STAR HOUNDS -- OMNIBUS (52 page)

“It will all become plain in a moment,” said Northern. “First, let me introduce to you Dr. Michael Mish, or should I say, the new Dr. Michael Mish. Our rescue operation for his fellow Aspach was completely successful. All are now joined together within the
Starbow …
hopefully quite compatibly, Mish?”

Dr. Mish nodded. He seemed about to smile in the old Mish fashion, but suppressed it.

“Well, excellent. So essentially what we have here is no longer an intelligent, self-aware starship trying to come to grips with its identity and its powers, but a new being, in full possession of its faculties … and no doubt with a great deal to tell us … including the answers to the question in regarding the
Starbow
’s role in confronting the Jaxdron base. Dr. Mish, if you would do us the honor.”

The crew applauded lightly as Dr. Mish stood up.

“You must understand,” he said, “this is still all rather confusing at this time—five becoming one, with the four of us unaccustomed to being a space vessel again. For years we were fugitives in the systems of Earth, afraid to be found out—and now we are amongst friends again. This is good, and it is good to be a ship again, and good to have within us good people like you. Together, we shall form a truly unique composite creature, working for good in the dimensions!”

“Oh,” said Laura. “Good!”

Northern shot her a withering glare.

“Yes,” continued Mish. “Good, indeed. Alas, there are still mysteries to be uncovered as to our origins and the meaning of the portal that is our core, and who exactly created us … but all that will come. It will come when it is time.

“But now, to the matter at hand.

“As you know, we have been seeking this place called Omega Space just as much as the Jaxdron. To find Cal Shemzak, to discover attilium, to thwart the Jaxdron—these are our goals.

“As you have discovered, there are qualities to the
Starbow
that you have discovered bit by bit, including its ability to use Underspace to jump directly into and directly out of a significant gravity well. This is a power that the Federation—and apparently the Jaxdron—do not possess, and thus we may use it to great advantage in dealing with both groups.

“However, the matter immediately before us concerns the methods by which we will directly engage the Jaxdron in their base, where they are keeping Cal Shemzak.”

“Yes, “said Silver Zenyo. “Like how we’re going to accomplish that little feat without getting ourselves blown into Omega Space!”

The old Dr. Mish might have chuckled at that one; the new merely stared at the woman. “Alas, that is a very real possibility.”

“Oh, gee, thanks,” said Dansen Jitt as he fiddled with his pen agitatedly. “That helps a lot!”

“Uhm, Doctor, I really think you’ve got much to learn in your new … persona, shall we say,” the captain said, then stood and waved the murmuring crew to silence. “This isn’t the first time we’ve run into a tight situation! What’s the problem?”

“You’re right,” said Silver. “It’s just that we’re used to a little more self-confidence from the brass!”

Dr. Mish looked bemused. “I merely relate facts.”

“Carry on, Doctor,” said Northern. “We’ll just have to go with the punches.”

“Very well. As previously mentioned, we are discovering more and more concerning our … our body, shall we call it. The
Starbow.
This ship. When we were first awakened from our sleep of countless millennia, all of us were confused. It was very easy for us to acquiesce to the Federation’s request that our bodies be rebuilt, that we should find ways in which to express our individualities, and that we should disguise our personalities as the result of Artificial Intelligence Experiments. Perhaps if we owned our full faculties at the time, we would have seen what was coming ….

“However, we are more prepared to deal with situations such as the one before us now, due to our combined state and also to our stay within Earth systems where—although we dared to do only what was necessary—we learned a great deal about the Federation.”

“Okay, okay!” someone shouted. “So how about the Jaxdron base?”

“Oh, yes,” said Mish. “Our personalities are not totally combined as of yet, and we tend to go off on tangents. It’s very simple. We have discovered that the
Starbow
can land on planets. “The entire crew stared at him, aghast.

Except for Northern, who was smiling.

“What?” said Arkm Thur. “That’s impossible. I’ve made a detailed study of this ship. Structurally it is simply not—”

Captain Northern raised his hand. “Let the doctor continue, if you please ….”

