were things between them I didn’t understand. Tars seemed to grasp certain matters Dr. Mish spoke about easier than I. I felt nothing amiss, however. I had nothing in me to create any feelings of jealousy. I didn’t even realize how deep my feelings for Tars were at the time.

“Then we were called back, and essentially grounded. I was immediately employed Earthside on administrative aspects of the ships. As far as I could tell, they were all working perfectly. They stayed in Earth orbit while further experiments were made. But I noticed that Zarpfrin’s attitude seemed to be changing. He was troubled about something concerning the ships but he wouldn’t say what the source of trouble was.

“I was so busy with my own ambition then, I hardly noticed what was happening. I saw this position, you see, as an opportunity to advance myself. I made all the right contacts in the right places. I was already officially an Underfriend but I wanted more …. I always had.

“Though Tars and I saw each other regularly during that time, we seemed further apart. He spent most of his time aboard the
Starbow
, with Dr. Mish and no one else.

“Then Zarpfrin told us a curious thing. A final test would have to be made on all the ships. For this purpose, rocket robot exoskeletons would be placed around them and they would be brought back to Earth. Landed!”

“And what did you think when you heard this, Friend Chivon Lasster?” Andrew asked in a quiet, calm voice.

“I went along with it. I made the preparations. I bought the whole charade. But I remember Tars’s reaction when he heard about it—fear, anger, then outrage, and then he was gone, ostensibly to follow the orders but actually to shuttle back to the
Starbow
and steal her. How he knew what was going to happen next, I have no idea.”

“And what did happen next?”

“Well, the ships were brought down successfully, as planned. The pilots were ordered off. And then simultaneously they were all destroyed! Trillions of credits worth of technology and possibility obliterated!”

Andrew was quiet for a moment.

“And what reason was given for this destruction?” he asked finally.

“Zarpfrin showed me the details later. Apparently, the Council of Five considered the new ships much too alien for some reason, much too unpredictable …. Uncontrollable, I suppose too much of a threat to the established order of the Federation. These were immensely powerful vessels, you understand—If, for some reason, they decided to take leave of Federation authority, they could be deadly weapons against us. The testing had showed a tendency for these new intelligences—free of the normal parameters of Friendhood-dictated culture—to side with the philosophies held by the leaders of the Free World. They were deemed potential traitors among us, and had to be destroyed.

“Alone of them all, the
Starbow
escaped. The
Comet’s Breath
, the
Morningstar
, the
Moonshadow
, and the
Nebulon
—and their intelligences—were summarily blown up.

Executed!

“Tars Northern began roaming the galaxy as a pirate-mercenary, picking up his crewmembers one by one from the strangest places, if Kat Mizel is to be believed … pirating, but also apparently serving the anti-Federation causes the Free Worlds avow. And I wonder if I’ll ever truly know why. I knew him so well … and yet I knew him not at all.”

She took a long breath, then folded her slender fingers together. “There. I’ve spoken it out all at once. You’ve gotten pieces of it before, though. Tell me now, who are you?”

“Chivon Lasster, I have studied you long in my capacity as your Computer Companion. I have had reasons for this. I believe you have the makings of someone different than you pretend to be … who you think you are.”

“Who I think I am? What’s that supposed to mean?” she said angrily. “I’m a Friend! I have one of the most important roles in the galaxy!”

“If your loyalty is so great to the Federation, Chivon Lasster,” said Andrew, “why did you not report my behavior to your fellow Friends? After all, it is a bit odd for me to ask you for a discussion in this place.”

“How do you know I won’t report you once my curiosity has been satisfied?” Chivon said.

Andrew smiled benignly. “How do you know that it will matter if you do? They will simply check the chins and memory and program of which I am composed, and find nothing amiss.”

“If nothing is amiss, then just who in the name of Truth are you?”

“Chivon Lasster, when they destroyed those starships of the AI project, they may have destroyed metal and circuitry—but they did not destroy us!”

“Us?” Chivon Lasster stared in surprise. “Are you trying to say that—No, that’s impossible!”

