Star Thief

by T. Jackson King

  I found that comment to be puzzling. Stars had said Purple Glow would rise to low orbit in order to prevent any future alien starship from landing on the Harl world. I had no doubt it had the weapons to destroy any ship that refused to retreat. What else could it do? I looked to Claw.

  “Weapons, what do your sensors tell you about the approaching vessel?”

  The silver-scaled woman leaned forward a bit and glanced away from the vidscreen. She peered at her control panel. “There are major emissions of UV, infrared, far infrared, neutrinos, and . . . and a massive flow of free hadrons!” she hissed sharply. “They are in asymptotic freedom with an energy level of more than a tevaelectronvolt.” She looked up at the part of the vidscreen showing the approach of the Harl star vessel. “The free hadrons are the result of very high temperatures and pressures. Strangely they are stable rather than quickly dissolving as subatomic particle theory demands.” She looked back down. “Ah. The free hadrons are joined with gravitons. The hadron-graviton linkage appears to be acting as a new form of the strong nuclear force. But why are these emissions happening?”

  I wondered the same. The free hadrons linked with gravitons were not something emitted by the zero-point energy blocks. This type of emission was unique in my memory of emission flows from alien star vessels or cities. And the flow did not match the quark/hadron behavior predicted by the Lambda-CDM model of energy and mass in the universe. Looking down at my right armrest that repeated the sensor feeds of Claw, I noticed something strange.

  “Claw, I see there is a strong force gluon field englobing the rear end of the Harl vessel. There are some really exotic quarks acting up on that vessel.”

  “Agreed. Plenty of tetraquarks. And mesons like pions and kaons.” Claw looked to her right. “Pilot, give us a close-in view of the rear globe of that vessel.”

  “Focusing on rear globe,” chirped Flow.

  I looked at the Harl vessel. It was a long triangle with midbody and stern globes. Thousands of sparkle lights covered its hull. The lights were brighter toward the stern globe. The vessel slowed its approach, coming to a stop 300 kilometers from our orbital position. We were both now orbiting the Harl world at an altitude of 910 kilometers and moving at a speed of about 16,000 miles an hour to maintain that orbit. The Harl city had dropped behind us as both vessels moved to the east of the city. The day-night borderline lay ahead of us. The view now enlarged to focus on the rear globe of the Harl vessel. I noticed something new.

  “There’s a ring of light encircling the equator of the rear globe!” I called out.

  “So there is,” honked Draken. “Captain, these emission forms are unique in my experience. Nothing natural produces this joining of free hadrons with gravitons.”

  “So what?” barked Laserta from my right. “Let us depart for the Gate. Staying in this system for six more days is not pleasing to me. The sooner we—”

  “You will not be in this system for six more days,” boomed the part of Stars That Beckon which resided in the control nexus crystal. “Observe.”

  Laserta clenched her furry fists. I sat back and watched the left side of the front vidscreen. Ahead my crew beings alternated between looking down at their control panels and up at the image of the Harl vessel. The ring of light, which encircled the stern globe at a right angle to the body of the starship, now brightened. Then the rear half of the ship’s stern globe separated from the half still attached to the starship. Light brighter than the local white-yellow star burst forth. The auto-dimmer in the vidscreen acted quickly. But not quickly enough to prevent my eyes from losing all sight as if I had looked directly at the Sun from Earth. I blinked. The white-purple overload image began to fade. My peripheral vision cleared first. I noticed Laserta rubbing her green eyes with her fists. After several blinks I had back my normal vision.

  “Stars! What the hell happened just now?”

  “Captain!” yelled Sharp Claw. “There is a massive flow of gravitons coming from that half-globe! Also free hadrons!”

  Jake, this event is unique in my memory.

  Thanks Akantha. I looked around. Everyone seemed to have their sight back. “Stars! Respond!”

  “Observe the half-globe that separated from Purple Glow’s vessel.” the Harl AI boomed. “It is changing. It is becoming a ring. A ring wide enough to admit any star vessel.”

