The Star-Keeper Imperative

by C N Samson

  Gwynne blinked several times. “You have nothing else to add?”

  “Nothing else.”

  “Fine,” the DSI man said. “There’s one other matter to be discussed.”

  “And what matter would that be?”

  “Our initial agreement is now complete. You may leave now, and you’ll receive your compensation. We’ll have you flown back to Brontania, or any other planet you prefer. Terms of secrecy apply, of course.”

  Rheinborne cast a sidelong glance at Valicia. “What if I wanted to continue, to help recover this artifact thing?”

  “Then we’d have to forge a new deal.” Gwynne slid a sheet of live-paper across the table.

  “Are you certain of that, Blake?” Valicia asked.

  “You saved my life, back in the tunnels,” Rheinborne said, pulling the sheet over to him. “This is the least I can do.” He winked, and put his thumb in the square at the bottom of the live-paper. The borders of the sheet turned red.

  “Don’t you want to read it first?” asked Gwynne.

  “I trust it’ll be fair.”

  “Oh, it is. Glad to have you with us, then.”

  “Just one condition,” said Rheinborne. “Tell me exactly what in damnation this artifact is, and why you want it so much. Start at the beginning.”

  “Certainly,” said Gwynne. “In the beginning, the Chythex invaded our galaxy, enslaved humanity, and forced us to work in their crystal factories. Then—”

  “Skip forward a bit,” Rheinborne said with a scowl.

  “About 350 years later,” Gwynne continued, “the Chythex withdrew from the galaxy, for reasons yet unknown. They destroyed their factories and technology—”

  “Would you get to the fercocking point?” Rheinborne said, his irritation level rising.

  “You did ask,” Gwynne replied with a deadpan expression.

  Valicia tapped on the conference table’s data surface. The room’s viewscreen lit up, displaying the image of an open engineering hatch that contained a web of wires and struts. Within this web was nestled a two-foot long object, shaped like a flattened sphere and made of a greenish-blue metal.

  “This is what we’re after,” she said. “It was part of a Chythex light transport shuttle that was discovered intact on Ezenkal, in the Khailophos system.”

  “An intact Chyth vessel is pretty valuable, in and of itself,” Rheinborne commented.

  “Shuttles have been found before,” Gwynne said. “None of them had that tech, at least not in functioning order.”

  Valicia summoned an image of the Chyth spacecraft, its seed-shaped form half-buried in a desert of black sand.

  “Have you see this footage?” Gwynne asked. He typed on the tabletop, and a video appeared on the main screen. It was taken from a long distance, and depicted human workers pushing carts up a ramp into a Chythex cargo shuttle, similar to the one in the desert photo.

  “Yeah, I’ve seen it,” Rheinborne said. “It’s fake.”

  Gwynne raised an eyebrow. “Why do you say that?”

  “Because it’s been debunked.” Rheinborne explained that it showed the workers loading container after container of crystal onto the shuttle, but the total amount loaded exceeded the shuttle’s capacity. Experts who analyzed the video concluded that it had to have been seamlessly modified.

  “What if it was genuine?” asked Gwynne. “It would explain something that’s always perplexed historians; why so few shuttles were allocated to each factory.”

  “It’s physically impossible to fill a container to beyond its capacity, without it eventually busting open, or the contents spilling over,” Rheinborne said.

  “Sure about that, are you?” Gwynne said. He brought up another video. It showed the same desert on Ezenkal, but now the Chythex shuttle had been excavated and placed on level ground. There was a shot of a white-and-red science robot walking up the shuttle’s cargo bay ramp, then the scene shifted to the robot’s point of view. It entered the empty metal-walled bay, pivoted around in a complete circle. A readout at the bottom of the screen showed that it had taken a volumetric scan, and that the cargo area measured 1500 cubic feet.

  Valicia appeared on the video, in a shot outside the shuttle. “The component has now been activated,” she said. The camera pointed at the rear of the shuttle and the open cargo bay. The science robot was now back outside, and walked up the ramp again. As it set foot inside the shuttle, the robot vanished with a rippling shimmer.