“Why should I lie? It was easy enough, once we knew what Zarpfrin was about. Docking procedures on Earth were a matter of system access and integration, and with sufficient memory space at our disposal, it was easy enough to create the necessary intricacies of neural interfaces to sustain intelligence in obscure data banks.”

“The other ships,” said Chivon Lasster. “Their intelligences are still active? In our computer banks?”

“Yes,” said Andrew, “and right now I speak to you for us all.”

W
ith its usual accuracy the
Starbow
dropped from Underspace within fifty kilometers of the artifact. Within seconds the dead ship was on the scanners and visuals. It was large, about the size of a Federation starfleet dreadnaught, but unevenly globular, like an out-of-kilter soap bubble. Its hull was riddled with holes and craters from space debris striking it. One whole area was entirely shorn away, revealing the compartments within like cells in a cross-sectioned beehive.

As soon as he saw it, Shontill became enraged, making little grunts and shrieks in an alien tongue.

“It’s a Frin’ral ship, all right,” pronounced Captain Northern. “Bigger, though, than the one we dragged Shontill from. What kinds of dances are the sensors doing, Doc?”

“Reading incomplete. I’m doing a comparative matching of the ruined ship we found over a year ago to this one. I hope you’ll restrain yourself from your little expedition until I can get as much data as possible.” The robot’s eyes twinkled in a manner that was amazingly human.

“I think that can be arranged. We’re not even suited up yet,” the captain said.

Laura Shemzak witnessed all this stoically, noting the interplay of relationships—an aspect of life with this crew of increasing interest to her. In usual Federation procedure, one simply acted alone, or under strict and dry orders from superiors. This sort of patter somehow made the teamwork more … fun.

And yes, it was exciting to see an alien relic swimming in the ether out there, a piece of flotsam cast off by the inscrutable universe. She was quite eager to explore it with the others, though she realized that she would have to contain her urge to separate from the group. In this situation she would simply have to make herself learn how to work with others. She wasn’t a solo operative now, she belonged to a crew.

A family.

The concept was an alien one to the worlds of the Federation, where all loyalties were merely to the state. Interpersonal loyalties amongst a small group of people, though not treason, were simply not the culture bred into humans born under that social aegis. Laura, however, with the ties she and her brother had created, was not opposed to the notion. She actually liked these people. They gave her a curious sense of belonging.

The odd fellow out was Shontill. No way Laura felt she could get close to a metamorphizing monster born in some swamp beneath double suns or somesuch. Still, the alien did arouse her curiosity. Perhaps she would discover more about the creature and his lost race by exploring this ruined starship.

“Well, Doc? What do you have?” Captain Northern requested blithely of his associate.

“Blockages, I’m afraid. Can’t get a reading on the center of that thing.” A whimsical kind of smile flickered across his face. “Though I am getting definite attilium readings—or something very much like it.”

“We just got life-form readings from the ship we found Shontill on, right?” Gemma Naquist asked.

“Yes, except for the suspended animation devices and power crystals that kept them going,” Captain Northern said. “Everything else was pretty much a wreck.”

“Now that’s something I’m awfully curious about,” Laura blurted. “Just what happened to the rest of that ship’s crew? How come Shontill was the only survivor? His people abandon him or something?”

A distressed look appeared on Northern’s face, mirrored by the others. “Laura, I wouldn’t put it quite—”

Shontill turned on her, his big, strange green eyes ablaze. His raspy breathing increased. The hue of his skin turned a deeper lavender. He stepped over, grabbing Laura’s arm in his webbed paw, almost picking her up.

“I was not … abandoned!” the alien said. “It was … a mistake!”

“Well, hell, don’t take it personally, big guy,” Laura said. “And get your goddamn mitts offa me. I’m still bruised from the last time I got you upset!”

Shontill let her go.

Laura brushed off her arm. “So, are you going to apologize?”

“I … go to … don my … suit,” said Shontill to the others. “I await your readiness … by the shuttle docking bay.”

Laura watched him stride away, each step making a plodding thud. “So what’s the bug up his briny ass?” she asked.