  So it was. The metal part of the half-globe clearly was flexmetal. That metal was now receding up toward the equatorial rim of the former half-globe. Leaving a ring behind. About the ring was a blurry border. Distant stars close to the ring edge were stretched out. I was seeing gravitational lensing. It was an event common to super strong gravitational fields like those of a star. The bright light inside the ring dimmed rapidly. It changed to a blue ocean with wavelets. Or rather, filling the ring was a blue image that resembled an ocean’s surface. Except this surface swirled and spiraled and heaved as if alive. I recognized it.

  “A Gate?”

  “Just so,” said Stars. “How else do you think the Harl created the 93,127 Gates now resident in this galaxy?”

  Claw snorted, then looked down. “Captain, the free hadron-graviton mix is gone. Only the graviton flaring normal to a Gate is present.”

  Up to now I had just used Gates to get from one planet of alien ruins to another planet with ruins, mostly Harl ruins. I had been told by Lik Sotomor that the Gates were a space-time tunnel between two spots in normal space. Like the wormhole created by super-large black holes. Except Gates did not have an event horizon or a central singularity, unlike normal black holes of any size. They just were. And passing into a Gate, after one transmitted the light curve for the star you wished to visit to the Gate, allowed one to emerge at that star. Usually after a journey lasting several days. For whatever reason, there was no way we could enter a Gate and emerge at the star of the Harl home world. Transiting 25,000 light years required multiple Gate entries and exits. Now, we had a new Gate before us. And I realized we had something else newly valuable. The vid and sensor record of the creation of a Gate were unique to us.

  “I’m rich!” barked Laserta as she grabbed her seat arms and leaned forward, her manner eager. She looked to me. “I make Employer’s Claim to the record of this Gate creation! Along with the record of all Gates and their associated stars.” Her mouth opened wider, showing her front canines. “And also the antimatter beamer. Do you accept my demand?”

  I shrugged. The chamber went quiet as my crew awaited my response. The vidscreen now showed Purple’s vessel moving off and upward to a higher orbit. Its stern was now a half-globe. The stern’s flat face was covered in sparkling lights like the rest of the hull. Clearly it did not need the Gate portion to be functional.

  “I interpret Employer’s Claim as applying to a single object.” Her red fur stiffened all over her uncovered body. “You may have one of the items you named. Or something else like the gravity projector. You may not claim everything”

  “No!” she bark-screamed. “No. I paid for your services. I am your Employer. You must—”

  “You are not his Employer,” boomed the voice of Stars. “I am. You are now part of his crew. Obey him and live. Disobey him and I will find a way for your cabin to lose air pressure. This Tessene vessel does not have the flexmetal walls of Harl vessels. But I can find a way to dispose of you. Do you accept crew status?”

  The few places of Laserta’s body that showed skin now went from dark brown to pale brown. Her narrow tongue licked her canines. She breathed deeply and suddenly.

  “I accept crew status.” She looked to me. “However, Captain Jake Vitades, understand you would not have access to all these Harl riches if I had not given you the star light curve and location of this planet. That should be worth something.”

  She had a point. But keeping the Stars nexus crystal happy was what mattered most. While I doubted Akantha would allow the murder of Laserta, I did not wish to test the creative abilities of the crystal. It could easily force us to return to this Harl st
ar by blocking our access to other stars. And exploring alien ruins was what I had been doing for the last four years. Exploring other Harl ruins on the way to the Harl home world, and eventually seeing what was left of that world, would be an extended Employer assignment. I just hoped we could find another stasis tube with a dead Harl in it and take vidrecords of a dead Harl home world in order to escape the control of the crystal. I really did want to retire on an alien resort world. And the valuables we had gained so far were enough to allow every member of my crew family to do the same, if they wished.

  “Laserta, it is worth something. I will figure that out after we are done with our two tasks. Astrogator, pull up the hologram of the star route to the Harl home world. Display it so we can all see it.”

  Meander tapped her control pedestal. “Hologram going up,” she chittered quickly.

