Orphan Star

by Alan Dean Foster

  “It’s all very beautiful,” Flinx finally told the old driver, “though I’d still like to see the Church headquarters.”

  “Church headquarters?” the old man looked uncertain, pulled at his mustache. “But the entire island is the headquarters of the United Church.”

  “Yes, I know,” Flinx said, trying not to seem impatient. “I mean the headquarters of the headquarters.”

  “Well,” the old man looked up and left off pulling his mustache, “the nearest thing to that would be the Administration Depot, but why anyone would want to see that I don’t know.” Surprisingly, he smiled, showing white teeth beneath his wrinkled upper lip.

  “Still expecting towers of precious metal and amethyst arches, eh son?” Flinx looked embarrassed. “I’ll tell you, though the Depot is nothing to waste one’s time with, it’s in a setting the Buddha himself would envy.”

  The driver made up his mind. “Come then, I’ll take you there, if you’ve set your mind on it.”

  They continued north out of Ubud, passing steeper and steeper terraces as they mounted an old roadway. It showed no evidence of the heavy traffic Flinx would expect to be en route to and from the headquarters of the headquarters. Maybe the old man was right. Maybe the facility he sought didn’t exist.

  Maybe he was wasting his time.

  He leaned out the window, saw that his initial estimate of the road condition still held. The grass covering the path was several centimeters tall. Thick and healthy, it showed none of the characteristic bends the steady passage of groundcars over it would have produced.

  Eventually the car sighed to a stop. The oldster motioned for Flinx to get out and he did so, whereupon the driver guided him to the edge of a steep precipice.

  Flinx peered cautiously over the side. At the bottom of a valley several thousand meters below lay a broad, shallow lake. Irrigated fields and scattered farmers’ homes dotted the greenery.

  At the far end of the lake, near the base of smouldering Mount Agung, sprawled a tight group of modest boxlike two-story structures enameled a bright aquamarine. They were strictly utilitarian in appearance if not downright ugly. There wasn’t an arch or tower among them.

  A few antennae sprouted flowers of abstract metal mesh at one end of the complex, and there was a small clearing nearby that was barely large enough to accommodate a small atmospheric shuttle.

  Was that all?

  Flinx stared at it disbelievingly. “Are you sure that’s it?”

  “That is the Administration Depot, yes. I have never been there myself, but I am told it is mostly used for storing old records.”

  “But the Church Chancellory . . . ?” Flinx started to protest.

  “Ah, you mean the place where the Counselors meet? It’s the low clamshell-like building that I showed you in Denpasar itself, the one next to the solar research station. Remember it?” Flinx searched his memory, found that he did. It had been only slightly more impressive in appearance than the disappointing cluster of small buildings below.

  “The Council of the Church meets there once a year, and that is where their decisions are made. I can take you back there, if you wish?”

  Flinx shook his head, unable to hide his disappointment. But . . . if this was a warehouse for old records, it might contain what he’d come to see. If not—well, he could set about solving the problem of leaving this island without incurring unwanted questions. Perhaps in India province, in Allahabad . . .

  “You said you’ve never been inside,” he turned to the old man. “Does the Church forbid visitors there?”

  His driver looked amused. “Not that I ever heard of. There is no reason to go there. But if you wish . . .”

  Flinx started back toward the car. “Let’s go. You can leave me there.”

  “Are you certain, son?” the old man asked with concern, eying the sun in its low-hanging position in the damp sky. “It will grow dark soon. You may have trouble finding a ride back to the city.”

  “But I thought . . .” Flinx began.

  The old man shook his head slowly, spoke with patience. “You still do not listen. Did I not say it was merely a place of storage? There is no traffic down there, in the valley. It is a place of slow-growing things, dull and far from any town. Were I a Churchman, I would far rather be stationed in Benoa or Denpasar. It is lonely here. But,” he shrugged at last, “it is your money. At least it will be a warm night.”