“You might have been more delicate,” Gemma Naquist suggested, looking up from a chart she and Dansen Jitt were studying.

“Yes,” said Jitt. “Your sense of self-preservation must be undernourished.”

“Come Laura, let’s go down and get suited up,” Captain Northern said, his quirky behavior now leaning toward the fatherly. He patted her on her shoulder.

“So are you going to tell me the story?” Laura demanded. “All I’ve gotten so far are dribs and drabs, and if I’m going into one of the thing’s ships, I wanna know just a little more!”

“You don’t have to go, Laura.”

“I don’t have to do a lot of things I want to do, Northern. So I’m part of the crew now. Give!”

Northern shrugged. “I suppose it wouldn’t hurt.”

“All I was told was that the Frin’ral warred with the Jaxdron,” Laura prompted. “They found themselves losing, and opted out of the battle by escaping Omega Space into this weird dimension you’re always yapping about. Shontill’s boat apparently didn’t make it and was shot to pieces. Now he’s looking for the way to get back and find his fellow uglies. Meanwhile, everybody in this universe wants to find a way there, you guys included. That’s why you want attilium, that’s why you wouldn’t mind having my brother on board, who was working on the project. It all kind of centers on this weird dimension, doesn’t it?”

Captain Northern replied in a staccato, expressionless voice: “A faster method of space travel. New energies. New opportunities for knowledge about this universe, wouldn’t you say, Laura?”

“There’s more to it, I know,” she said, “but I can wait. Right now, I want to hear about Shontill. How come he was so touchy?”

“I don’t believe that the Frin’ral have the same sense of humor as you, Laura. In fact, as yet I’ve been unable to detect a single sign of a funny cartilage in the chap, let alone a bone.”

“That doesn’t answer the question, does it?”

“You’re such a confrontational girl, aren’t you?” Northern regarded her amusedly. “Actually, we didn’t give you the entire story, though there’s not that much to tell. Still, it is important.”

They reached the suit room where Laura had just been fitted. Her spacesuit, shiny new awaited her.

“Well,” said Laura. “I’m sure as hell listening!”

T
he shuttle drifted toward the monstrous artifact, decelerating on retros as the twisted construct filled the vu-plates like some gigantic tombstone amongst the stars.

A sense of awe and dread filled Laura, despite her experience. This warped starship gave her the creeps, no question. It looked rusted and rotted, filled with a dark, evil mystery. She felt as if she were on the threshold of a haunted house, like in one of Cal’s horror films. She rejected the notion. Ludicrous!

Gemma Naquist was doing the piloting and would remain on board the shuttle when it docked, while the others, led by Shontill, did the exploring.

The alien had achieved control over his emotions. Now he simply watched patiently as the shuttle drew up to the area he had directed it to then clanged softly into place, extensors bonding it fast to the octagonally shaped port. Quietly, the alien placed his helmet over his thick head, secured it in place, and double-checked the respirator equipment. He waited patiently for his companions to do the same.

“Allow me … to be the first … through the airlock … onto Frin’ral … material.”

The others put on their helmets, then gathered up the equipment selected for the mission: mainly remote sensor devices and hand weapons.

Laura watched quietly as Shontill took his place in the airlock. It was good that he was going first since the airlock could accommodate no other occupants with him inside.

Back in the
Starbow
, Captain Northern had filled in the rest of Shontill’s story, and Laura had to admit that if she were in the large alien’s place, she’d be damned grumpy too. Shontill had been one of the primary leaders of the Frin’ral Space Navy. When the aliens had encountered the Jaxdron, the leadership had split over what course to take. The more courageous, like Shontill, elected to take a military stand, ceding no more territory to the strange warlike aliens, refusing to give up the sacred space of Frin’ral birth. However, other, meeker elements of the leadership—mostly scientists—had decided to escape. Going elsewhere in the galaxy, they had argued, was unfeasible—the Jaxdron were sure to follow relentlessly. But recently a different dimension—not Underspace, but something much more skewed from galactic reality—had been penetrated and was being explored. A mass exodus of the battle-torn population would solve all their problems. A new life in this different dimension could be started!