  A three meter high hologram took form between me and the arc of crew pedestals. In it was a quadrant of the Milky Way galaxy as viewed from above the galaxy. All six arms were shown along with the central bar of stars and giant black hole. The arms were labeled. Innermost was the Norma Arm. Next outward was the Scutum-Centaurus Arm. Then came the Sagittarius-Carina Arm. Fourth was the minor Orion Arm. Fifth was Perseus Arm, followed by Cygnus Arm. The F-class star that hosted the Harl planet below us showed as a green dot. This star was located across from the Gum Nebula inside Orion. Beside it was the orange dot of the local Gate. Or, rather, the dot of the Gate beyond the outermost planet. The new Gate showed as a second smaller orange dot. A red line ran from the smaller Gate dot outward and inward toward the Scutum-Centaurus Arm. It ended at a green star dot and orange Gate dot about 25,000 light years from us. In between the red line jinked from Gate to Gate in both the Sagittarius and Scutum arms. I noticed how the red line went uparm in both arms. Treating the overhead image of the galaxy as if it were an old-style clock with hour and minute hands, we were at 6 p.m. and the Harl home world lay at 2 p.m. That position gave me a bad feeling.

  “Astrogator, add in the boundaries of empires and corporate domains.”

  The four-legged insect did that. “Known boundaries added,” Meander said.

  I gritted my teeth. The red line passed through four empires and three corporate domains. The last third of the line showed nothing. Which made sense. That part of the galaxy was not known to folks on the Orion side of the galaxy. Which meant we could encounter alien empires and deadly beings anywhere along the unknown stretch. What did show was bad enough. Our first Gate exit lay within the Dookit Empire of aggressive amphibians. They were known to be highly territorial. Entering their space required either paying a fee or reversing course if refused entry. While the Akantha could simply signal the Gate we’d exited with a new star light curve and disappear back into the Gate, still, every empire had vessels on guard at every Gate within their territory. It would be a race between arriving and surviving until we could exit. Even then the empire vessels would record our light curve signal and then neutrino-transmit to the empire vessels at our target star that we were coming. Better to bribe or pay a fee. Mentally I crossed my fingers.

  “Astrogator, transmit the star light curve for the first star transit. Pilot, move us to the Gate. Advise me when the Gate is ready for our entry.”

  “Transmitting star light curve,” chittered Meander as she touched her control pedestal.

  “I will advise,” chirped Flow as her right wing-hand touched her panel.

  “The Gate will be ready for entry upon your arrival,” boomed Stars That Beckon.

  The vibration of our two fusion pulse thrusters came to me through my seat. The vidscreen image of the new Gate now became the central image. We moved quickly toward the nearby Gate. In a minute or less we would be there. Then we would be in transit for days. Right now I had no interest in asking Stars how long we would be in transit. That Harl AI was getting on my nerves.

  Transit time to the K-class star will be eight days.

  Thank you, Akantha. I looked up as the blue ocean of the Gate’s center now filled our vidscreen. Please record the characteristics of this Gate. In case we need to come back sooner than expected.

  Recording.

  The blue wavelets washed over us. I felt a subtle change in gravity. It got lighter than seven-tenths gee, then heavier, then returned to the shipwide setting I long ago chose for the comfort of crew beings used to lower grav worlds. The image on the vidscreen became a vortex of blue waves, with no whitecaps. It appeared as if we were going down the drain of an old-fashioned ceramic bathtub. I unbuckled my accel straps and stood up.

  “Crew, I am heading to my cabin for a nap. Do as each of you wish. Akantha will keep watch during our transit.”

  I turned away from Laserta and headed for the exit portal to my left. It spiraled open. I passed through it and into the central hallway. A short walk took me to my captain’s cabin. Touching the entry caused it to open as it sensed my biometrics. I passed through my living room and turned through an archway to my bedroom. The bedpad that conformed to my bodyshape called to me. I fell on it. Then rolled sideways to my left. The metal wall facing me held a flat image of the Balkans from orbit, centered on Greece. Puffy white clouds hung above green valleys, blue rivers and purple mountains to the west. The location of Edessa was marked by a sticker dot. Next to the overhead of my home city was a color flat image of Akantha, taken when we attended the lyceum’s graduation dance. Her curly black hair fell over her bare shoulders, while her gray eyes were bright with her smile. She wore a form-fitting sheath dress that brought her body to mind. Closing my eyes I fell asleep, hoping I did not dream of Akantha. She was nine years in my past, counting the five years with Sotomor and the four years I had spent aboard the Tessene craft. Surely she was married by now. And just as surely I would never find another woman like her.

