Retread Shop 1: First Contact

by T. Jackson King

  CHAPTER TWO

  Ruler-by-Right-of-Challenge-and-Defeat T’Klick T’Klose shook with rage. The young fool Horem Watch Commander had turned the ship—the new and only home of nearly 4,000 Arrik—toward a mysterious yellow star emitting obscure signals. It was too soon! He’d not had enough time to truly understand these strange, terrible and deadly aliens of the Compact. They’d entered Arrene home system by stealth, watched his people for years, then appeared suddenly in great military force. The Arrik Fleet of the Outer Marches had been defeated. Many had died. To end the defeats his uncle had pulled together the dismayed Clans, made a silent plan, and chose to Fight-Talk rather than Destroy-Talk with the alien invaders. So strange, they were. They were Traders, caring only for things of commerce, and yet—their weapons and ships were soooo deadly. It made for fluctuating thermals for all Arrik as they dipped, slid and glided their way through alien ways of thought. And now . . . now they had new aliens to worry about! T’Klick snarled, disturbing the nearby sleeping form of his mate, T’Erees T’Say as she leaned against the roost’s support bars, sleeping upright, ready for flight or attack upon awakening. Like all Arrik.

  In the darkness of their personal Aerie deep within a reconstructed mountain range under the false dome sky of their habitat, T’Klick considered this new misjudgment by the ground-crawling Horem. Did it give him a new opening for high-flight attack by himself—or must grovel like a ground-crawler and pretend consent when none had been asked of him? The Compact Council should have been the one to make this course change decision, not a single Horem. The alien’s unilateral decision reminded him of when the Arrik home system was first invaded by the Compact. Who were they to make vast decisions affecting the lives of whole planetary societies? He flapped both wings, his arms folding over his scaled chest, considering options.

  As a Ruler, he must think clearly. As a Ruler, he must lead forcefully. And wisely. As a Ruler of the best warriors in the known universe—he must be wise.

  Blinking all three eyes slowly, T’Klick T’Klose stilled his wings, slowed his breathing, loosened his tail-grip on the support bar of his personal study, and listened for the minute ultrasonic whistles emitted by the transplanted flying biota of his home world T’Kak as they swirled in the rising thermals of a new artificial sunrise.

  Patience.

  He would be patient.

  And sharpen his claws.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  Sargon walked hurriedly down the corridor leading from the Command Deck to the nearest gravtube. He entered the gravtube alcove, dropped down four levels to one of the primary tunnels, and boarded a maglev transit disk. It swayed slightly with readjusting magnetic repulsion forces as he stepped onto it. Now that his watch had ended, he used his toe-nails to code the disk for the Horem prime habitat, and leaned forward slightly to signal the disk’s onboard control chip he wished to proceed. Once moving, he loosened the fastenings of his duty toga, trying to relax.

  The brief trip took him through the outer mantle of the nickel-iron asteroid that was Hekar. Overhead light strips flashed regularly as he passed side corridors, which receded into the distance. The corridors led to other Compact prime habitats, external sensor stations, hangars, long unused weapons emplacements, recreation “Bubbles,” storerooms, and airlocks to the unmodified surface of Hekar. A few corridors led down to interior caverns where the frozen deuterium and lithium six fuel pellets for the ship’s fusion reactors and fusion pulse Drive were stored. Sargon passed several other Compact members also using the tunnel, even though the non-Suspended sapient population of Hekar was always kept low during deep space transit.

  Preoccupied with excitement over the new discovery, he failed to acknowledge the greetings offered him. Or the silent stares of a few Arrik flyers. He hoped everyone would understand. Right now, his mind swirled with speculation, with curiosity, with anticipation—and with worry. In particular he worried about the reactions of Bethrin and his father Salex to his news, and his Command decision.

  The decision to turn to the new trajectory held two great risks for him, for all Horem, and for the Compact. The simplest was the most obvious one—would they find enough fuel to replace the incredible volumes of deut-li fuel that were consumed every time the massive asteroid that was Hekar slowed down, accelerated or changed course? Hard to believe it took over a year of constant one-gee Horem normal thrust to push Hekar sideways onto a new heading. But it did. He was reminded of a recorded memory, centuries old, of a Horem whose powered sea-going vessel took many minutes simply to respond to an order to turn right. Too much inertia and too much mass. How much more of a problem did they face when trying to turn a small moon traveling near the speed of light?