  They climbed back into the car and he started down a winding narrow path Flinx hadn’t seen before. “If you do not get a ride back you might try sleeping on the ground. Mind the centipedes, though; they have a nasty bite. I am sure some farmer will give you a ride back to the city in the morning—if you rise early enough to catch him.”

  “Thanks,” Flinx said, his gaze fixed on the valley below. With its shining lake snug against the base of the great volcano, it was attractive indeed, though his attention was still drawn to the prosaic architecture of the Depot. It became even less impressive as they drew nearer. The aquamarine enamel seemed stark against the rich natural browns and greens of the vegetation ringing the mountain. As they reached the valley floor Flinx saw that the structures were devoid of windows. Befitting, he thought grimly, a facility devoted to things and not people.

  The car pulled up before what must have been the main entrance, since it was the only entrance. No massive sculptures depicting the brotherhood of the humanx, no playing fountains flanked the simple doubleglass door. A few undistinguished-looking groundcars were parked in the small open hangar to one side.

  Flinx opened the door, climbed out. Pip stirred within the loose folds of the jumpsuit and Flinx hushed his restless pet as he handed the old driver his card-meter.

  The driver slipped it into a large slot in his dash, waited until the compact instrument ceased humming. The transfer of funds completed, he handed the card-meter back to Flinx.

  “Good luck to you, son. I hope your visit proves worth all your trouble to come here.” He waved from the car as it started back toward the mountain road.

  “Trouble” is an inadequate word, old man, Flinx thought as he called a farewell to him. “Selamat seang!”

  Flinx stood alone before the Depot for a moment, listening to the soft trickle of water dropping from terrace to terrace. The soft phutt-putt of a mechanical cultivator guided by the hand of a farmer drifted across the fields to him. According to the old guide, the people were in the process of harvesting their fifth rice crop of the year and had begun sowing the sixth.

  By now, Flinx was sick of agriculture, temples—and the island itself. He would inspect what this unprepossessing structure had to offer, try the city records in Allahabad, and be on his way home to Moth in a few days, with or without information.

  He berated himself for not taking the shuttleport clerk’s indirect suggestion and contriving to come here via the diplomatic atmospheric shuttle from South Brisbane. Instead he had wasted weeks on learning the local language and piloting the small boat.

  He expected an armed fortress with walls half a kilometer thick and bristling with beamers and SCCAM projectors. Instead he found himself stalking an island of rice farmers and students. Even the Chancellory was out of session.

  Flinx mounted the few steps and pushed through the double doors, noting with disgust that they opened manually and without challenge. A short hallway opened into a small circular high-domed chamber. His gaze was drawn upward—where it froze. The dome was filled with a tridee projection of the entire inhabited galaxy. Each Commonwealth world was plainly marked by color and minute block letters in symbospeech.

  Flinx studied it, picking out Terra and Hivehom first because of their brighter colors, then moving on to Evoria, Amropolous, Calm Nursery—thranx worlds all. Then on to the human planets of Repler, Moth, Catchalot, and Centaurus III and V. Half-lights indicated the outposts of humanx exploration, fringe worlds like Burley with its vast store of metals, Rhyinpine of the troglodytes and endless caverns, and the frigid globe of far d
istant Tran-ky-ky.

  His eyes lowered to the curving floor of the chamber, and at last he found his mosaic, though the motif in the floor was simple. It consisted of four circles, two representing Terra’s hemispheres and the other two Hivehom’s. They formed a box with a single smaller sphere at their center, tangent to all four circular maps. The central sphere contained a vertical hourglass of blue, representing Terra, crossed by a horizontal hourglass of green, standing for Hivehom. Where they met the colors merged to form aquamarine—the signet color of the United Church.

  Three halls broke the walls around him, one vanishing into the distance ahead, the others to left and right. Each wall between was filled with engravings of impressive figures from the history of the Church—thranx and human both—in modest pose. Most impressive was a scene picturing the signing of the Amalgamation that formally united thranx and mankind. The Fourth Last Resort, David Malkezinski, touched forehead to antennae with the tri-eint Arlenduva, while the insect’s truhand was locked in the human’s right palm.

