Orphan Star

by Alan Dean Foster

  The shuttle was dropping toward the largest shuttle-port on Terra. The port formed the base of an enormous urban T whose cap stretched north and south to embrace the warm Pacific. Brisbane had been Terra’s capital city for hundreds of years now, and its port, with long, open approaches over the continental center and the open Pacific, was the planet’s busiest. It was also convenient to the large thranx settlements in North Australia and on New Guinea, and to the United Church headquarters at Denpasar.

  There was a gentle bump, and he was down.

  No one took any notice of him in the terminal, nor later as he walked through the streets of the vast city. He felt very much alone, even more so than he had on Hivehom.

  The capital surprised him. There were no soaring towers here. Brisbane had none of the commercial intensity of West North America’s city of Lala or of London or Jakutsk, or even of the marketplace in Drallar. The streets were almost quiet, still bearing in places a certain quaintness with architecture that reached back through to the pre-Amalgamation time.

  As for the government buildings, they at least were properly immense. But they were built low to the ground and, because they were landscaped on all sides, seemed to reach outward like verdant ripples in a metal and stone pond.

  Locating the headquarters of the Challis Company was a simple matter. Careful research then gave him the location of the family residence. But gaining entrance to that isolated and protected sanctum was another matter.

  Bisondenbit’s comments came back to him. How could he reach Challis and explain his purpose before the merchant had him killed?

  Somehow he must extend the time Challis would grant him before destruction. Somehow . . . he checked his cardmeter. He was not wealthy, but he was certainly far above beggar status. If he could stretch things a bit, he would have a few weeks to find the proper company to implement his plan.

  There was one such firm located in the southern manufacturing sector of the capital. A secretary shuffled him to a vice-president, who gazed with a bemused expression at the crude plans Flinx had prepared and passed him on to the company’s president.

  An engineer, the president had no difficulty with the mechanical aspects of the request. Her concern was with other matters.

  “You’ll need this many?” she inquired, pursing her lips and idly brushing away a wisp of gray hair.

  “Probably, if I know the people involved. I think I do.”

  She made calculations on a tiny desk computer, looked back at his list again. “We can produce what you want, but the time involved and the degree of precision you desire will require a lot of money.”

  Flinx gave her the name of a local bank and a number. A short conversation via machine finally caused a smile to crease the older woman’s face. “I’m glad that’s out of the way. Money matters always make me feel a little dirty, you know? Uh . . . may I ask what you’re going to use these for?”

  “No,” Flinx replied amiably as Pip shifted lazily on his shoulder. “That’s why I came to you—a small firm with a big reputation.”

  “You’ll be available for programming?” she asked uncertainly.

  “Direct transfer, if need be.”

  That appeared to settle things in the president’s mind. She rose, extended a hand. “Then I think we can help you, Mr. . . .?”

  He shook her hand, smiled. “Just use the bank number I gave you.”

  “As you wish,” she agreed, openly disappointed.

  The contrast between the rich blue of the ocean and the sandy hills of the Gold Coast was soft and striking. One high ridge in particular was dotted with widely spaced, luxurious private residences, each carefully situated to drink in as much of the wide bay as possible—and to provide discreet, patrollable open space between neighbors.

  One home was spectacular in its unobtrusiveness. It was set back in the cliffs like a topaz in gold. Devoid of sharp corners, it seemed to be part of the grass-dusted bluff itself. Only the sweeping, free-form glassalloy windows hinted that habitation lay behind.

  Nearby, curling breakers assaulted the shore with geometric regularity, small cousins of more mature waves to the south. There, at an ancient village named Surfersparadise, many-toned humans, and not a few adaptive aliens rode the surf, borne landward in the slick wet teeth of suiciding waves.

  Flinx was there now, but he was watching, not participating. He sat relaxed on a low hill above the beach, studying the most recent converts to an archaic sport. Nearby rested his rented groundcar.

