Star Thief

by T. Jackson King

  “Fire!”

  Draken soaked in the flaring rad emissions generated by four plasma pistols firing at the same time. While the pistols confined the raw plasma using a spiral magfield to contain the charged particles, there were waste emissions produced by the generation of plasma. He enjoyed absorbing those emissions. Ahead purple beams hit four points of the tower’s entry circle. Their purple glow spread out. Then the glow went inward. Soon there were four holes the size of his head cut into the hardened stone of the entryway. But most of the entry was still intact.

  “Rotate twenty degrees and repeat!”

  He watched as the four of them fired again. Purple glows hit the black stone and then spread outward. One glow edge touched the open hole previously cut at each of the four spots. In short moments the plasma attack was repeated three times. The sound of the entry’s inner stone core falling backward into a dark space touched his ear buds. As did the loud breathing of his crewmates and captain. The four of them wore enviro-suits with comlinks to each other and to the small mind Icarus. He did not need a suit but he did wear the comlink ear buds. Sharp Claw jumped through the red-glowing hole and landed inside. Draken adjusted his vision to perceive infrared, as surely Claw was doing herself.

  “Captain, the chamber is empty,” hissed Claw. “There is an archway ahead. It leads into another larger chamber. I am igniting my suit’s shoulder lights.”

  White-yellow light blazed from within the tower entry hole. The captain activated his own shoulder lights and stepped inward. He was followed by the dark brown chitin limbs of Meander and the purple feathers of Flow. The four of them moved through an archway and into a larger circular room. Bas-reliefs covered its walls at a level above the captain’s head. Draken followed after them, his inner senses searching for the direction of the graviton flow. The source seemed to lie to his left and well below his feet. Which tread upon black stone tiles similar to those on the city plaza.

  “There!” called the captain. “There is a gravlift tube to our left. Claw, is it working?”

  Claw stepped forward, then entered the clear walls of the gravlift tube. The floor below her filled with purple sparkles.

  “Captain, yes! My sensors say power is flowing to this gravlift. Enter quickly before it drops or rises.”

  Draken moved quickly. Just as he followed the last of his crewmates into the tube, the circular entry hole hissed shut behind him. Then he felt the floor drop down. Fortunately the gravplate of the gravlift held them to its floor. In short moments they stopped. He felt a wash of gravitons come from ahead.

  “Captain!” he honked excitedly as he adjusted his sight to perceive ultraviolet and infrared emissions. “Ahead is the graviton source!”

  CHAPTER NINE

  I followed Claw out into a squarish room. My suit lights and those of my crewmates illuminated a chamber that was five meters high, ten meters wide and had a single exit. An archway on the far side of the room led into darkness partly revealed by our suit lights. I tapped my tablet, then looked down at my left wrist. The vidtablet’s scanning function now sent out ultrasound pulses that, when reflected back, built up a plan view of chambers and connecting hallways. Surprise hit me as the sound scan revealed a level with a complexity of rooms and hallways more complex than the burial tomb of Pharaoh Rameses the Second in Egypt’s Valley of the Kings.

  “Captain,” chittered Meander as the praying mantis stood to my left. “This room is square, not round. And there are no bas-relief carvings on any of the walls.”

  I had noticed that. The only feature of this room was the gravlift tube behind us. Which now closed as Draken finished exiting. Hopefully it would respond to our return visit. Otherwise I would have to ask Icarus to plasma drill a slanting tunnel down to us.

  “You are correct. But the tower above and the domes nearby are all round, in keeping with standard Harl architecture styles. Draken, where lies your graviton source?”

  “Ahead. Ahead some distance, then to our left,” the rad-loving worm honked.

  “Captain,” hissed Claw. “I do not smell any bio-odors. There is no living lifeform down here. Or at least on this level.”

  “Which we will now explore.” I touched my tablet. “I’m sending you all the plan map of this level as determined by my ultrasound scanner. Be alert for mechbots! If our body heat awakens any bots, they may be confused by our non-Harl bodyshapes. Stay armed!”