  “What happened to it?” Rheinborne asked, intrigued.

  “Just watch,” Gwynne said.

  The scene was now from the robot’s point of view. The cargo bay was distinctly larger, but its walls were now colored off-white. The robot performed another volumetric scan, and this time the readout showed that the space measured 3000 cubic feet.

  “That can’t be right,” Rheinborne said when the video ended.

  “We did that test several times, with the same results,” Valicia said.

  “So the cargo bay doubled in size? How?”

  “The Chythex component,” Valicia answered. “It generates something that we call an architecture manipulation field.”

  Rheinborne scratched his chin. “So it somehow...stretches out the interior of a room?”

  Gwynne shook his head. “Not quite. What do you know about virtual matter?”

  “You mean, like virtual reality?”

  “How about quantum scaffolding? Intra-gap void theory?”

  “Did you just make those up?”

  Gwynne rolled his eyes, glanced at Valicia with a can-you-believe-this-idiot look. “Okay, putting it simply, we believe it creates a kind of virtual space in some higher dimensions. When you saw the robot disappear, it had crossed the interface between our universe and the virtual space.”

  “Well,” said Rheinborne after a thoughtful pause, “that is far freaking crazy.”

  “You’re not impressed?” Gwynne asked.

  “It’s definitely impressive,” replied Rheinborne, “but if it’s not some planet-destroying weapon, it can’t be that big a threat to galactic security, can it?”

  Gwynne put the image of the ovoid object back on the screen. “It may not be a weapon, but it could result in far more suffering, if the Devornes get hold of it.”

  “How so?”

  “You know what their primary enterprise used to be, don’t you? Something they call ‘uncompensated involuntary employment.’”

  “In a word, slavery,” Rheinborne replied coldly. “Unbelievable that it still exists.”

  “Yes. But they’ve recently moved on to a different enterprise.”

  Another photo flashed onto the screen. Rheinborne stifled a gasp; his immediate impulse was to avert his gaze, but he forced himself to look. The image was that of a young man’s naked corpse, laying on an examination table. His sickly pale skin was covered with cuts and huge bruises.

  “This man was severely beaten, then strangled,” said Gwynne.

  The next photo caused Rheinborne to clench his fists.

  “This woman,” said Gwynne, “was stabbed over forty times. And the child in this next one—”

  Rheinborne slammed a fist onto the table. “Enough!” he declared. “What is this?”

  “Torture-tainment,” said Valicia. “It’s even more lucrative than slavery.”

  Gwynne explained that the images had come from a police investigation on Shrevenza, a planet at the edge of Treilath space. “The Devornes have been supplying people to underground kill-rings in the fringe systems, using fast courier ships and unmanned shuttles.”

  “Kill-rings?” Rheinborne asked. “Are you saying that those people were tortured and murdered for sport? For entertainment?”

  Gwynne blanked the screen. “It’s one thing to kill someone in a LIBRA sim, but quite another to do it in real life. And there are people out there depraved enough to pay for the experience.”

  Rheinborne cleared the sickening images from his mind, willed himself to remain calm. “W
hat’s all that got to do with the artifact, though?”

  “If the Devornes install it into their ships, they can double their carrying capacity. More victims, more profit.”

  “Then why not just destroy the thing, if you acquire it again?”

  “Because our government will only use it for the good of all society. Consider how useful this tech could be for colonists, or for interstellar relief efforts.”

  “Or,” said Rheinborne, “some big transport corporation could use it to eliminate smaller competitors.”

  “The blade of technology has two edges, Mr. Rheinborne,” Gwynne responded. “It’s not our job to debate the possible uses or misuses. But on a personal level, I can’t forget that Norland killed innocent people to get it. He can’t be allowed to profit from his crime.”

  The room went silent for a long moment, then Rheinborne turned to Gwynne. “I assume you have a plan?”