  Lotan left the Control Chamber shortly after the captain left. He felt hunger and it was time to enjoy one of the Human’s T-bone steaks. A treat which the Galley Chamber’s food Synthesizer excelled in creating. While all Torsen were omnivores and enjoyed eating meat dishes, they did not relish live hunting, unlike Sharp Claw, Flow and other species. Still, he enjoyed his steak medium-rare. The taste of blood enriched his mood. Which needed enriching in view of how his vessel was being held captive by the Harl AI. His need for control of all situations was being blocked by the Stars intelligence. Perhaps he could find a way to influence the AI, though it had not worked with the larger intelligence in the tower. He passed through the chamber’s exit and walked slowly down the central hallway of the Akantha, relishing the smells and pheromones of the living beings who shared the vessel with him. There was the lemony scent of Sharp Claw, the earthy smell of Meander, the metallic odor of Draken, the mammal female pheromones of Laserta and the feather scent of Flow.

  A strong pheromone touched his nose as he passed the entry to the captain’s cabin. Sex. It was his mammalian male sex pheromone. Since no scent of Laserta or Sharp Claw came from his cabin, it was obvious the captain was self-pleasuring. Arousing oneself to sensual completion was common among many species, including his own Torsen. The captain’s sex scent was something Lotan had become familiar with over the four annual cycles of his service with the Human. Briefly he felt sympathy. The nearly furless male had not seen a female Human since bonding with the Akantha AI, and likely not before while doing interstellar archaeology with the Lik Sotomor academic of the Noble system. The captain’s need for a female partner reminded him of his own need for the same. Well, perhaps that would happen once he returned home in command of the Akantha. Or convinced the captain to take him back to Calitot. The captain, Lotan and every crew being were now rich, based on the tech valuables given them by the Harl AIs. What would he do with such riches? He must think on that even as he considered how to subvert the influence of the Stars nexus crystal component.

  Meander entered her cabin and inhaled deep the oxygen-rich air of her residence. While the oxy level within the Akantha vessel was sufficient for her to functi
on, the air on her home world of Dominion was richer in oxygen. The higher oxy level plus lower gravity had allowed for the evolution of large arthropods, including her Dosune people. She also enjoyed the warmth within. Outside in the other vessel chambers she often felt cold. But the heat and humidity common to her world were not comfortable for furred beings like Lotan and Laserta. Or Soft Skins like Captain Vitades. She walked past the mounds of pretend dirt and touched a Feeder sensor in the far wall. Standing back she waited.

  “Whirp! Whirp!”

  Three flyers flew out from the wall opening, emitting cries typical to the megun flyers on Dominion. Instinctively her mandible opened and her catch-tongue shot out. Drawing it back in brought to her the fake megun created by the vessel’s food Synthesizer. She crunched down on the hard parts that powered the pretend wings, glad for the feel of food sliding down her long throat. Her tongue shot out twice more, catching the megun flyers in mid-air. She turned away and went to sit on a pretend earth mound similar to those common among her people. The mounds were reminders of the buried Nests that had first birthed the Dosune. Now they resided in metal Nests that rose high in the purple skies of Dominion. Briefly she wished she had wings like the megun or like Flow. At least this mound properly supported her abdomen. She chittered softly.

  “Akantha, raise the oxygen level of my cabin by one percent, please.”

  “Raising oxy level,” sang the musical voice of the vessel’s artificial mind. “You intend to sleep?”

  This being could not read her mind, unlike the captain’s. It simply had four cycles of records on how she liked living in her cabin. “Yes, I do. My spiracles will welcome the extra oxygen as I sleep.” But she changed her mind mid-thought. “Akantha, I will sleep later. Will you project the hologram of all Gates and associated stars within our galaxy for me? I must search for my home star.”