  At the moment Flinx was observing a mixed group of young adults, all of whom were at once older and younger than himself. They were students at one of the many great universities that maintained branches in the capital. This party disdained boards in favor of the briefer, more violent experiences of body surfing. He saw a number of young thranx among them, which was only natural. The deep blue of the males and the rich aquamarine of the females was almost invisible against the water, and showed clearly only when a comber broke into white foam.

  Body surfing was hardly an activity native to the thranx, but like many human sports it had been adopted joyfully by them. They brought their own beauty to it. While a thranx in the water could never match the seal-like suppleness of a human, when it came to nakedly riding the waves they were far superior. Flinx saw their buoyant, hard-shelled bodies dancing at the forefront of successive waves, b-thorax pushed forward to permit air to reach breathing spicules.

  Occasionally a human would mount the back of a thranx friend for a double ride. It was no inconvenience to the insectoid mount, whose body was harder and nearly as buoyant as the elliptical boards themselves.

  Flinx sighed. His adolescence had been filled with less innocent activities. Circumstances had made him grow up too fast.

  Looking down at the sand he put out a foot to impede the progress of a perambulating hermit crab. A toe nudged it onto its side. The tiny crustacean flailed furiously at the air with minute hairy legs and hurled motes of indignant anger at its enormous assailant. Regaining its balance, it continued on its undistinguished way, moving just a little faster than normal. A pity, Flinx thought, that humans couldn’t be equally self-contained.

  Looking up and down the coast, where a citrine house lay concealed by curving cliffs, Flinx reflected that Challis should be arriving there soon from his offices in the capital.

  A gull cried wildly above, reminding him that it was time. . . .

  Conda Challis had all but forgotten his young pursuer as he stepped from the groundcar. Mahnahmi ran from the house to greet him, and they both saw the solemn figure in the gray jumpsuit moving up the walk at the same time. Somehow he had penetrated the outer defenses.

  Mahnahmi drew in her breath, and Challis turned a shade paler than his normal near-albino self. “Francis . . .”

  Challis’ personal bodyguard did not wait for further verbal command. Having observed the reaction of both his employer and employer’s daughter, he immediately deduced that this person approaching was something to be killed and not talked to. Pistol out, he was firing before Challis could conclude his order.

  Of course, the person coming up the walk might be harmless. But Challis had forgiven him such oversights in the past, and that reinforced the man’s already supreme confidence.

  Challis’ policy seemed to pay off, for the wildly gesticulating figure of the red-haired youth disintegrated in the awesome blast from the illegally overcharged beamer.

  “And that,” the shaken merchant muttered with grim satisfaction, “is finally that. I never expected him to get this close. Thank you, Francis.”

  The guard holstered his weapon, nodded once, and headed in to check the house.

  Mahnahmi had her arms around Challis’ waist. Normally, the merchant disdained coddling the child, but at the moment he was shaken almost to the point of normalcy, so he didn’t shove her away.

  “I’m glad you killed him,” she sniffed. Challis looked down at her oddly.

  “You are? But why? Why shoul
d he have frightened you?”

  “Well . . .” there was hesitation in the angelic voice, “he was frightening you, and so that frightened me, Daddy.”

  “Um,” Challis grunted. At times the child’s comments could be startlingly mature. But then, he reminded himself, smilingly, she was being raised surrounded by adults. In another three or four years, if not sooner, she would be ready for another kind of education.

  Mahnahmi shuddered and hid her face, hid it so that Challis could not see that the shudder was of revulsion and not fear. Francis returned and took no notice of her. She had experienced the thoughts Challis was now thinking all her life, knew exactly what they were like. They were always sticky and greasy, like the trail a snail left behind it.

  “Welcome home, sir. Dinner will be ready soon,” the servant at the interior door said. “There is someone to see you. No weapons, I checked thoroughly. He insists you know him. He is waiting in the front portico.”

  Challis snorted irritably, pushed Mahnahmi away ungently. It was unusual for anyone to come here to conduct business. The Challis offices in the tritower downtown were perfectly accessible to legitimate clients and he preferred to keep his personal residence as private as possible.