  To the right of this relief were engraved some of the basic maxims of the Church: Man is animal; thranx is insect—both are of the species Brother. . . . Advise not civilization; physical force reciprocates mentally. . . . If God wished man and thranx to devote themselves to Him, He would not have made the worlds so complicated. . . . Self-righteousness is the key to destruction—the list went on and on.

  Opposite that wall was an engraved list of recent philosophical pronouncements, which Flinx read with interest. He had just finished the one about hedonism violating the Prime Edict and was on to the admonition to distrust anything that smacks of absolute right when his attention was broken by a voice.

  “Can I help you, sir?”

  “What?”

  Flinx turned, startled, to see a young woman in aquamarine robes staring quizzically back at him. She was seated near the corridor at the far left, behind a sparsely covered desk. He hadn’t even noticed her until she spoke.

  “I said, may I help you.” She walked over to stand next to him, stared into his eyes. That alone was unusual. Most new acquaintances found their first gaze going somewhat lower, to the scaly shape wrapped around Flinx’s shoulder or, in this instance, peeping out of his suit front.

  But this slim girl ignored the flying snake. That smacked of poor vision or great self-confidence, Flinx thought. Her indifference to the snake was the first impressive thing he had encountered on this island.

  “Sorry,” he lied easily, “I was just about to come over and talk to you. Did I keep you waiting?”

  “Oh no . . . I just thought you might be getting tired. You’ve been studying the maps and inscriptions for over an hour now.”

  His gaze went instantly to the glass doors, and he saw that she was telling the truth. A tropical night black as a gambler’s conscience had settled outside.

  He was uneasy and upset. It felt as if he had been eying the engravings in the little domed alcove for only a few minutes. His gaze traveled again over the three-dimensional map overhead, to the inlaid pictorials and the subtly inscribed sayings. Did those carefully raised colors and words and reliefs conceal some kind of mnemonic device, something to capture an observer into absorbing them despite himself?

  His speculation was abruptly cut off by the girl’s soft voice: “Please come over to the desk. I can help you better from there.”

  Still dazed, Flinx followed her without protest. A few papers and several small screens rested on the desktop, and he saw switches set in ranks of panels at the far side.

  “I’ve been studying,” she explained apologetically, “or I would have come over sooner. Besides, you seemed to be enjoying yourself. Nonetheless, I thought I’d better find out if you needed anything since I go off shift soon and my replacement would start ignoring you all over again.”

  If that was a lie, Flinx thought, it was a smooth one. “What are you studying?”

  “Spiritual assignation and philosophical equations as they relate to high-order demographic fluxation.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Diplomatic corps. Now,” she continued brightly, “what can I help you with?”

  Flinx found himself staring at the unlocked glass doors, the tridee map overhead, the words and pictures engraved on the encircling walls. In his thoughts he matched them with the simple exterior of this structure, compared that to his vaunted imaginary pictures of what it ought to look like.

  Everything he’d encountered on this island, from the unpretentiousness of this Depot to the language of his driver, was a mixture of the simple and the sophisticated. A dangerously uncertain mixture. For a moment he seriously considered forgetting the whole thing, including his purpose in traveling across half the Commonwealth, and turning to walk out those unguarded doors. He had spent much of his frenetic young life trying to avoid attention, but whatever he told this girl now promised to deliver him to questioners.

  Instead of leaving, he said, “I was raised by a foster parent who had no idea who my parents were. I still don’t know. I don’t know for certain who I am or where I come from, and it may not matter much to anyone else, but it matters to me.”

  “It would matter to me, also,” the girl replied seriously. “But what makes you think we can help you find out?”