  Draken honked agreement from behind me. Claw, Meander and Flow also expressed their acceptance. Claw led the way through the open archway, her shoulder lights penetrating a good ten meters ahead.

  We passed into a large circular room, a room as large as the Pantheon in Rome. Similar to that Roman building its roof was a perfect dome. The inside of this dome was covered in bas-relief carvings, as were the curving walls that surrounded us. The carvings appeared to illustrate interstellar visits of the Harl as they met lifeforms at different stars. As I looked up and then to the side my vidtablet recorded all I saw. As surely did the vidtablets carried by my crew beings. The mental image of them reminded me to do the basics of field exploration.

  Akantha, are you receiving me?

  Your mind is as clear as ever. Interesting images on this chamber’s walls. I will add them to our registry of Harl imagery.

  My Tessene AI had spent the last four years studying all known Harl bas-relief imagery, looking for any sign of written language. However, every relief was pictorial. Which maybe made sense if the Harl communicated only by mental images and mental speech. Why write when one mind can talk to another mind? Which assumed the Harl had always been telepathic within their species.

  Perhaps they were.

  Or maybe we have yet to visit a Harl site with language notations. Though I suspected my AI friend was correct.

  “Icarus, do you receive me?” I said through my suit’s comlink.

  A buzz sounded. “You are received. But your signal content is weak. The visuals associated with your shoulder videye are blurry.”

  “Standby. We are exploring this buried level.”

  “Standing by.”

  I followed after Claw as she walked toward one of three archways that led from this chamber.

  “Weapons!” honked Draken. “We need to take the left side archway to reach the graviton source.”

  Sharp Claw turned left, lifted her magrail rifle and pistol and headed for the archway on the left side of this domed chamber. I followed after her. Flow, Meander and Draken were close behind us.

  A long hallway stretched before us. It was five meters high, had a half-circle ceiling and went further than our suit lights could illuminate. We had yet to see ceiling lights come on, or the walls show purple Li-Fi sparkles or other signs of tech energy.

  “Captain,” hissed Claw. “The entry circle on this side of the hallway does not open. Even when I touch it.”

  This fit the pattern I’d seen in prior explorations of Harl ruins. Entry circles did not spiral open if they lacked access to energy. Which my tablet said was absent from these walls. Looking ahead I noticed similar entry circles marking both sides of this hallway, spaced at irregular intervals. A few circles were open as if someone had hurriedly left them. Or cut power abruptly. Most were closed. Clearly there were chambers on either side of the hallway. Accessing them would require plasma blasts or the use of malleable plastic explosives.

  “Draken? Is the graviton source behind this entry?”

  “No,” the walking worm honked low as it moved through us and further along the hallway. “The source lies ahead, down this tubeway.”

  “Well folks, no fun blowing up stuff. Let’s follow Draken.”

  Ignoring Claw’s irritated hiss as someone else took the lead, I followed after her as she followed Draken’s long segmented body. While the Engineer walked on six legs his body was made up of ten segments. There was no belly drooping between his leg pairs, which matched the imagery of his body that I had reviewed four years ago, when he joined my crew. Draken’s intern
al body had ribs and cartilage as dense as stone, according to the x-ray fluorescence scanner that scanned every being who entered my ship’s airlock. But his spine and armored hide were flexible. And his rad sensitivity exceeded the abilities of my vidtablet or the Akantha’s sensors. Leastwise they exceeded the ship’s sensors before their upgrade by Stars That Beckon.

  The upgraded sensors now match Draken’s abilities.

  Mentally I shrugged. Thank you Akantha. Now let me be.

  As you wish.

  In a few moments our suit lights illuminated the end of the hallway. Or rather, the hallway led to a wall inset with a large entry circle. Draken stopped before it.

  “Behind this entry lies the graviton source.”

  His honking echoed down the hallway. Looking away from the strip of bas-reliefs carved into both sides of the wide hallway, I fixed on the entry circle. It was five meters high and wide. Clearly it was meant to allow the passage of things large than the three meter tall Harl beings. Perhaps mechtools and power units? Only one way to know.