  Still, it might be Cartesan with information on that purchase of bulk ore from Santos V, or possibly . . . he strolled toward the portico, Mahnahmi trailing behind him.

  A figure seated with its back to him stared out the broad, curving window at the ocean below. Challis frowned as he began, “I don’t think . . .”

  The figure turned. Having just barely regained his composure, Challis was caught completely unprepared. The organic circuits that controlled the muscles of his artificial left eye twitched, sending it rolling crazily in its socket and further confusing his thoughts.

  “Look,” the red-haired figure began rapidly, “you’ve got to listen to me. I don’t mean you any harm. I only want . . .”

  “Francis!” the terrified merchant shrieked at the sight of the ghost.

  “Just give me a minute, one minute to explain,” Flinx pressed. “You’re only going to ruin your furniture if . . .” He started to rise.

  Challis jumped backward, clear of the room, and stabbed frantically at a concealed switch. A duplicate of that switch was set just outside of every room in the house. It was his final security and now it worked with gratifying efficiency.

  A network of blue beams shot from concealed lenses in the walls, crisscrossing the room like a cat’s cradle of light. Two of them neatly bisected the form standing before him. He had had to wait until the figure rose or the beams would have passed over it.

  Now the merchant let out a nervous little laugh as the figure collapsed, awkwardly falling against the couch and then tumbling to the floor. Behind him, Mahnahmi stared with wide eyes.

  Challis fought to steady his breathing, then walked cautiously toward the unmoving figure. He kicked at it, gently at first, then good and hard. It did not give under his boot as it should have.

  Leaning over he examined the two punctures the beams had made in the upper torso. There was no blood, and inside both holes, he saw something charred that wasn’t flesh and bone. The smell drifting from the figure was a familiar one—but the wrong one.

  “Circuitry and coagulated jellastic!” be muttered. “No wonder there were two of him. Robots.”

  “A robot?” a small voice squeaked behind him. “No wonder I couldn’t—” She shut up abruptly. Challis frowned, half turned to face her.

  “What was that, Mahnahmi?”

  She put a finger in her mouth, sucked innocently on it as she gazed at the twisted figure on the floor.

  “Couldn’t see any blood,” she finished facilely.

  “Yes, but . . .” A sudden thought brought concern to his face. “Where’s Francis?”

  “Sleeping,” a new voice informed him. The merchant’s hands fell helplessly to his side, and Mahnahmi drew away as Flinx walked into the room, smiling softly. Unlike the previous two, this youth had a gently stirring reptile coiled about his right shoulder.

  “I’m sorry. I’m afraid I had to knock him out—and your overzealous butler, too. You have a nervous staff, Challis.” His hand came up to touch the wall next to the concealed hallway switch controlling the multiple beamers. “That’s a neat trick.”

  Challis debated whether he ought to drop to the floor, then looked from the switch back to Flinx and licked his lips.

  “Will you stop with your paranoia?” the youth pleaded. “If I wanted to kill you I could have hit that control already, couldn’t I?” He tapped the wall next to it.

  Challis dropped, relaxing even as he fell below the lethal level of the beams. But Mahnahmi was running in a crouch toward him, screaming with child-fury: “Kill him, Daddy, kill him!”

  “Get away, child,” Challis said abruptly, slapping her aside. He climbed slowly, carefully, back to his feet and stared at the silent figure in the hall. “You’re right . . . you could have killed me easily just now, and you did not. Why?”

  Flinx leaned against the door jamb. “I’ve been trying to tell you all along. That incident on Moth is past, finished, done with. I haven’t been following you to kill you, Challis. Not all the way to Hivehom and certainly not here.”

  “I can’t believe . . . maybe you do mean what you say,” the merchant confessed, words coming with difficulty as he fought to readjust his thinking. “Is it the real you, this time?”