  The other risk was more complex, and less simple to solve. It was the one that gnawed at his heart, even though Sargon knew he had made the right choice.

  One wrong decision, one failure of leadership, and the Horem role as first among equals in the Compact could be jeopardized. Some other species might rise to pre-eminence. Horem prestige was always at risk in anything he or his fellows did because, as co-leaders of Hekar with the Strelka, they were always being watched by the newer species who had joined Hekar along the Trek. It was amusing in a way. The more species who joined the Compact, the greater the strength of the Compact. But Horem power and influence became more diluted. On a flying moon-world whose surface was spotted with eight giant habitat domes, and its interior filled with Suspense-sleeping sapients in most cases, there were 34,000 lives at risk any time a Command decision was made. But living together was politics, and politics was living together. None of them could be rid of any of the others. All would compete. All would watch carefully every action of the Command Crew. And everyone would second-guess major decisions. Especially controversial ones.

  Sargon sighed. Maybe there would be room for him in the lower depths of Environmental Recovery if his decision went unsupported by the Clan and the Council of Hekar.

  The disk stopped. He got off and walked a few paces to catch a grav-tube up to the entry portal of the Horem habitat. He stepped out into the habitat access chamber. The sentry mechmind scanned him, matched his form to its records of all Horem, and opened the access door.

  Brilliant white light shone in.

  Above him curved the blue-painted ceiling of the great dome beneath which thousands of Horem lived. In its center shone the apex radiator, which poorly imitated the white radiance of the F0V star Acherex. Below it stretched dozens of arid, dissected and rocky mesas, with the Horem Pack City lying on the far side of the dome-sheltered space. Stepping forward he set out on the long walk to his rock-carved, subterranean home. As he walked, Sargon concentrated on the feel of hard-packed red clay against the tough soles of his bare feet. And the feel of occasional pebbles strewn about by storm winds. The sensations of reality mattered immensely this far from any habitable planet. They gave mental stability to him and to others. Most importantly, they soothed the feelings of homesickness they all felt. Even though most people on Hekar were ship-born and had never visited their home planet, still, the tachyon-transmitted memories of home and the lessons of home-based mentors reminded every Horem and every other alien of the reason they were part of a one-way trip through the stars. Finding new worlds and new peoples meant access to unique biologicals that were the source of new medicines, access to tech applications not yet developed by any Compact member, and exposure to social patterns and species histories that might elevate the culture of the home world.

  Passing a few small lichen patches, their pale green a stark contrast to the red-brown rock of his home habitat, Sargon began his journey homeward.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  Life-Who-Is-Song completed his watch on the Command Deck shortly after Sargon left. Like his commander, he too headed home for rest, relaxation, challenge and the simulacrum of Lifenest provided by the Strelka habitat dome. Would Sparkling-Yellow-Thoughts come to him? She had left her Communications alcove shortly before he’d left the Command Dec
k. Time and the empath field of the habitat would tell that tale.

  He stepped off his transit disk, entered the grav-tube to the habitat, and flowed into the primary access portal, his ten pairs of walkfeet moving him quickly over the ground. His clutchmate, Rippling-Incandescent-Thoughts, had chosen to work this quarter as the neurobiological component of the Strelka central Construct computer, one of whose functions was operating the dome portal’s Identify and Admit routine. With a brief pulse of amiable recognition empathed to Life from his alcove-hidden friend, he passed through the portal into the moisture-laden air of the heavily vegetated habitat.

  Immediately after emerging onto the black loamy soil, Life-Who-Is-Song angled his sensorium strip up toward the orange light of the dome’s radiator. It imitated the K5V star Clet beneath which all Strelka lived. Three meters of his segmented body followed upward. Life empathed his Song outward to all who existed within the habitat. With pure emotional projection he sang his LifeSong.