  “Draken, looks like we’ll have to blast through here. Please step back.”

  The giant worm instead extended a muscular arm from under its buzzsaw mouth. A hand with six fingers touched the center of the circle. Suddenly tiny purple lights began appearing on the circle, then spread outward to the wall that framed the entry circle. Overhead a unit of lighting came on, bathing the area in white-yellow light.

  “That will not be necessary,” honked Draken. “Entryway, please open.”

  Harshly accented words came from the entry wall. Which my Translator converted to English. And likely to honks, hisses, chitters and chirps for the others.

  “Are you a Harl servant species?”

  I moved forward. “We arrived at this world’s Harl city in a Tessene vessel. We are here with the permission of the Primary Stars That Beckon.”

  “A Primary? Strange. My memory says this world held more than the seven Primaries. Where are the Harl?”

  “I do not know. Nor do the Primaries. They vanished from the galaxy about 400,000 annual cycles ago.”

  “Ummm. That explains why no one has answered my appeal for repair mechbots. I . . . my neutrino communicator is damaged. There were a series of rock quakes long ago. Perhaps caused by the volcano that underlies this island. If I allow you entry, will you advise the Primary Stars that I exist? It . . . it feels lonely, now.”

  “Yes, we will tell Stars you exist,” I said. “What is your designator?”

  “I am known as Quantum Entanglement. My Harl said it amused them to name me such.”

  I bit my lip. Labeling a self-aware AI as someone who was both here and far away at the same time, the way quantum particles immediately reflected a change in energy state by distant quantum particles they had interacted with, was the kind of humor I had found irritating. It suggested the AI was a ‘ghost’ rather than a living being. My lyceum’s physics professor had shown a similar condescending humor when he explained what little was known of Dark Matter and Dark Energy. Which were the research objectives of this station, I recalled. Ahead the entry circle spiraled open. White-yellow light glowed within a large, large chamber.

  “You may enter.”

  “Thank you, Quantum.” I followed after Draken and Claw, my pistols now holstered. “Crew beings, you may store your weapons. I do not see any danger here.”

  “Do as you wish,” Claw hissed low. “I will remain armed and aware. There may be danger here. See, ahead?”

  I looked ahead to the far side of the giant circular chamber. This place was as big as a football stadium, with a roof that arched high over our heads. However, ahead were fragments of stone. I saw nine similar piles of stone scattered here and there over the black volcanic stone of the floor. Clearly they had fallen from the chamber roof. This chamber was not covered in the black stone tiles of Harl construction. Perhaps it had been a natural cave created by a gigantic volcanic gas bubble. Whatever had caused it to be, it lacked the structural integrity of all Harl structures, which were made of hardened black stones that were interlocked with each other the way Inca stone walls were interlocked. Looking at the stone piles I noticed some covered black metal mounds that must be Harl lab equipment. Or something built by the Harl. Two of the piles had squashed mechbots. I counted the treads and limbs of at least six mechbots lying under the two rock piles. Elsewhere were long benches with flat tops. Perhaps they were made of flexmetal that would become control panels or research tools when activated by a Harl. Or by this chamber’s AI.

  “A Harl!” hissed Claw from my right. “Captain!”

  I swung around, pulling both of my plasma pistols from their holsters. The stone Harl I’d seen in the ground level chamber of Stars’ tower had further convinced me the Harl were not some peaceful, friendly alien species. They were apex predators. And they were conquerors. That I had seen in prior years when first I’d viewed some bas-reliefs at dead ruins in a different part of this spiral arm. Conquerors always put up images of their conquests. That was done by Pharaoh Tutankhamen, by Rameses the Second, by Caesar Julius Augustus, by Emperor Chin of the first united China dynasty and by others throughout history. Ahead Claw stood next to a pile of rocks. She was pointing her magrail rifle at something. I hurried over, joining her, Meander, Flow and Draken.

  “Where is the Harl?”

  “Inside that tube,” she hissed low.