  “Yes.” The youth nodded, indicated his shoulder where Pip yawned impressively. “I’m never without Pip. In addition to being my insurance, he’s my friend. You should have noticed that the mechanicals appeared without reptilian companionship.”

  “Kill him!” Mahnahmi screamed again.

  Challis turned on her. “Shut up, or I’ll let Francis play with you when he comes to. Why this sudden fury, Mahnahmi. He’s right . . . I could be dead a couple of times over by now, if he really desired that. I’m beginning to think he’s telling the truth. Why are you so—”

  “Because he . . .” she started to say, then subsided suddenly and looked quietly at the floor. “Because he frightens me.”

  “Then go where he won’t frighten you. Go to your room. Go on, get out.”

  The golden-haired child turned and stalked petulantly toward a door at the far end of the chamber, muttering something under her breath that Challis would not have appreciated, had he been able to hear her.

  He turned curiously back to Flinx. “If you don’t want me dead, then why in Aucreden’s name have you chased me halfway across the Commonwealth?” He quickly became a solicitous host. “Come in, have a drink then. You’ll stay for the evening meal?”

  Flinx shook his head, grinning in a way Challis didn’t like. “I don’t want your friendship, Challis. Only some information.”

  “If it’s about the Janus jewels or anything related to them, I can’t tell you anything.”

  “It has nothing to do with that, or with your attempt to force me to participate in your private depravities. When you were . . . leaving your house in Drallar, you said something about the characteristics of my maternal line.”

  Challis looked puzzled. “If you say I did, then I guess I did. What of it?”

  “I know nothing whatsoever of my true parents. All my seller could give my adoptive mother was my name. Nothing more.” He leaned forward eagerly. “I think you know more.”

  “Well, I . . . I hadn’t given it any thought.”

  “You said you had a file on me . . . that you had amassed information on my background.”

  “That’s true. To insure that you really possessed the kind of talent I was hunting for, it was necessary to research your personal history as completely as possible.”

  “Where did you find the information?”

  “I see no reason to keep it from you, except that I don’t know.” Flinx’s hand moved a little nearer the fatal switch. “It’s true, it’s true!” Challis howled, panicky again. “Do you think I keep
track of every source of minor information my people unearth?” He drew himself up with exaggerated pride. “I happen to be the head of one of—”

  “Yes, yes,” Flinx admitted impatiently. “Don’t regale me with a list of your titles. Can you locate the information source? Let’s see if your retrieval system is as efficient as you claim it is.”

  “If I do,” the merchant said sharply, “will that be the last I see of you?”

  “I’ll have no further interest in you, Challis.”

  The merchant came to a decision. “Wait here.” Turning, he made his way to the far end of the room. There he rolled back the top of what looked to be an antique wooden desk. Its interior turned out to be filled with no-nonsense components combined in the form of an elaborate console. Challis’ fingers moved rapidly on the control keys. This produced several minutes of involved blinking and noises from hidden depths within the desk.

  Eventually he was rewarded with a small printout which he inserted into a playback.

  “Here it is. Come look for yourself.”

  “Thanks, but I’ll stay here. You read it to me.”

  Challis shook his head at this unreasonable lack of trust, then turned his attention to the magnified readout. “Male child,” he began mechanically, “registered age seven months with Church-sponsored orphanage in Allahabad, Terra, India Province. This information is followed by some staff speculation matching identity points . . . cornea prints, fingerprints, retina prints, skull shape, and so on, with purely physical superficialities such as hair and eye color, finger rings and the like.

  “These vital statistics are matched to an orphan aged five years who was sold under the name Philip Lynx at such-and-such a date in the free body market in Drallar, Moth. My people apparently felt there were sufficient similarities to link the two.”

  “Is the name . . . does it tell . . . ?” Flinx had to know whether the name Lynx was lineal, or given only because he was the offspring of a Lynx—that is, a sophisticated, independent woman who was mistress by her choice rather than by the man’s, free to come and go as she wished.