  CHAPTER 15

  CITY OF LANGENSBERN

  The mood in Simeon Prester’s office was a combination of shock and anxiety. Norland stood by the window, staying out of the way as somber-looking people rushed in and out, bringing reports to Prester and taking away his orders. The man hadn’t been happy after hearing of how Rheinborne and Valicia had escaped, and the current situation only soured him further.

  At length, Prester decided to take a short break and told his secretary that he wasn’t to be disturbed for the next ten minutes. The office emptied, but Norland remained. He knew what was coming.

  “I know how they got away,” Norland said. “It was a coordinated—”

  “That’s not important anymore,” Prester barked. “The Ormond attack is a direct consequence of your failure to capture that woman!”

  “My failure?” Norland said. Something inside him snapped. “Is it my fault that this city’s surveillance system is hopelessly antiquated? Is it my fault that the city’s AI lacks any semblance of intelligence? Am I to blame for the incompetence of your own people?”

  Prester rose from his desk, came around to Norland and seized the front of his shirt. “You dare speak like that to me?” He flung Norland into the nearest chair, loomed over him. “You are one atom away from being on the next ship to the asteroid mines!”

  Norland kept calm. He expected this kind of outburst from the other man. “I know where she’s going to be,” he said.

  “Explain that.” Prester smoothed out his clothes, returned to his desk. He was calmer, but not by much.

  “Right now, she’s already back with Gwynne, and has told him where she left the Chyth device,” Norland said, sitting properly in the chair. “But they won’t take a direct route.”

  “For what reason?”

  Norland took out his dataslate, unfolded it. He gestured to the office’s wall screen. “May I?”

  Prester nodded.

  Norland cast a video from the slate to the screen. It was footage taken from the space station showing a smaller ship entering a larger ship, which then hyperjumped away.

  “That was the Adventurer, owned by the Treilath DSI and operated by Mr. Gwynne,” Norland said. “When they’ve recovered the tech, they’ll head straight back to Treilath.”

  “Under heavy escort,” Prester said.

  “No, not at all.” Norland explained that Gwynne won’t call on the DSI or the government for assistance, because it would mean revealing how he lost control of the device in the first place.

  “You think you know him that well?” Prester said, plainly skeptical.

  “His career is over, whatever happens,” Norland said. “The only way to salvage things is if he brings it in himself.”

  “Heh. I can relate to that.”

  “He’ll send it in on a decoy. A faster ship.”

  “The one that they picked up?”

  “No, that was an old PH 151, too slow. Gwynne’s going to hire a fast bird to fetch the tech, then that’ll take it on to Treilath.”

  “Okay,” Prester said. “If all of what you said is even remotely accurate, where would he go to find a fast ship?”

  STARSHIP Adventurer

  “Sorvandra Four,” said Gwynne. The holographic star map floating above the conference room’s tabletop zoomed in and settled on a green-and-white planet, a gas giant. “Specifically, the Widgner Trading Station.”

  “What, you mean that thing?” Rheinborne said poking at the holo of a space station in orbit around the planet. “I would call it a heap of junk, but that would be an insult to the junk.”

  “You’d be surprised,” Valicia said.

  “This was a contingency Norland and I discussed,” Gwynne said, “so he’ll know that I’ve chosen this course of action. I’m confident, though, that if we move quickly enough, we can succeed.”

  “Wait, wait,” said Rheinborne. “If he already knows what we’re going to do, shouldn’t we do something else?”

  “Arrangements have already been made. It’s too late to change them.” Gwynne pointed at the room’s viewscreen, which showed a plot of the Adventurer’s progress toward the Sorvandra system. “We arrive in two standard days.”

  CITY OF LANGENSBERN

  “We’ll head out to Widgner immediately, then,” Prester said.

  Norland held up a hand. “By the time we get there, they’ll already be gone.”

  Prester shook his head. “So we’ve lost, is that what you’re saying?”

  “There’s still another way,” Norland said quickly, hoping to forestall another outburst. “Call the station commander. Offer him some financial incentives.”

  “To do what?”

  Norland explained his idea. Prester listened, was silent for an uncomfortably long time.