  “Here, here, here once more is the Egg of Light.

  “Here, here, here is existence.

  “Here, here, here is one returned from the Silent Ones.

  “Here, here, here is one of the Race!”

  He repetitively sang in his mind outward to all who could perceive. The welcoming identity-recognition-acceptance pulse of the combined Race came back and washed over him in incandescent baptism.

  He was recognized.

  He was accepted.

  His self-perception—weakened after a long watch among the Silent Ones—was strengthened. This Strelka had returned to the all-encompassing empath field of the Race. Although the habitat’s field lacked the power of the standing-wave field of three billion planet-bound Strelka, this emotion-field still signaled Home, Identity, Security, and other feelings which none of the other Compact sapients could ever fully know. Even the minute symbionts in his alimentary processes stirred with a vague sense of recognition.

  Dropping nearly flat to the ground, Life-Who-Is-Song flowed down a path that twisted through the densely packed green and blue-leafed jungle that took up one-half of the giant habitat. Further away in the high hills that occupied a third of the habitat, vegetation thinned out to a low ground cover of sparse fern-trees. But here, in front of him, the complete ecozone of Lifenest was reproduced. All kinds of small, rapidly moving nibblers, jumpers and burrowers moved through the six vegetation tiers of the home jungle.

  He felt a familiar empathic pulse and knew moments before she appeared he would be joined by his colleague and Intimacy Sharer, Sparkling-Yellow-Thoughts. She seemed to enjoy her Communications alcove work more than her prior duty in Maintenance on the portside hangar deck.

  “Going to the Food Game, my friend?” she empathed to him while pulsing broad sensations of hunger, repletion and surmise at him. “And what do you think of our Watch Commander’s decision to turn aside?”

  “Yes, I will attend the Game,” he said as she emerged from the brush to run-walk alongside him on nimble walkfeet. “I missed the last quarterly one serving my tithe-duty to the Compact. These aliens make me yearn for the familiar, for the Hunt, even for a Hunt as ordinary as the Food Game.” After a slight pause and feeling of puzzlement projection, he answered her second question.

  “The decision by Watch Commander Sargon is another data-point in my study of the phenomenon of intuition and command.” They turned at a fork in the trail and headed toward the city of Hive Pattern. “Sargon was presented with sensor data indicating the detection of a new sapient species about 26 light years away. The data suggested a fairly primitive race of modest technological capabilities—probably only the Thoranians are less proficient. Given this poor, partial data he did not wait and continue observation for a few ship years as logic might guide one, but instead he turned the ship toward the new sapients and ordered propulsion.” His puzzlement projection increased as they flowed down the green jungle pathway, side-by-side, walkfeet churning in complicated syncopation. “Clearly he was exercising what the Horem refer to as intuition—a leap to a conclusion from insufficient data.” Sparkling-Yellow-Thoughts bumped against Life, still listening. “I was receiving him clearly during the entire decision and command nexus but the specific neurological process still eludes me.”

  “Is the Commander always so illogical?” she asked, the sparkle-sheen of her scales distracting his attempt to marshal his analysis.

  “Not really,” Life empathed back to her. “But in this case, he had collected the relevant data in part of his cerebrum and at the next instant all three spheres of his brain pulsed with the decision to act, to go see these sapients.”

  Sparkling-Yellow-Thoughts empathed her amusement to him. “They are a logic puzzle, these Horem. Why did he act as he did?”

  “Unknown,” said Life, his mouth going dry as Sparkle’s closeness raised new thoughts, new impulses, new desires to his mind. “Even after 358 years of Compact Hunting with these Horem, reading their records, hearing their stories, even perceiving their passions through the Remembrance Net, there are aspects of them so distant from the Race as to make one speculate on the initial field equations of the Cosmic Egg that permitted such entities to evolve.” His enthusiasm for his research topic temporarily overwhelmed other desires. “And I have the advantage over the revered Ancestors. I have long lived beside these Horem. And yet, their mental processes remain a puzzle!”