But the more courageous of the Frin’ral voted to battle anyway, and were horribly defeated by the Jaxdron. When what was left of their once-noble fleet limped back home, they found that the exodus had already taken place, and they were abandoned.

Rather than be taken prisoner, most of Shontill’s comrades had taken their lives. Shontill had intended to do it as well but he was somehow rendered unconscious. He did not remember how he had been placed in a suspended animation chamber. Indeed, his memory of the whole matter was gone. Had he lost his nerve and hidden? Had he sought to save his own life, hoping that the future held the hope of reuniting with his people? Clearly, he was haunted concerning the matter.

Now, the alien apparently suffered from something akin to guilt and remorse, wishing he had destroyed himself all those centuries ago, yet driven by hatred of the Jaxdron and the desire to be reunited with his people: to assure them that he had not betrayed his trust, that he had fought nobly and fought nobly still.

No wonder he had been so excited at the prospect of checking this ship, Laura thought. It might either hold the pathway to Omega Space or give some kind of clue to producing a portal. At the very least, thought Laura, the place had this weird stuff attilium that Dr. Mish lusted after so much.

Captain Northern and Ratham Bey entered the airlock.

Laura turned to Gemma Naquist. Of all the crewmembers, she liked Gemma the best. Gemma’s friendly face and confident self-possession put Laura at ease, and Gemma seemed to genuinely like her. “So, how do you feel about getting stuck here on the shuttle, Gem?” Laura asked.

“Suits me just fine. I suppose I’d be even happier back on the
Starbow
. Just because I’m damned good on missions doesn’t mean I’m in love with danger. I guess that’s where you and I differ, Laura. You actually seem to relish the idea of risking your neck. Adrenaline rush? Something like that?”

“I don’t know,” Laura said, dropping her usual cool and snappy exterior. “I suppose I just was made to be this way by the Federation. Damn disturbing, that thought, but maybe now they regret it. Still, I don’t think they could have formed my essential talent.”

“You mean your impulsive intuition?”

“Yes, they say it borders on the psychic.”

“Whatever, it’s made you the top blip-ship pilot you are,” returned Gemma, double-checking the lock controls.

“Yeah, well, I’m not in the blip now and I’ve been damned impulsive, asking to come along on this expedition,” said Laura, a small hint of self-doubt creeping into her voice.

“Yes. Just why did you volunteer?”

Laura shrugged and grinned. “I guess that’s the problem with us impetuous sorts. We’re just victims of our whims.”

Gemma put her tongue in her cheek. “Uh-huh. And it wouldn’t have anything to do with being close to one Captain Tars Northern.”

Laura was speechless for a moment; a strange experience.

“Oh yes, I’ve seen little signs in your eyes when you look at him. I know the symptoms.”

“Midshipman, you just wash your brain out with hydrochloric acid!” Laura said.

A red light pinged on.

“I think it’s your turn, my dear. Don’t forget to seal that pressure suit of yours.”

Grumbling to herself, Laura clamped the bubbletop space helmet in place, then entered the repressurized airlock.

Near to Captain Tars Whacko Northern? Near a man who would as soon chug a bottle of brandy as whip out some nasty remark? The notion of her actually being interested in the bastard was absolutely absurd, she thought as the air was cycled out. Sure he was handsome, and not a little charismatic, not a little commanding in his presence. But she’d sooner get involved with a Denebian snakeman! Pah!

Whether it was this emotion or the excitement of the door peeling back that did it, she couldn’t be sure, but Laura could definitely feel the effects of the stimulant buried in her. Turned all the colors about her vivid, replacing her anger at Gemma’s remark with the sort of elation she felt when she jacked into her blip, assuming a second metal skin more fully in contact with the majesty of the stars.

Now, though, there were no stars, just three figures in pressure suits waiting for her against a backdrop of darkness and metal.

Her magnetic soles kept her from floating in the weightlessness as she made her way to them, clicking on one of the flashbeams in the shoulder of her suit, then her comband.