  I looked below a layer of gray rock. A glassine tube lay at an angle, partly covered by roof rockfall. But enough was exposed for me to see that its upper tube section was spider-cracked by impact from a large rock. Looking aside I saw a rock as big as me lying six meters away. It had several pointed edges. Clearly it had broken loose and fallen. Whatever the clear glassine was made from, it was not strong enough to resist a multi-ton rock falling at a nine-tenths gee acceleration. That told me the glassine was not transparent aluminum, which was used in chambers housing fusion reactors. It seemed the Harl had made an error in not lining this chamber’s roof with black stone tiles that were treated to resist movement by surrounding rock. Or land. Such resistance was one reason most Harl ruins were intact even after 400,000 years. How the Harl had hardened their rocks walls while also creating a bond between each stone was something no one understood. Not even by the big empires that invested a century or more in studying Harl rocks. Ignoring the rock pile I looked into the tube.

  The Harl lying within it was covered in black fur with white streaks on either side of its massive, block-like head. The eyes were closed. Front carnivore teeth showed below the upper lip of a jaw big enough to encompass my head. The being’s wide shoulders half filled the tube, which was two meters wide and high. Clearly the tube was longer than the Harl’s three meter height. Rocks covered the lower third of the tube. Which was supported by a black metal block with an inclined top. That made the tube rest at a 40 degree incline, similar to the incline on the ramp that extended from the Akantha’s midbody airlock. Focusing back on the Harl I noticed something. Its cheeks were sunken. Its eyelids were flat, not rounded. The outline of ribs showed under the black fur. One claw-tipped hand also showed shrunken skin.

  “It’s not alive. It’s a mummy. The dry air in this chamber preserved it.” I holstered my pistols.

  “Are you certain?” hissed Claw.

  “I am certain. I saw plenty of Egyptian mummies in the Grand Egyptian Museum, where Pharoah Tutankhamen’s burial goods were moved to many years ago.”

  “That is sad,” chirped Flow as her purple wings closed against her arching chest. “We could have asked it what happened to its people. If it were alive in this stasis tube.”

  Now I understood Stars’ reference days ago to no Harls being in stasis. Some big empires had developed biological stasis fields that kept beings inside them alive but not aging. I had never seen a stasis tube. Only heard about them while scanning for employers on the Dark Services Listing.

  “Agreed,” chittered Meander as the mantis being reached out with a
griparm to touch the side of the tube. “Strange how you mammalian beings dry up like this. We arthropods retain our body shape perfectly when we pass on to the Great Mound.”

  “So do we. Retain our shape upon life passing beyond,” honked Draken.

  I finally realized the meaning of what this chamber held. “Crew! Do you realize we have gained the greatest valuable of all time? The body of a Harl! In a stasis tube! No one has ever found a Harl burial or body or even seen one in the round, like we did with the statue in Stars’ tower.”

  A long low hum echoed through the giant chamber.

  “Beings, the Harl stasis tube is broken. It does not function. It cannot suspend life in any being,” said Quantum in a voice which sounded regretful. “There is no point in removing it. I sent repair mechbots to it when I saw its tube broken open by the large rock. But other rock falls destroyed all my mechbots. Which is why I neutrino-signaled for help to the Primaries. They must not have received my signal.”

  I looked over to the spot in the air from which the booming AI voice had spoken. “Quantum Entanglement, we wish to remove the stasis tube and its Harl occupant so we may take it back to the seven Primaries who reside in the Harl city north of this island. Surely they will know the proper means for honoring a dead Harl.”

  “The stasis tube and body serve no purpose here. And I wish to move to the city of the Primaries. If I allow you to remove the tube, will you transport my memory core to the city? Being among others like me will relieve . . . relieve my sense of loneliness.”

  My gut clenched. This AI was as lonely for fellow AI company as I was lonely for fellow humans. I had yet to see a human Employer on the Dark Services Listing. Or run into a fellow human serving on an alien starship. Its need was my need.

  “Quantum, yes, even if we cannot move this stasis tube, I will transport you to the northern city of the Primaries.”