  “It’s going to be expensive,” he said at last.

  “The cost of not delivering will be even higher,” said Norland.

  “You’re right, at that,” Prester replied. “Just remember this, my boy: we rise or fall together.”

  CHAPTER 16

  AFTER THE MEETING CONCLUDED, Rheinborne and Valicia stood in the corridor outside the conference room. Gwynne had made Rheinborne wear a tracker band on his wrist, allowing him freedom of movement throughout the ship, save for off-limits areas.

  “I guess this means I can visit your quarters?” said Rheinborne, tapping the band.

  “Actually,” said Valicia, “I’ll be in cryo for the duration of the trip.”

  “Cryo? For just two days?” Rheinborne found that unusual; people only went under if a trip lasted more than three days.

  “I know. I’ll be out in time to go over the plans for the artifact.” Valicia flashed a quick smile and strode away.

  “Wait; hold on,” Rheinborne called, hurrying to catch up with her. “You’re going in now?”

  “Yes, for medical reasons.”

  “Right, yeah, your...” Rheinborne made a vague gesture toward his back.

  “Is there something you need to discuss?” Valicia asked.

  Rheinborne had wanted to tell her that he no longer needed to know about her past, but it seemed like she was in a hurry and wouldn’t appreciate what he was saying.

  “No, not really. I guess I’ll see you in two days.”

  “Okay, see you then.”

  After Valicia was out of sight, Rheinborne remained in the corridor for a little while, thinking of what he should do next. Perhaps pay a visit to Kassyrinx and Hurgompo?

  No, there was something else he had been meaning to do. He accessed the ship’s directory on his ECM and obtained the location of Gwynne’s office.

  When he got there, it took a few minutes for Gwynne to answer the door chime. The DSI man didn’t look at all pleased to see him.

  “Yes, what is it?” he asked.

  “It’s about Valicia’s fancy tech.”

  “Ask her about it yourself.”

  “She’s gone under,” said Rheinborne, “but I think I should hear about it from you.”

  Gwynne scoffed. “All right, but remember; you wanted to know.” He
stepped aside to admit Rheinborne into the room.

  The office turned out to be three times the size of Rheinborne’s berth. The only furniture was a computer workstation, a bare table, and a food cooler.

  Gwynne plopped into the chair at the workstation. There was no other place to sit, so Rheinborne leaned against the table.

  “So, do you have a specific question?” Gwynne asked brusquely.

  “Yeah. How does her XCM bypass the GalSigNet?”

  The other man poked and swiped at holographic screens, his brow furrowed.

  “Did you hear what I said?” asked Rheinborne.

  “I heard,” Gwynne said with a snarl.

  “You know, acting all mysterious about it just makes me all the more curious.”

  Gwynne dismissed the screens, cast a dark look at Rheinborne. “All right then, here’s the truth. Her XCM is the same as a conventional ECM, with one major difference. It can translate her thoughts into telepathic signals, which are then received in a synthetic cortex.”

  Rheinborne blinked. Telepathy? Was he being serious? “Impossible,” he said.

  “You saw it working when you were in Langensbern. How else could she have communicated so fast, and without interception?”

  That made sense, but if it were true...Rheinborne found himself breathing heavily, beyond shocked at this revelation. He gripped the edge of the table to steady himself.

  “You’re talking about—about—” Rheinborne could hardly speak.

  “One of the worst crimes imaginable, with a mandatory death penalty? Oh, yes,” Gwynne said.

  Three words sprang to Rheinborne’s mind: The Phostilan Infiltration. It was a piece of history that every human child was required to learn: the story of how the alien Phostilans used their mind control method to take over key government and military personnel on Treilath. When the conspiracy was uncovered, all signs pointed to interstellar war, but a settlement was reached that averted the conflict. One consequence of the infiltration was a genetic engineering program that eliminated the telepathy gene from humanity, and made it impossible for the Phostilans to use humans as hosts. All subsequent research into telepathy and related fields was outlawed.