  “An acquaintance indicated he had found some information on my parentage, some hints that physically I could match up with a child born here on Terra, in the city of Allahabad. I do know my real name as it read on the . . . on the slaver’s records, but I don’t know if it’s a family name or one given me well after my birth.

  “It’s Philip Lynx.” He pronounced it carefully, distinctly, but it still wasn’t his name. It belonged to an alien; it was a stranger’s name. He was just Flinx.

  “I was told that this was a storage facility for Church records, although,” he indicated the little chamber with its three connecting halls, “these buildings hardly look big enough to hold even a portion of those records.”

  “We’re very space-efficient,” she told him, as if that should explain it. “The records for Allahabad are kept here, as are the records of every being registered with the Church.” Her eyes shifted, but not to look at Pip.

  Flinx turned, thinking she was staring at something behind him. When he saw nothing and turned back, he saw she was smiling at him.

  “It’s your hair,” she said easily. “The dye is beginning to come off.” His hand went instinctively to his scalp, felt of the dampness there. When he brought it down, it was stained black.

  “You’ve been out in the city too long. Whoever sold you that dye cheated you. Why dye it, anyway—the red is attractive enough.”

  “A friend thought otherwise.” He couldn’t tell from her thoughts if she believed him; but she chose not to press the matter, touching instead a switch on her desk.

  “Allahabad, you said?” He nodded. She bent over the desk, addressed a speaker. “Check for records on a Philip Lynx,” she told it, “Allahabad-born.” She looked up at him. “Spelling?”

  Flinx spread his hands. “L-y-n-x, P-h-i-l-i-p was the way it was listed on the slaver’s sheet, but that could be a misspelling.”

  “Or a corruption,” she added, turning to the speaker again. “Check also variational spellings. Also all inquiries into said records for the past . . . five years.” Then she clicked off.

  “Why that last?” he inquired. Her expression was grim.

  “Your acquaintance should not have had access to your records. Those are between you and the Church. Yet it seems someone managed to gain permission to see them. You’re going to be asked some hard questions later, if you are this Philip Lynx.”

  “And if I’m not?”

  “You’ll be asked questions anyway—only you won’t be looking at anyone’s files.” She smiled pleasantly. “It’s not your wrongdoing, it seems . . . though someone is going to lose his robes. The lower grades are always vulnerable to bribery, especially when the request is for seemingly harm
less information.”

  “No need to worry about that,” Flinx told her. “About the only thing I’m sure of in this galaxy is that I’m me.” He grinned. “Whoever that is.”

  She did not return the smile. “That’s what we’re going to find out.”

  Once Flinx’s identity was established, through various checks, the girl became friendly once more. “It’s late,” she observed when the identification procedures had concluded. “Why don’t you wait and begin your retrieval in the morning? There’s a dormitory for visitors and you can share cafeteria food with the staff, if you have the money. If not, you can claim charity, though the Church frowns on direct handouts.”

  “I can pay,” Flinx insisted.

  “All right.” She pointed to the far corridor. “Follow the yellow strip on the floor. It’ll take you to the visitors’ bureau. They’ll handle things from there.”

  Flinx started toward the hallway, looked back. “What about the retrieval? How do I begin?”

  “Come back to this desk tomorrow. I’m on duty ten to six all week. After that you’d have to hunt to find me again. I have to transfer to another manual task, but for the rest of this week, I can help you. My name’s Mona Tantivy.” She paused, watched Flinx’s retreating form, then called to him as he entered the corridor. “What if the name Philip Lynx doesn’t match up with the child born in Allahabad?”

  “Then,” Flinx shouted back to her, “you can call me anything you want. . . .”

  Chapter Six

  The cubicle they assigned him was small and simply furnished. He spent an hour washing off the dust of days, and a pleasant surprise awaited him when he exited the shower—his jumpsuit had been taken away and cleaned. It was a good thing he had taken Pip into the bath with him.

  Feeling uncomfortably clean, he was directed to the nearest food service facility and soon found himself mingling with a crush of aquamarine robes and suits.