“To finish Mr. Thur’s statement, it is, of course, possible for the
Starbow
to enter the atmosphere of planet normally. However, such is the power and control of our Underspace engines and our force-fields that we can literally transfer to a point above the surface and then land if we choose to do so.”

“But that’s still impossible. The hull … those damn spokes!”

“You were not able to do a full study of this ship, Mr. Thur. The spokes on the ‘bottom’ of the ship are retractable, allowing for landing on a flat surface. As for the hull … ” He paused. “You must stop thinking about this spaceship as though it were human-built. You must approach it more as an organic entity … and thus we can change many details of our design, including the makeup of our hull.”

“Incredible,” said Thur, shaking his head with wonder.

“Wait a minute,” said Laura. “Are you trying to tell me that we’re gonna rescue Cal by sheer force?”

“Remarkably astute, young lady. That’s entirely correct,” responded Dr. Mish.

“That’s right, my friends,” Northern affirmed.

“We’re going to land this delightful ship, let the Jaxdron base have it—presuming there is a Jaxdron base, of course—and simply storm it!”

“That’s the sum total of our strategy?” Gemma Naquist said, aghast.

“Well, naturally our strategy depends on what our sensors show us,” Northern said. “But we’ve looked at the situation as carefully as we can. We have discovered that not only can the
Starbow
do impossible things, it also has a hell of a lot more firepower than we thought. It’s a shame we can’t spend some more time just discovering the full extent of our power, but we’ve used up enough time already and must strike just as soon as possible.”

“Yes,” Mish concurred. “Analysis of previous forays with the Jaxdron show that we have attained sufficient battle status in order to directly confront them.”

“Let me get this straight,” Laura said. “We land. We blow a hole in their base. We storm it and rescue Cal. But what about this Omega Space business? Haven’t you gotten anything more on that?”

“Alas, as I said, although we are progressing significantly,” said Mish, “we need Cal Shemzak.”

“Hey, mucking about so much, we haven’t thought of this one- what if Cal and the Jaxdron have
already
gotten into Omega Space?”

“There is the possibility of the former,” said Dr. Mish. “However, as to the latter … no.”

“I don’t understand,” said Gemma Naquist.

“Perhaps, Doctor, we should bring out our guest speaker.” Captain Northern turned and consulted with one of the robots, General MacArthur. The robot scurried from the room.

“Guest speaker?” said Silver Zenyo, looking around quizzically. “As far as I can tell, the whole crew is here!”

“Not entirely,” said Northern.

General MacArthur returned to the room. Behind him was a man.

Or, rather, it appeared at first sight to be a man. A very tall man.

Initially, Laura Shemzak did not recognize him. The “man” did not sit down, but stood behind Mish and Northern, as though contritely awaiting his turn to speak. But then two added itself to two and the inevitable conclusion arrived:

It was Shontill!

W
ithin the flicker of a quantum diode, the Frin’ral city was no more.

Cal Shemzak found himself and the rest of the party—five Frin’ral and Ratham Bey—sitting in the plain field.

They sat in a circle around the two-dimensional black circle that marked the aperture between Omega Space and Alpha Space.

The Frin’ral began to chant.

“What the hell is going on?” asked Bey.

“Some sort of ceremony, looks like,” said Cal.

“What’s that thing in the air?”

Cal explained how the portal could be opened in such a fashion. Bey anxiously listened, and nodded with his layman’s understand of the process.

Bey then pointed towards the Frin’ral and said, “Ah … so we’re getting ready to open it again.”

“I don’t know. I’m not sure how they’re going to handle the Jaxdron when it opens.”

“Can you do that by yourself?”

Cal thought about that, reaching into his awareness, setting up the matrix again.

“Yes,” he said finally.

The chant continued, quite unmusical to Cal’s ears, almost dirgelike.

“Funny,” said Bey. “I’m not frightened. I should be frightened, but I’m not.”

“Yes,” said Cal. “I noticed that too.”

“A little excited … expectant. Like something very fascinating and fulfilling is going to happen. Giddy maybe … full of anticipation.”

“Anticipation,” mused Cal. “Yes.”

The spokesman of the Frin’ral opened his eyes. “Please prepare to join our collective trance. There are things that you both must understand before we ask you to reopen the portal, Calspar Shemzak—aspects of ourselves as yet unknown to you.”