  “Perhaps there are some things in life that are not meant to be analyzed,” she said, her braincase swaying pleasantly as her belly spiracles hissed in air and her clawed walkfeet raised small yellow puffs of trail dust as they came out of the dense jungle and onto the savannah lands fringing Hive Pattern.

  Life snorted his disbelief. “Don’t speak heresy! What about you and your analysis of those militaristic Arrik—are they still paranoid after twelve years aboard Hekar?”

  “Yes,” she whispered, her sensorium strip turning his way, then back toward the muffled hum of the Hive Pattern empath field that glowed from within Hive Pattern. “Unfortunately, such paranoia seems to be a primary evolutionary theme for their race. They evolved as a flying reptilian raptor that was always concerned with the feeding and protection of its eggs. Even after developing a gestation pouch mutation that cut down on the time their young would be left alone and subject to predators, they still carried the instinctual challenge-to-combat response toward all outsiders which they acquired in early sapience.” Life felt her intense concentration on her own research subject—it intrigued him, and pleased him; more than friendship seemed possible here. “Even though their wings have atrophied down to a two-meter wingspan, they can still soar, fly short distances, and dive in attack on an opponent.” Sparkle moved closer to Life, intentionally matching the rippling sine-waves of his moving body.

  Life felt her sniff out the musty odor now clinging to his skin. It was the odor of passion and arousal. But he listened, entranced as his colleague explained her perceptions of Arrik duty-mates who had served with her in hangar deck Maintenance. He observed her as she fell into the gestalt-teaching mode of the Educator-of-the-Young function she often carried out in their home habitat. Right now, though, he was aware of a much more direct, more primal communication which he could detect in the empathic undercurrents of her image-lecture. Her brief brushing up against his skin earlier suggested more than was being formally empathed. He reached out with the sensitive terminal segment of his body and tapped her trailing body segment.

  The response was immediate and direct.

  Sparkle stopped moving down the trail, interlocked her adjacent legs with his and empathed a feeling of need, of desire, of a relaxing interlude before the different intensity of the Food Game, while vocalizing her thoughts.

  “Yes, shall we?” she invited, imaging a delectable sensuous experience. “We share many logic puzzles—why not other sharing?”

  “Yes!”

  He spoke no further words, but empathed to her his sense-perception of the glistening of her body scales, the
attractive blue cast of her underthroat area, and his desires.

  Her emotions acquiesced, indeed demanded.

  Life quickly mounted atop her, his lower skin surfaces rippling against the upper skin of her back. She curved her tail up and back toward him, exposing her already wet cloacal passage. He lowered his tail segment, joining with her in a harsh thrusting movement. She pushed against him, squeezing him, welcoming him. Their emotions joined in a river of passion that overwhelmed them both.

  They rocked together, a physical and empathic sensation enveloping them as they celebrated existence amidst the riotous lifenoises coming from Hive Pattern.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  Sargon’s bare feet felt a familiar gravel pathway, drawing him out of his worried musing. He looked up and spotted the slanting rampway to his sunken home. Blocking the way was a familiar figure, just coming up from below. Grethel!

  “Sargon! Welcome to Hearth and Nest,” she called out to her brother.

  His sister wore a wide-brimmed bonnet to shade her yellow eyes from the bright light, but her voice tone sounded lively, and her lips curved with amusement under the fine, satiny-smooth brown fur that covered every Horem except for hands, feet and sex areas.

  “Hail, Grethel, nan-sister,” he said, stopping at the top of the rampway. “Still without a marriage alliance I see?” he teased.

  Grethel shrugged, pretty in her yellow-stripped toga-dress, then turned back to disappear through the black portal of his stone-rimmed front door. Her soft thrilling laughter was replaced by the figure of someone else.

  Bethrin. His lifemate of over 40 ship years.

  “Husband, welcome,” she growled softly.

  “Wife, my heart joys to see you.”

  She waved to him to come down and be with her in the entry alcove at the ramp bottom where she stood holding the traditional bowl of water, towel, bitter salyx root, and informal toga change of clothing. As she stood aside while he refreshed himself, his eyes swept over her again, loving her anew, desiring her. He wished he could sweep her up in his arms right now and take her away to their bedroom. But duty prevailed. For now.