“Trance?” said Ratham Bey. “Now, I’m scared.”

“What?”

“Just kidding.” But Bey did look alarmed.

“What must we do?” asked Cal.

“Nothing. Just do not be alarmed at the seeming physical aspects and the sensations of falling into otherness. You will be quite safe.”

“I guess we’ve seen worse, haven’t we, Cal?”

Cal nodded, and almost immediately began slipping away into the chant, sliding into a montage of images and voices and sensory impressions that told the tale of the Frin’ral.

I
t seemed he was in the trance for a very long time … or rather, the time he spent was timeless. When he finally reemerged, he felt as though he had awoken from unconsciousness.

As reality began to collect around him, he turned to Ratham Bey and said, “Wow!”

Bey was speechless.

The Frin’ral in the circle were all watching him.

“Let me get this straight. This wasn’t just a hallucination, was it?”

“In a way, perhaps,” answered one. “But the hallucination represented the truth.”

Cal shook his head as though to clear it.

“The Frin’ral and the Terrans—we’re related? I mean, we’re sort of galactic distant cousins? I’m not sure I get it. I saw images I just couldn’t understand.”

“We are both races planted by the Seeders. Even we know little of the Seeders, though it was they who created the races of intelligent life in the galaxies. They are long gone now. Long gone. A mystery.”

“But the Frin’ral and humanity—we’re both of the same genetic stock?”

“That is correct, only the Frin’ral adapted through evolution into their present form in a different environment. There is a state in the maturation of an adult, in fact, when a Frin’ral looks quite human. This is during the breeding years of the male’s life.”

“Shontill! Kinda human … incredible!”

“Yeah,” said Cal. “It makes us all brothers under the scales, doesn’t it?”

“But the story … the history … I didn’t quite grasp it.”

“We shall summarize,” the Frin’ral spokesman said. “The Frin’ral developed much as humanity developed. There are analogous phases of our history, in fact. But when we started exploring the stars, creating colonies, growing, we were much more advanced in certain areas. By that time we were quite aware of the existence of Omega Space, and we were a great deal less warlike than you humans.

“But at that point, we met the Jaxdron.

“The Jaxdron wished to play war games … space war games.”

“Yeah, tell us about the Jaxdron,” said Cal eagerly. “I don’t know a hell of a lot about them, even though I was their prisoner.”

“The Jaxdron are the immature state of a larger race called the Maxtron.”

“Huh?” said Cal.

“Immature state?” said Bey.

“They are what you might classify as teenagers,” said the Frin’ral spokesman.

“And their parents have given them the car!” Cal said. “Of course! Incredible! But it makes a kind of kooky sense.”

“Yes. They have no desire for territory per se, they just wish to play … and to make the stakes as real as possible. We made the mistake of refusing to play with them. They had a temper tantrum and began destroying our planets.

“For years we had been working on the possibilities of entering Omega Space. Our problems with the Jaxdron forced us to work harder on the problem, and we succeeded. By that time we had grown few in number, and the Jaxdron outclassed us in weaponry in every way … so we escaped here.”

“All except for Shontill,” said Bey. “But wait a moment. How come Shontill didn’t know all this?”

“Only the very top rulers of our people knew the whole truth. To the others, including Shontill, it was a simple war which we were losing. They had no idea of the absurdity of the whole business!”

“Absurd is right,” mused Cal. “Just to think—teenagers!”

“It is, of course, more complex than that, but these are the words that you may understand the best.”

“So the brats still want to wipe you out?”

“Now, we believe, they just wish to control Omega Space, and we are in the way.”

“So, how are we going to do this? You want me to open the portal now?” Cal asked.

“No. Now is not the correct time. We must wait until the right moment.”

“Right moment? What’s wrong with now? I want to get those bastards.”

“That will not be necessary.”

“Huh? What are you talking about?”

“Our probing of normal space indicates that the arrival of another party on Snar’shill is imminent. We will wait until then.”

“Arrival?” said Ratham Bey.

“Laura!” said Cal. “Laura and the
Starbow
. It’s got to be them.”

He grinned, and rubbed his hands together expectantly.